Why do people equate ID with Creationism?

[The_Barbarian]

Your comments are biased.

“Biased” = “True, but I don’t want to hear it.”

And it’s quite true. The Nazis ran out of Germany, among others, the guys who made the atomic bomb possible.

As far as the Nazis, this country brought a lot of them here after the war.

No biologists, though. Their brand of “Aryan” biology couldn’t compete with Darwinism.

The Russians put up a satellite first, called Sputnik.

But Russian biology, once a world leader, fell apart after Stalin’s
decision that Darwin was politically incorrect. Their best biologists retired, were killed, or fled the country. Russia still lags badly behind the west because of Lysenko’s anti-Darwinian purge.

There is no envy of science.

Constantly. Why do you think that the creationists changed the name to “Intelligent Design”, purged their textbooks of “creationism”, and inserted “design?” They were hoping some of the success would rub off.

There is the valid concern that evolution, the theory, is and has led to social reorientations. The Supreme Court of the United States approved forced sterilization so that persons judged "deficient"could not contaminate the gene pool.

Ironically, this was a common practice in the deep south where Darwin’s theory was illegal to even teach in many places. And less common where science was not subjected to Soviet-style control.

Too many people believe that they are bags of chemicals.

Never met one like that, but then, maybe it’s different where you are.

This thought is fortified by scientists making statements like, “Genetics and environment, what else is there?”

In heredity, nothing else. But we are not our genes, nor are we merely our bodies. And I’ve yet to see any scientist say that we are.

The average person makes no distinction between textbooks (which most are happy to leave behind after high school) and pronouncements from scientists regarding the origin of mankind. You are an accident, a random roll of the dice, an animal.

As you learned, Darwin’s great discovery was that it wasn’t random.

As Pope Benedict stated: “We are not some casual, meaningless product of evolution.”

And yet he says that it is “virtually certain” that all living things on earth have a common ancestor.

And once you realize why these statements are not contradictory, you will understand the Church’s teachings, and the nature of evolution.

Worth doing a little research, no?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

“Why does it seem that many people equate the Intelligent Design movement (ID) with Creationism?”

Creationism was renamed to creation science in an unsuccessful attempt to force science teachers to teach magic. Then creation science was renamed to intelligent design in another unsuccessful attempt to force science teachers to teach magic. Now intelligent design is being renamed to “teach the controversy” to force science teachers to lie about evolution. So far that hasn’t worked either. Science teachers are not interested in lying to their students.

“Are they different or are they the same?”

Both creationism and intelligent design invoke God, except that the intelligent design proponents call God a “designer” in an unsuccessful attempt to disguise magic to look like science.

Intelligent design proponents invoke the designer, also known as God, also known as Magic, whenever they can’t figure out how something could have evolved. ID proponents invoke magic anytime they want for anything they want. They are always just guessing and they always prove their total ignorance of evolutionary science.

“If they are different, what is the major difference?”

Creationism and ID are the same because they both invoke God, however the creationists, to their credit, are at least honest about what creationism is. Unfortunately the ID creationists are not so honest. Every time they claim ID is science, everyone, even the creationists, knows they are lying.

“If they are the same, why do proponents of ID insist otherwise?”

Because ID proponents are LIARS. They won’t admit intelligent design is nothing more than a collection of magic tricks because they want to pretend ID is science. So far they haven’t fooled anyone. I have to wonder why intelligent design LIARS continue lying when everyone knows they’re lying. What do they expect to accomplish when it’s a well known fact they are compulsive LIARS.

By the way, creationism, whether it’s called intelligent design or creation science, is most definitely totally false. The god hypothesis is not required to explain the diversity of life.

God has better things to than be an explanation. Besides, “explanation by deity” looks pretty silly when it ceases to be needed. After all, there was nothing supernatural about the boy in Matthew 17. He had epilepsy - for which there are now many therapies: & exorcism is not one of them. So “explanation by demon” is equally useless, & for the same reason.​

God is needed to explain everything - including the stuff that has been perfectly adequately explained. Not by being one phenomenon in the universe among others, but by being the source of all phenomena. He is useless as a causal explanation, because all phenomena depend on His universal causality, whatever the forms of their own causalities. God’s causality explains too much to be any use for human purposes.

For more than a century biologists have accepted evolution as a fact, as much as a fact as our planet’s orbit around the sun. New evidence from DNA analysis is so powerful an educated person would have to be completely out of his mind to deny all life evolved and all life, including people, is related to all other life. Even the most religious biologists completely accept evolution because they can’t deny the powerful DNA evidence they can see with their own eyes. Also competent religious biologists don’t call it “theistic evolution” because they know the god hypothesis is not necessary to help and/or invent evolution. They also don’t call themselves theistic biologists because they know theism has absolutely nothing to do with science.

This sounds like the problem Fundamentalists have with the legitimacy of Biblical criticism: they can’t get it into their heads that “explanation by God/miracle/the supernatural” does not have any explanatory value; it has no function to play in Biblical scholarship, any more than in science. God is utterly irrelevant to science, as well as to Biblical criticism: just as He is to everything else.​

The trouble with “explanation by miracle/supernatural/deity” is that it is ad hoc - & it never covers all the data. A science has to: biology would be would pretty odd if some animals were created miraculously, & others not. A science with data like that would not be able to give consistent knowledge of the world, nor could it have a consistent method.

A God who is pulled in to account for an alleged miracle, is not big enough to do so unless He is big enough to account for all the millions of data that are not miraculous. He has to account not only for the (possibly genuine) miracles at Lourdes, but for the utterly unmiraculous working of a microwave oven, the growth of a tree, or the birth of a spider; otherwise, He is nothing but a slot-machine in Heaven, turning out miracles when a prayer or two is fed in.

But science has to take account of the phenomena that are by no definition miraculous, as well as of those that are so. It cannot afford the occasionalism of Fundamentalism. Any more than Biblical criticism can: its methods too have to take account of all the phenomena of the Bible that are explicable without resort to God - IOW, all of them.

This insistence on looking only at part of the picture is part & parcel of Fundamentalism: it is incapable of seeing things as wholes.

 

[edwest2]

“Biased” = “True, but I don’t want to hear it.”

And it’s quite true. The Nazis ran out of Germany, among others, the guys who made the atomic bomb possible.

No biologists, though. Their brand of “Aryan” biology couldn’t compete with Darwinism.

But Russian biology, once a world leader, fell apart after Stalin’s
decision that Darwin was politically incorrect. Their best biologists retired, were killed, or fled the country. Russia still lags badly behind the west because of Lysenko’s anti-Darwinian purge.

Constantly. Why do you think that the creationists changed the name to “Intelligent Design”, purged their textbooks of “creationism”, and inserted “design?” They were hoping some of the success would rub off.

Ironically, this was a common practice in the deep south where Darwin’s theory was illegal to even teach in many places. And less common where science was not subjected to Soviet-style control.

Never met one like that, but then, maybe it’s different where you are.

In heredity, nothing else. But we are not our genes, nor are we merely our bodies. And I’ve yet to see any scientist say that we are.

As you learned, Darwin’s great discovery was that it wasn’t random.

And yet he says that it is “virtually certain” that all living things on earth have a common ancestor.

And once you realize why these statements are not contradictory, you will understand the Church’s teachings, and the nature of evolution.

Worth doing a little research, no?

Your knowledge of history is skewed, and your dogmatic sounding statements carry little weight.

In 1950, a two volume set of books on Aviation Medicine was published by the Government Printing Office. It’s title: German Aviation Medicine, not American Aviation Medicine.

I suggest you read up on the origin of the following: Tabun, Sarin and Soman. No biology? Give me a break.

God bless,
Ed

 

[The_Barbarian]

Your knowledge of history is skewed, and your dogmatic sounding statements carry little weight.

Hmm… I’ll bet you a chocolate chip cookie, I have more upper-level history courses completed than you do. Wanna bet?

** Hitler’s Gift is the uplifting story of a small selection of the foreign scientists who fled to Britain and the United States to escape Nazi tyranny. Many of the physicists–such as Albert Einstein (at one time with a price on his head), Max Born, and Erwin Schrodinger–already had international reputations. As is well known, many were recruited to develop the atomic bomb; the complex theoretical background to this is lucidly analysed in a separate chapter, for which “lay” readers will be grateful. Among the biologists, Wilhelm Feldberg, Hans Krebs, Ernst Chain, and Max Perutz (who provides a spirited foreword) were some of those who contributed to medical science.

This passionate account, by two authors with personal experience of some of the players, is an illuminating and timely tribute. And it was not only scientists to whom we owe an enormous debt:Jean Medawar writes that her late husband, Sir Peter Medawar, transplant pioneer and Nobel laureate, “used to say that the three greatest Englishmen he knew were Ernst Gombrich, Max Perutz, and Karl Popper–art historian, biologist, and philosopher–all from Vienna.”**
Hitler’s Gift: Scientists Who Fled Nazi Germany Jean Medawar, David Pyke Richard Cohen

Krebs, as you might guess, is the man who identified the citric acid cycle, now called the Krebs cycle in his honor. It places him as one of the great biologists of all time, and it is this for and his discovery of the urea cycle that earned him a Nobel prize.

In 1950, a two volume set of books on Aviation Medicine was published by the Government Printing Office. It’s title: German Aviation Medicine, not American Aviation Medicine.

It was controversial. The one thing the Nazis had, that we didn’t, was the will to do horrible things to find out. Specifically, their flight surgeons put prisoners in icy water until they nearly died of hypothermia, and then studied the best way to revive them. Some, they merely dunked until they died, to observe the process. There was considerable argument about whether or not we should use their results, but we finally did.

Much of such “research” was total garbage by quacks who merely concocted sadistic tortures for no apparent reason.

I suggest you read up on the origin of the following: Tabun, Sarin and Soman. No biology?

Chemistry, not biology. And these were discovered in the 30s, prior to the “final solution”, and the departure of so many top-ranking scientists.

Give me a break.

Not yet:

In 1964, physicist Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Academy of Sciences:
"He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists. "
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ed.

 

[Ender]

1. An irreducibly complex enzyme system was observed to evolve in a culture of bacteria.
2. Behe now admits that irreducible complexity can evolve. He still thinks it’s rare, but has no evidence to support that belief.

Would you cite your sources for these claims? I would like to read about them.

Ender

 

[The_Barbarian]

Would you cite your sources for these claims? I would like to read about them.

Sure.
Evolution of an irreducibly complex system:
millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/Parts-is-Parts.html

**Regarding the evolution of an IC system via an indirect evolutionary path, Behe admits that such a process is possible but, in his opinion, so highly improbable that it cannot be considered a feasible option.

The last point has been disputed by professional biologists. They suggest detailed scenarios showing how, for example, a bacterial flagellum could have evolved from evolutionary precursors with a sufficiently high likelihood (Matzke 2003, Ussery 2004, Musgrave 2004). The consensus of the vast majority of professional biologists seems to favor the views of Behe’s opponents. Except for vague protestations, wherein Behe and his supporters demand from their opponents highly detailed proofs of the factual occurrence of indirect evolutionary paths leading to IC systems, Behe seems to be unable to offer substantive counterarguments.**
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_6_29/ai_n15930875

His statement on his website seems to be down now. I’ll see if I can find one for you.

 

[edwest2]

Hmm… I’ll bet you a chocolate chip cookie, I have more upper-level history courses completed than you do. Wanna bet?

** Hitler’s Gift is the uplifting story of a small selection of the foreign scientists who fled to Britain and the United States to escape Nazi tyranny. Many of the physicists–such as Albert Einstein (at one time with a price on his head), Max Born, and Erwin Schrodinger–already had international reputations. As is well known, many were recruited to develop the atomic bomb; the complex theoretical background to this is lucidly analysed in a separate chapter, for which “lay” readers will be grateful. Among the biologists, Wilhelm Feldberg, Hans Krebs, Ernst Chain, and Max Perutz (who provides a spirited foreword) were some of those who contributed to medical science.

This passionate account, by two authors with personal experience of some of the players, is an illuminating and timely tribute. And it was not only scientists to whom we owe an enormous debt:Jean Medawar writes that her late husband, Sir Peter Medawar, transplant pioneer and Nobel laureate, “used to say that the three greatest Englishmen he knew were Ernst Gombrich, Max Perutz, and Karl Popper–art historian, biologist, and philosopher–all from Vienna.”**
Hitler’s Gift: Scientists Who Fled Nazi Germany Jean Medawar, David Pyke Richard Cohen

Krebs, as you might guess, is the man who identified the citric acid cycle, now called the Krebs cycle in his honor. It places him as one of the great biologists of all time, and it is this for and his discovery of the urea cycle that earned him a Nobel prize.

It was controversial. The one thing the Nazis had, that we didn’t, was the will to do horrible things to find out. Specifically, their flight surgeons put prisoners in icy water until they nearly died of hypothermia, and then studied the best way to revive them. Some, they merely dunked until they died, to observe the process. There was considerable argument about whether or not we should use their results, but we finally did.

Much of such “research” was total garbage by quacks who merely concocted sadistic tortures for no apparent reason.

Chemistry, not biology. And these were discovered in the 30s, prior to the “final solution”, and the departure of so many top-ranking scientists.

Not yet:

In 1964, physicist Andrei Sakharov spoke out against Lysenko in the General Assembly of the Academy of Sciences:
"He is responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudo-scientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firing, arrest, even death, of many genuine scientists. "
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko

You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ed.

Who is this “we” you are referring to? Unfortunately, some Nazi biologists ended up in the United States and England. I suggest you pick up a copy of Gassed - British Chemical Warfare Experiments on Humans at Porton Down by Rob Evans. The British have just recently apologized to the surviving victims and paid a cash settlement. I could provide a link to a rather grisly experiment involving a British soldier being exposed to nerve gas.

NASA was filled with former Nazis. Our space program was based on captured V-2 rockets and the cruise missile on captured V-1s (copies of which were built in the United States under the designation Loon).

Your compartmentalized worldview does not hold up.

God bless,
Ed

 

[rossum]

Would you cite your sources for these claims? I would like to read about them.

I suspect that the Barbarian’s source for “2. Behe now admits that irreducible complexity can evolve. He still thinks it’s rare, but has no evidence to support that belief.” is Behe’s papeer with David Snoke: Simulating evolution by gene duplication of protein features that require multiple amino acid residues. This paper looks at how likely it is that a system requiring multiple residues (i.e. an IC system) could evolve. To quote from the abstract:We conclude that, in general, to be fixed in 10[sup]8[/sup] generations, the production of novel protein features that require the participation of two or more amino acid residues simply by multiple point mutations in duplicated genes would entail population sizes of no less than 10[sup]9[/sup].
To put that in some context, Behe and Snoke are talking about IC systems here - they require “two or more amino acid residues” to work. One residue, that is one mutation, will not produce a working system; two or more mutations are needed. In bacteria 10[sup]8[/sup] generations can take about 20,000 years as Behe himself confirmed in his evidence at the Kitzmiller trial. Also confirmed by Behe at that trial is the fact that on average a ton of soil contains about 10[sup]16[/sup] bacteria, that is 10,000,000 times the size of population Behe and Snoke are talking about in their abstract.

It is also worth quoting from the Discussion section of the paper:Our model is restricted to the development of MR features by point mutation in a duplicated gene. We strongly emphasize that results bearing on the efficiency of this one pathway as a conduit for Darwinian evolution say little or nothing about the efficiency of other possible pathways. Thus, for example, the present study that examines the evolution of MR protein features by point mutation in duplicate genes does not indicate whether evolution of such features by other processes (such as recombination or insertion/deletion mutations) would be more or less efficient.
MR = Multiple Residue in this context, which is equivalent to Irreducibly Complex.

In summary Behe’s paper shows that IC systems can evolve in small populations in about 20,000 years using only a subset of known evolutionary mechanisms.

The Barbarian is correct, Behe does agree that IC can evolve. The evidence Behe has produced in this paper does not support any contention that the evolution of IC is rare - 20,000 years is an eyeblink in evolutionary terms and a population of 10[sup]8[/sup] bacteria is very small. For example unless you are taking antibiotics you have a larger population of bacteria in your gut.

rossum

 

[zian]

I just saw this article and thought some of us might find it interesting. It probably should go in one of the evolution threads, but this is the closest active thread, so here it is:

“My Failed Simulation on Evolution”
humanevents.com/article.php?id=25030

Except that the title of Sewell’s article is “Failed Simulation on Creation”.

This is just a complex numerical version of the “tornado in a junkyard failing to assemble a 747” argument. And yes, it failed to take natural selection into account, Sewell admitting that he didn’t know how to do that.

Not much to see here, folks. I think we can move along.

 

[The_Barbarian]

(Barbarian shows that Ed was wrong about the decline of Nazi and Soviet biology, in part due to the removal of Darwinian theory from universities there)

Who is this “we” you are referring to? Unfortunately, some Nazi biologists ended up in the United States and England.

Rather more of them, who were not Nazis. Krebs, Einstein, Heisenberg, and others. That was the point. Nazi and Soviet biology declined as a result of the anti-Darwinian purges.

Our space program was based on captured V-2 rockets and the cruise missile on captured V-1s (copies of which were built in the United States under the designation Loon).

Poetic Justice. Von Braun openly admitted that the V-2s were adapted from research by the American scientist Paul Goddard, who pioneered scientific rocketry, and who invented the liquid fuel rocket systems used by the Germans.

Your compartmentalized worldview does not hold up.

Heh, reality just blindsided you again. What you don’t know, can hurt you.

 

[ricmat]

Except that the title of Sewell’s article is “Failed Simulation on Creation”.

This is just a complex numerical version of the “tornado in a junkyard failing to assemble a 747” argument. And yes, it failed to take natural selection into account, Sewell admitting that he didn’t know how to do that.

Not much to see here, folks. I think we can move along.

ATTENTION ALL THREADS. ATTENTION ALL THREADS.

Speaking from the Chair, Zian has pronounced that there is nothing to see here, so we can now move along.

In other news, Zian is now ahead in the pomposity contest.

For those of you who do not believe in Zian’s infallibility, the article I mentioned, and the links contained within that article might make interesting reading, even if you don’t agree with it.

 

[zian]

ATTENTION ALL THREADS. ATTENTION ALL THREADS.

Speaking from the Chair, Zian has pronounced that there is nothing to see here, so we can now move along.

In other news, Zian is now ahead in the pomposity contest.

For those of you who do not believe in Zian’s infallibility, the article I mentioned, and the links contained within that article might make interesting reading, even if you don’t agree with it.

If you say so …

Actually, I said there’s “not much” to see there, not “nothing” to see there. A little accuracy on your part might help to lend credibility to your argument. If you think it’s so great, then ask a mod to split it to it’s own thread - it’s a free forum.

In addition, perhaps you would like to read Mark Perakh’s commentary on Sewell’s thermodynamic arguments; see
talkreason.org/articles/Sewell.cfm
and also this
csicop.org/intelligentdesignwatch/thermodynamics.html

 

[ricmat]

If you say so …

Actually, I said there’s “not much” to see there, not “nothing” to see there. A little accuracy on your part might help to lend credibility to your argument. If you think it’s so great, then ask a mod to split it to it’s own thread - it’s a free forum.

I didn’t say it was “great.” A little accuracy on your part might help to lend credibility to your argument.

 

[reggieM]

I thought it was a very interesting article. Thanks for posting it.

 

[zian]

I didn’t say it was “great.” A little accuracy on your part might help to lend credibility to your argument.

I didn’t say you did; I did say “If …”.

 

[Ender]

Rather more of them, who were not Nazis. Krebs, Einstein, Heisenberg, and others. That was the point. Nazi and Soviet biology declined as a result of the anti-Darwinian purges.

Your point may be valid but I’m sure you know that Einstein and Heisenberg weren’t biologists and Krebs wasn’t purged because he was a Darwinist. He left Germany because he was a Jew. Including them doesn’t help your claim.

Ender

 

[ricmat]

Except that the title of Sewell’s article is “Failed Simulation on Creation”.

This is just a complex numerical version of the “tornado in a junkyard failing to assemble a 747” argument. And yes, it failed to take natural selection into account, Sewell admitting that he didn’t know how to do that.

Not much to see here, folks. I think we can move along.

You understand, of course, that a failure of the model to duplicate what the theory says should happen could be a failure of the theory itself (and not just a failure of the model). Don’t you?

And you understand, of course, that natural selection is not a driving force, it is a filter. Natural selection can select (or show preference) only from the “random” mutations that have already occurred. The “random mutations + natural selection” version of evolution requires that the random mutations create a higher degree of order before the natural selection filter can prefer it.

If the chances of random mutations creating something very simple in 13 billion years are zilch, then how could natural selection prefer something that doesn’t exist?

BTW - the links to the articles you posted in response were rabidly anti-creationist. I’m not a creationist (and I’m not sure about Sewell). IMO where “random mutations + natural selection” falls apart is that there’s not enough time for it (only 4 billion years) to come up with complex life. So I merely disagree with the “random mutations” part, and personally believe that the mutations were “guided” by God in a non-random way. Just like God personally crafted this whole universe, and did not rely on a multi-universes approach in an attempt to get one that works right for the development of life.

You do believe that God had something to do with all this, right?

 

[edwest2]

(Barbarian shows that Ed was wrong about the decline of Nazi and Soviet biology, in part due to the removal of Darwinian theory from universities there)

Rather more of them, who were not Nazis. Krebs, Einstein, Heisenberg, and others. That was the point. Nazi and Soviet biology declined as a result of the anti-Darwinian purges.

Poetic Justice. Von Braun openly admitted that the V-2s were adapted from research by the American scientist Paul Goddard, who pioneered scientific rocketry, and who invented the liquid fuel rocket systems used by the Germans.

Heh, reality just blindsided you again. What you don’t know, can hurt you.

Your statements are demonstrably false. To compare Robert Goddard’s primitive liquid fuel rocket to the V-2 is nonsense. Can you name one liquid fuel rocket designed by Goddard that was used by the U.S. Army? There were none.

The Germans developed the first ballistic rocket used in combat. The first cruise missile, the V-1, which was copied in the United States before the end of World War II, engine built by the Ford Motor Company.

Project Paperclip brought over hundreds of Nazis to the United States, not including those brought to Russia, England, Canada and Australia.

Nazi biologists entered the employ of the CIA.

God bless,
Ed

 

[rossum]

You understand, of course, that a failure of the model to duplicate what the theory says should happen could be a failure of the theory itself (and not just a failure of the model). Don’t you?

Understood.

And you understand, of course, that natural selection is not a driving force, it is a filter. Natural selection can select (or show preference) only from the “random” mutations that have already occurred.

More strictly it can only select from the phenotypic effects of the random mutations that have occurred. Most mutations are neutral, with no phenotypic effect, and are invisible to natural selection. Other mechanisms such as genetic drift operate for such neutral mutations.

The “random mutations + natural selection” version of evolution requires that the random mutations create a higher degree of order before the natural selection filter can prefer it.

Incorrect. There needs to be a difference between the phenotype with the unmutated gene and the phenotype with the mutated gene. There is no requirement for “higher”, “lower” or any degree of order. Natural selection picks from the available variations in phenotypes.

If the chances of random mutations creating something very simple in 13 billion years are zilch, then how could natural selection prefer something that doesn’t exist?

Evolution only starts after the first imperfect replicator. You seem to be talking about abiogenesis here, which is a whole different kettle of chemistry. Chemistry shows that improbable things happen: what is the raw chance that billions of salt molecules will align themselves in an exact cubical lattice? You need a lot of detailed chemical knowledge to even begin to calculate the probabilities for abiogenesis. As to the “If …”: how about “If Shiva were shown to be the only existing God …” It is all too easy to win an argument by assuming that your major premise is correct.

If you want to show that a certain event has a very low mathematical probability then you need to have a mathematical model on which to base your calculations. Not having seen your model I cannot comment on it, but you are no doubt aware that a faulty model will produce meaningless numbers.

rossum

 

[ricmat]

Incorrect. There needs to be a difference between the phenotype with the unmutated gene and the phenotype with the mutated gene. There is no requirement for “higher”, “lower” or any degree of order. Natural selection picks from the available variations in phenotypes.

The Theory of Evolution “requires” that order be increased - it’s not MY requirement. A complex life form is more ordered than a simple one. And after the “better and more ordered” life form is “available” then natural selection can give it preference (in a matter of speaking).

Evolution only starts after the first imperfect replicator. You seem to be talking about abiogenesis here, which is a whole different kettle of chemistry. Chemistry shows that improbable things happen: what is the raw chance that billions of salt molecules will align themselves in an exact cubical lattice?

Abiogenesis is a different story, I agree. The probability of simple life arising from dirt in 9 billion years is even more improbable than simple life becoming complex life in 4 billion years.

Salt crystals forming is pretty much built into the basic geometry of the chemical bonds. It is very probable that salt will form crystals.