Pointing out flaws in creationism is like shooting fish in a barrel. But sometimes I see another one and just can’t resist pointing it out. Here’s the latest. (Note: I have no illusion that I’m originating this point. I just hadn’t thought of it in quite this way before.)
If God is omnipotent, then God’s time and effort are free from the bonds of scarcity. He could have used as much creative thought and energy as he wanted to create life on earth and still had an unlimited amount to spare. So here’s my question: given his infinite resources, why is God so incredibly lazy and boring?
Genetic sequencing has shown that humans and chimpanzees share some incredibly large percentage of their genetic code (about 99%). Creationists insist, nonetheless, that humans and chimps are not related by origin. Okay, fine. So why did God feel the need to recycle all that code? Computer programmers duplicate code to save time and effort while relying on algorithms they already know work. Maybe God was doing the same thing, economizing on time and effort. But wait – there’s no scarcity of godly effort, so he shouldn’t have needed to. He could have created humans and chimps separately, from scratch, without any need to reuse anything. And the same goes for every pair of organisms that share any genetic code at all, which is pretty much all of them.
More broadly, why are all forms of life on Earth carbon-based? Couldn’t God have made silicon-based organisms? Why is DNA the basic structure for every life form on the plant? Couldn’t God have made blueprints using some other complex molecule?
With costly effort and time, recycling stuff makes perfect sense. With infinite effort and time, recycling is unnecessary and pointless. This puts the creationists in a bind: their God is either not really omnipotent or not very creative.
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
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One must also consider the wastefulness of the genetic code when we consider how much of one's genetic sequence is inactive entirely or becomes inactive after the cell or tissue specializes and differentiates into its final form (e.g., all of the genes controlling muscle cell behavior that are present but inactive in every tissue except for muscle).
Hi. I'm catholic. I believe that God created the Universe. But I have no problem believing in the Big Bang and in the evolution. Creationism as a theory that claims that the world was created as described in the book of Genesis seems an absurd to me. The Genesis is a poetic, methaphoric book. As much of the Old Testament. Or the book of Apocalipse, in the New Testament. The fatc that there are schools where children aren't allowed to learn about the evolution of species sounds, to me, like something out of the Midle Ages. Best Regards, Nuno.
I'm not religious at all, but I always thought that god would seem a lot more omnipotent and sublime had he created the universe at the big bang, knowing that the laws of physics would one day give rise to humanity.
That seems a little more persuasive and awe-inspiring than a god "laboring" for 6 days to create the world.
Velutha seems to believe the first version. :)
Glen said, "This puts the creationists in a bind: their God is either not really omnipotent or not very creative."
Is there any reason theoretically why you could not be omnipotent and an uncreative dumbass as well? Are the sets mutually exclusive? Just asking. As you may have guessed, I have been bored lately. Agitation is my relief valve.
Pointing out flaws in creationism may seem like shooting fish in a barrel, but I think there's much more to creationism than many old-earth evolutionists give it.
As to your recycling question, it seems more likely, that God created a universe with laws and natural processes, so that on the 7th day he could rest. (Let his creation operate mostly on it's own, much as say a model railroader might design a model railroad so that he can be as involved or uninvolved as he chooses. Is it uncreative that the railroad consists of locomotives, cars, track, and scenery.)
It would make sense however that the effect of the creation of these natural processes would be that many things were done similarly.
Do people think that the everyone today is uncreative today because pretty much every machine is an extension/combination of one of the seven simple machines? I think not. The DNA from various animals is not so different from any other, but is it not more amazing how the little changes make such a big difference.
If God develops an optimal method for biological information it makes sense that he would reuse.
Or as our own experience tell us: Don't reinvent the wheel.
Actually, there is much less to creationism than evolutionists (or the creationists)give it.
JB -- Why *not* reinvent the wheel? The only reason for us humans not to is to save effort. But God can exert infinite effort at zero cost -- that's what it means to be omnipotent. There's no reason for God to economize on design concepts if he has unlimited creative capacity.
Why *not* reinvent the wheel? The only reason for us humans not to is to save effort.
I was half-expecting this response, and I think it's certainly fair. My response is that some things, like the wheel, we don't improve upon not because the benefit isn't there, after all if the wheel could be improved on, it would furnish tremendous benefits, think of all the wheels currently in use. Instead, the wheel isn't reinvented because you "can't" reinvent the wheel. Given the physical properties of our universe the wheel is the best implementation of what it does.
That was much my point in bringing up the seven simple machines. We don't reinvent the wedge because the wedge, given the laws of our universe is the best at what it does. (At least in my perspective.) We may, remodel the wedge, using it, for example in the knife, or as a doorstop, but it's still a wedge.
If, we live in a created world, then the creator must know the best way to implement his design. If that is what he has done, then it makes sense that there should be similarity throughout creation. Incidently, in Genesis, God after his creation called it good. It was apparently without flaw. So, perhaps instead of assuming that God is uncreative, we should say, he knew and used the best processes for accomplishing his designs.
Also, God gave everything plant in the garden for Adam to eat. This suggests that God wanted to create a world were everything was relatable to man. It probably wouldn't be very nutricious for man to eat Silicon-based plants, it probably wouldn't have been good for man. While God has unlimited resources, he did create our world with limited resources. It makes sense that he wouldn't create a world that had 6 different absolute types of biological entities that couldn't interact. Foraging for food, etc would be far more difficult, if not only did you have to look for food, but carbon-based food. Just because God has unlimited resources does not mean that he ought to create a world that is wasteful. (As the creation has finite resources there can be waste there.)
Incidently, if we say that God is uncreative, focusing on one element, (the method by which life is produced), yet ignore the fact that if God is the creator, he did create the world with an enormous amount of creativity. There's no reason that the world should have color, or that the mind should perceive beauty, or that the mind should perceive harmony, and melody. We look up to the heavens and we see the amazing diversity of stars and celestrial bodies, we see even on our earth, immensely different plants and animals. Pinning a lack of creativity on God for his methodology in life creation (using Carbon-based forms and DNA) seems strange given his corresponding wealth of creativity in the radically diverse outputs of his relatively simple methodology.
This argument is not a good one. It is, in a sense, as flawed as the typical God of the Gaps argument. Whatever God did it could be argued that he could have been even more profligate in using resources and creating diversity. Why not, e.g., create a flying spaghetti monster? If he had, then why not a swimming lasagna midget and so on, ad nauseam.
In debunking creationism it's seems best to stick with actual facts.
The "Why does God Recycle" argument is not a good one. It is, in a sense, as flawed as the typical God of the Gaps argument. Whatever God did it could be argued that he could have been even more profligate in using resources and creating diversity. Why not, e.g., create a flying spaghetti monster? If he had, then why not a swimming lasagna midget and so on, ad nauseam.
In debunking creationism it's seems best to stick with actual facts.
Some of the arguments that JB makes are good - up to a point. There is a lot of sense in having all manner of life carbon based and using the same general ingredients. The problem with that argument arises when you come to specifics, such as "Why does UUU always code for Phe and AAA always code for Lys?". An evolutionary argument simply points to common descent. A creationist argument becomes much more complicated, arguing for an optimal design for the genetic code in all cases (very hard to demonstrate) or a lazy designer who doesn't want to make his presence known. Then Occam's razor slices and dices.
William, why do you think that evolution & genetics is the simplist explanation for the existence of life? Darwin was the grand pooh-bah of insightfulness to explain the basics of evolution. It's much simplier to say that God created everything, including fleas and cockroaches, in 6 days. And it took a lot of scientific detective work in the last century to unravel the basic secrets of the genetic code. Even mendelian genetics is rather complicated for most people to understand. The simplist and most naive answer is to assume there's a Wizard of Oz character who makes things happen with a stroke of his magic wand. But just as in the movie where the Wizard is shown to be a put-on, God has been revealed to be an even bigger hoax and the "opiate of the masses." I refer you all to Tom's brilliant post from last X-mas entitled, "Why preach Santaism." Use your wordprocesser to substitute the word *God* or *Christ* for every instance of the word *Santa* and you'll get a good handle on why this God stuff is too hot to handle, especially for impressionable young children.
Certainly, I appreciate what other people have said, and I appreciate the perspective.
I do think the Santaism analogy is interesting. If, however Santa were real, that would very much change the incentives for preaching Santaism. For whatever it's worth, while Santa is known to be fiction, none can say with such certainty about God. That certainly would seem to change the "why preach Santaism" dynamics.
Ultimately, each person has to choose what they're going to believe. Each person has to weigh the evidence they've seen and considered, ultimately, it is an individual's responsibility to choose.
Santa's not real? I'd like to see you prove it!
Anyways, there is nothing optimum about the genetic code that we use. It has wobbles, is prone to frameshifts errors and is inefficient in it's degeneracy, compared to the perfection we would expect God to put into something that is supposedly idea. The idea that it is the best God could do is pretty insulting to God, and it is clear you are stretching to bring Him into something that in fact shows no signs of intelligent design.
The idea that God made everything carbon based for us to use is interesting, but I don't see that as being suggested either. Does the world really exist for the sake of people? Why put poisonous plants and large predatory animals on it? Why mosquitos and snakes? Why put things on the bottom of the ocean where we will never interact with them? Why make penguins? Believing in God is great, but straining imagination to try and see Him everywhere is a bit silly.
Editor-
I completely agree that in the current world setting, it does not appear that the world is set up optimally. However, this can't be blamed on God.
According to the Bible, everything was good in the garden. Supposedly, before Adam ate of the fruit, he was not going to die. Additionally, before the fall, it appears that there wasn't the traditional predator/prey relationships. As revelation suggests the lion will lay down with the lamb when a new perfect creation is made, after this one is brought to pass away.
The Bible also says that all nature groans under the weight of man's rebellion in the garden. So yes, looking at things today, it would seem like things are designed suboptimally, but the Bible has an answer for that.
So, because Adam ate this fruit (which was bad, I understand, because it allowed him to understand stuff like 'bad'), perfect and efficient biological systems evolved over 6000 years to the point where they are now something like double-Rube Goldbergs? Ah, of course, it all makes sense.
And as for Occam's Razor, it says that unnecessary elements should not be added. Scientific fact might seem more complex - I mean, why believe every object in the universe attracts every other object, directly proportional to the mass of the objects and inversely proportional to the distance between them, while quantum theory, having been successful in explaining other phenomena in the past, posits the existence of sub-sub-subatomic particles as the cause, although some believe in gravity waves - but it only includes elements known to exist. Natural selection exists. Mutation exists. Genetic drift exists. A whole bunch of other factors, I'm sure, exist, and are known to exist, and combined together, over large scales of time can cause speciation. Simple as that.
"the lion will lay down with the lamb"
This begs the question, why create the lion? Its camouflage fur, highly tuned night vision, powerful muscle structure, its teeth, jaws, claws, digestive system. Every facet of the lion appears (designed) for killing and eating meat. If the lion were to share meals of grass with his new friend the lamb, he would not be a lion.
i know i'm a bit late in posting a comment, but i haven't visited this blog in a while and just noticed that there are so many new readers/commenters that have very interesting things to say. i've thoroughly enjoyed these comments to Glen's inquiry.
I especially enjoyed JB's post: 'Pinning a lack of creativity on God for his methodology in life creation (using Carbon-based forms and DNA) seems strange given his corresponding wealth of creativity in the radically diverse outputs of his relatively simple methodology.'--yeah, think about all the amazing things about this world that we can't really seem to explain. i see no point in focusing on just the perceived negative (uncreativity) when the whole universe seems to be filled with unfathomable creativity.
and i also enjoyed the comment about "why not create a swimming lasagna midget and flying spaghetti monster." --really funny.
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