Earth and life, is it predetermined or accidentally developed?

[FearGod]

NO!!!!
How many times do we have to say it wasn't 'random' or 'accidental' - what is it you don't understand?

Not random and not accidental then that means it was predetermined, otherwise explain your point
how it wasn't accidental and it wasn't predetermined as well?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Not random and not accidental then that means it was predetermined, otherwise explain your point
how it wasn't accidental and it wasn't predetermined as well?

Do you understand now insurance companies work? It is not by accident.

 

[FearGod]

Do you understand now insurance companies work? It is not by accident.

You mean how and not now, accidents do happen.

 

[Altfish]

Not random and not accidental then that means it was predetermined, otherwise explain your point
how it wasn't accidental and it wasn't predetermined as well?

Predetermined means the outcome can be predicted.
Accidental means by chance, a fluke, lucky (or unlucky)

Evolution is neither of those. When genes replicate there are invariably minor changes or mutations - you are not the same as your parents, you will be similar but different, if you go back (say) 10 generations the changes add up and the resemblance may not be noticeable. So, it is not by chance that genes have mutations, they happen all the time.
Then when the change has happened it will either flourish, be benign or die out - that all depends on the environment it is brought into. The same mutation may be successful in a jungle but die out in a cold area. So the outcome/future of a mutation is not predetermined.

 

[FearGod]

Predetermined means the outcome can be predicted.
Accidental means by chance, a fluke, lucky (or unlucky)

Evolution is neither of those. When genes replicate there are invariably minor changes or mutations - you are not the same as your parents, you will be similar but different, if you go back (say) 10 generations the changes add up and the resemblance may not be noticeable. So, it is not by chance that genes have mutations, they happen all the time.
Then when the change has happened it will either flourish, be benign or die out - that all depends on the environment it is brought into. The same mutation may be successful in a jungle but die out in a cold area. So the outcome/future of a mutation is not predetermined.

The matter isn't about evolution but the whole thing, the earth being a habitable planet, the born
of first living cells and being able to mutate and evolve to a more complex ones.

It isn't as simple as you think of it .

 

[Altfish]

The matter isn't about evolution but the whole thing, the earth being a habitable planet, the born
of first living cells and being able to mutate and evolve to a more complex ones.

It isn't as simple as you think of it .

I never said it was simple. But it has had billions of years to mutate, evolve and get it right (or wrong)

A simple analogy of how evolution works is given here..

Suppose you have 6 dice and to win you have to roll 6 sixes.

Now the chances of doing it on the first roll are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/46656 or about 0.00002 – i.e. highly unlikely.
If you have to then roll all 6 dice again, the odds remain the same.

But if, like evolution, every time you roll, you can keep any 6 you throw, the odds drop considerably. In fact the first time you throw it is likely that you will throw at least one 6.

Then you are only throwing 5 dice and already the odds have tumbled to 1/7776; again throwing 5 dice you will soon throw another 6, which is again kept, the odds with four dice are 1/1296… and so on.

This is not chance this is selection.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You mean how and not now, accidents do happen.

Nope, try again.

 

[Subduction Zone]

The matter isn't about evolution but the whole thing, the earth being a habitable planet, the born
of first living cells and being able to mutate and evolve to a more complex ones.

It isn't as simple as you think of it .

no one said that it was simple.

 

[FearGod]

I never said it was simple. But it has had billions of years to mutate, evolve and get it right (or wrong)

A simple analogy of how evolution works is given here..

Suppose you have 6 dice and to win you have to roll 6 sixes.

Now the chances of doing it on the first roll are 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6 = 1/46656 or about 0.00002 – i.e. highly unlikely.
If you have to then roll all 6 dice again, the odds remain the same.

But if, like evolution, every time you roll, you can keep any 6 you throw, the odds drop considerably. In fact the first time you throw it is likely that you will throw at least one 6.

Then you are only throwing 5 dice and already the odds have tumbled to 1/7776; again throwing 5 dice you will soon throw another 6, which is again kept, the odds with four dice are 1/1296… and so on.

This is not chance this is selection.

Throwing the dice isn't selection, you have to see the whole picture but you're only focusing
on selection and nothing else.

 

[HonestJoe]

Please explain why you think earth and life was predetermined

Those are at least two separate questions, especially since you didn’t specify life on earth and are more complex that a simple binary anyway.

Regardless, I gave the only honest answer available of “I don’t know” though my instinct is that everything (within the universe at least) is predetermined on the basis that it follows a set of physical rules. If you hold a ball in the air and let go, it’s always going to fall to the ground. The fundamental problem with this kind of question is that we’re entirely within the system we’re studying.

 

[Altfish]

Throwing the dice isn't selection, you have to see the whole picture but you're only focusing
on selection and nothing else.

I give up

 

[ObjectOfMercy]

All things are predetermined by God. All things were made by Christ and for Christ. The objects of His mercy were prepared beforehand for glory. -Romans 9:23

This is a great comfort to genuine believers in Christ, that He rules over all and has complete control at all times over all the evil in the world as well as the good.

 

[exchemist]

Not random and not accidental then that means it was predetermined, otherwise explain your point
how it wasn't accidental and it wasn't predetermined as well?

No it doesn't.

Look, those of us who have studied science understand that nature seems to work through a mixture of randomness or chance and compliance with fundamental order (what people sometimes call the "laws" of nature). The order, or laws, effectively restricts - "guides", if you like - the statistical distribution of outcomes. This is what Subduction Zone is getting at by referring to populations of organisms, for example, as opposed to looking at individuals. But one can equally well think of the kinetic theory of matter, e.g. how the pressure and temperature of a gas are the result of the collisions and kinetic energy of individual molecules, in random thermal motion. The randomness is constrained to follow the "laws" of physics, from which bulk behaviour emerges and from which further "laws" of science, e.g. of chemistry, and hence of biology, are ultimately derived.

It is thus a false antithesis to insist that either everything is predetermined or it is just "by accident". It is both at once. This is why people are struggling with the procrustean choice you are offering in this thread.

 

[exchemist]

Throwing the dice isn't selection, you have to see the whole picture but you're only focusing
on selection and nothing else.

You need both. That's the point. Evolution is merely the natural counterpart to what plant and animal breeders have done for millennia. You have a natural variation in a population and then someone, or something in the environment, preferentially selects certain characteristics so that organisms with it breed more successfully. Roses and cattle have been bred this way. The source of the initial variation may be chance, but the overall process quite obviously is not.

 

[exchemist]

The matter isn't about evolution but the whole thing, the earth being a habitable planet, the born
of first living cells and being able to mutate and evolve to a more complex ones.

It isn't as simple as you think of it .

All these things are a mixture of random events and the operation of apparently immutable laws. There appears to be a fundamental order in nature. It is that which causes individual random events to build up into ordered patterns in nature.

 

[FearGod]

No it doesn't.

Look, those of us who have studied science understand that nature seems to work through a mixture of randomness or chance and compliance with fundamental order (what people sometimes call the "laws" of nature). The order, or laws, effectively restricts - "guides", if you like - the statistical distribution of outcomes. This is what Subduction Zone is getting at by referring to populations of organisms, for example, as opposed to looking at individuals. But one can equally well think of the kinetic theory of matter, e.g. how the pressure and temperature of a gas are the result of the collisions and kinetic energy of individual molecules, in random thermal motion. The randomness is constrained to follow the "laws" of physics, from which bulk behaviour emerges and from which further "laws" of science, e.g. of chemistry, and hence of biology, are ultimately derived.

It is thus a false antithesis to insist that either everything is predetermined or it is just "by accident". It is both at once. This is why people are struggling with the procrustean choice you are offering in this thread.

Are you saying that randomness are directed and guided by the laws of nature? and that made
earth a habitable planet and for first cells of life to exist and to mutate to a more complex ones.

 

[sayak83]

The matter isn't about evolution but the whole thing, the earth being a habitable planet, the born
of first living cells and being able to mutate and evolve to a more complex ones.

It isn't as simple as you think of it .

There are trillions of planets in this galaxy alone. It is inevitable that several of them will have the conditions that allow the formation of life from organic reactions. Earth happens to be one such planet. If earth did not have life, some other planet would have.

 

[exchemist]

Are you saying that randomness are directed and guided by the laws of nature? and that made
earth a habitable planet and for first cells of life to exist and to mutate to a more complex ones.

Yes, more or less.

If you want to look for the hand of God in nature (which I suspect you do) , then the place to seek it is in the order imposed - on what would otherwise be chaos - by what we call the laws of nature.

The resulting structures emerge quite naturally, as the result of random individual interactions constrained in accordance with these laws. This applies equally to the solar system, to the structure of a crystal, or to life.

Incidentally, Einstein seems to have become a sort of pantheist in the end, effectively saying that the laws of nature are really what we mean when we speak of "God". I don't necessarily subscribe to this myself, but one can see what he was getting at.

 

[sayak83]

Are you saying that randomness are directed and guided by the laws of nature? and that made
earth a habitable planet and for first cells of life to exist and to mutate to a more complex ones.

Randomness is part of the laws of nature itself. Laws of nature are partially random and partially deterministic.

 

[FearGod]

There are trillions of planets in this galaxy alone. It is inevitable that several of them will have the conditions that allow the formation of life from organic reactions. Earth happens to be one such planet. If earth did not have life, some other planet would have.

You believe from trillions of chances some will get it right for life to exist and to evolve.