Stan Shannon wrote: No. I'm merely argueing taht a computer program proves absolutly nothing. It does not provide evidence for anything. No, you have to remember the context here: ID and creationists say unintelligent forces cannot bring about order and complexity. This shows that it can. As a question of history (it can happen, but did it happen?) is another line of defense, but since ID and creationists have drawn the battle lines at "it can't happen", this application provides evidence that simple forces can make it happen. The ID and creationist's best hope is to do exactly what you're doing: denying the implications of the computer models by arguments from vagueness like "you made a computer program do what you wanted it to do, so what?" Of course, that's just a way of dismissing what's really going on. If ID proponents, creationists, or you want to question the applicability of the model to the real world, then tell me precisely what is wrong with it. Does random mutation not occur in the real world? Does selection not occur in the real world? Does reproduction not occur in the real world? Again, your best defense (and a weak defense) is to simply reduce the program through vagueness: "you made a computer program do what you wanted it to do, so what?" Stan Shannon wrote: Hell, throw the theory evolution out completely, and force them to argue against plate tectonics or the expansion of space First, those arguments don't apply against ID, and second, there are counter-arguments to them. Among them: scientists don't really know that the speed of light is constant, God made the world so it appears old, we are misinterpreting the evidence, the red-shift is caused by something else (and it's only our assumption that says red-shift is evidence for expansion), God made the light in-transit so that we could see the stars (so we could see the vastness of his glory, of course), etc etc. To use your own words against you: all theories "will always be based upon a certain set of assumptions". The argument for ID is that unintelligent forces cannot construct complexity or irreducable complexity -- that unintelligent forces are insufficient. The argument against it, therefore, is that unintelligent forces are sufficient and can bring about these things. How are you going to show that? One way is to construct a virtual world that abides by simple, irrefutable forces that exist in our world. That's what this program is. ID proponets
