iMac’s Are The Product of Creative Design
I’ve been meaning to blog about the new iMac since it came out recently - now I will. Lynnie and I both agree that the iMac looks “sick” after viewing them online and then on Saturday at the mall. I dunno if and when I’ll get one but if I did I’d be stoked for sure. Oh, and I’d choose the 24 inch model.
Now, I often wonder along the following lines and try to relate them to more important things. So, how about this for a crazy idea - the iMac displays all the hallmarks of creative, intelligent design. Simply, the designers at Apple took what was in their minds and skillyfully impressed it upon physical material to produce this product.
The iMac is the product of creative design. On the inside, the updated hardware (Up to 2.8GHz dual-core Intel processor, up to 1 Terrabyte of storage and Advanced graphics from ATI) is the platform for the non-physical software (Mac OSX) to ride upon and operate. On the outside, the sleek brushed aluminum case and new glass-over-LCD screen improves the look on the screen no end. All this didn’t come together on its own. Not only does the iMac display all the obvious features of design but consider this - only a few decades ago a computer this powerful would have taken up an entire room. Now, all of this computing power is packed into a flat-screen monitor! Such micro sizing of technology is a strong indicator of very intelligent design.
Herein, lays the duality of godless thought - on one hand to praise the creators of such products as the iMac yet on the other profess to be wise all the while denying the Designer who made the world which clearly itself bears the hallmarks of design. The iMac is an incredible feat of creativity, careful engineering and precision production…(plus some brilliant marketing) and yet its hardly a scratch on the design and creativity shown in the natural world all the way down to a molecular level. Would you let someone persuade you to believe that the iMac climbed “mount improbable” fueled by chance? I wouldn’t think so. Then don’t be inconsistent in your thinking when it comes to the world and you yourself.
We were created by an immensively powerful, intelligent, timeless, creative, rational, orderly and transcendent Creator. Thankfully, He has been so kind and gracious to reveal Himself to us. His name? Jesus. (John 1:1)
MOUNT IMPROBABLE
“But the whole sequence of cumulative steps constitutes anything but a chance process, when you consider the complexity of the final end-product relative to the original starting point.” - Richard Dawkins
When I was very young I remember playing on my cousins Commodore 64, which was a very simple computer whose games where downloaded using a tape recorder. Not long before this there was an, “original starting point” or the invention of the computer. Say for example the computer was originated in 1960. So if one examines the computer and it’s development from 1960 until 2007, one will find, “a sequence of cumulative steps from very basic design,” to the IMac that David describes. Would the original inventor of the computer ever imagined the improbable heights of the IMac in 1960?
Using the hypothesis of mount improbable we can clearly follow a slow gradual process, or “ramp evolution” We have went from something not very well designed to something very well designed that would have been thought mount improbable in 1960.
Thus a Godless being like myself can indeed “heap praise” on the wonderful innovative creativity on the design of the IMac. In relation to the designer God. Who designed God or who designed the designer?
“Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.”
Richard Dawkins
Faith is belief without evidence!
I only thought it fair that if you openly attack people of a different belief than you,then the opportunity should be open for a rebuttal.
Welcome Keith to my blog. I’m not convinced by Dawkin’s arguments - he’s good at telling stories with much bluster about what might have happened long long ago in an unobserved, untestable, non-repeatable past.
With “Mount Improbable” Dawkins analogy of history to that of a two-sided mountain is highly misleading. One side being a sheer face to the peak - the other a gently sloping ramp to the top. Charles Darwin was totally ignorant of the complexity of even the simplest cell that modern biochemistry has discovered - Dawkins should know better. Dawkins presupposes that there is already an enormous level of complexity in the first self-replicating organism at the foot of this ramp and pretends like this is the beginning of evolutionary life. However, he does nothing to sufficiently explain how that first enormously complex self-replicating organism made its own massive leap of evolution - let alone how on earth life began at all. I’ve found this analogy about “Mount Improbable” to be totally misleading and not compelling.
“Who designed God or who designed the designer?” - Again, this is a question that shows you don’t understand the creationist argument. To say that the Designer requires a designer is not valid because, by the Creator’s own definition, the Creator is eternal, above time, beginning-less. Our argument is that only things which have a beginning require a cause; God has no beginning so requires no cause. The universe has a beginning, therefore it needs a Beginner.
Believing without evidence? The creation itself has hallmarks of design, as does the humble iMac. The existence of matter itself is evidence. You just won’t be consistent and don’t like the implications for there being a Creator.
Lastly, this whole notion that we Christians use faith and atheists don’t use faith is totally erroneous. It is a caricature and a straw man. Atheists have their belief system in which they exercise faith. Christian have their own belief system in which they exercise faith. Both have faith and we both have evidence. So, its not accurate for you to say we have a non-evidencial based faith. Question is, who’s got the better evidence and who has the best explanation for that evidence?
I finish by asking this. I think I understand you correctly that you agree there is design to be found in the natural world. Then you propose that the creation came about by chance, on its own. Would you be willing to be consistent with other things that show evidence of design such as the humble iMac and assert that it too could come about by chance?
Woaw.. nice argument/debate.. emm good job Jared isn’t in it.. =)
iMac looks totally sweet.. gotta get dad to get me wan!
“Faith is corrosive to the human mind. If someone genuinely believes that it is right to believe things without reason or evidence then they are open to every kind of dogma, whim, coercion, or dangerous infectious idea that’s around. If someone is convinced that it is acceptable to base their beliefs on what is written in an ancient book, or what some teacher tells them they must believe, then they will have no true freedom of thought; they will be trapped by their faith into inconsistency and untruths because they are unable to throw out false ideas when evidence against them comes along.” - Sue Blackmore
Oh my goodness David! I could say the same thing about the people that wrote the Bible. They where good at telling stories with bluster about what might have happened long ago about an unobserved, and indeed untestable God.
Dawkins analogy of mount improbable is highly misleading, only from “YOUR” point of view. Why should you be surprised that Charles Darwin (1809 - 1882) was ignorant of certain facts? Did you stop to consider that he was alive over 100 hundred years ago, and that scientific thinking and practise has changed much since his time. Will we not be described as ignorant in 100 years time. Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection “absolutely” still stands to-day. Dawkins does indeed know better than all creation scientists and creationists alike and not only that he has the freedom to change his mind if the evidence changes. Something which you cannot do! Dawkins and Darwin just like creationists know nothing about how existence begun and at these early stages, it is only guess work. You can say that there was a Creator God who started it all, but this does not make it so since you have “NO” evidence!
I admit that I cannot prove the non existence of God and this was why I remained agnostic for a very long time. This was my mount improbable. I believed in God in my early years and tried to be a Christian. Through examination of evidence I became an agnostic or fence sitter. Dawkins does point out that God is highly “improbable” when you examine the “EVIDENCE” This is where I am right now. Until someone better explains the probability of God, then I will favour, weight of evidence. This happened over a period of twenty years and was a slow gradual process, it was not a sudden belief or disbelief in God because of some near death experience or otherwise. But rather a slow climb from belief to unbelief in a Creator Deity. Still I cannot prove that there is no God, so therefore I must still be open to persuasion by weight of evidence. This is where faith blocks this approach and leaves the participant encased in dogma.
Very long - Sigh….To say that a designer does not require a designer because of whatever is utter nonsense and I ask you to bear in mind what science actually does. This is to test and verify evidence and you must prove your hypothesis and it be subject to peer review. Since your theory cannot be tested, it falls outside of rational thought and into dogma. There is absolutely nothing in this world that is permanent.Everything is subject to decay and impermanence. Every object is empty of true existence or is dependant arising. Dependant arising in the sense that a tree is dependant of many other factors to come into being. The seed to be planted in a fertile place, the sun and the rain to nourish the tree and for it to grow. Also the tree is dependant on us and cannot exist without us observing it. Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. There is No being, planet, Sun or otherwise that is permanent. Not one!
Why David do I not like for there not to be a Creator? If there where implications, evidence or proof of a God then I would be happy to believe in one. Since the bible is so full of inconsistencies and tall tales that fly in the face of reason, if there is a God I don’t believe that it would reveal itself through that Bible. Indeed ask yourself this queastion, “how many people in the Bible did God kill?” I believe it to be in the tens of thousands and that’s not including the 99.9 per cent of the population (including innocent children) God destoryed in a flood, not to mention Sodum and Gomora (also containing innocent children)and that poor woman that got turned into salt for just looking at Gods handy work. Satan was responsable for killing 0.
ThereforeI am expected to believe that this is the God of love that has revealed itself in the bible?
I agree with you what you say about who has the better evidence. Atheist or Christian Creationist? I examine the evidence and make my own choice. I also observe life and my place in the world. I am atheist, only by definition and if one must throw a label around my neck. Atheist by definition is just an unbeliever, which of course I am. But only by my reasoning and not by the Buddha or Richard Dawkins. When the Buddha was asked if there was a God he remained silent. Buddhism and Atheism are man made labels and I don’t need them. That way I am free to change my mind with whatever evidence has most weight and not be tied to any particular dogma. This is true freedom. I can be persuaded to change my mind. Through evidence, debate or otherwise. Can you say the same? No! Because “FAITH” will come into play, no matter what evidence is placed before you. What is faith?
BELIEF WITHOUT EVIDENCE!
I will not be part of any kind of Christian trap that is doing the rounds at the moment, cleverly designed into getting someone into saying what they want them to say and then having a, “fixed response.” So I will say that whilst the designer of the Imac did indeed design the Imac, it is probable that it came about by chance. How is this so? Consider who founded the theory of gravity. Take a few minutes. Now examine what happened at that event. The apple fell from the tree and a realization came to Isaac Newton. Was that not by chance? Or from your point of view did a designer God drop the apple in front of Newton to help along the theory?
“The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon’s orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it “universal gravitation”.
So here is an event that came about by chance. Can you argue through any degree of certainly weather the designer of the Imac also didn’t make another leap in design by chance?
I repeat Richard Dawkins:
“But the whole sequence of cumulative steps constitutes anything but a chance process, when you consider the complexity of the final end-product relative to the original starting point.” - Richard Dawkins
Thus the Imac was indeed by intelligent design and quite possible by chance as well. I believe it to be very problematic to compare this analogy to the beginning of the universe which is so very much more complex than PC design. If you say that, “God was always there,” then existance could also, be always there!
You cannot prove your God Hypothis any more than I can prove that creation started by chance. However since I don’t suffer from faith induced dogma, I can change my mind if there is EVIDENCE to do so!
Keith - Norn Ireland
Hi Keith,
Let me just wade into the middle of this.
This is the section I would like to focus on, as your point is incongruous at best. I’ll break it down below.
“I will not be part of any kind of Christian trap that is doing the rounds at the moment, cleverly designed into getting someone into saying what they want them to say and then having a, “fixed response.” So I will say that whilst the designer of the Imac did indeed design the Imac, it is probable that it came about by chance. How is this so? Consider who founded the theory of gravity. Take a few minutes. Now examine what happened at that event. The apple fell from the tree and a realization came to Isaac Newton. Was that not by chance? Or from your point of view did a designer God drop the apple in front of Newton to help along the theory?
The question was not whether gravity existed, but whether it extended so far from Earth that it could also be the force holding the moon to its orbit. Newton showed that if the force decreased as the inverse square of the distance, one could indeed calculate the Moon’s orbital period, and get good agreement. He guessed the same force was responsible for other orbital motions, and hence named it “universal gravitation”.
So here is an event that came about by chance. Can you argue through any degree of certainly weather the designer of the Imac also didn’t make another leap in design by chance?
Irrespective of who the author of this was, I simply cannot see your rationing. And before you decide to accuse me of wearing rose tinted glasses, don’t. I am more than happy to listen to your point of view, however, I do think your argument is poorly formed.
“I will not be part of any kind of Christian trap that is doing the rounds at the moment, cleverly designed into getting someone into saying what they want them to say and then having a, “fixed response.”
>> That’s fine, nobody here is trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
“So I will say that whilst the designer of the Imac did indeed design the Imac, it is probable that it came about by chance.”
>> I’m sorry Keith, but this is just irrational. You agree, I assume that the iMac is a complicated piece of hardware? (I trust you aren’t a Windows fanboy!) You also agree that there are things inside that box? A CPU? A hard drive? A motherboard? A graphics card? Oh, and a rather sweet OS running on it, although that’s another thing that isn’t physically ‘tangible’ and may be hard for you to believe that it exists? I really don’t intend any offense, but to suggest that an iMac can come about by chance is just silly. Maybe you should try emailing Jonathon Ive (head of industrial design at Apple) and see how much chance he thinks there was involved.
“So here is an event that came about by chance. Can you argue through any degree of certainly weather the designer of the Imac also didn’t make another leap in design by chance?”
>> I’ve taken my few minutes and still don’t get it. You are not seriously trying to say that the new iMac was created or designed by accident? If it was by chance, is there not a possibility, no matter how remote, that the new iMac may actually have ended up a few steps back in terms of speed, size, capacity, capability, appearance, cost, availability?
I’m trying to picture this and align it with the practice of design, but am having serious problems doing so. (OK, I’ll just throw away all reason and logic.) Yeah Keith, I suppose the designer just randomly sketched it out, made a few phone calls, found a number of suppliers, emailed the plans, placed the orders, took them to a factory, didn’t worry about anything and let the Taiwanese manufacturer create something along the lines of his plans, called FedEx and started to ship them to eager customers. Oh yeah, I forgot about the product announcement. The email that was sent out just randomly made it’s way around the web and ended up in the inboxes of various tech journalists who in turn just happened to be near the Apple campus in Cupertino when it was announced. Yeah, that’s totally believable. Sound reasonable. Apparently that’s how they chanced upon the space shuttle too.
So let’s extrapolate the core of your argument and distill it. You think stuff happens. We exist in our current form after a process of chance adaptations and lucky timing. You choose not to believe in a God because you can’t reach out and touch him. Therefore, according to your reasoning He can’t exist.
I have never seen your brain. Haven’t seen your heart. Man, I don’t even know who you are, nor have I ever seen you. But I believe you exist.
I think that belief isn’t your problem, clearly you believe that you are correct and I am wrong. I think you’re issue is trust; it’s very understandable in a world where we are programmed to trust only in something that can be seen, touched, smelt, tasted or heard.
I watched an interview on the BBC with Dawkins. The interviewer (William Crawley) asked him when he became an atheist. His answer, 14 years old. Why then would you put your trust in the ideology of someone who decided at the age of 14 that there was no God?
Hi Andy,
Welcome to the debate and I’m glad you,”waded in.” In regards to computer design, I am clearly out of my depth and I agree with you that perhaps my argument is, “poorly formed.”
However you didn’t take my argument in it’s wholeness or perhaps as you suggested it was indeed, “poorly formed.”
So to look back at my original response to David,
“Say for example the computer was originated in 1960. So if one examines the computer and it’s development from 1960 until 2007, one will find, “a sequence of cumulative steps from very basic design,” to the IMac that David describes. Would the original inventor of the computer ever imagined the improbable heights of the IMac in 1960?
Using the hypothesis of mount improbable we can clearly follow a slow gradual process, or “ramp evolution” We have went from something not very well designed to something very well designed that would have been thought mount improbable in 1960.”
Of course the IMac was intelligently designed. I didn’t intend to suggest that it “ONLY” came about by chance. My argument was supposed to co-relate with two different themes. One was, “gradual design” (slowly climbing up mount improbable) and the other theme that perhaps certain leaps in advancement came about by chance, just like the apple falling from the tree.
However Andy I see where yourself and David are coming from and your argument is clearly formed. In all sincerity Davids explanation of a timeless God is perhaps the best I’ve heard yet.
“by the Creator’s own definition, the Creator is eternal, above time, beginning-less. Our argument is that only things which have a beginning require a cause; God has no beginning so requires no cause. The universe has a beginning, therefore it needs a Beginner.”
However it still leaves us with the same old problem. EVIDENCE! Whilst we can take apart the IMac and see that it does indeed exist (I’ll get back to that in a minute) we can’t do the same with God. I don’t believe God to be separate from us or that God exists in the sky where prayers are teleported to him and he knows exactly that over six billion of us are thinking at any one time. In all sincerity and I don’t want to be rude but, I think that is silly and once again unprovable and you will find that sooner or later you will have to rely on faith, which is? Belief without EVIDENCE!
Your point Andy about my issue being trust is incorrect! The main reason I don’t believe in God is the Bible. I don’t believe that God revealed itself in THAT book. I believe that there is too much horror commanded by God and I will just focus briefly on one issue that I’ve previously pointed out. God destroyed 99.9 percent of the population including innocent children. God chose to save Noah, (I don’t like what I read about him in the Bible either) his family and animals two by two. I would like to discuss this issue and others, but in a separate debate.
“I have never seen your brain. Haven’t seen your heart. Man, I don’t even know who you are, nor have I ever seen you. But I believe you exist.”
“Realizing the doctrine of dependent arising,
The wise do not partake of extreme views”
- Buddha
Not once have I said that nothing exists! Instead I mention dependant arising and that things are empty of true existence in that they rely on terms and conditions. What Buddha is warning us against in not partaking of extreme views, is that phenomena is not independent and against the other extreme which is nilism (that things don’t exist)
“Just as a chariot is verbalized
In dependance on collection of parts
So conventionally a sentient being
Is set up depending on the meental and physical aggregates”
- Buddha
In relation to your last point Andy,
“I watched an interview on the BBC with Dawkins. The interviewer (William Crawley) asked him when he became an atheist. His answer, 14 years old. Why then would you put your trust in the ideology of someone who decided at the age of 14 that there was no God?”
Thankfully I don’t fully trust or believe all what Prof. Dawkins says and disagree with him about many issues, such as the value of religion. As a free thinker I am free to make up my own mind and am not tied by any dogma. I do like that Richard Dawkins always drives home the need to provide evidence and I find his mount improbable idea very convincing. Like I’ve said previously and I hope you ll go back and read my complete argument that my thinking has evolved very slowly over twenty years and at about the same time that Dawkins became an Atheist I was a Christian.
I cant wait to see what Andy will say to some of the things that are directed to him. Here, however, are my thoughts on the main comments you make in keeping with the topic of this blog post. If you continue to post comments we should keep them in line with what the post is about - computers, design and creation.
Problems for Darwinian Evolution with this analogy of the first:
“Say for example the computer was originated in 1960. So if one examines the computer and it’s development from 1960 until 2007, one will find, ‘a sequence of cumulative steps from very basic design’ to the imac.”
1. Your question about what the inventor could have imagined is irrelevant.
2. The whole analogy of the first computer in the 1960’s slowly developing to the heights of the iMac in 2007 actually shows how an the immaterial mind(s) of intelligent computer designers work to develop a product into what is now. Left to chance alone acting upon material the computer would not make itself. So, this computer version of the ‘Mount Improbable’ analogy cannot be analogous to Darwinian Evolution where there is no mind at work, no one outside/transendent of the material world to develop things along.
3. In your analogy both the first computer and the 2007 computer are both computers. The latest product is still a computer. So what you describe is not analogous or accurate to ‘molecules-to-man evolution. It is sort of analogous to micro-evolution which I already believe in where, in this analogy, one kind of computer develops into another computer.
4. The analogy actually shows an increase of information, fine tuning of manufacturing, more sophistication, micro sizing, more power, better performance, higher graphics, better user interfaces (GUI) and so on. Again, not an accurate analogy/comparision to Darwinian Evolution. Genetic mutations and nature acting upon genes over time do not add new information.
Mount Improbable - There is a major flaw with the mount improbable analogy - it has a false starting point. Why start at the first living organism and not at the very beginning of things? It seems that this analogy conveniently begins with a fully functioning, reproducing, living organism which is laden with genetic information when in reality this isn’t the starting point at all. So instead of starting at the bottom of the mountain, as the analogy goes, really Dawkins takes you almost to the top of the mountain and imagines evolution moving things upwards gradually to the peak, then claims that evolution has taken us all the way from the very bottom to the top.
Must move past analogies - Get new analogies or just stop trying to fob them off as being accurate to how evolution is supposed to work. Anyway, we’d need to move past analogies. This might be hard for both of us because we are not trained or particularly skilled at science. However, we both are intelligent, have access to resources and should be able to reason these things out to some extent. Lets show evidence, actual exhibits.
Chance acts upon us
Again, your comment on chance acting on the mind of Isaac Newton does not show Darwin Evolution. Infact, such a seemingly random event would show the interaction with the immaterial mind and how that spurs development of science etc. Incidentally, Isaac Newton was a believer in the Creator God revealed in Scripture, trusted in Jesus Christ and was a strong creationist to boot! He studied and wrote more on theology than he did science.
Finally, something you said in your last post:
At least you are willing to be consistent when you deny the need for a Designer where design is clearly evidenced in a world jam-packed full of designed stuff and you’re willing to state that something else that we know is designed (iMac) could also come about by chance without a designer. Although both statements of denial are unscientific and impossible to sustain.
Its only a suggestion, but wouldn’t you be better to just say, “I can’t deny there is design in nature, therefore there must be a Creator but I reject him because from what I know of the Creator I don’t like”? That’d be more consistent with the evidence (design) and where the evidence points (a designer).
Anyway, so whilst you and I both use our five senses in the present, to make observations, carry out experiments and repeat our findings, we both deduce that a product such as the iMac displays all the features of design and is inescapably the product of intelligent design. There you would say such a thing as “it is probable that it came about by chance.” Now, I know your power of deduction couldn’t possibly be so faulty that you can’t observe + deduce design in computers and in nature. Come on then, you know better than to make such an illogical conclusion. Its not probable that an iMac could come about by chance - its not even possible at all. How unscientific Keith!
Much more then, if an iMac needs a designer(s), how much more then must we and all living things, the planet and the universe need a designer. The Scriptures say to those who reject their Creator in their mind and heart that although they “profess themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Come on Keith. Change your mind. Come home to God. He still loves you and wants to you for himself even though you have rejected him for so long. “God proved his love toward you, in that, while you were yet a sinner, Christ died for you.”
Keith, you’ve got a comment awaiting moderation and until I get the time to prepare my answer I’ll leave it there. So publicly, keith has more to say here and we’ll pick thing up later on when I get some time to give to this. Thanks for you understanding