John Harshman:

I just believe whatever the cosmologists tell me. Not my department.

Daniel Harper:

Is there a cosmologist in the house?

No seriously, there are several ways philosophers can answer these types of questions; non-Christian theologians were doing it centuries before Christ. Ever read the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides? If ancient philosophy about the nature of reality's your thing, it's hard to beat him until you get to Plato. Read him for interesting material on the nature of reality, and its differentiated nature today. It's pretty fascinating stuff.

Modern philosophers, of course, rely on modern science to tell them about the beginnings of the universe, and basically concur with science when it tells them that the universe had a definite beginning some fifteen billion years ago, for an unknown reason. While many theists take this to affirm the existence of God, it's also not clear what kind of substrate the early universe existed in, i.e. whether what we now know as "the Universe" is only a temporary bubble in an eternal "higher universe".

Sverker Johansson:

I'm not a cosmologist, but I play one while teaching.

Matter "condensed" from the original high-energy primordial radiation soup that filled the early universe. At high energy, there's an equilibrium between creation and destruction of matter -- but as the temperature drops, the energy eventually gets too low and matter drops out of equilibrium, leaving a residue of stable matter.

TomS:

Additional points:

1a. What is the anti-evolution explanation for where matter comes from? (This will be a recurring theme in my additional comments, to point out that it is not merely enough to say that "theory X does not explain observation O" -- "theory Y" should do a better job of explaining O.)

1b. The question of the origin of matter is not something that evolutionary biology treats. You might as well argue against the periodic table of the elements, or universal gravitation, by asking, "but where did the matter involved come from?" (This will be another repeating theme.)

John Harshman:

I doubt the opportunity would ever arise, because I've never heard an evolutionist say that. However, there's nothing wrong with a creationist saying anything he wants, or believing anything he wants by faith. The problem arises when a creationist wants to push his ideas as if they were science, or have them taught as science in public schools.

Daniel Harper:

I used to be an atheist, and would never have phrased the question in that way. First of all, the same argument about "evolutionists" cited above would help clarify matters here; many of those who accept current scientific theories about the origin on the universe are also theists and Christians. Secondly, it is illogical to argue that something can create itself, whether it is the universe, God, or a chocolate cake. Thirdly, atheists do not believe the universe lies uncreated by faith, but because there is no direct evidence of a creator who has done the creating. I know many atheists; if confronted with hard evidence of God's existence, I have little doubt that most of them would accept that evidence willingly and gratefully.

TomS:

See [my] preceeding points.

Jon Fleming:

This looks like an attempt to cast science as religion.

It's worth noting that the 'evolutionist' does not say "By faith, I believe that the universe created itself'; the 'evolutionist' says something like "The best and simplest explanation of the known evidence is that the Universe was created <insert appropriate explanation here>".

Of course there's nothing wrong with a creationist saying "By faith, I believe that God created the universe". However, there's a lot wrong with saying "My belief that God created the universe is scientific, and I want it taught as science in U.S. public schools" without providing appropriate evidence. The latter is encountered far, more often than the former.

John Harshman:

Would this question be a case in point? Given this list of random thoughts, I find the inclusion of that question pretty funny. But nobody says we resulted from chance. Natural selection is not random.

Daniel Harper:

"Chance" is only half the equation of evolution. "Natural selection" is the other half. Natural selection "selects" for those variants that have the highest survival value; those organisms whose thoughts most closely match reality likely have a significant survival value over those whose thoughts do not.

This question leads me to believe that you have little understanding of evolutionary biology. Perhaps a textbook would help?

TomS:

5a. "Wouldn't designed creatures have designed thoughts?"

5b. This is properly a question about genetics and developmental biology, not evolution. Our genes are a chance mixture of the genes from our parents, with some additional random mutations. If you are concerned about the consequences of chance, you should be addressing your concerns to these sciences.

[I won't respond to] the rest because I think that you should understand the general drift of what I am getting at. These questions have two general problems: (a) they don't present an alternative which has any better answers than generally accepted science; and (b) they are arguing, not with evolutionary biology, but with some other science.

I will leave the scientific responses to the scientists.

John Wilkins:

[...] Anything that results from chance is as law-bound as anything else (especially since "chance" is subject to the laws of variation and error anyway, and what these folk call "chance" is really physically deterministic processes anyway, such as mutation).

TomS:

And the standard example of a very determined result from very chance events is that a casino will make money. They will try their best to make sure that the events are (from the point of view of the gamblers, at least) chance events. If they are not chance events (such as when someone gets a system for beating the house), then the house can have troubles.

John Harshman:

A good question. I think the answer you are looking for is that this somehow means that god created it. But which god? Krishna? Zeus? Jehovah? Whatever the reason for the need, it seems to be filled in hundreds of mutually contradictory ways, some of which (like some forms of buddhism) don't even incorporate a god at all.

Sverker Johansson:

Some do, some don't.

Daniel Harper:

Just because man has a need for religion (which many people I know don't seem to have, or at least have in a much lesser degree than many others) does not mean that God exists. If God exists, He would probably instill in his creations a need to express themselves to Him, which would lead to a growth of religion, but you can't argue the other way around.

If I have a bill for X dollars come in the mail, does that mean that I must have at least X dollars in my checking account? Of, if only that were so....

John Harshman:

It seems to have been a fairly recent development. In fact, painting doesn't seem to have happened until around 40,000 years ago. It's clearly a cultural development. You may as well ask why monkeys don't have bows or cook their food too.

Sverker Johansson:

Apes do paint when provided with paint and paper and brushes, in a human-cultural setting.

Daniel Harper:

Well, first of all, there are indeed monkeys who can paint better than I can, I'm sure. Monkeys have been trained to express themselves artistically; they do seem to have the ability to learn such talents.

If you're asking why monkeys are not humans, I'd answer that sea horses aren't humans either; humans also are not sea horses. We can't breathe underwater and swim sideways; does that imply that evolution is not true?

To get to the nitty-gritty of your question, it's also almost certainly true that monkeys simply don't have the intelligence of humans (not to mention the free time that tool-making provides), which goes a long way towards explaining why monkeys haven't developed cave painting yet. What does any of this have to do with evolutionary biology, anyway?

John Harshman:

I don't know. But why should chaos be the null hypothesis anyway? Order comes about from a wide variety of possible sets of rules. Is chaos more likely than order when a universe comes about? What is the possible parameter space, and how much of it results in order rather than chaos? I don't know, and neither do you.

Daniel Harper:

Define "order" and "chaos" and I'll get back to you.

It should be noted, while I'm here, that Quantum Mechanics holds that at the bottomost level of existence, reality does seem very random and chaotic, and that only statistical averages observed on a day-to-day basis on the macro scale belie any "order" to the universe. Perhaps this is overstating my case, but you really haven't defined your terms very well.