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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Re:Secular Humanism/Existence of God
Message-ID: <809@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 4-Nov-85 11:49:34 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.809
Posted: Mon Nov  4 11:49:34 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 5-Nov-85 07:38:11 EST
References: <7300002@orstcs.UUCP> <48000001@hpfcms.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 49
Summary: 

In article <48000001@hpfcms.UUCP> bill@hpfcla.UUCP (Bill Gates) writes:
> 
> >> A leaf.  Make me a leaf using all your accepted physical, chemical (and
> >> biological) theories.
> >> ray
> 
> Scientists have NEVER
> created a DNA that builds a perfect leaf.  The cloning example is like
> taking a priceless painting, photocopying it, and then saying "See?  I made
> one just like it - the painter was not necessary!".  You're ignoring the
> fact that God did the real work of designing the leaf in the first place, and
> creating a blueprint that replicates that leaf over and over.
> 
> Same goes for a baby.  Sure, a man and a woman get together and make one,
> and sure, we can take an egg out of a woman's body and sperm from a man and
> make one, BUT WE CAN'T CREATE THE BLUEPRINT THAT PERFECTLY CREATES A HUMAN!!
> 
> Thus, I think there's some validity to the initial challenge.

Tell you what.  Make me a leaf, using all your accepted theology.

What?  You don't think that's a valid challenge?  Why not?  You're certainly
not handicapped by the time factor, the way evolutionary biologists are.

The problem is that you are requesting a piece of the system (us) to duplicate
a process of the system (evolution.)  This falls afoul of a common fallacy
of argument: the fallacy of decomposition.

The fallacy of decomposition is the idea that the parts have the same
properties as the whole.  Obviously we individuals are not billions of years
old, so why should we be able to reproduce evolution quickly enough to
meet your challenge?

I suppose 100 years ago you might have proclaimed "survival from disease is
the will of god: it is not natural.  Go ahead, try to cure that infection."
Years later when penicillan is discovered, you complain "It's natural, God
created the fungus."  Years later, when synthetic antibiotics are invented,
you complain "That's not the way the body does it."  Ad nauseum.  So even
if we made you a leaf, you wouldn't be convinced.

How then is the test valid?  If we fail the test, it's not necessarily
because things didn't evolve.  And if we pass the test, it's by taking
shortcuts that didn't naturally occur.

I think you want to claim the test is valid merely because it is something
that cannot be done conveniently today.
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh