Smart Kid

Maybe this belongs in Religion and Philosophy, but it's more a silly anecdote than anything else.

My nine-year-old neice and four-year-old nephew are staying with my parents this weekend while their parents are gone, and I'm here visiting, too. During dinner today, my niece starts talking about how the Tooth Fairy left her a note last night to "have fun at your grandparents' house this weekend."

"The Tooth Fairy sees everything!" she declares. "Just like Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny,"

"And God!" chimes in the nephew.

Ok, it'll probably take him a few more years to figure out just how much those four characters have in common, but hey, he's only four. It's a good start.

[Spoiler Warning!]

Actually the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Clause all DO exist. Another name for them is "Parents."

Children see the evidence of these beings all around them when they lose a tooth and find money or when its Christmas time and see presents under the tree. They just don't see the whole picture yet. Many people see evidence for God's existence but attribute it to things like evolution, etc.

I was atheist once, but I was unsatisfied by the lack of answers I found in that belief system. As a simple example, if I found 10 lines of 10 m&m's (tm) in rows organized by color on the side of the road in the desert, if asked how they got there, I'd say someone put them there rather than that they blew around for billions of years and fell into that exact configuration.

Likewise, if I found a fully functioning computer with an operating system and other programs on it and nobody around, I'd also say that it was put there by someone rather than sand blowing around, turning into silicon and then into simple circuits and then more complex circuits until an entire computer appeared and then random memory errors over billions of years caused a functional operating system to program itself until it was useful and had a purpose and order to it.

Why then do we do this when we explain our own existence?

Maybe this is too deep as a followup to a funny story - it just made me think.

rcronk said:

[Spoiler Warning!]

Actually the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Clause all DO exist. Another name for them is "Parents."

Children see the evidence of these beings all around them when they lose a tooth and find money or when its Christmas time and see presents under the tree. They just don't see the whole picture yet. Many people see evidence for God's existence but attribute it to things like evolution, etc.

I was atheist once, but I was unsatisfied by the lack of answers I found in that belief system. As a simple example, if I found 10 lines of 10 m&m's (tm) in rows organized by color on the side of the road in the desert, if asked how they got there, I'd say someone put them there rather than that they blew around for billions of years and fell into that exact configuration.

Likewise, if I found a fully functioning computer with an operating system and other programs on it and nobody around, I'd also say that it was put there by someone rather than sand blowing around, turning into silicon and then into simple circuits and then more complex circuits until an entire computer appeared and then random memory errors over billions of years caused a functional operating system to program itself until it was useful and had a purpose and order to it.

Why then do we do this when we explain our own existence?

Maybe this is too deep as a followup to a funny story - it just made me think.

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There's no way to say this without sounding condescending, so I'll just put it bluntly:

You need to do some more reading about evolution. Your examples are not analogous.

Don't worry - that's not condescending.

Please explain. Why can "living" things improve, progress, strive to continue living and "non-living" things can't? What's the difference between "living" and "non-living" things? I've not received answers to these questions from atheism - if you've found these answers, please share them.

Dunstan said:

Your examples are not analogous.

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Or original.

rcronk [Spoiler Warning!]

I was atheist once, but I was unsatisfied by the lack of answers I found in that belief system.

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thats your problem right there ! you were looking for a belief system in a lack of belief
kinda silly don't ya think

rcronk said:

Don't worry - that's not condescending.

Please explain. Why can "living" things improve, progress, strive to continue living and "non-living" things can't? What's the difference between "living" and "non-living" things? I've not received answers to these questions from atheism - if you've found these answers, please share them.

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Well, first of all, it's a little circular to ask why "non-living" things can't "strive to continue living."

Second, the answers to these questions won't come from "atheism," they'll come from evolutionary biology. Contrary to popular belief, those are not the same thing.

As to the substance of your question, I'm not an expert in the field and probably can't explain it to you any better than the folks at www.talkorigins.org -- try starting with this page

If you still have questions after reading that site, I'd suggest you start a thread in the Science forum. If noboby better qualified answers, I'll give it a try.

Thanks all - I knew I could find intelligent discussion here rather than bashing. Thanks!Atheism is a belief system - a belief that God doesn't exist.I'll go check out that site and let you know what I find - thanks for the link!

I don't believe that there are ten metre tall fire breathing clowns living in Antarctica but that doesn't make it a belief system.

Do you believe in gravity? Does that make it a belief system?

rcronk
Atheism is a belief system - a belief that God doesn't exist

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no dear atheism is not a belief system no more than bald is a hair color

Dunstan

Maybe this belongs in Religion and Philosophy, but it's more a silly anecdote than anything else.

My nine-year-old neice and four-year-old nephew are staying with my parents this weekend while their parents are gone, and I'm here visiting, too. During dinner today, my niece starts talking about how the Tooth Fairy left her a note last night to "have fun at your grandparents' house this weekend."

"The Tooth Fairy sees everything!" she declares. "Just like Santa Claus, and the Easter Bunny,"

"And God!" chimes in the nephew.

Ok, it'll probably take him a few more years to figure out just how much those four characters have in common, but hey, he's only four. It's a good start.

Click to expand...

kids are a lot smarter than most adults think so this is a great start and about the time he realizes the others are make believe god will be just one more story

Thanks all for your comments. I call atheism a belief system because it requires a system of other beliefs, like evolution for example, to support it. Where we come from is a core relevant question that's been asked for millenia - whether or not fire breathing clowns exist somewhere isn't, and non-belief in those clowns doesn't require a supporting system of beliefs and isn't core to our existence. This is all off topic though.I went to the biological evolution page and read it - thanks again for the link. It was educational and I agree with a lot of it, but it still didn't answer my questions:1. Why can a human evolve and a computer can't? What's the difference?2. Why do we reject random chance for a computer coming together but accept that very notion for humans? What's the difference?Of course my questions aren't original, they've remained unanswered for centuries. If any of you have found the answers for yourselves, please let me know. Thanks.

rcronk,

There were atheists long before the theory of evolution ever appeared. There is no 'system of belief' that is necessary for or integral to atheism; only the lack of belief in a god. A person who, 2000 or 5000 years ago, looked at the world around him and said, "I don't believe in god" was just as much an atheist, even though he lacked the scientific underpinnings that we have today.

Let me put it this way, as there tend to be problems on both sides of the argument here. Atheists often make the same claims about theists...that being a theist automatically means that you must have certain other beliefs, such as belief in an omnipotent god, or belief that you must follow that god (or his spokesmen) unquestioningly.

The fact is, to be a theist you simply need to believe in some kind -- any kind -- of god. You could believe that god is flawed, even stupid and prone to mistakes (as, in fact, many Greeks believed was the case with some of their gods). And to be an atheist, you simply need to not believe that any god exists.

Any attempt to attach further values/beliefs to either of those labels -- theist, or atheist -- only demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of what is being discussed.

It is true that, in modern times, there is a strong tendency to correlate belief in the theory of evolution with atheism; but a theist could just as easily believe in evolution, while an atheist could just as easily (and validly) state that "I think that evolution is a load of bollocks, but I still don't believe in god."

Here, I'll take a try:

1. A computer can not evolve because it is a made thing, a human is not a made thing.

2. It is not exactly random chance, it is random chances that are successful, that make evolution work. This can make it look directed even though it isn't. A computer is a made thing, and the "chances" that put it together *ARE* directed.

Hope that helps.

And in regards to the M&M's analogy...that's pitiful by any standard. Let me illustrate with a relatively simple explanation:

Evolution works on the principle that one particular species will have hundreds/thousands/millions of different mutations within its population. Most of those mutations will be harmful, or at best benign; but a few will be advantageous. Over time, those beneficial mutations accumulate, until there are so many such mutations that a new species develops. Each individual mutation is entirely random; but the process that determines which mutations are kept is not. It discards non-beneficial mutations, and keeps beneficial ones.

I saw an illustration in here awhile ago that demonstrates this perfectly -- if you toss 1000 coins in the air, they will randomly come up heads or tails. It doesn't matter how many times you do this, they will continue to behave in that manner. But if you add a rule that coins that come up heads will be left alone, and only coins that come up tails will be tossed again, in a very short time you'll find yourself with 1000 coins that all show heads. The process of tossing is random; but the process that selects which tosses are accepted, and which are rejected, is not.

And before you go and try to argue that my example requires an intelligent interference (ie. humans tossing coins, and selecting those that are heads), evolution requires no such interference. If an antelope is born with a mutation that makes it slower than other antelope, it is more likely to be caught and eaten, and not produce any offspring or pass on its genes; if an antelope is born with a mutation that makes it faster than other antelope, it is less likely to be caught and eaten, and therefore more likely to produce offspring and pass on its genes. No outside, intelligent interference is involved or needed, but a definite selection process is nevertheless taking place. That's why its called "natural selection", rather than "supernatural selection".

There is no possible correlation between this process, and the arrangement of M&Ms you described, unless you can describe a natural process by which, over time, M&Ms would not only accumulate there, but that it would prove advantageous for them to form such a shape, and to show a preference for certain colors in each row. But again, the examples you give only demonstrate how little you understand about what it is you are discussing.

rcronk said:

Thanks all for your comments. I call atheism a belief system because it requires a system of other beliefs, like evolution for example, to support it. Where we come from is a core relevant question that's been asked for millenia - whether or not fire breathing clowns exist somewhere isn't, and non-belief in those clowns doesn't require a supporting system of beliefs and isn't core to our existence.

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I can't get too exercised about the whole issue of "is atheism a belief," because it's largely semantics to me, but I do take issue with this whole idea of what does -- and doesn't -- need a "supporting system of beliefs."

I reject the implication that an atheist has to be able to explain every damn thing about the universe. Theists certainly don't. They offer non-explanations, usually by defining the problem away. ("Humans exist because God created us. How? Well, He just did. He's omnipotent and can make anything happen." "How did God get here? Oh, that's a silly question because He's eternal. Don't ask how I know that; I just do.")

What's particularly maddening is that atheists get blasted from both directions. When we point out that there's an excellent, well-supported scientific explanation for X, the God of the Gappers just say "oh yeah? Well, you haven't explained Y yet!" (For example, let X = existence of humans on Earth, and let Y = existence of the universe.) Meanwhile, they haven't offered any evidence for their position other than to point to the (steadily shrinking) list of things that science hasn't yet explained. Yet at the same time, theists (often the same ones!) make snide comments about how "atheists think they know everything!"

This is all off topic though.I went to the biological evolution page and read it - thanks again for the link. It was educational and I agree with a lot of it, but it still didn't answer my questions:1. Why can a human evolve and a computer can't? What's the difference?

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To the answers you've already received in this thead, I'll add:

a) because living things, including humans and their ancestors, reproduce through a mechanism that allows for very good, but not perfect copying, and live in an environment that allows for differential rates of survival. Computers don't "reproduce" at all. There's nothing for natural selection to work with.

b) we have evidence of human ancestry, both from living species that show evidence of common descent, and from fossil evidence. There is no such evidence for computers.

2. Why do we reject random chance for a computer coming together but accept that very notion for humans? What's the difference?

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Again, you are still missing the most important aspect of evolution. It is not random chance. Wolfman explained it very well, but I'll just add that certain random events (i.e. mutations) provide the raw material for natural selection, but it is non-random factors (i.e. differential survival) that make it "work."

I'm going to steal a good explanation and example from someone's blog:

And the misconception is, in a nutshell, that it is not "Evolution by random chance", rather it is "Evolution by natural selection" - and natural selection is a completely non-random process. Darwin's named his book: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection.

Let's take the small scale example of the flu virus. Every year we encounter a new strain of the flu virus that beats the flu vaccine. The misconception starts when we think that the flu virus evolves into new strains deliberately with the explicit purpose of beating the flu vaccines that its host (we humans) administer. Now it is extremely dumb to think that the flu virus knows about the flu vaccine and is able to change its reproductory system to produce new vaccine-resistant offsprings. It doesn't -- the flu virus tries to reproduce in the only way it knows to (using DNA replication mechanism of the host to "replicate" itself into hundreds of different copies). During that process, minor errors in the DNA copying mechanism, rare and completely random, creates imperfect copies of the parent's DNA. These new slightly changed DNAs give rise to "new strains" of the flu virus. This part, "mutation", is the only random part of evolution.

After this, the virus's "nature" (the environment in which it thrives, i.e. the human body) kicks in with "natural selection". Viruses acquire "mutations" spontaneously or randomly. But all mutations are not favorable for survival, and hence those viruses that aquire unfavourable mutations are lost. Only the virues that aquire favourable mutations are the "fittest" to survive (Darwin's "survival of the fittest"). Since generation time of viruses (hundreds can be produced simultaneously) are small and the populations large, they can fill up the lost pool in double quick time. Thus, natural selection is not random. The only "new strains" that *might* survive this natural selection are those that neither the body's inbuilt defenses, nor the vaccine, could eliminate.

The two very important things to understand here are:
Mutations are random, aimless, without any purpose, and without any control.
Natural selection is completely non-random. It is the result of systematic application of non-random natural laws to filter out the incompatible mutations.

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It can be even simpler than the coin toss. Just take a big bag of potato chips and shake it for a while. When you open it, you'll notice that the large chips have collected at the top, while all the small bits and crumbs have sunk to the bottom. There's no design or plan involved, but it's not "random" either: even if there's no rhyme or reason to the way you shake the bag, our decidedly nonrandom physical laws will produce an orderly result.

I'd just like to point out -- as I mentioned briefly above -- that many atheists in these forums are just as guilty of making similar statements about theists. They confuse "Christians" (and/or Muslims, and/or other subsets of theistic groups) with "theists" as a whole, and make statements about how theists accept their god's proclamations uncritically, follow their gods laws blindly, are required to believe their scriptures unquestioningly, etc.

This description is true of some theists; but is in no way essential to or inseparable from being a theist. I could, in theory, believe in a god that is mentally retarded, even stupider than me, who didn't know what on earth he was talking about, and who should not be trusted for anything...but the fact that I believe he is a god makes me a theist. I love the Greeks (and many of the other old polytheistic religions) for the fact that they depicted their gods as remarkably human, just as flawed and untrustworthy as any human being (some of them could even be defeated by mere mortals). Yet for all that the Greeks did not consider them infallible, or perfect, or beyond questioning...they were still theists.

An atheist is defined only by their lack of belief in the existence of any god. A theist is defined only by their belief in the existence of one or more gods. Being an atheist does not in any manner, shape, or form dictate what other beliefs I must have. Being a theist does not in any manner, shape, or form dictate what other beliefs that person must have.

This is one of the reasons I hate defining myself as an atheist...the term essentially means nothing, other than that I don't believe any god exists. It does not in any way tell you what I do believe. Which is why I prefer to define myself as a Humanist, which entails a specific set of beliefs, and can give you some idea of what I actually do believe in.

Just as almost nobody will ever identify themselves specifically as a theist, but rather by what kind of theism they subscribe to (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, etc.)

Fair enough on belief systems - again, that's not my main point.I think you're misunderstanding my main point. Why can an antelope evolve but M&M's(tm) can't? How do atheists differentiate between "living" and "non-living" things? Since natural selection only applies only to "living" things - what is the difference between a living and a non-living thing? The explanation above that one is "made" and the other is not doesn't make sense to me. Anyone want to take another shot at it?

rcronk said:

It was educational and I agree with a lot of it, but it still didn't answer my questions:1. Why can a human evolve and a computer can't? What's the difference?2. Why do we reject random chance for a computer coming together but accept that very notion for humans? What's the difference?

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To put it most simply, computers and M&Ms don't reproduce, living organisms do. Errors occur during reproduction so that the offspring is not a perfect copy of the parent (even in creatures that reproduce asexually, errors can occur). These errors, or rather changes, make an organism more or less fit to survive to maturity as environmental forces work on them. Those that do survive, get to reproduce and perhaps pass on the trait that made it more likely for them to survive.