Your Uncle's Third Nipple:
Some Christians and scientists seem to enjoy
fighting about evolution, natural selection, and the idea of intelligent design.
At least I hope they enjoy it. It would be a shame to spend so much time doing
something that you dislike.
The scientists bring a lot to this fight.
They're scientists, first of all, and we hold them in awe because of that. I
know whenever I see a scientist on the street, I stop and stare. It's the white
coat, goggles, and the little flask with a rubber stopper that get my attention.
Also scientists can write down all sorts of information using mathematical
symbols. I don't know what that stuff means, but it makes me think that they
know something. And you have to give them this: the scientific method is
impressive. The scientists always do their homework. They aren't sloppy.
The Christians always come to the fight with
the same old, tired argument. The second law of thermodynamics. They LOVE the
second law of thermodynamics. It's their trump card, their patron saint of
science, their 'nanny-nanny boo-boo,' and they never get tired of talking about
it.
You see, the second law of thermodynamics
states that entropy always increases within a system. Things move toward
disorder. When left to their own, things do not grow more complex. The energy in
the system diffuses, and the system winds down toward inactivity.
In other words, if you toss a ham sandwich on
the sidewalk, you wouldn't expect to come back 10,000 years later and find it
smiling at you.
So the basic argument coming from the
creationist's point of view is that you shouldn't expect complex things like
fingers and flippers and fundamentalists to develop out of single celled
organisms. And this argument sounds pretty good on the surface.
Except that it's completely wrong. Read More...
(Via rlp's blog.) Real Live Preacher discusses evolution. I agree with the sentiment, but have a problem with the portrayal. As a scientist, I have never worn a white coat, rarely wear goggles, and only held an Erlenmeyer flask a few times in college.
5:13:43 PM 
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