My Uncle Pete said "You can dissect a butterfly but you can't create a butterfly. Think about it" I've thought about it and it's true but what does he mean?
2006-09-29 13:48:57 · 21 answers · asked by Anonymous in Arts & Humanities ➔ Philosophy
Your uncle Pete was, I suspect from the way he phrased it, being a charlatan - he was using the appearance of philosophical coherence to conceal the fact that he had no argument, only the desire to seem cleverer than you.
Dissecting a butterfly is an analytic activity. Anyone might find any number of ways of dissecting a butterfly. But neither you not anybody else could possibly create a living butterfly.
The fact that you can't create a butterfly does not entail that it must have been designed by someone - such as, some kind of supreme being. Mould is almost as complex as a butterfly, but neither you nor I can create that either. Mould happens for a complex of different reasons.
The process of dissecting a butterfly is a complex one, but an understandable one. So is the process of how a butterfly might have evolved in the first place.
Your uncle Pete seems to be trying to bamboozle or intimidate you into believing that life is so complex that someone or something must have designed it. It doesn't follow, and all the evidence suggests that it's not true. Tell your uncle Pete to read some Darwin, or to shut up talking about stuff he doesn't even begin to understand.
2006-09-29 14:56:15 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
What Uncle Pete is trying to tell you is...
"You can dissect a butterfly but you can't create a butterfly." Think about it.
2006-09-29 13:54:12 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think it is the ol' chicken or egg first question, which leads to the more basic "what created life" question. It depicts the situation that life begets life, and it seems to be the only way. Yet we can find no source of life, nor the "beginning" using scientific methods. In other words, life cannot be made in the lab--and that is the great mystery of the universe. We can reduce a butterfly to quarks and electrons, but in doing so we are no closer to causing a new butterfly to exist than we were before.
Metaphysics and religions use creation myth to explain what happened in "the beginning," such as creating humans from a rib or whatever. The truth is nobody really knows.
2006-09-29 13:54:56 · answer #3 · answered by DellXPSBuyer 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Has he actually shown you how to dissect a butterfly? If he hasn't then you must take his philosophy with caution and have your share of doubts reserved.
As far as myself is concerned, I am of the conviction that a 'butterfly can neither be created nor be dissected'. The proof is in that I have not seen any being create or being dissected. Have you?
2006-09-30 01:15:43 · answer #4 · answered by Shahid 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
He means that you can study science as much as you like and you still won't know where it all came from...in other words, there's a limit to what we can understand and what we can do.
Good question! Respect to your Uncle Pete!
2006-09-29 14:14:56 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
I think he might be growing the weed outside somewhere and watching the butterflies as he is gardening. Oh yeah and smoking of course, definately.
Um, where does he live?
2006-09-29 14:27:29 · answer #6 · answered by sanwhatnow 1 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I think he means-- everything can be taken apart by man but few things can be actually made by man. Be humble, seek knowledge where you can, and understand there is much more out there than you-man- will never know the answer.
2006-09-29 13:58:50 · answer #7 · answered by nirekelly27 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
I totally agree with your uncle.
Humans can take nature apart and destroy it and they are proud of their power to do this.
But they still can't create anything remotely as beautiful and complex as the works of nature.
2006-09-30 01:31:13 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you know it's true then you must know what he means. You can degrade someone but can't necessarily build them into a beautiful person...
2006-09-29 15:56:41 · answer #9 · answered by Kitty L 3 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You cannot beat Mother Nature.
2006-09-29 13:53:41 · answer #10 · answered by Social Science Lady 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋