Help with a Dawkins article please?

Question

At the suggestion of Ms. Christy :) I read Richard Dawkins' article entitled Who Owns the Argument from Improbability?. Several times, actually, since it was a little difficult for me to understand since I am not a scientist, and am not pre-disposed to believing there is no god. I could use some clarification. I attempted to read the law of Thermodynamics to see how it related to evolution, but as I said I'm not a scientist so trying to comprehend it all made my head hurt :0) I hadn't heard of that before anyways so we'll leave that be. But it called the lack of intermediate fossils a falsehood... I always thought that there wasn't any as well.. can you point me in the direction of where I can read about these intermediate fossils? I have more questions about this article, but I'll start with this... Thanks!

Thanks for the links! It will take me a while to read over and absorb all this info, and I'm going to visit family over the long weekend, so I probably won't have a "best answer" until after Tuesday...
Just an idle musing I had that maybe you can throw your 2 cents about... Why do you suppose no other group of creatures (birds, reptiles, bugs, for that matter) evolved to a level that even begins to rival humans in intelligence and reasoning ability? Thanks! :0)

Answer 1

Here you go:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

Thank you for asking nicely. It is appreciated, and reflects well on your character.

Answer 2

http://www.holysmoke.org/tran-icr.htm has some really long lists.

The big thing that you need to realize is that ONE transitional fossil violates creationism. Where one little hole on a branch just means that particular fossil hasn't been found. Fossils are rare and it isn't necessary to fill in all the holes completely. The negation would come if you found a fossil that wasn't possible given the theory. If everyone fits the model, then every one is a prediction fulfilled and that is strong evidence the origional model was right and we have plenty of them.

FYI: Darwin put the theory together looking only at living finches and how they were different on different islands. The fossils are all just what the model predicts. They played no part in putting it together.

Creationism predicts that none exist. So we have a lot that negate it, while the ones that we have found all fit into the model of evolution.

The same can be said for the entire field of genetics. It would have been very problematic if human DNA had been closer to dog DNA than a chimp. It would have also been problematic if human DNA was very different than a chimp.

Answer 3

If some other species evolved to a level that rivals humans in intelligence and reasoning ability, we would enslave or exterminate them. We've tried it enough times with our own species.

Seriously, the reason no other species has developed human-level intelligence is that we're already here. We're ahead of them. If they tried to compete in the ecological niche we're occupying, they'd lose, because we've been perfecting our techniques for survival in that niche for much longer. The non-human animals generally regarded as most intelligent are dolphins, who are aquatic and therefore don't compete with us as directly.

A species can only expand into a new niche if there is room, if they can derive some kind of advantage from such expansion. The first species with human-level reasoning and problem-solving abilities gained a tremendous advantage. But another species going that route would only find more-advanced competition.

And below is the link I always pull out when someone repeats the "there are no transitional fossils" lie.

Answer 4

You can find intermediate fossils for whales and horses.

But more importantly (since this is the religion and spirituality area) Dawkins does not speak for all (or even most) scientists. He has a strong atheist bias to his writings.

The whole problem that Dawkins picks up on in his writings about religion and spirituality is the faulty arguments that some make who choose to look for God in the cracks. If you only look for God in the things that science can't explain then eventualy your God will be lost and your faith withered.

God created everything including evolution and Dawkins.

Answer 5

creationists appear to have a particular idea of what a transitional fossil should look like. it's supposed to be some sort of weird chimera, a cartoon 'mutant' i suppose, although i've never been able to understand what the creationist image of a transitional fossil would look like, myself. the fact that such things are never found is taken to be proof of their assertion that transitional forms don't exist. but transitionals are just ordinary species. one can only determine if they are transitional by comparing them with other species. technically, all species that have descendant species are transitional.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

'and am not pre-disposed to believing there is no god.'

i don't see why this would be a problem, but then i'm not a believer. seems to me you only need to believe that god is not capricious or deceptive.

Answer 6

Not trying to be cruel, and I have done this myself. Dawkins, like many others with problems of one kind or another, concludes that if there were a God He would not to do this to me. Oh, we don't say it like that...we say God would not do this to people, but we really mean He would not do this to ME. Our self-occupation and individual egos are the problem. We think God owes us something, that He even owes us our existence, our next breath. God owes us nothing, we owe Him everything. That's very very very difficult for a brilliant mind like Dawkins' to accept. Hey, its difficult for any mind to accept, even for those who profess to be Christians.
As for the vaunted fossil record, it shows that 600 million years ago in the Cambrian period that life suddenly appeared. This is also known as the Cambrian Explosion. What kind of life appeared? All kinds. Simple and Complex. Single-celled and mutli-celled. In other words, the single-cell life that supposedly, miracously became mutli-celled life suddenly appeared alongside multi-celled life forms. Who cares about intermediate fossils, where in the name of football did all those life forms come from at once? Talk about an inconvenient truth. But why let the fossil record rain on our parade? I am the most important, most intelligent person in the world. I have two eyes and I can observe the fossil record (at least the parts that prove my view point). And who cares why crocodilians didn't die out and haven't noticably (in fossil terms) changed for millions of years? They are perfect creatures. We should all strive to be crocodilians. The fossil record shows that humans have evolved trememdously, but the crocodilians...oh they are the perfected ones. If you believe there is a god, it must be a crocodilian. Perhaps the ancient Egyptians were on to something.

Answer 7

May I suggest that you research the asteroid that hit the earth, BEFORE the one in the yucutan peninsula. There was a wiping out of a lot of the ocean life (and I forget when it happened, like 300 million years back, but don't quote me). At any rate a good science text talks about the two asteroids, the pangea and the quantum leap of evolution that occurred, when that first mountain 'burning with fire' was thrown into the sea.

The laws of thermodynamics, as used by dawkins, et al - are merely smoke and mirrors..balderdash.

live science dot com...is a great resourch, btw.

Maranantha Happy hunting...And there is not mid set of fossils. There doesn't have to be; as the asteroid and that leap of evolution circumvented it. And, guess who, sent the rock. lol

Answer 8

i've got examine maximum of what Dawkins has written and function attended considered one of his lectures whilst he exchange into in Alabama some years in the past. there is not any question that he's an open-minded person. His skeptisism, his unwillingness to settle for what can't be proved, and his criticism of persons who're keen to settle for without question issues than won't be able to be shown are info of that open mindedness. As I examine the object, I had back to the tip that Ruth Giedhill exchange into attempting to fashsion Dawkins phrases to justify her very own view of the universe. Dawkins has very emphatically suggested what he believes on the subject of the supernatural in various books and articles and notwithstanding he admits to being in awe of nature, he thinks thinks faith is hogwash. Christians shouldn't sense attacked by utilising this. For one, he thinks all faith is made up. for yet another, it particularly is a factor of what a scientist does. He annoying circumstances ordinary ideals and searches for certainty. that usually makes prepared faith uncomfortable and reasons them to color scientists as evil and attacking their ideals. Thank God, (ahem) that there have been scientists who've stood up for the certainty. without them, we'd nonetheless have faith that the sunlight, planets, and stars orbit the earth, that demons reason psychological ailment, and that the selection of language got here approximately because of the fact human beings tried to construct a tower as much as heaven. i could element out that he used the analogy interior the object of fundamentalists being like a virulent virus whilst the non fundamentalists are the fewer virulent virus. not extreme compliment for faith, notwithstanding its a incredibly stable analogy of the functionality that greater centrist and liberal religions play in conserving fundamentalism in verify.

Answer 9

The Third Law of Thermodynamics says that things will wear down and wear out over time. This stands in opposition to the idea that living things will get better and more developed over time. This does not apply to the normal learning, growth and development of humans, but to the idea that humans do not grow features that make them more functional.

Answer 10

It's awesome that your really trying to get some answers, and not settling for anything. I really can't help you though. I asked the same questions you did and couldn't get an answer. Needless to say I am a Christian now! Good Luck with your search though!

Answer 11

Some people cant see the forest for the trees-we are not human beings having a spiritual experience we are spirit beings having a human experience so how can spirit be judged by the 'gross' only spirit can judge spirit..