I'm happy to discuss further this issue of randomness, because the only alternative to randomness is order of some sort. Even local order in a world of randomness, without some kind of directing force, remains randomness over aeons of time.
Getting from a gaseous explosion to the creation of galaxies and solar systems and planets to the right mixture of chemicals and conditions to a single cell organism imbued with that magical essence called life to primates that understand social interaction to human beings that can create beauty and hold opinions and love others and die for a cause requires more than order-less, direction-less, care-free processes. For the many reasons we discussed in the 'long thread', it requires something that in every other sphere of life we would call design. To think otherwise requires a leap of faith far beyond that of any so-called religious person and requires statistics that make monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare on a computer keyboard almost a daily event.
Survival of the fittest doesn't cut it either. As we discussed recently, we don't kill the disabled at birth or euthanise those that cannot contribute and hence are just a drain on society. It doesn't explain why some artisans have spent an entire lifetime creating a single work of art. Most certainly, it doesn't lead us to hold political opinions and vote some current leaders into power. Ironically, survival of the fittest led for a while to centuries of Dark Ages as brute force and ignorance overpowered the subtle intricacies of an 'enlightened' Roman Empire.
In all seriousness, you don't have to worry about the influence of religious 'fundies' as you put it - as long as we remain a free society. Their hypocrisies and closed-mindedness, when they exist, are plain for the world to see. I worry more about the subtle influence of humanism that constantly erodes values and is plummeting our culture into the same inevitable spiral that ended previous great civilisations. Rightly or wrongly, I challenge everything - whether it's a school book, an accepted opinion, an intellectual's musings, whatever. Mainstream may be comforting, but rarely in history has it been right.
As for 50 percent of Americans believing that the world is under 10,000 years old, please believe me that it is not even close to being true. In fact, it made me think of a headline claiming that Tony Blair is an alien from Mars and another earlier this year that claimed 90 percent of Brits thought England would win the World Cup.
Whoever came up with that figure had an axe to grind. I'd repeat my earlier statement that some in society feel compelled to conduct intellectual assassinations on those they oppose by trying to make them look stupid. (Do you remember the famous commercials for instant mashed potato? "Truly, they are a most primitive people!")
It's clear that these discussions stir up our passions because we really don't want views imposed on us by close-minded bigots. I concur wholeheartedly with this. On the other hand, it's incumbent on all of us to challenge popular opinion. How justified is it? Why exactly is the establishment so violently opposed to anyone questioning their holy grails? Are we being subtly led down a garden path simply because the path has recently been made rather wide and is now lined with bright floodlights? Should we be looking for a narrower path - the "road less travelled" chosen by Pascal and Newton and Maxwell and other minds greater than ours?
Rest assured that I never mean to inflict my thoughts and beliefs on anyone, and I apologise if ever I come across that way. I just want to free our thinking a little so that we don't succumb unwittingly to an establishment view that blinds us from the reality we see all around us. If the wind and rain let up, enjoy the sunset tonight and wonder why such a random arrangement of colour should stir us almost to tears.
