Ah the old Entropy bogey. Well, if the sun shines on the earth, entropy on earth can decrease, no problem. If you put energy into a sub-system the entropy can decrease. The entropy of the larger system,
If you don't think the fossil record displays gradually increasing complexity, then nothing I can say can help us agree on much. Your perception and my perception of the world are warped in different directions. :-)

Now as to Darwin and Gould. Gould sees an increase in evolution occuring at times and he calls it punctuated. So what? If there's a disaster, of biblical proportions :-), then you have a "green field" opportunity for what appears to be rapid evolution. But in reality you just have rapid selection because of an immense opportunity for organisms to expand their niche. You had a apparently rapid period of mammalian evolution when the dinosaurs got hit. I (choose to) see no conflict. You choose to.

We are evolving all the time. As a tiny example, westerners are now being rapidly selected for incompetence in the use of contraceptives. (Sorry, couldn't help that, just a funny example). In China no doubt the survivors will more likely be those who are more likely flout the law (that of having only one child).

There is no theory of evolution. That's a fact. There are only hypotheses and theories to explain it. Some are better than others. A good hypothesis is testable. I can put forward an hypothesis that I have a coffee coloured angel looking after me who is invisible to everyone else and prevents me from being killed. The only test then is to kill me, but you won't have convinced me because I'll be dead. ROFL. So it's a rather bad hypothesis, but still I may be firmly convinced of its veracity. So too are many of the "explanations" being bandied about for all sorts of things we don't understand too well.
An explanation of something that doesn't improve your understanding of it may very well be correct, but it's useless.

>>PMJI but complex systems can be created by simpler systems without any guidance. It's happening all the time. Typically it just requires some energy input, eg the sun shining on the earth, power going into a computer.
>>You really need to read the classic "The Blind Watchmaker" by Richard Dawkins, although it's not a book I imagine you will enjoy.
>
>If by complex you mean more ordered, then not really. The Second Law states that NO system can, of itself, decrease it's entropy without a correspondingly GREATER increase in entropy someplace else. (The Entropy of the Universe ALWAYS increases). That is why no one can site an example of uncontrolled energy input causing a building to errupt out of a forest fire.
>Besides, Stephen J Gould and Elderidge ('Punk Eeeks") destroyed "biology's nasty little secret" with their Punctuated Equilibrium theory, admitting the the geologic record does not support Darwin's theory of gradualism ("Cladists") during which hundreds of thousands of intermediate forms should be successively layered upon prior intermediate forms.
>So, now, depending on which camp you are in, Evolution gradually transpired over 100's of milions of years or there were long period of stasis with short periods of time where numbers and varieties of life appeared explosively. Supposedly The Cambrian Period, for example. Gould has Evolution occuring in a time span as short as 5,000 to 50,000 years, which is anti-thesis to Darwin and Dawkins.
>I've also been following the Michael Behe episode for awhile now. Failing to refute his thesis and examples in a professional manner with their reputation riding on their printed word, opponents resorted to sending in lesser lights to engage in personal and insulting attacks, reducing themselves to the status of howler monkeys.
>Evolution is not taking place now or adherents would be showing reproducible laboratory experiments proving such, especially if it could take place in the time span Gould suggests. The much touted Pepper Moth is only proof that genes for dark and light colored moths exist coexist in the same gene pool and the relative percentages of living specimens can be reversed by the fortunes of burning coal or not. No 'evolution' took place.
>A large group of biologists, for essentially political and personal reasons have embarked on a road traveled by Lysenko during the early part of the last century, with nearly the samearrogant ruthlessness.
>
>>
>>
>>>Michael,
>>>
>>>That's why atheism seems so dumb to me. And extremely arrogant as well. Imagine... The finite declaring that the infinite does not exist.. The small declaring that there is no large. <g> It also argues agains evolution since it would then argue that a less complex mechanism is capable of creating a more complex mechanism. The interesting thng is that less complex mechanisms are able to create more complex mechanisms (just look at any machine shop to see this) but they cannot so do without an outside intelligence directing things. Evolutionists want the less-->more results but without one of the necessary ingredients - directed intelligence.
>>>
>>>Agnosticism I can understand, and I think many confuse the two, but really....
>>>
>>>I have heard that one human brain contains more "electrical" connections than all the computers in the world, and I tend to believe that is a true statement. Even then we don't use but a portion of what is available.
>>>
>>>Best,
>>>
>>>DD
>>>
>>>>I agree with you.
>>>>
>>>>Complexity/computational theory strongly suggests that a system cannot compute anything beyond it's own inherent complexity. Put in terms of people, it is impossible to understand anything that is intrinsically more complex than our own brain. There will always be things that we do not, & cannot, understand. Maybe, if we are lucky & evolution moves us in the right direction, our brains may become more complex allowing us a greater insight to the universe & the interactions of all within it. That is, if those who believe they understand everything now don't destroy us first.