Re: [Phys-l] Intelligent designists fight back

[John Mallinckrodt <ajm@csupomona.edu>]

I had an experience along these same lines years ago when I was  
trying to model the tidal interaction of the moon and Earth,  the  
approach to synchronous rotation, and the orbital retreat of the moon  
by building both bodies from several pieces that could be distorted  
by tidal effects and dissipate energy in the process.

I let the simulation run and run and run and run for what seemed like  
"forever"--easily HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of orbits--without much  
noticeable effect.  I was a little disappointed until I got to  
thinking about the fact that the real moon had made TENS OF BILLIONS  
of orbits around the real Earth and that even my simulation with one  
orbit every few seconds or so would have to run for thousands of  
years to duplicate that feat.

John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona

On Jan 10, 2008, at 9:52 AM, Rick Tarara wrote:

> Let me offer two additional factors that I think make it difficult  
> for many
> (seemingly the majority in the U.S.) to accept evolution and that  
> make ID an
> attractive alternative.
>
> 1)  We see only the end-product of the evolutionary process.  All the
> dead-end paths are gone--at least for macro-evolution.  Only by  
> studying
> 'real' biology and current experiments in species with short  
> reproductive
> cycles might one view direct evidence of the blind alleys.  With  
> only the
> very complex end products in evidence to most, the urge to accept  
> that such
> complexity is 'by design' is very strong.
>
> 2)  (This may actually be a 'fault' of evolution--at least it is  
> suggested
> by Richard Dawkins in "The God Delusion".)   Our intrinsic  
> understanding of
> time and space seems limited to our experience and may be limited by
> evolutionary imperatives.  We can understand a 100 years and can be  
> pretty
> good at conceptualizing one or two orders of magnitude beyond.  But  
> when it
> comes to having any real understanding of a million years--we don't  
> cope
> well.  A billion years is really not in our genes.  As scientists  
> we 'know'
> such time frames exist and can extrapolate well enough to work  
> within such
> frames, but can we really conceptualize and understand?  The same  
> goes for
> space.  Our world, evolutionarily, is limited by the range of our  
> sight (on
> earth).  Again we can deal with a couple orders of magnitude more  
> than the
> few kilometers we can directly observe, but who really can  
> conceptualize a
> light year, much less thousands, millions, or billions of light years.
>
> Really understanding evolution requires some form of understanding  
> what
> hundreds of millions of years means.  That is very difficult.
>
> Rick