Originally Posted by
gut
First of all, I don't like using words like 'creationists' or 'evolutionists', as those
are mostly used for namecalling in side-A vs side-B arguments.
Many proponents of creation theory self-identify as creationists. It's not normally considered a pejorative term.
Originally Posted by
gut
> I understand how, to a creationist, these things are seen as interelated
That smacks a bit of your previous sentence about understanding how
'creationists' invented the words 'macro' and 'micro' evolution out of desperation.
It says a bit more about the understand
er than the understandee
That wasn't meant to be glib. To a creationist, the Big Bang, the origin of life, and the diversity of life all have the same cause--therefore these are related topics. To a scientist, there are largely unrelated phenomena that are described by different theories.
As I mentioned, I was apparently wrong about the micro/macro being coined by creationists.
Originally Posted by
gut
To say that evolution isn't the same as 'order comes from chaos' is wrong. All
arguments for evolution do pivot upon the ability of order (life) to be first
produced by chaos (ocean debree).
No, evolution doesn't require this. If you want to assume that life was created instanteously by God, that's fine, it doesn't affect evolutionary theory in the slightest. Evolution describes how populations of living things change in time. It doesn't describe how life came about to begin with.
Our understanding of the original origin of life is fairly limited, but is essentially based on ideas in organic chemistry: carbon atoms are generally more stable in complexes than alone, and fairly large complexes can arise rather spontaneously. Certain molecules (like DNA/RNA, as well as other simpler compounds) are self-replicating given enough time, available resources, and energy.
Originally Posted by
gut
Alas, somehow, bits of raw material did get together and form a tree. To many
minds it is a simple thing. If bits of raw material bump against one another for
a long enough time, a tree will naturally form of its own accord. Simple because
all of the bits that didn't form into trees would not have been able to compete,
and thus would have died out. That just isn't enough for my mind though.
A tree arising spontaneously from nothing would disprove evolution. Evolution proposes that complex organisms arise from small modifications from simpler ones. Take your computer analogy again. The computer wasn't invented wholescale from nothing. It was built up from previous, less sophisticated models in a slow, gradual process. Less popular features were weeded out by market forces--given the choice between a mouse and trackball, people wanted the mouse, so the trackball died out, for example--and more optimal designs were kept. The idea of a modern laptop appearing suddenly on the market 40 years ago is just as ridiculous as a tree spontaneously appearing solely from its raw materials. To get to a tree, you might have say gone through: self-replicating simple organic molecule -> RNA -> DNA -> virus -> bacteria -> algae -> seagrass -> land grass -> shrub -> bush -> tree (note: COMPLETELY MADE UP evolutionary history), with many, many tiny modifications between each step.
Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.