Edtharan

Based on this first paragraph, I would worship. If such an entity was real, then I would admit it was real. For me, reality trumps everything. Hmm, well to worship an immoral God would be Hell for me (so they would be logically identical in that respect). So, I'd be damned (litterally) on either choice, so I would vote with my morals and reject an immoral God.

First you say that when it comes to moral choices religions are in agreement, but the very next sentence you say that religions can have different moral standards. Do they agree or can they diagree? Because, if religions can disagree on moral standards, then morality is not absolute, not even when dictated by religion. In fact, there are many examples between high profile religions that very strongly disagree about what is moral or not. If not even religions can agree on what is moral, then this proves that morlaity can not be absolute, as each of the people in the religions accepts their morality and each is different.

Although I apreciate that you have strong oppinions, I disagree with them. First of all this is a science forum. This means that the topic here is science and what science has discovered. Not religion. Just as I would expect to be "attacked" if I walked into achurch and started attacking them for their beliefs, one should not expect to be able to enter a place that focuses on science and start attacking it and not have them strike back. Secondly, this site is about debate. That is the purpose her is to debate what people post here. If I posted a message saying that Relativity is true, I would expect it to be debated and have my posts and knowledge questioned. So to come in here and post a complaint that people who post about repligion and anti science, and then have those posts debated are some how being done a disservice is to completely and utterly miss the point of this site. Science is about disagreement and debate. That is how it works and also why it is so successful (everything you see around you is the product of our scientific knowledge). Without the success of science you would not even have the ability to post on this site about your oppinions. With science, there is a built in "Reality Check" that goes on through the requierment to prove (or more correct - disprove) an explaination of a claim. The first thing is that one has to prove that the phenomina under examination exists. It is pointless to try and come up with an explaination for something, if that thing does not actually exist. As an example: If I tried to come up with an explaination of why leprechauns wear green. It would be pointless becauase leprechauns don't actually exist, and so can't wear green. The other part of science is about disproving a particular explaination. The reason for this is that if something is not correct, or we have something that is more correct, then we should use that instead of using what is false. As an example, take "Cold Fusion". Some researchers came up with what they thought was a valid theory and experiment that proved cold fusion was real and how we could harness it. However, this became subject to the scientific process, and it turned out that these researchers had got it wrong. If we had proceeded on the assumption that just because these were people in authority and they knew more than we did about such things and attempted to build comercial cold fusion reactors to power the world, then we could have lost billions, if not trillions of dollars on something that just didn't do anything. It was because science requiered them to first prove the phenomina they were claiming exists, and then this proof was subject to disproof that we avoided loosing a massive amount of money and resources on something that didn't work. However, on the flip side of this is that if a phenomina can be shown to exist, and the explaination is correct, then it gives us the ability to exploit the phenomina for our advantage. As an example of this is electricity. It was shown that the phenomina of electricity exists, and the theories of what it is and how it works has allowed us to use in in devices from electric ovens, lights, electric motors, music to computer and many many more. If we didn't have the theory of electricity, none of these things could have been made. The problem with creationists is that the calims they are making have not been proved to exist, and there are phenomina that exists that actually disprove their claims. So, look at it from what I was explaining above. First one has to prove that the phenomina exists. The creationists have faild to do this. Second the claims have to stand up to disproof. Creationsists have failed this too, as there is direxct evidence against their claims. I will direct you to something called a "Straw Man Argument" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawman_argument ). What this is is an argument, either intentionally or unintentionally, mis representes the position of people you are argueing against and then directing your arguments against that misrepresentation rather than addressing the actual position of the people you are debating. As such, evolution does not claim that we will grow 7 fingers in 1,000,000 years. As such the attempt to support your argument by stateing this is therefore a strawman argument. It also does not claim that we will evolve to fly either, and so that too is a strawman argument. As you said: "stop acting foolish and start living in truth". A Strawman argument is foolish and is not the truth. So by making that statement you have does exactly what you are wanting us not to do. This is hypocritical and is not a good argument. Not only that, it weakens any valid argument that might be put forward by someone (including you) that is arguing for your position. It indicates that you don't take your position seriously and you are not "following what you preach". So why should we do what you say, if even you don't do it? Why you exempt from the behaviour you are saying is right? So are you for freedom of speech? Should someone be allowed to express their oppinion? If so, why can't other people express their oppinion? If someone have evidence against your oppinion, are they allowed to state that? And, can someone come into a church and express their oppinion for all to hear that is counter to what the church claims, especially if they have evidence to support their counter claims? If you answered yes to any of these, then you can't come here and tell us to "just keep your mouth shut". You could come here and make claims to support creationism. You could come here and state how it annoys you that people don't believe things you believe, but you can't tell them to "shut up" just because you disagree with them. Actually, God does force people to believe in Him because it states in the bible that the Heathen (those that don't believe in Him) will be tortured for eternity in Hell. This is a bit like saying you don't have to give a mugger your wallet, you could just let them stab you with a knife instead (but then they would just take it as you lie bleeding in the gutter). To "force someone" is to use violence or threat of violence to get them to do what you want. Torture is violence. As God will tourture someone for not believing in Him (He sends them to Hell), then that is, by definition, forcing someone to believe in Him. So claiming that God would never force someone to believe in Him might be a nice sentiment, it is clearly false as the bible gives direct evidence against it, and I guess that you are not going to say that the bible is wrong as it is supposed to be a work of God (and God is supposed to be perfect so would not have made a mistake in the bible). Lastly, justbecause you don't want to accept something does not mean it is not true. For example, if I was about to be hit by a train, I would not want to believe that it is going to hit me, because if it is not ture, then I will live. However, if a train is really going to hit me, then no matter what I believe, that train is going to hit me. Also, just because I want to beleive something is real does not make it real. I might wnat to believe that you owe me a million dollars, but does that mean that you reallly owe me a million dollars? No. of course not. To put it simply: "Reality trumps everything". Now, you might not want to believe that Evolution is real, but that does not make it false. You might also want to believe that evolution is ant-religious. Actually evolution has absolutly nothing to say either for or against religion. In other words, even if evolution is 100% true, then it makes no impact as to whether God is real or not. This means that the objection from religion to evolution is either a misunderstanding about evolution, or is a lie perpetrated by people who have an agender to suvert your religious beliefs away from what you believe. As the God of the bible is supposed to be omnipotent, then it is perfectly possible for Him to use evolution. The fact that you are using a religious position as a counter argument against evolution (ie: evolution is not real because I want to believe differently), then this means that either you don't actually understand evolution (and your objection is based on a lie/strawman) or those people who are attempting to subvert your beliefs have succeeded. If yourt objection to it is through a misunderstanding, then telling people who try to correct this mistake to "shut up" is the worst thing you could do. If you have been subject to the subversion of those that want to corrupt you, then the worst thing you can do is to tell the people who are trying to help you defeat these people to "shut up". It is only by listening to people, even if you ultimately disagree with them, and trying to learn will you ever be able to gain any knowledge of the truth. As you seem to want us to gain knowledge of the truth, and we seem to be doing the only thing that will gaurntee that, and you are doing the best possible thing to avoid it, then who do you think is more likely to learn the truth: Someone who refuses to learn anything new and tells everyone else to "shut up", or those that constantly seek to learn and to test what they think they know as truth. Science is about testing what we think is true to see if it really is true (hence the need to prove the phenomnia exists and for an explaination to be subject to disproof). Where as the attitdue of: "It is not what I bleieve so just shut up", is not going to let you learn anything. Sure, accepting that you might be wrong is a very uncomfortable thing to accept. Nobody likes to think that they have fallen ofr someone lie. But, if you have been duped, then it is more important to learn of it and correct the mistake than pretending that, even though you are wrong, you are right. Now, in this response, I am not trying to say that one side or the other is right or wrong. What I am trying to say is that the important thing is to considder other people's oppinions and to constantly test your oppinions against reality to make sure that you have not made a mistake (as to err is human) or that you have not been tricked by someone else. Think of all the people who get tricked by scammer and con artists every day. If these people had just checked what they want to believe against reality, then they would not have been fooled by them. The scammers and con artists could not exist if everyone did this. This shows that people tend not to check things and easily accept what they want to believe. This is why it is vitally important for us to take on a scientific way of thinking, it means we will be able to prevent crime and reduce suffering of the vicims from those crimes. Is that not a good thing to do? Oh, and if you want a religious reason to think scientifically: If you believe that God gave us our intelligence, then in the bible it is a sin to refuse to use a gift God gives you. So not using your intelligence is a rejection of the gift God gave you. But, using your intelligence is accepting the gift God gave you. Also, the reason God gave such a gift could be seen as obvious. God is supposed to speak only truth, where as the devil will use lies, the only way to detect a lie is to see if it claims something that is counter to reality. Thus, the only way to prevent the devil from corrupting us is to question everything, even that which we would like to believve is true and including what we think is true. In other words, to think scientifically.

Have a read of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Infanticide_throughout_history_and_pre-history And this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide#Explanations_for_the_practice In thae last link, it gives reasons where the family is unable to support the new child and thus it is better that a single child die than a whole family. In this case it is ethical because the death of one outways the death of many. Another common reason that killing babies could be ethical is for population control. In a society without contraceptions and very little understanding of how and why women become pregnant, there are going to be many more children born than the environment could sustain. The only recourse, other than the society going extinct, is to kill babies that would push the population over the limit that the environment could support. This could occur in times of natural disaster (like drought, crop failure, locust plagues, etc). So, in these circumstances it is better than a few die than many. This means there are valid, ethical and moral reasons to kill babies. There is the evidence you asked for that supports that killign babies is OK. Of course, it doesn't mean that in every circumstance it is OK, but that there exists situations where doing so is acceptable. This proves that morality is not absolute.

The word paradox means a situation where there is a logical incosistancy. The twins "paradox" is not a true paradox. It is only a paradox if you use Newtonian physics rather than Relativity. In Newtonian Physics (and this is also how most people think of the world), Time is an absolute and universal property of the universe. that is Time is the same regardless of how you move or where you are or the state of gravity around you. This is untrue, time depends on how you are moving and where you are (and the gravity around you). This is not an abstract thing that scientists make up to make the maths work but it is a real, measurable phenomina. Using highly accurate atomic clocks, they have performed two experiments (actually tthese experiments have been done more than once each, it is just that there are two types of them). the first was that they put an atomic clock on an aircraft and another at the airfield where the plane was to take off. They then flew the plane around for a while and landed it again. After this they compared the two atomic clocks against each other and the atomic clocks read a different time (minute fractions of a second, but a large enough difference to be easily detectable by these extremely accurate clocks). This shows that as you move around, Time moves at a different rate. The other experiment they did is to place an atomic clock at the base of a mountain and another at the top of a tower on top of the mountain. They left them there for a while and then brought them together. they found, as predicted by relativity, that the atomic clock at the top of the tower ran at a faster rate than the one at the bottom of the mountain. As gravity is very slighyl stronger at the bast of the mountain (closer to the Earth) than at the top (futehr away from the Earth), gravity slowed Time down. These experiments prove that time is not an absolute or universal property of the universe, but can be varied from place to place and how someone is moving. These are not abstract mathematical adjustments to formulas to getthem to equal out, but are real, measureable phenomina that need to be explained, and relativity explains what is goping on. Basically, Space and Time are actually interchangeable and can be warped and bent depending on motion or gravity. As one nears a gravitating object, the gravity causes space and time to "rotate", and the way it does this is to rotate time into space and space into time (it is not exactly how it works, but it is close enough to give us an understanding of what is going on for non-scientists). This is also the same for acceleration as acceleration acts like gravity. Now, you can apply this to solve a few problems. In the first experiment as the plane was flying around, it was accelerating. This caused time and space to be bent into one another. As Time is bent into space, the plane was travelling slower along time as part of its motion in time becomes motion in space. With the Twins "paradox", as the first twin accelerates away from the second, they bend space and time a bit so that their motion in time becomes a bit of motion in space, this means that they are travelling slower through time and thus age slower. However the twin that stays at home (the second twin) is moving normally thorugh time and this means they will age faster than the first twin. Under the assumption that Time is universal, such an effect is not logically possible, but under Relativity, where time is not universal, there is no paradox as it is completely logical as to the effect. So the twins Paradox is only a paradox under Newtonian physics and not relativety, and that is why it is called a parado because at the time it was proposed, they were tryiing to work out if Newtonian Physics or Relativity was more true, and it was designed to show the paradox of Newtonian physics and show that Relativity was correct.

The question on the existance of evolution was not about biological evolution. I will agree that there is no "certain, irrevocable proof" of biological evolution and that ther eis not mathematical proof of biological evolution, but as the question on evolution was not specific to biological evolution, then the test is false. There is proof of evolution as a process (specifically as an algorithm). This is evolution, even if it is non biological evolution. If the test specified biological evolution, then I would agree with you and I would ahve had to admit an incosistancy (but I would have answered differently on the evolution question if that was the case and then it would not have been inconsistant).

Although science can study morality, morality itself is not a science. The way I define morality is: A set of rules that allow entities to form a society. Science can look at how the rules work (game theory), how they came about (evolution), potential variations (sociology) and how an organism fits into that scociety (psychology and behavoural sciences). As science is about studying things, then Morality, as it is not a study can not be a science. But, because it can be studdied, it can be the subject of science.

It shows that there are general solutions to challenges faced in survival. This is important. Yes, any feature is a trait. But, what is important is that such traits can then be examined to see if they provide an advantage, disadvantage (or neither) and how they develop. It is by looking at what is measureable and defineing what is meant in certain contexts that the word "trait" becomes important. Basically, yes, it is jargon and means very little to those who don't know the jagon, but it is still a very important word. Take, for example, the jargon (from my own skill set): "Case". Now, most people will have some sense of what this word means. But, in the context of programming, it has a very specific meaning, and, more so, in the context of a specific programming language it will havea slightly different meaning than in another programming language. In the everyday language, this word can mean: a specific example or even a box like object to hold things. But, in the context of the programming language of C++, it means: a branching statement that examines multiple options and chooses which first means the criteria. As you can see, that seems like a very different definition of the word "Case" than common language would suggest and is pretty meaningless to anyone who doesn't know the subject of programming. Such as it is with any jargon. Thus the use of the word "Trait" in biology, might seem to be meaningless, but it has a very specific useage and it also depends on the context and knowledge of the subject before it makes sense. The purpose of the word "Trait" is to allow biologists to know what each other is talking about. If one biologists uses the trait of eye colour, then the other biologists know that they are talking about no only the colour of the eye, but the genes that define eye colour and the developmental pathways and chemical reactions needed to produce it. So as you can see, the word "Trait" is actually very important as it allows scientists to better understand what each other is talking about, however, to someone who is not a biologists, and does not understand why they need a word for that particular use, then it does seem like a meaningless word And this is exactly why the word needs to exist. By allowing biologists to understand that they are discussing something the organism has and that there is a variation between the organisms and it is this variation that is the topic of the discussion. So by identifying that it is the trait of eye colour rather than the trait of social bigorty that caused the disadvantage they have made it clear to the other what is being discussed. Remember, the word "Trait" does not convey anyhting about advantage or disadvantage (or if it is neutral). So by pointing out that a trait can be advantagious or disadvantagious is meaningless. It is like pointing out that a particual car can come in Red or White colours. It makes no difference to the make and model of the car. Bu the fact is, you can still make a distinction between them or you would say that they were identical. The fact that there is a "measurable difference" between them means that it can not be indecernable. In each of the above examples you gave, there are definitly differences so this means that they are not indecernable as you argued (thus you contradict yourself). Not only that, each of these examples would have different developmental pathways and DNA structures governeing their behaviours. In that respect, looking at them as different Traits is exactly what is they correct thing to do. Not only that, you had to use the term "Trait" to describe these differences. can't you see, you are having to use the term "Trait" just to construct your argument that the word trait is unnecesary. In otherwords, before you can even begin to argue against it, you have had to accept that it is true. It is therefore logically impossible for you to argue your point because if you prove argument is true, then you have just falseified your own argument. Only if you use the general terms in place of the specific term, but then that applies to any technical term (and almost any word too). Have a read of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation Ok, have a go at this example: What is the meaning of this word: Live Well for one it can actually be 2 different words. Live as in to Live, or Live as in a live wire. It is only through the context that the word is in can you give a definite menaing for that word. Also, each of those words has several meanings, so even if you were to know the pronunciation of the word (and so know what the word was), there is still a lot that is needed that can only be got from the context that the word is found in. And this is why you are having a problem with the word "Trait" as the meaning of the word in the context of biology is different to the meaning of the word in general speech. You keep confusing the two and thus you end up with something that seems to be meaningless. Ok, here you begin you mistake that you repeat for the rest of your post. First of all: "Reproductive Success" is not the same as "Number of Offspring". I said that it wasn't in my first post, but you seem to have either missed it or "conveniently" left it out. Reproductive success is about whoes offspring survive to breed. Yes, this can be done with large numbers, or it can be done by having a few offspring but you assist them in surviving to breed (and many other strategies too). It is your mistake to assume that it is only about the number of offspring you have. SO it is alright for you to use hypothetical examples and thought experiments, but not for anyone else. As you posted above: "Let me make up a story." This is being obviously hypocritical don;t you think. A Niche is something that an organism can exploit to avoid competing with other organisms. There are many variations of environmental factors, and one of them is the organisms in it. So a nech can be created by organims, or it can exist indipendent of the organisms. However, if an organisms can't exploit it then it doesn't get defined as such. And I just know you are going to try and say that it makes it a meaningless defintion, but then this would be your mistake. The reason is that it does create a distinction between two (or more) situations: That an organism can/does exploit a particular variation, or that it can't/doesn't exploit it. Sure, there are many complexities, but we can know that the change would solve a proble the organism faced and that without other complications that might occur it will have an advantage. So what, there a degree of uncertanty in the change, it might cause an unforseen complecation. But remember this is a "might" and it is not a certanty. It might have some other effect that give the organism a massive and unforseen advantage too, but that would not have fit with what you want to believe would it so you didn't let that enter as a possiblilty. ALso, it might not have any other effect at all and work exactly as anticipated. See, there are other options you are ignoreing here. But, the important thing is that the problem that existed (thus had a certainty) is solved. Humans have only just begun to understand the complexities of genetics and ecologies. So yes, due to our imperfect knowledge we will have unforseen complications. But not all of the change we make will have unforseen complications, and as we learn of these unforseen complications they will no longer be unforseen. If we had full knowledge of genetics, biological chemistry and ecology, then we wouldn't need to make these experiments, however, as humans have only just begun to learn how all these work, we do need to perform experiments. Part of the problem is to do with interactions. Are you familiar with: The traveling salesman problem (see this if you aren't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelling_salesman_problem ) This problem has to do with combinations too. With the traveling saleman problem the number of ways he can travel between the cities is dependent on the combinations of cities. With just 3 cities there are just 6 different ways to combine the cities into a path for the salesman to travel. However, this increase massivly as the number of cities increases. With 4 cities there are 24 posible paths (that is just with 1 more city). With 10 cities there are 3,628,800 possible paths. With 20 cities there are 2,432,902,008,176,640,000 paths. Now, in the Human genome there are around 23,000 protine coding genes. Of course there are not as many combinations between these are there would be if they were cities in the travelling saleman problem, but we don't know what combinations there are until we examine them, so we have to proceed as if it were equivelent to the traveling saleman problem untill we learn differently. Now, lets look at the time to solve these kinds of problems: If, with the traveling salesman problem, we could check 1 every second (very slow I know), for 10 cities, it would take around 42 days to solve. For 20 cities it would take around 77,146,816,596 years. That is longer than the universe has been around! Think of the time it would take for 23,000 cities. The experiments we do allow us to take shortcuts, they allow us to make a change without knowing the full consiquences of the change, and then seeing what it consiquences it has. It allows us to prune out many potential combinations and thus dramatically reducing the number of things we have to considder when makeing future changes.

No one is going to be able to point to a blob of cells and state: "This is what conciousness is". Conciousness is the one of the results of what our brain does. But what is this specific "thing" that is does that is conciousness? Well, before we can answer that, we need to know what conciousness is. however, it is so illdefined and everyone has their own definition, that until we sort that mess out we can't really proceed with actually looking for the process of conciousness in our brains. The reason this is a problem is that one group of people will come up with a definition of conciousness and then might find it, but then another group will have a different definition, and then when they see the explaination the first group has, they will reject it because it doesn't fit their definition. About the closest I have come to a consensus of conciousness is, is: It is the awareness of being self aware. But as you can see, that is a pretty poor definition and so nonspecific that it is almost meaningless. And, that is the reason it is the closest to getting a consensus, it is so vague that it fits almost any definition of conciousness (but I am predictig that there will be a few on here that will have a different oppinion of conciousness and will reject it not for being vague, but because it doesn't fit their definition). So, the main problem with cosiousness is not that we can't find it, but that we can't define it. Once we can define it, we will be abel to actually look for it.

Well, more than 4 examples were given, but I will work with these as since you have brought them up, you musat feel that they are in some way the best representations of your arguments. This example was given to point out to you what a "System" is. What Skeptic was attempting to show (and you seem to have missed) is that the fridge, althoguh it has inputs and outputs, is a system within the larger system of the universe. It is what is called a Local System. That is because the inputs and outputs might not be explicitly stated (or completely known), it does have the property of its components being distinctly identifyable and measureable. By studdying a local system we can see how it operates and functions and learn the principals by which it works. This is the cornerstone of science (being able to do this), and what is remarkable is that it works. As the quote goes: The most incomprehencable thing about the universe is that it is conprehensable. This is what is ment by that quote, we don't need to know everything about the universe to understand a part of the universe. In other words, we can stdy local systems and learn from them. What Skeptic was showing is that even though the entropy in the local system (ie: the fridge) goes down, the global entropy still goes up (and goes up more than the fridge system's entropy goes down). This is extremely important to understand. That we can look at a local system and see that it seems to violate entropy, but then when we look at the total system no violation actually takes place. Think of it a bit like money. You might have several bank accounts, and move your money between them, but when you do this, you don't magically create more money (although you might loose some to bank fees). It might look like you create more money if all you do is foccus on the ballance of a single account when you transfer money to it, but the total amount of money you have does not go up just by transferring it between your accounts. In this analogy, each back account is a local system, but the total amount of money you have is the global system. So by this you can see that we can have local systems that decrease entropy (or local bank balances that go up) but that this does not change anyhting about the total entropy (or the total amount of money you have in your accounts). This is what Skeptic was trying to explain to you with that example. Yes, I did state that when I used it as an example. I stated that the total entropy of the global system will increase (or at best remain the same - but far more likely to increase). However where I think your problem is, is your confusion between local systems and global systems (as your responses to Skeptic's posts on the fridge demonstrates). As the crystal is a local system, and the material the crystal is in is a global system, there is no problem with entropy is the crystal's local system decreases in entropy, so long as the global system increases entropy to compensate. As to your question about which is closer to abiogenisis, this is probably the closest as the way that the lipids and neucleotide chains and pair bonding are more similar to how a crystal forms. This example was intended to show that through purely mechanical means it is possible to get order out of disorder (although at the cost of entropy). The waves contain energy, and it is this energy that is used to sort the stones on the beach. however, the energy of these waves is diapated in a highly disorganised way, thus increaseing the entropy of the global system. See again it is your confusion between local and global systems that has made you think this example had something wrong with it. Sure, if we were treating the local system as a global one, or treating the global system as a local one (as you seem to have done with them) then it would appear that entropy is violated and the example was invalid. However, if you recognise that local systems can be studdied as local systems, and that we don't need to know everything about the entier universe to know anything about a part of it, then the example becomes valid as it is clearly an example of a local system. And, as I have explained (many times now), local systems can experience a reduction of entropy as long as there is an increase in entropy of the global system. Yes, even with growth there is a net increase in global entropy. This has never been denied by me (and in fact I have explicitly stated this several times in these discussions). What I have said is that with growth it represents a local decrease in entropy. that is the growing organism causes a decrease in local entropy as it grows. To grow requiers that there is a reduction of entropy, as a living organism is an extremely ordered system, and it gets the raw materials to grow from its environment and these materials are in an extremly disordered state. This means that any growth must reduce the local entropy of the raw materials in order to incorporate them into itself. However, this comes at the cost of global entropy, which must increase. In this respect, all of these above examples are like evolution in that evolution does not reduce entropy without cost. Evolution decreases the LOCAL entropy but at the cost of increaseing the TOTAL GLOBAL entropy. This is where your arguments fail. You keep insisting the local reduction of entropy caused by evolution must be treated as a global reduction in entropy. We have repeatedly tried to explain this to you, and now that it has (again) been explicitly stated, if you try to use the argument that evolution decreases entropy and thus can not occur again, the only reason can be that you are trolling. Yes, evolution does decrease entropy but only on a local scale and at the cost of increaseing entropy on the global scale. I will also say that growth is the most like evolution (but not totally identical - so just using the example growth as an argument against evolution is not a valid argument). What evolution does is a ratchet (you might be familar with the concept, especially as used in some tools like spanners and screwdrivers). A ratchet allows the handel to move one way, but not the other. If you randomly jiggle the handel of a ratchetted tool, then you will, dispite the jiggleing being random, get movement in a particular direction as determined by the ratchet. In evolution, selection, acts as a ratchet. As only the most fit (that is the ones that have the greatest reproductive success) breed the most, then the ones that are less fit (the ones with less reproductive success) will breed less. This will mean that more of the population will comprise of the more successfull breeders than the less successful breeders, then due to the geometric growth these successful breeders will dominate the popualtion, and with a finite population limit will cause the less successful breeders to become extinct (and if you want to know where one of the places that information entropy increases it is in the loss of the genetic material of the ones that go extinct). This way you can get more information and a reduction of information entropy, but at the much greater cost of the loss of the information in the genes of the organisms that die and go extinct. This answers your questions about how evolution can decrease the local entropy and increase the local information of an organism. These were the main questions you had. They have now been answered (and was answered a long time ago in this discussion). You had a problem with evolution and that was you could not see how information could be created (as we have shown processes can increase information at the cost of thermal/energy entropy), and that you could not see how the entropy could decrease as entropy was only supposed to increase (it is because the global entropy increases you can get a local decrease in entropy). Actually there is one objection you still seemed to have, but as these objections are just parts of that bigger objection (it is just that you have to join the parts together to properly answer this other objection). As DNA describe the way an organism grows (and you agree with that), and we have now shown how the information contained in the DNA can increase at the cost of global entropy increase, then to answer the collective objection you have: Because DNA describes the development of the organism and the information can indeed increase, then this allows all the variation of all the organisms because the variation is just the variation of the organism's DNA, and that can change. If you change the DNA, you change the organism. Evolution is the process by which the DNA is changed in a way to make sure the orgnaisms adapt (mutation is the process by which the DNA is changed, but this ghange is random and represents another way for inforamtion entropy to increase with the occasional and much smaller increase). All your question you keep raising have been answered a long time ago int his discussion. The fact that you keep repeating these questions means that you either don't understand them or you are just a troll. I have given you the benifit of the doubt and gone with the assumption that you just don't understand. As you seem to be quite inteligent I have not tried to dumb down my answers too much, but as your repeated lack of understanding continues, I have had to make it simpler and simpler. But the fact is, all your questions have been repeatedly answered. If you still don't understand the answers, then that is fine. However, don't use your lack of understanding as a counter argument against what we have been trying to explain to you. Reality does not care if you understand it or not. It is still reality even if you are incapable of understanding it. Knowing this, when you respond, please respond to what you don't understand and not use that lack of understanding as your counter argument.

I disagree with the conclusions in one of the questions. In it I said that evolutionary theory was true, but then later I said that one needed irrocoverabel proof that God exists. the thing is, evolutionary theory has a mathematical proof of ist existance, and thus satisfies my "irrocoverable proof" need, however, the person who wrote that did not know about how evolutionary theory has a mathematical proof, thus it gave me a hit. In other words, the test is not correct because it treats evolution as only having inductive reasoning for it and not the mathematical proof (which the auther must not have heard of). btw: The proof of evolution comes from algorithmic theory and computing - which is still maths. So the result I would get from the test does not actually demonstrate any contradictions I hold. It thought I had a contradiction, when I don't actually have one.

If you read what I wrote, then "advantage" is defined as being able to make more copies than others do. This is not limited to a single generation as it is about how many offspring the initial replicator's offspring have (as a replicator that replicates prolifically, but its offspring are non replicators will rapidly go extinct). What aspects of a replicator are advantagious are not random or arbitary, so looking at these aspects and seeing if they provide an "advantage" to replication is not worthless. If such things were arbitary and only determinable in "hindsight" then there would never be a case of convergent evolution. As convergent evolution (that are traits that appear in vastly different species that don't share an evolutionary history of that trait - eg: flight in birds and flight in bats) does exist and there are thousands of instances of it, then this alone disproves your argument here. Not at all. A trait is some quantifiable difference between organisms. If there were no differences between organisms, then all organisms would be identical. The fact that we can see differences between organisms means that the definition of "trait" is actually quite clear. A trait doesn't have to be good or even bad, they can be entirely neurtal as well having no impact, but if there is a difference we can call that difference a trait. As an example, haivng blue eyes or brown eyes does not seem to convey any significant advantage or disadvantage, but it is a difference, so we call having blue eyes or brown eyes a "Trait". Having the ability to produce Vitamin C as part of the normal biological processes that go on in an organism is a trait, so is not having this ability (when compaired to having the ability to do so). Also a trait would be that an organism could break down cellulose by the aplication of a particular chemical secreted by them (or not having it). So traits can be as big as large body changes, or as small as a variation on a chemical, but what they all have in common is that they present a difference between organisms. You are just looking at a single word out of context and then finding that you can't make sense of it. This pretty much works for every single word in any language that exists, has existed or will exist. So you can't actually form an argument like that (it is actually an extreme form of "Quoting out of Context" logical fallacy). What you have to understand, to actually be able to understand what is being discussed, is the context of a word as it is used. This is fundamental to any understanding of any language. So, if you look at what I wrote and the context in which I wrote it, the meaning of "Improvment" is quite clear: It an increase in the reporoductive success of an replicator (organism in this case). If a sexually reproducing species has a reproductive sucess of exactly 2 for each reproductive pair, then the population will remain stable. If this is even 0.00001% less than 2 (or even lower), then the population will decrease (and if the success does not rise, then the species will go extinct). However, if the reproductive success is any larger than 2 (no matter how small), then the population will experience geometric increase and if the success rate does not diminish, then in a short amount of time it will dominate. So any change that increases the rate of reproductive success is an "Improvement". I defined it as such in the context, so your question about its meaning means that oyu were not actually reading what I was saying. There is not just one solution to any problem, pluss, there are some limitations that can appear due to reproductive sucess that limits how successful any one species can be. Looking at how there can be more than one solution to a problem, lets take a hypothetical example of being attacked by a lion. How many solution are there to this problem (that you will get out alive). Actually, the number of solutions is extremely vast, and I could not even hope to list them all (its not infinite, but large enough that it would appear to be without some other limiting factor). But for brevity I will list 3: Speed: You could have the speed to outrun the lion Defense: You could have the ability to defend yourself form it (and even here there are many, amny different options: Size, Strength, weapons, etc and all the variations of them there are too). Heard: You could live in a group and thus are less likely to be selected as the victim, and even if you were, a heard can also help defend you where one is too weak, but many working together are strong. So that is just 3 solutions to the problem of being attacked. And, remember, if you are killed by the lion, you probably won't get to reproduce (or reproduce more any way). If you live you can have offspring (or continue to have them). So this gives an "Improvement". The next part of my opening paragraph of this section I mentioned that there are limits of being successful that can allow others to still exist. One that is obvious is the "niche". This where one organims expliots one area and does not compete with other organisms in other areas. As you used bacteria as your example I will use it too: One species of bacteria might digest cellulose (plant matter) as their food source. Where as another bacteria might digest only sulfer compounds. These two bacteria can both happily exist without either of them ever compeating against each other and the incresased success of one does not mean that the other has to have decreased success. Another situation is one of symbiosis, where the success of one species gives an advantage to another species. Take humans for example. If you count the number of individual cells, we have more bacterial cells than human cells. However, if we were to remove many of these bacterial cells, we will end up sick or even dying. Much of our ability to digest food comes not from us, but from the bacteria living within our guts. If you removed them then wwe coudl not digest food and we would starve to death. But, the more successful humans are, the more successful these bacteria are. So any advantage we have gives an advatage to the bacteria living on us. This not only applies to symbiosis, but also to parasites however there is not a mutual gain as is with symbiosis (which is why I used symbiosis as the example). Also, there is diverse or remote environments (this is kind of related to the first situation). If two species would normally compete, but live some distance form each other, then they effectivly don't compete and thus an improvemnt in one does not cause any damage to the other. A good example is Australia. In Australia there are mammals called Marsupials, and they have taken up many niches that typical mammals do in other countries. During the past, these animals were seperated and so did not compete, so an improvment in marsupials did not effect the survivability of mammals (and the other way aroudn too). These are jsut 3 ways that organisms can gain advantages and improvements without it causing any problems for other speices (there are many others too). Not true at all. many of the genetic experiments that are performed are done to give the resulting organisms an advantage. For example, crop speices that can produce insecticide in themselves will give an advatage over the crops that don't produce insecticide. We can know this before we put the genes to produce the insecticide into the plants. So we don't need to know which will get passed on to know which will give their bearers "a greater chance of surviving". If what you are saying was true, then gene terapy would just be a random act and no industry could ever be formed by using it. However there are many, very successful bio-tech industries that exist, and the only way these industries could be repeatedly successful is if we could determine how genes will effect the survivability of organisms before they are passed on. The very existance of this industry proves your argument false. But the survivability is not random or arbitary. If it is "luck" then it is by definition random. If it is "fate", then it is favoured by the Gods by definition. But as it is neither fate, nor luck that determines survivability, then your argument is false. Yes, even with the right genes there is a small amount of randomness to it, but it is not totally random (which is necesary for it to be considdered luck). If we are defining "Fitness" as "the number of its offspring that survive to reproduce", then yes, all we will observe is survivabiltiy - because that is exactly what we are looking for. The only difference between what I am saying and what you are syaing is that you keep insisting on treating it as completely random or completely determinisitic. It is neither and both at the same time (that is it is neither completely random nor completely determinisitc, but it has some random aspects and some deterministic aspects). Because it has both, you seem to want to think the whole must be one or the other. This is actually a logical fallacy (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division ).

Yes, if "They" were really trying to prevent aliens from finding us, then they would have to shut off all broardcast emmissions (radio, TV and the like). To say that they canceled SETI to stop the aliens from discovering us is just so much pure nonsense.

No, we have been trying to correct your misrepresentations and misunderstandings. Evolution is not a directed process, so what you are asking is actuyally counter to our arguments. It is like asking someone to prove that 1 + 1 = 2 by proving it to be 3. We have given examples where a pathway exists that shows 4 or more steps (the flagela, the eye, etc) but as these can only be determined after the fact (ie after they have evolved) you reject them. It is your belief that change in form and function can not be achieved by an undirected process, but must only come from a directed process (design). This is not what evolution states, this is not what we are aruing. We have been trying to show that this assumption that change must be directed is wrong. To that, we have given many many examples where change occurs without direction, but in hind sight appears directed, and if a presupposition that change that appears directed, must be directed, then you could never understand how these changes could occur without direction. Such as stone frost/thaw circles, sorting of pebbles by waves or river curents, etc. These are undirected activities with a random element, but due to deteminisitic processes that act as a selection/sorting process, the random variations are arranged as if to a purpose and by direction. This is our argument, that there exist processes that give the appearence of direction and purpose, but are not infact directed. As there are examples that you agrtee qwith that show this property, then what is your objection to the fact that evolution, which shares these same basic properties (random inputs with deterministic selections of inputs) is also one of these systems. You don't seem to have an objection the the existance of these types of systems, only that evolution (which has the basic properties of these kinds of system) is not one of them, for no other reason than it doesn't fit your beliefs. And yes, it is a belief as you have not provided any evidence that shows that evolution is some how different, only that if you ignore the fact that it has the properties of these systems then your arugments make sense. By ignoring the fact that evolution has the properties of a self organising system can you hold your argument. There have been many examples offered. I have offered several myself. Yes, including genetic algorithms, but as you seem to have forgotten, I have also offered examles of frost/thaw stone circles. In Frost/Thaw stone circles, the placemnt of stones in such a manner by random chance alone is extremel improbable (almost unimaginably improbabl actually), but yet, these things exist in their thousands. The reason is that there is a process going on that creates them. It takes random inputs (and variables one like hot/cold variations) in stone placments and movment and then by a deterministic process (the way the dirt is moved by water freezing in it) it causes an extremely improbable event - the sorting of stones into a circle. Here is a physical only system that, using the same basic functions that evolution uses (random inputs and a determinisitc selection processes) to reduce the entrop of the local environment in such a way as to look designed. This is exactly what you have asked for, but you seem to either have forgoten it or reject it without a valid explaination. Actually I gave a very good example of how low entropy energy can be used to reduce local entropy at the cost of increasing universal entropy. It is called growing. When you grow, the cells in your body use low entropy energy and material to decrease the local entropy of you by repairing damage and even increaseing the number of cells. This is a direct example of what I am talking about. With single celled organims, they do this, they use low entropy energy and material in their environment to make more of themselves and repair any damage they might have taken, but this process is not perfect and errors do creep in. If this process could not be used to decrease entropy then in a short order all livng systems would decay into maximum entropy. However, if you knew any thing about biology, you would know that this is the exact same process that evolution uses to decrease the entropy of its processes (ie: replication). So to deny evolution, you also have to deny that organisms grow and repair themselves. An organism takes in low entropy energy and material from its environment, but due to random processes, variations occur. If these variations are bad, we call them errors and it causes the organism to be less able (or unable) to replicate. If these variations cause an increased replication rate, then they are preserved and through geometrical population growth amplified. Over time, these variations can build up into very large changes and indeed new functions as old functions are either no longer needed, or the new function out performs the old function. Again, this is your misrepresentation/misinterperetation of abiogenisis. The theory of abiogeneisis does not say this. You are getting confused between what you think it says and what it actualyl says. We have tried (repeatedly) to tell you that your understading is wrong, but you refuse to accept that you have an incorrect understanding of evolution and abiogenisis. So, please concentrate here: Your understanding of what abiogeneisi and evolution is, is wrong. Starting form that, it is time you actually learned what they say and leave behind what you think they say. got it. Ok. Now from this: Abiolgenisis is about how chemical systems can first become self organising system, then assisted replicating systems, and then develop into self replicating systems. These are 3 important and different concepts. A self organising system is one where, dispite (and often because) of random inputs, it non the less ends up showing what appears to be a decrease in entropy. However, wehn you look at these systems, you will find that there are either a low entropy input (usualy by energy and matter), or a output of high entropy (or both). Crystals are the most common example of this, so are snowflakes (this has a specific name even - difusion limited aggrigation - and cities are another such example of this). An assisted replicating system uses outside/environmental causes to replicate, but it first must be a self organising system (if it wasn't then the daughter product would not be a true replication - there are many such examples where this is not the case such as with catalysts). Finally a self replicating system is one that is driven by internal processes to replicate. IN this case the raw materials and energy from outside in the environment are used by the replicator to organise matter and energy (and information) to produce more coppies of itslef. It does not have to wait for events outside of it to cause replication. once the raw materials and energy are assembled, then it can use them to repolicate by itself (hence self-replication). As the video I poseted about this explained, with the lipid vesicals, they are a sefl organising system. Lipids will self organise into a bi-layer due to deterministic chemical processes. They will grow by stealing lipids from other vesicles due to ionic pressures. Also, neucleotide monomer will spontainiously self polymerise due to deterministic processes, and more over this polymerisation represents a higher entropy level than neucleotide monomers by themselves (thermal entropy, in this case). Because this is spontainious and it is not directed, these polymers have no information. These neucleotide chains will also pair bone with other neucleo tides and this too is an increase in thermal entropy. However, this pair bonding increases the chances of polymerisation of the attached monomers with the next in the chain as they are forced to remain in close proximity because of the pair bonding. However, these systems are not self replicating as they are. they requier events outside of them to cause replication. In this case it is the actions of the heating/cooling cycles near underwater thermal vents (or other such sources) and the actions of physical impacts. The heating cooling allow the pair bonded polymer chains to seperate (this is an example of a low entropy energy causing a decrease in local entropy), but then when the cooling occurs, pair bonding can reoccur, and this does not have to be with the polymer chain that was previously pair bonded with the curent chain (and can be neucleotide monomer). This causes the neucleotide chains to replicate, but as this is caused by external factors (the heating cooling) then it is not self replication, but assisted replication. the physical impacts cause the vesicles to split without them being ruptured. This then allows the neucleotide chains that exist within the vesicle to be divided between the two vesicles. This completes the assisted replication cycle. Yes, this is not life because it is not self replication. But, you asked for an example where certain processes were occuring, and this example fulfilled them. If you want to try and reject it because you changed the goal posts, then that is your problem and does not effect the validity of that example. However, in a preemtive response to your shifting of the goal posts, I also included the explaination of how such a system could become self replicating, thus fullfilling the transition to a true self replicating system and would be considdered a living system. As I think you would agree, the function of self replication is a new and noval function not present in the previous, assisted replicating system. As your argumets seems to be that evolution can not create new functions, then if evolution can be shown to be able to turn this non-selfreplicating system ino a self replicating system, then it is indeed possible for evolution to create new form and function. So here goes: Neucleotides, and in fact any chemical can have more then one reaction. That is it might react one way with a certain chemical (or chemicals), but produce a different result with other chemicals (this is so well accepted, I didn't feel the need to state it before, but it seems you didn't understand that before and argued against it occuring). This measn that the neucleotide chains will show activity beyond just forming polymers and pair bonding. They are capable of doing other things, not only by themselves, but in concert as well. They can in fact act as catalysts, or enzymes. This is know as RNA shows this and it is a type of neucleotide (even DNA shows some of this too). If any of the neucliotide chains show such activity, it will be essentially random because the chains are not directed to form such structures by an outside agent (remember I am trying to show that this can occur without an outside agent, so I need to show that there isn't one here). But, if any of these chains help the vesicle replicate, maybe by increasing the ionic pressure and thus helping it steal other vesicle's lipids (larger lipid vesicles are more likely to be split as larger objects are easier to split) and it helps prevents other vesicles from stealing its lipids. I will point out at this stage, we actually have evolution, as we have replication, variation and selction (not biological evolution, but the algorithm/process of evolution). As I am trying to show that evolution can do this, I need to point this out. So, any vesicle that does not have these structures will replicate less often than ones that don't have these structures. This measn that information is now part of the polymer chain. We have increased information, through the actions of random variation (the copying process of the polymer chains is not perfect) and selection (the vesicles compete with each other for lipids with the ones with more lipids replicating more often than ones with less lipids). As I have established, these neucleotides can have other effects other than polymerisation and pair bonding. If one such effect is to change the structure of a lipid (quite likely actually) then this can cause a change in the lipids in the vesicle. If such a change causes the vesicle to loose lipids (by destrying them) or by weakening the ability of the vesicle to hold onto them, then this would cause that vesicle to be selected against as it would not replicate as often (if at all). However, the vesicles where this change didn't occur would still exist and these would keep on replicating. Eventually,one of these vesicles will, through random chance, have a sequence of neucleotides that cause a favourable change in the lipids. We know that different types of lipids form weaker or stronger bonds with their neibours in a bi-layer (the lipids in modern cells are really good at this). It doesn't have to be a massive improvment, just a small improvemnt is necesary as any advantage gets amplified by geometrical population growth. Now this change in lipid is one step towards createing lipids from scatch using chemicals floating around. As changing a lipid might requier a chemical floating around to add to or allow part of the lipid to be removed, then by small changes this can build up into a structure that allows the neucleotide to create lipids. As this is a step towards self replication (the vesicle now doesn't need to only get its lipids from outside - it also means that changes to lipids can be entierly self contained and it doesn't requier them to exist in the environment before it can use them). Now, heat is not the only way pair bonding can be broken. It can be achieved through chemical means as well. If a vesicle encouters these chemicals, then it will cause the pair bonded chain to "unzip" and allow it to replicate (re-pair bond with monomers). Again, the secondary reactions caused by the neucleotides could also have this effect, or attract such chemicals. This way, the environmental effects (still assisted replication here) can cause replication away from a heat source. This would be an advantage to such a vesicle as replication could go on away from a direct energy source. This is the start of energy stroage and management that a self replicating system needs to have. Neucleotide monomers and polymers can attact and hold onto chemicals without they themselves being disrupted (many chemicals do this, such as water) and aid in the reactions of these other chemicals. Thus, if a structure formed that allowed these high energy molecules to be assembled, then this would be an advantage to the vesicle as it would allow it to store more energy than other vesicles, thus allow more replication. Also, these secondary effects can allow the production of neucleotides themsevles from simpler chemicals and any sequence that did this would have an advantage over other vesicles as it would not requier the neucliotide monomers to difuse into itself before it could use them to replicate the neucleotide polymers. So, now we have a system, through evolution went from assisted replication, to full selfreplication. At no point is an outside agent needed to direct this as each process is according to know deterministic chemical processes. As it also requiers energy to perform these processes and releases this energy as high entropy waste it does not violate any (including information entropy) laws. Now, I know that you are going to try and dismiss this as a "just so" story. But, before you do, I was not trying to say this is exactly what occured. All I need to do to prove your argument wrong is to provide a physically plausable explaination of how just uing evolution you can generate new function. I used abiogenisis as such an example as self replication is clearly a new function. It actually does not matter if this is a physically possilble occurance (although it is), what is important is that only using evolution one can create new function. As your argument is not about chemistry and what chemicals can do, but that evolution catagorically can not produce new function, then any scenario where evolution produces new function disproves your argument. As the above shows that just a step by step process of marginal improvmens crated from random variation (imperfect copying) and selected for by determinisitc selection (replication rate) can indeed proced new function, then your argument has been disproved. If you try to argue that this is a just so story, then that will be a red herring argument aswhether or not it is a just so story is total;ly irrelevent. The only important thing is that it shows that only using an evolutionary process, one can indeed get new function. Ok, I'll bite. In the above example, I have identified all the information fluxes, that of random erros in copying. At no point did I need to resort to an external agent "fixing" things so that it would work. The information at the start was in how chemicals react and how entropy works. If you are suggesting that such a mix of chemicals already had allthe information that all life would ever have on every planet in every galaxy in the entire universe, then you would have to substantiate that claim, if you can't then you will have to accept that the starting information in the system I described does not contain the information for a self replicating system and that is was actually generated by the process. At no point was extra information added to achieve the result, so no information is needed to enter the system (other than through the processes I already described). Thus, are all the information fluxes identified and accounted for, and yet it still works... As the system requiers energy (first in the form of heating and cooling and physical impacts), and also increases the total entropy of the universe (the bi-layer, polymer and pair bonding are all higher entropy/lower energy states - lower energy state release energy into the environment thus increaseing the entropy of the universe). Because this energy release is needed at all stages of the process, at any time it appears that entropy is violated, you can calculate the total entropy increase to achieve that entropy reduction and you will find that the total entropy has increased even though it has decreased locally. Thus is entropy accounted for and it is shown that the system does not violate this (it actually increases entropy - quite significantly actually). This example fullfills your requierments here too. But design has to be made by some entity. This entity would also be subject to information entropy. So your argument that design has to come from a mind fails because you don't "identify the flows across the system boundaries" as you say. In other words you are trying to argue that evolution fails to be able to produce the effects we claim, and then say that your argument is right, dispite the exact sam violation. Either the violation doesn't exist and evolution is as capable of generating new information like design, or neither of them can. To argue that one can and the other can't is a completely illogical argument as you have to ignore your own argument against the other side to allow your side to occur. No, even design fails your challenge if evolution fails it. No, I am not argueing that. I am arguing that evolution is capable of increasing information by the increase of universal entropy. As you have agreeed can occur, entropy can be lowered locally if the total (universal) entropy is increased. This has been shown for evolution, it increases the universal entropy. As you are willing to accept that entropy can be decreased locally (at the cost of universal entropy), and evolution is shown to decrease local entropy at the cost of universal entropy, then why do you keep arguing that evolution can't work as it violates entropy? I have shown that because of geometric population growth, the strawman argument that there isn't enough time is false. You can even do this yourself. I have given examples and experiments where you can do it yourself. You dismised them as irrelevent because there was a human involved in performing or setting up the experiment claiming that information had to be imported somehow (without actually showing that is really was, you just assumed it had to be - because it disproved your argument). So, if you can not actually show that external information is being imported by either the design or the operator, then you don't actually have an argument against the results of the experiments. The simple oneis to change one word into another word. Really it doesn't have to be a word, but it could be a sequence of DNA that does one function and another sequence that does another function. and it wouldn't requier a human to do it either, so the fact that the experiment requiers a human to do it is irrelevent and to argue it is a red herring arguemnt as the same thing can occur without the need for a human or external information being imported by some mind. To do this experiment start with a word, and then make many copies of it, each with a small variation. If if a new word is closer to the target word, then it is kept, if it further from the target word it is discarded. Then take the closest word to the target word and replicate it with variation and repeat. If you use 8 letter words, then the chances that you will randomly generate the target word with a variation is 1 in 208,827,064,576. So if you were to generate a new word ever minute it would take around 397,040 years. But, try it. If you use evolution you will get it in less than that (much less than that). In other words, there is something about evolution that makes it reach the goal quicker than pure chance alone. It means that your argument that evolution would not have enough time to do things is wrong. Your articles used the pure random method, and so even though the articles might be solid, you used them incorrectly and that is why your argument was wrong. I am not argueing against the articles, but against their use.

I don't need a source. Meathane is a known GHG. If it is released into the atmosphere then it will increase the greenhouse effect. It is about 25 times more effective as a GHG than CO2. We know that plants are locked up in perma frost. We also know that if plants rot, they produce methane (if you have ever done composting you will likely know this). So, if you melt permafrost, then the plants locked up inside them will rot and produce methane, thus increaseing the Green House effect. And the Earth's surface was at one time thousands of degrees. That was in the past and this is now. What is important is what is occuring now. As many opponents to GW have stated, the temperature of the Earth ahs been higher in the past and these are all natural events. But they also point out that this event is different from the past to invalidate any historical data used to formulate forcasts of what might happen. On one hand, they are using historical data, but then when it inconviniences them, they reject it. This is clearly cherry picking of data. It is sloppy thinking and a sign of a hidden agenda (otherwise how would you know what data to accept or reject if you didn't already have a goal in mind), even if that agenda is just to prevent change. As for the whether we shoudl be foccued on stopping it if it is a natural event, I don't believe that this situation will be the end of life. Sure it might take a termprary hit, but in the end the impact will be insignificant. The main probelm is with us Humans and our civilization. I don't think GW will be the extinction of humans. It (even if naturally caused) will be a significant event in civilization, and at an extreme case cause the collapse of civilization as we know it (but not the end of it). The question is: Can we make a difference (and even if we can't should we try anyway). If we can make a difference, then I believe we are under an obligation to do so (as in the obligation one has to their own family and to try and give them the best life you can). It is this reason alone that I advocate measres to reduce global warming. See, even if we are not the cause of GW, if we can reduce it, then we have an obligation (as per the familal obligation). If we are the cause of GW, then we have a responsability to do so along with the obligation. So yes, even if it is not caused by humans, we have an obligation to our families to do so.

Actually SETI is a passive effort. It is eavesdropping for signals sent out by alien civilizations. If Aliens were really comeing, SETI is exactly the type of thing you want going. As it is a passive effort (they don't send signals out), then the aliens could not detect that we are doing it, unless they were already here - in whcih case canceling it would be just as pointless.

You big mistake (and it really can be called a mistake because we have repeatedlyu tried to correct you on this), is that evolution is not totally random, nor is it totally deterministic. It is both. Mutation is random, but selection is not. There are two (count them 2), parts. One is random, the other is deterministic. Selection is sime: If it reproduces (or reproduices faster), it is selected for. If it doesn't it is selcted against. It is a binary thing. It dies before it reproduces, or it reproduces. Get it it is deterministic. We have agreed, this is not were the "infomrmation gets added. However, you yourself have stated that random processes can import informaiton, and guess what, this is what goes on in random variation. Seed you agree with us, information can get imported, it is just hat whe we point this out ot you you go off trying to prove that because selection is not random information can't be imported into an evolving system. This is like trying to argue that cars don't work because if you poor petrol into the passenger seat it doesn't fill the petrol tank. It really is exactly this argument you are using. We are not sying that selection imports information. And you can argue that forever and we won't disagree with you. However, as you have stated (and so I believe you agree with it), random processes CAN import information into the system, and this is our argument. Ranom mutation allows information to be imported. Selection amplifies any advantage (information) imported. As you state a determinisitic process has a probability of 1, that it is a certainty. If the determinisit process amplifies existing information (not creates it, not imports it), and it does this with a certainty, then what is the provelem that you have? You agree that imformation vcan be added through random processes, you agree that determinisitic systems have a probability of 1, then what is the problem with a determinisitic system amplifying (but not creating) information and the random process importing it? Yes, purely random processes are not. However, we are not talking aobut purely random or puely determinisitc system ehre are wew. You keep using the strawmen of pure determinisitc or pure random systems. I will repeat it again: We are not talking pure random or pure determinisitic systems. If you have a look at each example we have presented (plkease go and have a look), you will see that each has a random component and a determinisitic component. And, the sorting/selection is deterministic with a random process providing the "importation" of information (usually in the form of energy). You are arguing against a complete strawman of your own creation. You keep using pure random or pure determinisitic systems. Or when arguing against our example you use determinisitc parts where we specified random (random in place of determinisitic). It this this reason why your arguments fail. You are not actually addressing what we are saying. You are putting petrol into the passenger seat and complaining that there is no fuel in the fuel tank.

It is down to numbers. Replicating systems increase in population is geometric. This means that even a small advantage, over time, is massively amplified. Luck is about chance. That is the process is inherently random by definition. But this process does not favour any component over another. In replicating systems, this would mean that the offspring of a replicator is no more likly to survive because it partent did than any other offspring of any other replicator. Thus, in a system based on "luck", you would not get any improvment over time. As living systems show improvment over generations tot heir environment, then it can be luck (btw: Evolution does not requier randomness, it can and does work in purely deterministic situations). Adaption and Fitness are not "mysterious" at all. To put it simply: If a mutation gives an organism a greater chance of surviving, then that change will be passed on to their offspring. This is because of two things: 1) When an organism replicates, it reproduces the genetics of itself. 2) If something dies before it reproduces, then it can't reproduce. This is the basis of "Fitness" If an organisms surives to make a copy of itself, then that organism is "fit". If an ogranism reproduces more than another, then that organism is "more fit". Adaptation is the result of this. Each mutation is only a small change and with each step the organism is "more fit". That is it has a higher reproductive sucess than others. But as many small steps occur, then this sequence of changes is called adaptation. Genes don't always just have a single function. Sure, some do, but they don't have to. Many genes are needed to get a specific function from them. The genes that go into our neuromuscular system are not just a couple of genes, but encompass quite a lot of the genes we have. Manay of these genes are also used by other parts of our bodies that are not related to neuro muscular activity. Have a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007#p/c/F626DD5B2C1F0A87/1/SdwTwNPyR9w It is aimed at proponents of irriducable complexity, but it shows how the genes for one part of an organism can be co-opted for another part of the organism (in this case it is the genes for simple passive pores in the cell membrane can lead to a flagellum) The thing is, when it does this, the genes that the final system evolved from can still be mostly conserved and be found in organisms without that final function (but are relatged to the ancestral organism).

Again, you keep making the same mistakes. Replicating systems have exponential growth. Let us assume that each of these bits of information provide a selective advantage (if they didn't they wouldn't be inforamtion in your eyes, and as you have called them information then they must confer some advantage). Using a generation time of 15 years, how long will it take to get 1000 bits of information? Starting with a population of 1000 and doubling every 15 years: Generation 1: 2,000 Generation 2: 4,000 Generation 3: 8,000 Generation 4: 16,000 Generation 5: 32,000 Generation 5: 64,000 Generation 7: 128,000 Generation 8: 256,000 Generation 9: 512,000 Generation 10: 1,024,000 Generation 11: 2,048,000 Generation 12: 4,096,000 Generation 13: 8,192,000 Generation 14: 16,384,000 Generation 15: 32,768,000 Generation 16: 65,536,000 Generation 17: 131,072,000 Generation 18: 262,144,000 Generation 19: 524,288,000 Generation 20: 1,048,576,000 Generation 21: 2,097,152,000 Generation 22: 4,194,304,000 Generation 23: 8,388,608,000 Generation 24: 16,777,216,000 Generation 25: 33,554,432,000 Generation 26: 67,108,864,000 Generation 27: 134,217,728,000 Generation 28: 268,435,456,000 Generation 29: 536,870,912,000 Generation 30: 1,073,741,824,000 So after 30 generation, or 450 years, the population has grown to over 1 million million (1012). After 60 more generations (90 generations in total), we end up with: 1,237,940,039,285,380,274,899,124,224,000 with is you 1030 value. So, every 1350 years you would expect at least one "bit" of information to be added through random chance alone. So, using this as a base line, to get your 1000 bits, it would take 1000 of these 1350 years, or 1,350,000 years. As the Earth has been around for far long than this it is trivial that such increases are feasable, and in reasonable amounts of time too. 10-30 generations for a single change is an extremely low mutation rate. Each generation of humans have severl mutations in their genes (not just recombined genes between parents, but actual mutations that neither partent had). So your estimation was clearly an attempt to ridicule how random processes can build up over time. But, as you forgot to take into account the fact that reproducing systems have exponential population growth, and that with large populations such random events with a low probability actually end up as an almost certainty, your attempt at ridicule fails because of some very fundamental errors. It is in fact, not ridiculous that you could get thouse 1000 specific mutations in a reasonable time.

Think of it like this: IF you are with a group of people, how fast do you have to run to avoid being caught by a Lion? You only have to run faster than the slowest in the group. You do not have to run faster than the Lion. Yes, Junk, DNA has a slight disadvantae in that it consumes resources (DNA monomers), but these are failry pelntiful, in our food, and many organisms can make them themselves, so it is not a big problem. So, if the disadvantage from the Junk DNA is small enough that it doesn't overly effect an organims reproductive sucess, then it won't be selected out all that quickly. However there is some advantage in having junk DNA. First it can act as a buffer between coding regions. This way the physical and chemical processes that go on during the reading of DNA does not have as great an effect on other coding parts. Secondly, as DNA is extremely twisted up to fit it into your cells (it is aproximately 2 metres in lengh, in each cell! ), so this junk DNA can be where DNA is able to twist up to allow access to the coding sections. Thirdly, it act as a buffer against damage. If DNA is going to be damaged by a virus, or something else, then having sections that are non coding will mean that random damage has places to occur without it effecting any of the necesary places. Finally, ther are likely many more reasons that Junk DNA could be conserved, we don't know all of them yet (but a long way).

It has been explained: Low entropy enrgy can drive processes. Processes can create information... As I have explained, an energy input in the form of water flowing down hill, can sort stones and pebbles according to size. This sorting is a form of information order and it is created by a process driven by energy (btw: the energy of the water is derived from the sun through evaportation and eventual precipitation). Order, and information can be creagted from processes. There are million, if not billions, of examples if you just go outside and look. They are extremely common and easy to find. Here is another: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Permafrost_stone-rings_hg.jpg This is only formed by the frezing and thawing of water in the soil and it causes the ground to assume these higly ordered states. Yes, it is true, processes, when driven by energy, can create order - even in completely natural environments without the aid of any inteligent agent.

Based on the work by Dr. Jack Szostak, it is possible that the first replicators were not self replicators and requiered processes outside of them to allow them to replicate. In the case that Dr. Jack Szostak proposes, it is a convection curent set up by undersea thermal vents. When neucleotide base paied strands get hot, they seperate into two complimentary strands, then when they cool down again, they can reform with single neucleotides pairing up and polymerising into a new strand (and since there were two strands to start with, we now have four strands - replication). This process is the core of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) used by biologists studding DNA. As neucliotide chanins can have secondary enzymatic activity (such as with RNA), then with high energy molecules (ATP like molecules) this could produce chemicals that could be used to create new neucliotide monomers, thus increaseing the rate that the neucleotide sequence could be replicated (it would no longer need neucleotide monomers to difuse through the vesicle wall, but be produced from inside the vesicle). Any secondary structures, and chemicals produced from enzymatic activity of the neucleotide strands that created these high energy molecules would help speed up the replication process, and allow it to occur away from the heat source. This would give 3 main advantages: 1) It would allow the vesicle to replicate away form the energy source. 2) Increased replication rates as the vesicle would not need to be near the heat source to replicate. 3) These high energy molecules would allow other chemical processes to occur increaseing the potential chemical toolbox of the vesicle At this point, the vesicle has achieved self replication and could be considdered an organism.

It is well known and with loads of experimental evidence that according to thermodynamics that there can be local decrease in entropy as long as the total entrop increases. So, if you look at the inputs and outputs of a specific sub system then there can be a net decrease in entropy because it is only a sub system of a much larger system. The entropy increase might not be in that sub system, but in the system as a whole the entropy will increase. For example: Take a bag of glass beads that come in two types: Red and Blue. As these are in a single bag they will be mixed up and this represents a state of high entropy. One can then sort them into two piles, one Red and one Blue. These piles both are of low entropy as they are both highly organised. If one only looks at the inputs (the bag with rad and blue beads mixed) and outputs (the two piles of beads of a single colour) of the system, then you will see a miraculous decrease in entropy. However, in the universe as a whole, the act of sorting these beads will have requiered energy and thus increased the total entropy of the universe. If you do the calculations of how much the total entropy has been increased through the expendature of energy and how much it has been decreased by the sorting of the beads, then you will find that the entropy increase far exceeds the amount of entropy decrease. Thus, even though the inputs and outputs of the system seem to indicate an net decrease of entropy in violation of termodynamics, when you look at what is actually going on, you can easily see that there has been a net increase in entropy. This is the same as it is with evolution. Sure, there is a local decrease in entropy, but to do so there has been a much more massive increase in entropy due to the energy from the sun and the lost information from organisms that have died off. But, if you think that because sorting beads requiers a "mind" to sort them, then considder the sorting of different sized pebbles on a beach due to wave and tidal forces. This is a sorting effect, but to do so the energy contained in the water has to disipate and thus increases entropy more than the decrease in entropy caused form the sorting of the different sized pebbles. This is a purely physical only process that causes a local decrease in entropy. Not only that it is a natrual selection process that does not requier human intervention or the intervention os a mind (it is purely physical processes). Of course, these pebles don't have the other requierments of evolution (replication with veriation - although there is creation of them by other physical processes). So this request of a physical only process has been answered (many times now). There is absolute proof that physical only processes can, and do, create local decreases in entropy. If you don't believe me, just go down to your local beach or stream and see for your self how physical only processes can sort objects and create low entropy. Your analogy is bad because the video was not saying that it can make a jump, but that when you remove unnecesary things, it can appear to make jumps. In other words, you misunderstood the video. The better analogy is saying that because you can't see any boats on Hawaii, a person must have jumped there. But, because once a person reaches Hawaii, they no longer nead the boat, it could leave or be destroyed (or some other thing that ment it was no longer on Hawaii). As your analogy is the exact opposite of what the video was saying (and I was saying), your argument does not hold. You to come up with another argument that actually addesses the issue. As the video explained, the steps can be removed after you have reached the balcony. In that case, when you go looking for the steps, you don't find any and thus simplisitically conclude that the person jumped up there contrary to known physical reality. Experiments have shown that there do indeed exist small steps between each point, however, due to the constraints of this formum, I can not provide such lengthy explaination. In the links on the videos, it directs you to such research. They provide you with all the steps. Actually the Eye has been shown that known, single step changes to the DNA, it can be evolved from a patch of light sensitive cells to a fully formed eye similar to our own (and only in a few thousands steps - oh wait, a few thousand is more then four). To summerise this process in a shortened form: 1) A Patch of cells, through the repition of Hox genes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hox_gene ). Gene duplication mutations are single step mutations. Advantage: Larger patches of cells are able to gather more light and thus respond more accurately. Also, they can provide a direction of movment of whatever is casting a shadow. 2) The patch of cells can become concave by the reduction (removal) of the Hox genes. Gene removal mutations are single step mutations. Advantage: A concave patch of cells give the organism a stronger directional sense of whatever is casting shadows. 3) Mucous can fill the concave pit where the patch of light sensitive cells are. Mucous production is controled by the DNA of the cell. Gene duplication of Mucous protein sites or removal of genes to limit mucous production will enable this to occur. As said before, gene duplication and removal are single step mutations. Advantage: This protects the cells of the proto eye from damage, and their higher refractive index will help focus the light and give a more defined image. 4) The mucous can be modifed to form a harder surface, or by producing a slightly different type of mucous from certain locations around the rim. Slight changes to proteins are single step muations, and the differences between the protines that make up the surface of the eye and make up the fluid in the eye are know to be very similar (only a few steps different and each step, by giving more protection and foccusing ability ends up as single step muations - I just combined there her efor the sake of brevity). Advantage: A Harder surface gives more protection and the more dense surface gives an even better ability to focus the image. 5) The hard surface and be increased in thickness. Again this is gene duplication and such are single step mutations. Advantage: Better focus and protection for the eye. 6) The surface of the eye gains a lense shape. This is through modification of the Hox genes (again) and each step that gives a more lense shape gives an advantage in ability to focus images. This this series of single step mutations has been combined into a single point here for the sake of brevity. Advantage: Better ability to focus the image 7) The mucous inside the eye becomes more clear and less able to focus light. Again, each step of this is a single step mutation but combined here for the sake of brevity. Advantage: This allows more light to reach the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye thus increasing the organism's visual accuity. We now have an eye arrived at by single step mutations, and with natural selection caused by advanages of the new structures. Does that answer your concern?

Look, let me explain yet again. You don't need a source of low entropy. You only need to increase total entropy. As evolutionary system decrease entropy locally and increase it globally, it does not violate entropy. This applies to information as well as thermal entropy. This is a fact, and it is a fact that you are repeatedly ignoring. I have shown that organisms that don't breed (that fail) act as in increase of global information entropy as they contain inforamtion and it is degraded from the source. As many more organisms will degrade compared to the ones that give an decrease in entropy, then this means that no violation of entropy is caused. It is perfectly valid with the laws of entropy and does not violate them at all. Local decrease in entropy (information or otherwise) has to be conpensated by a global increase in entropy at least equal to the amount of decrease. If DNA acts like a bule print for an organism, then changes to that blueprint will change the organism. As you have not shown that there are parts of an organism that is not dependent on inheritable features (ie: that are external to the organism) then you have no proof of your claim. But, it hs been well established that DNA does provide the blueprints for an organism, so by this fact alone we can conclude that changes to the DNA equal changes to the organism. If the entire organims is dependent on its DNA for its structure, then this proves my arugment. If the phenotype of an organism is based on its genotype and not on an external inteliegnt agent activly sculpting it, then you have to accept that evolution can account for all observed diversity. It is not so much a question about the existance of evoution, but if you think that for an organism to grow form an egg into its adult form it requiers an external agent to make it do so. As the growth of an organism can be shown to orriginiate in its DNA, and that changes to this DNA cause predictable changes in the structure of the organism means that DNA is what governs the diversity of the organism's growth. But if you are willing to accept that, then where can you insert an intleigent agent into that? You seem to want to insert it into the changes to the DNA. Fine, but that still will not change the fact that the DNA directs the growth of the organism and therefore the variations in DNA can account for all the dirversity of organisms. You have gotten confused between the growth of organisms and evolution. If you are willing to accept that DNA directs the grow of organisms it doesn't matter how the DNA is changed. IF the DNA is changed, then the organism is changed and you get diversity. This is the nature of "Functional Prescritpive Information". When it comes to how changes to this information affects the processes that use it, it doesn't matter how it is changed, it only matters that it is changed. So your insistance on Functional Prescritpive Information has worked against you because it proves that you don't need to know how information is changed, only that it was changed. Your second part of the argument is that this change couldn't occur without an outside inteligent agent has been disproved. You have even posted that random processes can change information, even introduce it to a system. So you are accepting that information does not need an outside inteligent agent to change it, which counters your second part of your argument. You are doing our work for us, you just refuse to accept that you havae disproven your own arguments. The noise is not specific to a particular DNA sequence. Evolution works on a species level and it is the collective DNA sequences of the species that we should be talking about. And as such you have accepted one such example. See the next quote from you: And you just answered your own question. However, think about this. If that bacteria could remove part of itself "by damaging or otherwise modify specific components that these antibiotics exploit" but the organism is still a viable organism, then it will have effectivly increased the amount of information entropy. So again you are arguing against your own claims. We have a function for calculating the gravitational attraction between two bodies. Does this mean that gravity can not exist until we have formally described such a function? Did everything have to hold on to the surface of the Earth to prevent being flung off untill Newton wrote down his formula for gravity? No. It would be ridiculous to suggest that. But this is what you are doing. You are saying that because we can create a fitness function for selection, that selection can not occur without it. As I have repeateld shown, the act of replication can create a fitness function without the need for an external inteligent agent to create it. With replication you get exponential increase in populations. This means that if a particular population has a slight advantage in numbers you can end up with a vast difference in final population numbers. Take this for example: start with the number 100 and 101. Start doubling them, and then after 20 doublings, how much of a difference inthe values are there? Lets see: Starting with 100 we get: 104,857,600 Startign with 101 we get: 105,906,176 That is a difference of over 1 million. A single bacteria can have as many as 50 doublings in a single day. What do you think the difference in populations over a singel day would be if these were bacteria. What would the difference be if it was over 1,000,000 years (ie: 365,250,000 days, or 18,262,500,000 doublings)? Because even a small advantage will be increased exponentially this means that only a small difference in survival or replication rates will give the ones with the advantage a massive dominance. So what we have here is selection without recourse to an external inteligent agent. And, specifically, one without a "fitness function". Of course, we can describe a fitness function, that would not be hard. However this would be the same as the function for gravity, in that the existance of the selection is not dependent on our knowing the function to describe it. So, lets look at the criteria you have requiered: 1) Evolution violates entropy. As the laws of entropy don't requier a source of low entropy, only a place where entropy can increase globally, then a local increase in entropy due to evolution (or any cause actually) does not violate entropy. 2) Can evolution account for all diversity? Well as it is the growth of an organism from its DNA that gives the organsim its form and makes it different from other organisms, then all we need to know is that the DNA has changed. It doesn't matter how the DNA has changed, only that it has. But, can evolution change DNA? Mutation can and selection means that bad changes won't keep getting replicated. SO Yes, Evolution can account for the changes to DNA. 3) Novel form and function As any change to a data set constitutes new information, then the generation of novel information is simply a fact of change. As this change does not have to be ordered to produce, it can be crated from a random process, we don't need order to generate novel inforamtion. But what about function? As random change could lead to a section of the data becomeing useless (as you pointed out can happen), then this can allow changes to that section that has no further impact on the outcome. However, it is possible for that section to produce something that is useful in another way. As a direct example: http://www.youtube.com/user/cdk007#p/c/F626DD5B2C1F0A87/1/SdwTwNPyR9w We know that mutations that can occur to DNA causes a section of that DNA to be duplicated. This frees up that section of duplicated DNA to be changed without it causing further impact on the organism. Such a case is with the DNA that allows an organism to make Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C ). In humans, because we can get this vitamin from our diet, it can safely be disable these genes without it impacting us (as has occured). In humans, this change ahs not evolved into something else (yet), but it has freeded it up to allow changes to occur and that most of these changes will be neutral rather than harmful (where as if we still needed the ability to produce Ascorbic Acid it would be a harmful mutation). As experiment I have provided experiments that have shown (if you bothered to do them), when mutations are neutral, it allows the sequence to be changed to any other sequence (so long as it does not cause a harmful effect, but then that mutation would be selected out as it would prevent that organism from reproducing). Because of the selective advantage of exponential growth, and muation that caused a slight positive effect would be exponentially increased. This means that novel form and function can emerge from nutral mutations. This is called Genetic Drift and it has been explained to you before this. 4) Fitness Functions Although predesigned fitness functions can and do exist, not all selection relies on them. Just as Gravity existed before we described a Function for it, so too can selection exist before we describe a function for it. One example is the selection caused by exponential population growth caused by replication. A small advantage in replication (either thorugh rate of replication or by starting numbers) can lead to a massive advantage in numbers afdter even a small number of replication (as I showed above just 20 replications were enough to create an advantage of over 1 million from a starting difference of 1). All your concerns have been answered, and as such you will have to shift the goal posts to continue yourt arguments.

The reason I use a 100 year timeframe for our ability to begin interstellar voyages is that we curently have the technology to send small probes there, just not the economic ability to do so easily (we could do it but it would be a huge drain on the world's economy). Of course, these small probes would take thousands of years to get there, but we could do it if we had the will to do so. Ion engines already exist, and with enough fuel (a big fuel tank) we could get a space craft up to speeds that would allow it to reach interstellar space and enventually react another star. In a way we have already done this, the Voyager space scraft are now reaching the edge of our solar system (IIRC the heliopause where the influence of the solar wind is negated by interstellar particles). These will eventually reach other star systems (or at least get out far enough to be amoung them) and this is using chemical rocket, not ion engines. Ion engines, because they can operate for longer times can allow the space craft to reach much higher velocities. The voyager craft have been going for around 43 years, and most of this time they have been coasting as they have no fuel left. An ion engine craft could have been accelerating for all this time, and even though the force of that accelerating is much lower, the craft would have built up a much higher speed. This is with today's technolgy: ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_thruster ). An automated probe sent to another star system would most likely have to be nuclear (to both provide power and to keep it warm), but not in terms of a fission power plant. An atomic battery using 63Ni (Nickle isotope with 35 neutrons) would have a half life of around 100 years. You would only need a few months to give the space craft enough velocity to make such a journey. So, using only today's technology, such a craft is possible now. The reason I gave 100 years is for economic reasons. It is the ability to put resources into such a venture is what is stopping us, not a lack of technology. If you look at the trends of manufactuing, then the ability to construct complex and sophisticated devices is getting cheaper. This is through automation of production (robots are so much better and faster at it than we are). Just look at Moor's Laws and computing. It has been around 18 months that halves the cost per unit of computing power/memory. Although other technolgies have different time frames, many of them also exhibit such increaseing rates of improvment. Following this to its natural conclusion (that is if it continues), then well before 100 years are up we will have the economic power to apply to such an endevour. As it is an economic problem rather than a technological one, We should see plans for automatic probes to be sent to other star systems as serious proposals within a few decades. The main technology that needs to be developed for my scenario to play out for humans is that of automatic factories that can construct space scraft from raw materials found within solar systems. This could take longer than a few decades, but the basic technologies to do so already exist (3D printers and such). We need robotic systems that can identify materials and harvest them into useable materials. NASA already has a working prototype of a 3D printer that can print in metals, and this could be used to construct such space carft. So it is not a matter of technology, we have the basic technolgies to do so, it is a matter of integrating them into a conhesive system (a lot easier said than done, but not impossible) and the funds to do so. I don't doubt that if we find a planet around a nearby star that seems to have the conditions necesary for life (in the habitable zone, liquid water and an atmosphere) there will be a serious proposal to send an automatic probe, if all it does is go into orbit and examine the planet closely.