2014.01.55.05 Part 3 of the book What is the origin and purpose of man Created by James on 4/15/2019 6:35:29 AM Part 3 of the book What is the origin and purpose of man
Part 3 of the book: What is the origin and purpose of man
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Part 1 of the book What is the origin and purpose of man
Introduction
An important assumption and some painful deductions
Some important preparatory points
Use of statistics from Google.com
Argument from Incredulity
Progressive development versus Instantaneous Creation
Other religions and spirits
Some other issues with certain religious views of creation
What next?
Part 2 of the book What is the origin and purpose of man
The "I AM RIGHT" "YOU ARE WRONG" Paradox
Does this mean deadlock?
A Different approach?
Some issues that arise from the above questions
Science - Engineering - Religion
Religion
Suggested principles for further analysis
"Planned (Engineered) Creative Evolution" versus "Unplanned (Unengineered) Spontaneous Evolution"
Part 3 of the book What is the origin and purpose of man
Evidence in Immediate Physical Environment
Tying up loose ends
Various bits and pieces
Some other considerations regarding creation versus evolution
Soft attributes of human beings
If all else fails, ask for a "sign"?
Conclusion
WHAT IS THE ORIGIN AND PURPOSE OF MAN? -- Part 3
Seeking to Define the Essence of the Difference
Between "Evolution" and "Creation"
18. IS THERE EVIDENCE OF A CREATOR?
At this point, i would like to submit that the dispute is NOT between "evolution" and "creation" it is "is there a creator or not" and if there is, what evidence is there to prove that a creator exists.
Thus far i have offered various points that i hold to be experientially true for me, none of which are particularly amenable to third party verification. As much as i may be passionately convinced of the veracity of these points as a consequence of personal experiences that i hold to be profound, my experiences and my faith are of no relevance to a third party seeking to make an informed decision that conforms to fundamental scientific and engineering principles.
At this stage i would like to explore some evidence that seems to me to be directly accessible to almost any person in the world and of which i think you are likely to have at least some personal experience that you can relate to.
I will do this first by considering the environment in which most human beings live, their dwelling, transport, furnishings, etc and secondly by considering some specific attributes of being a human being.
In doing this i will seek to focus on those items that i have some level of personal knowledge and experience of although at times i will also refer to items that i have had a significant number of independent confirmations of and therefore consider reasonably likely to be valid.
In each case i offer a number of points which each seem to me to offer robust empirical evidence of a creator which, individually, may not carry much weight but which i like to think collectively do offer robust evidence.
At all times, on each point and on the entire thesis, it is a matter of personal choice. It is my hope to persuade you but it is not necessary for me to do this.
19. EVIDENCE IN THE IMMEDIATE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
After much thought about the subject of this document, i eventually identified a number of factors which seemed to me to be relevant in terms of my own personal experience in my daily life and which it seems to me could be relevant to most people on the planet. This may not apply fully to every example but i hope that at least some of them will be relevant to you.
As with the rest of this document, my intention is not to present a comprehensive case for any single point but to raise some broad principles that seem important to me in the hope that the collective case will provide a basis for an informed decision, which ever way that decision may go.
I hope that each example will demonstrate in some way the probability of planned (engineered) creative evolution and therefore the existence of a creator as an intelligent external agency with a clear objective who managed and directed the entire process of development.
19.1. LAND BASED MAMMALS WITHOUT WINGS
For this example i would like to largely exclude marine mammals like whales and dolphins and winged mammals, specifically bats. I would like to focus on the land based mammals that most human beings have had some contact with, ranging from cats, dogs and rats through to elephant, antelope, sheep, cattle, apes, etc.
On reflecting on the subject of this article, it seemed noteworthy to me that the majority of land mammals in the categories i have chosen to focus on have basically similar structure and design:
1) Four legs
2) Two ears on the side of the head toward the top
3) Two eyes towards the top of the head and in front
4) A nose or breathing apparatus (trunk in the case of elephants) below the eyes and central to the head.
5) A mouth below the nose
6) The head is on a neck which connects at the base of the skull to the end of the body above the front limbs
7) Where there is a tail it is at the rear end of the body between and above the rear limbs
8) The anus is between the rear limbs, forward of the tail and behind the genitals
9) The genitals are between the rear limbs
10) The male genitals have essentially the same external structure - a penis with the capacity to become erect and two testicles
11) The female genitals are, as far as i know, essentially similar
12) The body is symmetrical in the form of a mirror image of the left and right sides - the left ear is a mirror of the right ear, the left forelimb of the right forelimb, etc
There are also more detailed aspects such as structure of the skeleton, design of the eyes, design of the internal organs, reproductive system, etc which, as far as i know, are broadly similar. I do not have detailed knowledge of this aspect and such knowledge is not readily available to the majority of people so i chose not to go into further detail.
The human body conforms largely to the same pattern with the exception of greater differentiation in certain respects from the other animals referred to in this category.
Apes seem visibly closer to humans than other mammals thereby supporting a view that apes were created as a more specialised form of land mammal and that the basic design for apes was then used as the starting point for development of humans, possibly using a progressive prototyping approach as outlined in a previous section.
I say this in recognition of my understanding that it is the view of those who favour evolution that man evolved from apes without an external creative agency, planner, designer or engineer.
It seems to me that there is remarkable consistency within this group of animals. It is my impression that this consistency becomes even more apparent if one considers skeletal structure, blood system, nervous system, eye structure, reproductive system, etc.
My engineering experience suggests to me that this level of consistency requires external management of the evolution process. All the variations of design within this group seem to me to be harmonious with an overall theme.
This suggests to me that at the very least all these animals originated from a single prototype pair and that there was only one pair of this prototype on the entire planet. It further suggests to me that all other less successful prototypes died out.
If one accepts a concept of unplanned, unengineered, spontaneous evolution, it seems to me to be impossible for two pairs with exactly the same design to originate spontaneously and simultaneously AND in such a way that they could interbreed and carry the same genetic structure in matching male and female forms. I simply do not have the capacity to visualise such duplication and therefore it seems clear to me that there must have been a single pair to start with.
I can only support this from a perspective of my own experience that it is very difficult to design and build two duplicate complex systems without careful planning and design and careful manufacturing quality control. It seems to me that anyone who has tried to make several identical copies of one item, whether a knitting pattern, a dog kennel or anything more complex will have experience that it requires time and effort. It also seems to me that anyone who has attempted such duplication will have experience that without high attention to detail the resulting products will be different at a noticeable and significant level.
I am not saying that this cannot happen with spontaneous evolution, i am saying that it seems to me to represent a very precarious point in the evolutionary process - only one pair that has no knowledge of other variants elsewhere on the planet somehow manages to survive and all other derivatives vanish.
It seems to me that in a process of spontaneous evolution it would be inevitable that evolution would proceed at different rates at different locations in the world. Accordingly it seems inevitable to me that there would be multiple variants and that at least some of these variants would persist indefinitely. At the very least it seems to me that there would be significant occurrences of such variants in the fossil record. I do not recall ever having read or heard of the level of fossil variation that it seems to me would result.
In order to try and make my point clearer, i would like to briefly address the number of legs. All these animals have four limbs. As i understand it, even bats and whales have four limbs. Insects have six legs, arthropods have eight legs, other invertebrates have ten or more legs.
If all animals evolved spontaneously without any coordinating influence i don't understand why are there no mammals with six, eight or ten legs. Or even animals with one, three, five, seven or nine legs.
In a review of a book by a professor who it has been suggested to me is authoritative in the field of evolution, i encountered the following quote: "to a first approximation, all animals fly ... because ... to a first approximation, all species are insects". Since the quote is off a web site that is opposed to what this professor has written i accept that it might be inaccurate. In the hope that this is not so i have chosen to cite the reference as it seems to support my point.
If all animals are to a first approximation insects then i do not understand why at least some mammals do not have six legs.
I raise this point because it seems to me that survival of the fittest suggests that, at least in some cases, six or eight legs would be preferable to four. In the case of a four legged animal, if is in a fight or in danger and one leg is injured, it has a significant disadvantage as far as i can see. In contrast, it seems clear to me that a six or eight legged animal would be in a much better position to survive.
When a cat such as a lion, tiger or cheetah is pursuing its prey at speed, the television programmes that i have watched suggest to me that the cat is relatively unstable when it tackles its prey and it sometimes loses the animal it is pursuing as a consequence. It seems to me that if it was running on four legs and had two legs to tackle its prey this would give a higher survival rate.
I have travelled at high speed over rough terrain in armored fighting vehicles with four, six and eight wheels. In my experience the six and eight wheel vehicles have far better stability and traction. I have also traveled at speed in a six wheeled armored personnel carrier which was missing one wheel. The vehicle remained stable and mobile. This experience gives me strong grounds to suggest that a four legged mammal is sub-optimal from a survival of the fittest perspective.
Accordingly, i don't understand why there are no land mammals with more than four legs. As far as i am aware there have not even been reports of fossils of land mammals with more than four legs. Particularly if a prominent evolutionist believes that mammals evolved from insects i have great difficulty in seeing how this can support evolution.
It seems much easier for me to believe that there is a creator who chose to create mammals with four limbs for whatever reasons He considered appropriate.
Along similar lines, it seems to me that survival of the fittest would support many animals having four eyes with two at the back of the head, certainly for those animals that are subject to being preyed upon such as antelope. It seems to me that rodents which are subject to predation by birds would benefit from eyes in the top of their heads as well.
If survival of the fittest occurred in terms of spontaneous evolution i wonder why humans do not have eyes in the back of their heads, this would surely improve survival rates? This seems to me to suggest a creator who wanted humans in particular to learn to work in teams.
Television recreations of "primitive" men fleeing from pursuers show them constantly looking over their shoulders, surely an additional two or four eyes must have come into existence spontaneously at some stage and must surely have supported survival if spontaneous evolution is valid.
Virtually every motor vehicle that travels on public roads has a rear-view mirror or a television camera at the rear again evidencing the importance of rearward vision.
On another track, there are reptiles which have similar external structure to that of the mammals outlined above. This seems to me to indicate the need for at least one additional intermediate form which branches off into warm blooded and cold blooded animals.
The left and right side symmetry (2,740,000) of most animals also seems to me to be remarkable. In many cases the external organs and structure, including the skeleton are symmetric whereas the internal organs are asymmetric. I do not understand how spontaneously evolving animals without an external design agency could decide which components should be symmetric and which asymmetric. For example, why two lungs but one heart? two kidneys but one (asymmetric) stomach? two ovaries but one uterus? etc.
Considering symmetry from another perspective, i do not understand how the molecules and cells on one side of the evolving animal knew what those on the other side were doing when they assembled themselves if there was no external creative agency with a clear plan and design. I also do not understand how these cells and molecules managed to communicate this information to the reproductive cells.
Taking this further, i do not understand how DNA knows what the body looks like and how it grows if the cells have to "communicate" this to the DNA and none of these specialist cells and material have any way of seeing how they all fit together and seeing the full picture and no way of articulating their interfaces in the context of an overall design?
I do not understand how DNA kept pace with the evolution of the body if the cells and molecules were randomly and spontaneously attaching themselves to other cells and molecules and evolving at the same time.
I do not understand how the teeth which, as i understand it, largely comprise non-living chemical material, communicate with the DNA and rest of the body about their design, manufacture and growth. How did teeth, bone, hair and toe and finger nail design keep pace with the rest of the body when these items are not alive as i understand it? How did human teeth decide to replace themselves at a certain age if there was no designer?
I find the appearance of many plants and animals to be aesthetically pleasing and proportioned in a way that appeals to me. These are subjective opinions which i understand to be shared by many human beings. The fact that human beings experience beauty and aesthetics seems, in some way, to indicate a level of non-physical complexity in human beings that i have difficulty comprehending as happening spontaneously without a creator. The fact that many human beings experience much of the world around them as being aesthetically pleasing seems to me to suggest some inter-related design concept directed at producing an environment and inhabitants that are in some way beautiful and also appreciate beauty.
The functional efficiency and effectiveness of the organs of the bodies of animals and humans and of plants and ecosystems, etc is, it seems to me from an engineering perspective to be highly complex and sophisticated and to require considerable design effort.
It also seems to me that the information about common attributes of land mammals indicates that for evolution without a creator to apply there must be a common "missing link" between the predecessor of all the above mammals and those mammals through a single pair. It seems to me that there must also be a common missing link between that missing link and all cats, another for all cattle type mammals, another for all apes, etc.
The duck-billed platypus has a large tail, a bill that looks like a duck's bill, an overall appearance that looks a bit like a crocodile, lays eggs and allegedly has blood temperature lower than other mammals. Spontaneous evolution needs to take account of how this happened. Is this animal THE "link" between cold blooded reptiles and mammals?
I have only encountered reference to the missing link between apes and humankind. While i can understand that this seems most relevant and most recent i have difficulty in envisaging the practicality and survivability of what now seems to me to be a significant number of what might be termed "evolution points" where it seems to me from a design consistency perspective that only a single pair could have survived worldwide at each evolution point.
I think that detailed mapping of all required evolution points required to trace spontaneous evolution from a very simple cell to human beings and all other plants and animals alive today would require a substantial number of "missing links".
I do understand that it is possible to develop a scenario or hypothesis to counter these objections and demonstrate that spontaneous evolution can account for all this. As an engineer i simply cannot find a basis to believe that this could possibly happen in practice.
Once more it is a matter of choice.
19.2. HUMAN HABITATIONS
I would now like to examine something that is more directly experienced and known by nearly all human beings, the dwelling in which each person lives and the dwellings their families, friends, associates and community members live in.
This dwelling is a structure created by human beings by applying their intelligence, knowledge, experience, cultural background, etc and therefore it seems to me that you are likely to ask what relevance it has to this article.
I would like to suggest that since in many countries many people specify and build their own dwellings, this gives a useful example of what happens in a situation which to me approximates spontaneous evolution.
In some countries and in some localities there are state housing regulations and standards which limit the materials, ground utilization, etc of private dwellings. These regulations vary from country to country. The standards in former British colonies tend to be similar, those in countries with other histories differ. Even within former British colonies there are noticeable differences in basic architecture with regard to traditional housing.
The building materials in different countries differ markedly in some cases. In much of the United States of America houses are built with timber frames or entirely of timber. In South Africa, where i live, houses are almost entirely built with bricks or blocks and timber houses are not frequently encountered. Elsewhere in the world there are differences.
In most of the places that i have traveled in the world, individual private dwellings are different one from another. In some locations there may be a limited range of designs on a particular housing estate but, overall, my experience is that houses in nearly all cases are distinct, unique and different from those around them and from those i have visited elsewhere in the world. They are different in terms of architecture and appearance and they are different in terms of layout of rooms, number of rooms, size of rooms, etc.
My conclusion is that when human beings undertake spontaneous creation within the limits of state imposed standards the resulting dwellings are distinct, individual and unique. Since human beings are highly intelligent and capable of learning, including being capable of discerning an optimum design, this suggests to me that there are other factors which inhibit the formation of an optimum design or that there is no such thing as an optimum design for a human dwelling place.
It seems to me that as a first approximation, any spontaneous evolution process with no external creative intervention is unlikely to produce less diversity than the example given here.
Conversely, where there is a high level of standardization with regard to dwellings, as far as i have ever encountered it, this has always resulted from state intervention or economic factors or similar. In other words, a higher authority has set limits on individual creativity and imposed standards. It seems to me that this example demonstrates that it is very unlikely that spontaneous evolution would give rise to the level of standardization of basic structure and architecture and technical components that i perceive to exist in the animal and plant kingdoms and amongst stars, planets, etc
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