747 creationist example - what's your best counter argument?

This, of course, bespeaks a profound misunderstanding of the process of evolution, which is not purely random. Unlike the notorious 747 in a junkyard story, natural selection exerts a quite deterministic and nonrandom action on the host of random mutations with which it is presented.

Even the creationists are well aware of the fallacy of the argument, but they keep using it because there are still plenty of people around who know so little of science that they can accept the argument.

Well...the pile has no forces really (like gravity), etc. It sits there and does nothing, which is totally unlike the universe. Those ingredients, with help from the basic properties and forces of physics, bound together into organic molecules. Although we don't know the specifics, lipids could have formed little cell-like sacs and encased pieces of primitive RNA/DNA, so that they became replicating. Here is where his argument comes into play the most. The thing that the pile of scrap metal is missing is the driving force of natural selection occuring over time. Scrap metal doesn't replicate, and therfore won't change over generations. With natural selection, organisms will slowly become more complex. So, he is wrong in saying the brain happened by itself. It slowly evolved over millions of generations, with each beneficial mutation being handed down and becoming prominent in populations. Natural selection and evolution is what the 747 doesn't have.

This is what the Creationists are calling "irreducible complexity". The obvious counter here is that you cannot equate the functions of non-organic matter with organic matter. Non organic matter doesn't move or change form at all unless due to some outside force (or creator). Organic matter is more flexable, though; we grow from little bitty babies to big ol' adults, grow hair and nails, gain and lose weight, and still manage to get a pimple at the most inconvenient time. I mean, did you ever see a 747 start to grow hair? Maybe I blacked out all those times God came down and designed me a little bigger when I was growing up.

Why don't you try telling them the lord is not a book, and nothing in a book can be the word of the prime of the universe since the most primal point of all existence must obviously be well beyond space and time, where words could not be used anyways. Everything else would have to be directly related to scientific data, considering science is basically the study of god, the universe, it's laws, it's results, and it's dimensions and its prime, if your beliefs cannot be directly supported with scientific data, or atleast a well thought out theory, you are probably an oblivious moron and the only hope for you is to develop a consciousness. Amen.

1.) A 747 is not an organic material.

2.) We know 747 are created by man. We don't know if life needed a creator.

3.) Life took millions of years to form. This means there is a numerous amounts of chances for events to occur they way they did.

4.) Scientists are now trying to creating synthetic life. Yes, it does contain human intervention. However, if humans can do it with biological material and energy, what is stopping such an event from happening in nature? And with a large time span and many chances, it potentially could have.

5.) There is a saying that if you have an infinite amount of monkeys randomly typing on a typewriter for an infinite amount of time, they could produce all the works of shakespear.

A 747 is not alive and cannot procreate. Failure to properly assemble means nothing to the 747. However, if a body is improperly assembled (through, for example, a damaging mutation) then it will not survive. It will not breed and pass on its faulty assembly instructions.

Evolution basically corrects itself as it goes along. Some changes to assembly instructions end up with a 747 that flies better or faster or more accurately, and in some way benefits it enough that it is more likely to survive and breed. If it makes it better and more likely to survive, but destroys its ability to breed, then the mutation will not be passed on. There are mistakes. Many, many mistakes. But they are eliminated.

If we're talking life itself, that's a bit more difficult. If the universe is infinite, then we can say "Well, it was bound to happen eventually". But original life wasn't a 747. It was.... a screw. So if you had a whole heap of little bits of metal, like a WHOLE HEAP, then at some point you're going to get one shaped like a screw, yeah? And being a screw worked for it. It worked great. And then one of these screws changed, just a little bit. And that change meant that it kicked *** at making other screws. So that screw's screw-ness was superior to the original screw. Those with superior mutations are those that survive. They compete with the originals, and their mutations make them better at competing for resources and breeding.

And then another screw mutates. And IT is superior. It's like an arm's race. You get better and better stuff as you go, and eventually you end up with a 747.

Sort of.

That has nothing to do with how evolution occurs-- all the pieces don't find themselves in a pile and become assembled by themselves, traits are added slowly and increase complexity through natural and presumably unguided processes in reaction to environmental factors.

He's kind of confusing abiogenesis and evolution-- life arising from the various conditions for life in pre-biotic environments is abiogenesis, and complexity and diversity come from evolution.

---

Oh, and you can also inform him he's using a logical fallacy-- an argument from incredulity (or argument from ignorance). Just because a process sounds crazy or unbelievable doesn't mean it is. Abiogenesis as a scientific theory has been heavily evidenced by the Miller-Urey-- the science is sound, even if he doesn't get it.

We also observed bacteria change their DNA almost completely in reaction to treatment, to become resistant-- and that trait becomes a "strain" when it's found in multiple bacteria-- meaning we've observed genetic reconfiguration and complexity increase naturally.

A good example, if you're talking about God creating something. (As in, miraculous garbage.)

If you're talking about natural selection, the 747 would be built piece by piece over time, with any piece that doesn't measure up getting thrown away.

So I wonder what he thinks the odds are of a being infinitely greater just forming without anyone to create him are them. If everything needs a creator, who made his god?

I don't think the brain is that uncomprehensable. Its all cause and effect, with its structure provided by genetic Blueprints.

Chemical Memory.