Evolution is Wrong?

[PGJ]

I’m not going to get into a long debate on this because I already did on another thread and beat it to death. Basically, everything that is considered “fact” about evolution will be proven false through future scientific advances. Science always rewrites itself. Why fall in love with a theory that you know will be different in a few years? I don’t think evolution is flat-out wrong, I just don’t think it explains how life was created. Where did the very first living thing come from? Something exploded a long time ago and somehow created life which eventually became man? To me, that is evolution. The fact that there are 13 different types of finches in the Galapagos is not evolution.

It has become “intellectual” to beleive everything scientists say about evolution, and who wants to be called unintellectual? Scientists are just as prone to fudging the truth as anyone else (or at least providing only data that supports their hypothesis).

I think the question is not why is evolution wrong, but why is it wrong to not believe in evolution? It’s not.

[pookie]

[quote]PGJ wrote:
Basically, everything that is considered “fact” about evolution will be proven false through future scientific advances. Science always rewrites itself.[/quote]

Well that’s how progress is made. It’s rather unlikely, though, that evolution would be entirely replaced with a completely new theory which bore no resemblance to the actual theory. What is more likely to happen, is that some of the unanswered questions will find answers, or some new mechanism will be discovered to explain some of the contested points in ET.

Why fall in love with a theory that you know will be different in a few years?

It’s not a question of being in love; but rather a question of intellectual honesty. If that’s how the world works, why pretend otherwise simply because you’d prefer it worked in some other way?

In fact, due the the way science works, if you have a better idea, and can support your idea with evidence, you can propose your own theory to replace evolution. Your theory should explain at least as much as evolution does, while having less unanswered questions.

I don’t think evolution is flat-out wrong, I just don’t think it explains how life was created.

That’s not part of Evolution theory. Evolution is concerned with the changes that occur once life is present.

Where did the very first living thing come from?

There are quite a few theories (in the field of abiogenesis) that give various scenarios on how life could have started from simple chemical self-replicators.

Something exploded a long time ago and somehow created life which eventually became man? To me, that is evolution.

You’re mixing up a whole bunch of different theories. Evolution does not address the Big Bang, or the formation of galaxies, stars and planets.

The fact that there are 13 different types of finches in the Galapagos is not evolution.

Not in its entirety, but it is one example that is explained by evolution.

Scientists are just as prone to fudging the truth as anyone else (or at least providing only data that supports their hypothesis).

That probably happens, but the scientific process of peer review insures that a scientist who’s not diligent in presenting his work will be called out by his colleagues. It’s not like there is only one guy somewhere writing “Evolution” like it was his own personal novel.

I think the question is not why is evolution wrong, but why is it wrong to not believe in evolution? It’s not.

It’s not wrong to not believe in what you call “evolution,” but the theory you don’t believe it, from your description of it, is not the actual “Evolution theory” that’s implied by scientists when talking about it.

From reading your posts, it appears that most of what you know about ET comes from creationist websites. (Mostly from your micro-evolution/macro-evolution distinction) It’s ok to question Evolution theory, but you should at least make sure you’re questioning the real theory, not the one you think it is.

[Lorisco]

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
But it is a reasonable proposition. On the other hand, the idea of traits continuously being selected, but the species remaining stable, is not a reasonable proposition.
[/quote]

I believe that is reasonable due to the body’s natural ability to maintain homeostasis. Adapting traits within a species maintains homeostasis, while developing into a new species (with no prior genetic blueprint to follow) would not support homeostasis.

And the macroevolutioanry process calls for millions of this “outside the box” changes, all of which would not support homeostasis. As such, I believe that macroevolution is not consistent with what we currently know about how the body functions. This may change as new actually evidence is discovered, but not the case to date.

A good example of this that all can relate to on this site is building muscle. It is the body’s homeostasis process that makes it so difficult to gain muscle fast.

When you build muscle you are doing it by pushing your body’s adaptive process. It does adapt, but doesn’t like to change. So once you stop training your body will go right back to the way it was. And these adaptations are based on significant changes and effort and yet within a species. But no matter how long and hard you train there will come a point in which you will stop getting bigger and stronger.

Your body will not allow change beyond that point. Now picture subtle influences like environment, food, etc. and expect these very subtitle changes to have large scale changes. It is not very likely given our current knowledge of the body’s homeostasic process.

In terms of proof, you don’t need to look further than dog breeds. Modern dog breeds are fairly recent, and are the result of what I would call semi-natural selection (much if it was not done deliberately, as in artificial selection, but it was still done by humans). The result is over 400 breeds of dog, most of which have been around for less than 200 years. Isn’t this evidence of macroevolution?

Not sure how you can jump from A-Z in this scenario? Adaptation or genetic manipulation within a species doesn’t demonstrate macroevolution. These are still all Canines. They didn’t change into monkeys or something else.

[quote]
Moreover, since evolution provides a better explanation of how life works than rival theories (if there are any), I would suggest that the burden of proof to demonstrate that evolution is insufficient to explain life (and to propose a better theory) is on the opponents of evolution. Hearing this evidence is the purpose of this thread.[/quote]

One of my main issues with evolution is that it does not take into account the extremely complex and orderly system that allows such large scale changes.

It takes human/organic life in a vacuum and states; we don’t have a clue how the system with so many variables could randomly be lined up just right for trillions of years, but given this mathematically impossible scenario did occurred, we have an idea how life could have developed. This is like trying to explain how hair grows separate from the living creature it is growing on.

[Lorisco]

[quote]etaco wrote:
Lorisco wrote:

For example, give adults stimulant type medications and they have increased heat rate, B/P, etc. Their system basically speeds up. So logically you would think that giving a teenager a stimulant would have a similar effect. Yet, the truth is that in most cases it has the opposite effect. Everyone has heard of Ritalin that is given to ADHD teens to reduce their hyperactivity. But not everyone knows that Ritalin is actually a stimulant.

Not to digress too far, but ritalin has the same calming effects on me now as an adult as it did during the periods I tried it as a juvenile.[/quote]

Well, I would then say that you need to grow up!

Just kidding. So you are in your 20’s, right?

[PGJ]

[quote]pookie wrote:
PGJ wrote:
Basically, everything that is considered “fact” about evolution will be proven false through future scientific advances. Science always rewrites itself.

Well that’s how progress is made. It’s rather unlikely, though, that evolution would be entirely replaced with a completely new theory which bore no resemblance to the actual theory. What is more likely to happen, is that some of the unanswered questions will find answers, or some new mechanism will be discovered to explain some of the contested points in ET.

Why fall in love with a theory that you know will be different in a few years?

It’s not a question of being in love; but rather a question of intellectual honesty. If that’s how the world works, why pretend otherwise simply because you’d prefer it worked in some other way?

In fact, due the the way science works, if you have a better idea, and can support your idea with evidence, you can propose your own theory to replace evolution. Your theory should explain at least as much as evolution does, while having less unanswered questions.

I don’t think evolution is flat-out wrong, I just don’t think it explains how life was created.

That’s not part of Evolution theory. Evolution is concerned with the changes that occur once life is present.

Where did the very first living thing come from?

There are quite a few theories (in the field of abiogenesis) that give various scenarios on how life could have started from simple chemical self-replicators.

Something exploded a long time ago and somehow created life which eventually became man? To me, that is evolution.

You’re mixing up a whole bunch of different theories. Evolution does not address the Big Bang, or the formation of galaxies, stars and planets.

The fact that there are 13 different types of finches in the Galapagos is not evolution.

Not in its entirety, but it is one example that is explained by evolution.

Scientists are just as prone to fudging the truth as anyone else (or at least providing only data that supports their hypothesis).

That probably happens, but the scientific process of peer review insures that a scientist who’s not diligent in presenting his work will be called out by his colleagues. It’s not like there is only one guy somewhere writing “Evolution” like it was his own personal novel.

I think the question is not why is evolution wrong, but why is it wrong to not believe in evolution? It’s not.

It’s not wrong to not believe in what you call “evolution,” but the theory you don’t believe it, from your description of it, is not the actual “Evolution theory” that’s implied by scientists when talking about it.

From reading your posts, it appears that most of what you know about ET comes from creationist websites. (Mostly from your micro-evolution/macro-evolution distinction) It’s ok to question Evolution theory, but you should at least make sure you’re questioning the real theory, not the one you think it is.
[/quote]

You make some good points. Sounds like we have different definitions of evolution. Let me ask you something direct: does evolution claim that man evolved from apes?

Does it claim that apes (and all creatures) evolved from micro-organisims way back when the earth was forming? And does evolution trace it’s roots all the way back to the Big Bang Theory and the beginning of life? That’s my idea of the Theory of Evolution.

[pookie]

[quote]PGJ wrote:
You make some good points. Sounds like we have different definitions of evolution. Let me ask you something direct: does evolution claim that man evolved from apes?[/quote]

No. It claims that man and ape share a common ancestor.

Does it claim that apes (and all creatures) evolved from micro-organisims way back when the earth was forming?

It depends on what you mean by “when the Earth was forming” as the Earth is not a static thing, it has always been a rather dynamic system.

Apart from that, Evolution does claim that all life can be traced back to micro-organisms.

And does evolution trace it’s roots all the way back to the Big Bang Theory and the beginning of life?

No. The Big Bang theory is proposed by Cosmology (which is similar to evolution, but for the universe). The study of how life first appeared is generally referred to as ‘abiogenesis’ (life from non-life) and is maybe the least studied and hence least understood part of the whole scheme.

That’s my idea of the Theory of Evolution.

It doesn’t quite coincide with what scientists call the Theory of Evolution. There are a lot of books available about it; or you could start here: The Talk.Origins Archive: Must-Read FAQs for brief intro.

[Aleksandr]

[quote]Lorisco wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
But it is a reasonable proposition. On the other hand, the idea of traits continuously being selected, but the species remaining stable, is not a reasonable proposition.

I believe that is reasonable due to the body’s natural ability to maintain homeostasis. Adapting traits within a species maintains homeostasis, while developing into a new species (with no prior genetic blueprint to follow) would not support homeostasis.

And the macroevolutioanry process calls for millions of this “outside the box” changes, all of which would not support homeostasis. As such, I believe that macroevolution is not consistent with what we currently know about how the body functions. This may change as new actually evidence is discovered, but not the case to date.

A good example of this that all can relate to on this site is building muscle. It is the body’s homeostasis process that makes it so difficult to gain muscle fast.

When you build muscle you are doing it by pushing your body’s adaptive process. It does adapt, but doesn’t like to change. So once you stop training your body will go right back to the way it was. And these adaptations are based on significant changes and effort and yet within a species. But no matter how long and hard you train there will come a point in which you will stop getting bigger and stronger.

Your body will not allow change beyond that point. Now picture subtle influences like environment, food, etc. and expect these very subtitle changes to have large scale changes. It is not very likely given our current knowledge of the body’s homeostasic process.

[/quote]

You are misunderstanding what evolution is. It is not an organism adapting, it is the species adapting. This is caused by genetic variation. For example, imagine if you infected every person in the world with some crazy new virus. SOme people would probably survive, due to certain traits they posses. In turn, they will pass on these traits to their children. However, everyone that doesn’t have this trait will die, and not have children. The next generation will have a much higher frequency of those traits than previous generations.

Natural selection works by organisms that are not able to (optimally) withstand a pressure failing to reproduce, or being less reproductively successful than the better-equipped organisms. If you remove the selection pressure, the species doesn’t revert to what it was before, because its genetic makeup has changed.

[Ren]

slightly off topic, I read this short story tonight and it reminded me of all the lovely evolution/abiogenesis arguments we have on this particular forum. go ahead, its a good read:

http://infohost.nmt.edu/~mlindsey/asimov/question.htm

[PGJ]

[quote]pookie wrote:
PGJ wrote:
You make some good points. Sounds like we have different definitions of evolution. Let me ask you something direct: does evolution claim that man evolved from apes?

No. It claims that man and ape share a common ancestor.

[/quote]

What’s the difference? Evolution states that man used to not exist, that we evolved from some genetically different ape-like, non-human creature. And that pre-historic thing evolved from micro-organisims in the primordial soup.

I understand that TOE and BB are different, however they go together. TOE has to have a starting point. Shouldn’t evolutionists attempt to trace life back to the very beginning? How was life created from nothing? It can’t. Life started somehow. Modern science has not and will never be able to create life from nothing. Evolutionary thought, as you are explaining, starts somewhere in the middle of time and works forward, disregarding how it all began.

It seems like a lot of the arguments for evolution are lots of tiny little scientific details presented as fact (and perhaps some are fact) designed to get people comfortable with the idea, without giving thought to the bigger picture of “well, what about the rest of it?”.

My biggest problem with the whole thing is the religion of scientific evolution. I have tried my best not to take a strictly Christian approach with Bible quotes and all that because that will never convince a scientist. Conversely, a lot of folks worship at the altar of “scientific breakthrough”, willing to believe what ever is trendy and “intellectual”. Scientists are wrong as much as they are right. For example, all of a sudden, scientists say Pluto is not a planet. Huh? That goes back to my “oh, never mind” scientific reversal idea.

The big picture of evoultion (from the beginning, starting with nothing, and ending up as we are now) is not fact, not testable, not repeatable, yet people are ready to declare it as the ONLY possible explanation because they themselves are unwiling to consider an alternative, especially one that is not scientific. That’s when science becomes a religion to evolutionists.

[Ren]

[quote]PGJ wrote:

My biggest problem with the whole thing is the religion of scientific evolution. I have tried my best not to take a strictly Christian approach with Bible quotes and all that because that will never convince a scientist. Conversely, a lot of folks worship at the altar of “scientific breakthrough”, willing to believe what ever is trendy and “intellectual”. Scientists are wrong as much as they are right. For example, all of a sudden, scientists say Pluto is not a planet. Huh? That goes back to my “oh, never mind” scientific reversal idea.
[/quote]

You mean the vote by 5% of the world’s astronomers who stayed for last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague?

Yup, 424 decided that Pluto is no longer a planet, out of about 10,000. Will this get overturned? More than likely.

And you can say “scientists,” but most scientists don’t give a damn about the planets. Astronomers on the other hand do.

Back to the point, you really really really can’t say scientists like things that are “trendy,” simply because of the broad field of science. Every field is uncovering more breakthroughs, some of them amount to nothing, while others change the whole field around.

Also, never believe any scientific breakthrough that gets touted first through a news outlet, anything “breakthrough” worth a damn will get its living daylights peer reviewed first.

[Lorisco]

[quote]Aleksandr wrote:
Lorisco wrote:
Aleksandr wrote:
But it is a reasonable proposition. On the other hand, the idea of traits continuously being selected, but the species remaining stable, is not a reasonable proposition.

I believe that is reasonable due to the body’s natural ability to maintain homeostasis. Adapting traits within a species maintains homeostasis, while developing into a new species (with no prior genetic blueprint to follow) would not support homeostasis.

And the macroevolutioanry process calls for millions of this “outside the box” changes, all of which would not support homeostasis. As such, I believe that macroevolution is not consistent with what we currently know about how the body functions. This may change as new actually evidence is discovered, but not the case to date.

A good example of this that all can relate to on this site is building muscle. It is the body’s homeostasis process that makes it so difficult to gain muscle fast.

When you build muscle you are doing it by pushing your body’s adaptive process. It does adapt, but doesn’t like to change. So once you stop training your body will go right back to the way it was. And these adaptations are based on significant changes and effort and yet within a species. But no matter how long and hard you train there will come a point in which you will stop getting bigger and stronger.

Your body will not allow change beyond that point. Now picture subtle influences like environment, food, etc. and expect these very subtitle changes to have large scale changes. It is not very likely given our current knowledge of the body’s homeostasic process.

You are misunderstanding what evolution is. It is not an organism adapting, it is the species adapting. This is caused by genetic variation. For example, imagine if you infected every person in the world with some crazy new virus. SOme people would probably survive, due to certain traits they posses. In turn, they will pass on these traits to their children. However, everyone that doesn’t have this trait will die, and not have children. The next generation will have a much higher frequency of those traits than previous generations.
[/quote]

And what would cause an individual or group of people to have a genetic makeup to withstand a virus that it was not previously exposed to? It wouldn’t.

The only explanation to this scenario would be a genetic abnormality that turns out to be functional in a certain circumstance. So taking this further you would be saying that for every genetic change it was not a result of adaptation but in fact a genetic defect that turned out to be functional. And this random happenstance genetic defect process just happened to occur millions of times in order to magically arrive a modern man?

I don’t think that the mathematical odds can even be calculated on that one.

Oh, and for your information, a species adapting would have to first start as an organism adapting or it would not be adaptation at all. It would be random variation, what we mostly call genetic disease.

[quote]
Natural selection works by organisms that are not able to (optimally) withstand a pressure failing to reproduce, or being less reproductively successful than the better-equipped organisms. If you remove the selection pressure, the species doesn’t revert to what it was before, because its genetic makeup has changed.[/quote]

And yet there are still monkeys around today that did not evolve. So unless a group of monkeys was separated from the rest of the monkeys for millions of years and survived, your scenario is not possible with the current macroevolutionary model. And unless the monkeys that were separated knew how to swim, which monkeys today cannot do, that scenario is highly unlikely.

[pookie]

[quote]PGJ wrote:
What’s the difference?[/quote]

Well it’s that man didn’t evolve from apes as we know them today, but that we share a distant cousin from which both branch diverged.

I understand that TOE and BB are different, however they go together. TOE has to have a starting point. Shouldn’t evolutionists attempt to trace life back to the very beginning?

The point is not to try and explain everything at once. Evolution takes the universe as a given. How it came to be is for others to figure out. It’s not that it’s not relevant, simply that the study is done under another name, by people better trained to try and figure it out (physicists vs. biologists).

How was life created from nothing? It can’t. Life started somehow.

Nobody is claiming that life started from “nothing.” Life started somehow in the chemical soup that was present on the Earth in a distant pass. There are various theories describing how simple replicators might form spontaneously if the right conditions are present. And from those come, eventually, more complex replicators and so on, until… us.

Modern science has not and will never be able to create life from nothing.

How do you know what can or can’t be done? Do you know the future?

Science presumes that anything that has happened in the universe since it began has a natural explanation. The apparition of life is no exception. No one says it’s an easy explanation, but what’s the alternative? God “magically” caused life to begin? Isn’t God powerful enough to create a universe where life can spring forth on it’s own from the elements and physical laws? Do you presume to tell God how he can or can’t go about creating life?

Evolutionary thought, as you are explaining, starts somewhere in the middle of time and works forward, disregarding how it all began.

That’s because how it began is not what evolution concerns itself with. Evolution is concerned with the changes that occur within lifeforms. Like I said previously, no one can understand everything science has uncovered, men have to specialize in their respective fields.

It seems like a lot of the arguments for evolution are lots of tiny little scientific details presented as fact (and perhaps some are fact) designed to get people comfortable with the idea, without giving thought to the bigger picture of “well, what about the rest of it?”.

The rest of the picture is also quite well addressed by science; it simply falls under a different name than evolution.

It’s a bit like if you tell someone you trained your chest this morning, and they tell you “What about the rest of your body?” You try to explain that you separate muscle groups to target them better, but they keep telling you “that’s crap, the rest of the body is just as important.”

My biggest problem with the whole thing is the religion of scientific evolution. I have tried my best not to take a strictly Christian approach with Bible quotes and all that because that will never convince a scientist. Conversely, a lot of folks worship at the altar of “scientific breakthrough”, willing to believe what ever is trendy and “intellectual”. Scientists are wrong as much as they are right. For example, all of a sudden, scientists say Pluto is not a planet. Huh? That goes back to my “oh, never mind” scientific reversal idea.

What Pluto is called is a matter of semantics. Calling it a planet, a planetoid or a dwarf planet doesn’t change any of the facts about Pluto. It’s still there, it still has the same mass, the same orbit, etc. It’s important not to confuse terminology with the science itself.

And it’s a given that science will change, that the various theories will be refined and improved upon, or even replace by better ones. If you dismiss science because it can’t give you concrete, complete answers now, you’re missing on a lot.

[quote]The big picture of evoultion (from the beginning, starting with nothing, and ending up as we are now) is not fact, not testable, not repeatable, yet people are ready to declare it as the ONLY possible explanation because they themselves are unwiling to consider an alternative, especially one that is not scientific. That’s when science becomes a religion to evolutionists.
[/quote]

Actually, most of science is backed by observation. It used to be believed that the universe was static, unchanging. When observations showed that it was in fact expanding, new theories had to be put forth to explain that fact. From there, we got the Big Bang theory. There are a lot of various observations that back that theory; and there are others “facts” that don’t fit. The purpose of science is not to get it’s various theories to be believed in a dogmatic way; it is to figure out how our universe works; what the “truth” of it is, if you want. Evolution, Big Bang, the Standard Model, String Theory, etc. All those are simply our current “best bets.” Most of those theories are incomplete or have significant problems. But as theories go, Evolution is one of the most rock-solid ones we have.

[Aleksandr]

[quote]Lorisco wrote:

And what would cause an individual or group of people to have a genetic makeup to withstand a virus that it was not previously exposed to? It wouldn’t.

The only explanation to this scenario would be a genetic abnormality that turns out to be functional in a certain circumstance. So taking this further you would be saying that for every genetic change it was not a result of adaptation but in fact a genetic defect that turned out to be functional. And this random happenstance genetic defect process just happened to occur millions of times in order to magically arrive a modern man?
[/quote]

While functional or benign mutations are a possible factor, the truth is there is already a tremendous amount of genetic variability in most species. It’s been reported that there are people that simply don’t develop AIDS when they are infected with HIV, for instance. I don’t think I have ever heard of a disease that has a 100% kill rate, why do you think this is?

I don’t think that the mathematical odds can even be calculated on that one.

Oh, and for your information, a species adapting would have to first start as an organism adapting or it would not be adaptation at all. It would be random variation, what we mostly call genetic disease.

Absolutely not. I am beginning to suspect that your disbelief in evolution is the result of not understanding its mechanisms. This is not a shot, and no one can know everything, so there is really no need to get defensive, but I am curious to know how much you have studied biology (eg, middle school, high school, undergraduate, or graduate level). To reiterate, there is much genetic variation between members of most species. It’s this variation that allows for adaptation: individuals that are best suited to the environment reproduce more, and pass on their genetics to future generations. Those that are not well suited to their environment have fewer offspring, and their genetics become less common.

And yet there are still monkeys around today that did not evolve. So unless a group of monkeys was separated from the rest of the monkeys for millions of years and survived, your scenario is not possible with the current macroevolutionary model. And unless the monkeys that were separated knew how to swim, which monkeys today cannot do, that scenario is highly unlikely.

The monkeys that are around today DID evolve (into modern monkeys, from a more primitive monkey). Yes, you are absolutely right, there had to be a separation of one population into two or more for the lineages to evolve differently. There is no need for swimming for this to occur, however. Natural disasters and voluntary dispersal can account for it just fine. But yes, presumably. You would be amazed, however, at how quickly different populations will develop mating signals that ensure they only mate with each other.

If you have any other criticisms of evolution, I would love to hear them. If you want me to elaborate on anything I’ve said, I’d be happy to. If you have any alternate views as to how species survive, I would love to see your model of how things work, and please be as detailed as possible.

[PGJ]

[quote]pookie wrote:

Modern science has not and will never be able to create life from nothing.

How do you know what can or can’t be done? Do you know the future?

Science presumes that anything that has happened in the universe since it began has a natural explanation.
[/quote]

I am 100% positive that no man will ever sit in an empty room and create life from nothing. Actually there would be oxygen and germs and stuff in there so that wouldn’t exactly be from nothing, but you know what I mean.

This is part of the problem. Scientists assume there is an explainable, natural reason for everything. I guess they wouldn’t be very good scientists if they just threw up their hands and said “I don’t know”.

I believe in the existence of an all powerful God who created everything, from nothing, and man will never fully understand the nature of the universe. There are things we can not even comprehend concerning the natural order of life and we (man) create things that look and sound wonderfully intelligent and scientific, yet barely even scratching the surface of the truth.

I hear what you are saying an I appreciate you keeping this civil and polite. I think there is room for both ideas.

[Aleksandr]

[quote]PGJ wrote:
pookie wrote:

Modern science has not and will never be able to create life from nothing.

How do you know what can or can’t be done? Do you know the future?

Science presumes that anything that has happened in the universe since it began has a natural explanation.

I am 100% positive that no man will ever sit in an empty room and create life from nothing. Actually there would be oxygen and germs and stuff in there so that wouldn’t exactly be from nothing, but you know what I mean.

This is part of the problem. Scientists assume there is an explainable, natural reason for everything. I guess they wouldn’t be very good scientists if they just threw up their hands and said “I don’t know”.

I believe in the existence of an all powerful God who created everything, from nothing, and man will never fully understand the nature of the universe. There are things we can not even comprehend concerning the natural order of life and we (man) create things that look and sound wonderfully intelligent and scientific, yet barely even scratching the surface of the truth.

I hear what you are saying an I appreciate you keeping this civil and polite. I think there is room for both ideas.

[/quote]

You know, that’s exactly what they said about organic molecules. Then BLAM, urea.

[Beowolf]

To put a knock in here, life from non-life has been done in lab setting. If the Earth was mostly CO2 and Nitrogen (as opposed to Oxygen) back then, abiogenisis theories are entirely possible.

[pookie]

[quote]PGJ wrote:
I am 100% positive that no man will ever sit in an empty room and create life from nothing.[/quote]

Again, no one is talking about creating life ex nihilo. The various abiogenesis theories posit large amounts of various chemicals compounds being present and energy being available to the system.

I’m sure you’re 100% right that no one will ever create something from nothing. You’re once again arguing aside from what the various theories propose. Far from nothing, life had a whole planet on which to eventually appear. The main difficulties in understanding how it happened is that we’re not really sure how the Earth was back then, there are varying views; and we’re trying to find something that might have taken hundreds of millions of years to occur once on the planet.

Actually there would be oxygen and germs and stuff in there so that wouldn’t exactly be from nothing, but you know what I mean.

Germs are already life. And yes, I know what you mean. Although I wouldn’t bet against us eventually understanding how life can spontaneously erupt if the right conditions are present.

This is part of the problem. Scientists assume there is an explainable, natural reason for everything. I guess they wouldn’t be very good scientists if they just threw up their hands and said “I don’t know”.

Actually, there are a lot of things scientists don’t know. Tons. But science cannot do otherwise than assume natural causes for anything that happens. Anything ‘supernatural’ is by definition outside of nature and unobservable, and cannot be reproduced by experiment. You cannot predict anything ‘supernatural’ either. Science is useful when theories enable us to make predictions.

I believe in the existence of an all powerful God who created everything, from nothing, and man will never fully understand the nature of the universe.

Again, you presume to know God’s mind. How do you know whether God wants us to figure out his universe or not? How do you know how smart he’s made man?

You seem to assume and presume a lot of things for which you have no supporting evidence. You have ‘a belief’ or ‘a gut feeling.’ Yet, that’s good enough to support your views. Then you criticize evolution for not having 100% rock solid evidence and facts for every last detail.

There are things we can not even comprehend concerning the natural order of life and we (man) create things that look and sound wonderfully intelligent and scientific, yet barely even scratching the surface of the truth.

Science is not Revelation. We have to work to understand the world, it’s a long process, a journey onward to the truth. Mistakes are made, wrong theories are proposed, we get lost and backtrack; yet the overall effect is a better and better understanding of how the universe works.

There might be things we’ll never be able to completely solve, we appear to be stuck inside our universe, so it’s hard to determine what, if anything, is outside of it. But I prefer to be careful when making pronouncements about what can or can’t be understand by man and science.

Even with your belief in God, I find that you shortchange man a lot. Isn’t man supposed to be the pinnacle of God’s creation? You make a lot of final pronouncements about what man will be and won’t be able to do in the thousands, maybe millions of years to come. Look at the rate of progress since the last 400 years, and extrapolate it to thousands of years… who’s to say what our knowledge will be like at that time?

I hear what you are saying an I appreciate you keeping this civil and polite. I think there is room for both ideas.

That you don’t believe in evolution changes nothing for me personally. In pragmatic terms, it’s not even significant to our day to day lives. What I find sad, though, is that dismissing evolution leads to a misunderstanding of science and how it’s done.

The US used to be the world leader in scientific research, and it’s been slowly declining for the past decade. Some of the most exciting and promising research is now happening in Asia and Europe (the Large Hadron Collider or the ITER and JET fusion research centers, for example).

Some of your best scientific minds will leave and go abroad, because that’s where it’s happening. The US used to (and still does, to a lesser degree) attract the best minds from everywhere around the world. That situation is slowly reversing itself.

So while it’s not immediately relevant whether Joe Public understands and believes in evolution; I think that the long term effects of vilifying and dismissing science - because it clashes with religious beliefs - can have an enormous cost for a society in the long term.

[PGJ]

[quote]pookie wrote:
PGJ wrote:
I am 100% positive that no man will ever sit in an empty room and create life from nothing.

Again, no one is talking about creating life ex nihilo. The various abiogenesis theories posit large amounts of various chemicals compounds being present and energy being available to the system.

I’m sure you’re 100% right that no one will ever create something from nothing. You’re once again arguing aside from what the various theories propose. Far from nothing, life had a whole planet on which to eventually appear. The main difficulties in understanding how it happened is that we’re not really sure how the Earth was back then, there are varying views; and we’re trying to find something that might have taken hundreds of millions of years to occur once on the planet.

Actually there would be oxygen and germs and stuff in there so that wouldn’t exactly be from nothing, but you know what I mean.

Germs are already life. And yes, I know what you mean. Although I wouldn’t bet against us eventually understanding how life can spontaneously erupt if the right conditions are present.

This is part of the problem. Scientists assume there is an explainable, natural reason for everything. I guess they wouldn’t be very good scientists if they just threw up their hands and said “I don’t know”.

Actually, there are a lot of things scientists don’t know. Tons. But science cannot do otherwise than assume natural causes for anything that happens. Anything ‘supernatural’ is by definition outside of nature and unobservable, and cannot be reproduced by experiment. You cannot predict anything ‘supernatural’ either. Science is useful when theories enable us to make predictions.

I believe in the existence of an all powerful God who created everything, from nothing, and man will never fully understand the nature of the universe.

Again, you presume to know God’s mind. How do you know whether God wants us to figure out his universe or not? How do you know how smart he’s made man?

You seem to assume and presume a lot of things for which you have no supporting evidence. You have ‘a belief’ or ‘a gut feeling.’ Yet, that’s good enough to support your views. Then you criticize evolution for not having 100% rock solid evidence and facts for every last detail.

There are things we can not even comprehend concerning the natural order of life and we (man) create things that look and sound wonderfully intelligent and scientific, yet barely even scratching the surface of the truth.

Science is not Revelation. We have to work to understand the world, it’s a long process, a journey onward to the truth. Mistakes are made, wrong theories are proposed, we get lost and backtrack; yet the overall effect is a better and better understanding of how the universe works.

There might be things we’ll never be able to completely solve, we appear to be stuck inside our universe, so it’s hard to determine what, if anything, is outside of it. But I prefer to be careful when making pronouncements about what can or can’t be understand by man and science.

Even with your belief in God, I find that you shortchange man a lot. Isn’t man supposed to be the pinnacle of God’s creation? You make a lot of final pronouncements about what man will be and won’t be able to do in the thousands, maybe millions of years to come. Look at the rate of progress since the last 400 years, and extrapolate it to thousands of years… who’s to say what our knowledge will be like at that time?

I hear what you are saying an I appreciate you keeping this civil and polite. I think there is room for both ideas.

That you don’t believe in evolution changes nothing for me personally. In pragmatic terms, it’s not even significant to our day to day lives. What I find sad, though, is that dismissing evolution leads to a misunderstanding of science and how it’s done.

The US used to be the world leader in scientific research, and it’s been slowly declining for the past decade. Some of the most exciting and promising research is now happening in Asia and Europe (the Large Hadron Collider or the ITER and JET fusion research centers, for example).

Some of your best scientific minds will leave and go abroad, because that’s where it’s happening. The US used to (and still does, to a lesser degree) attract the best minds from everywhere around the world. That situation is slowly reversing itself.

So while it’s not immediately relevant whether Joe Public understands and believes in evolution; I think that the long term effects of vilifying and dismissing science - because it clashes with religious beliefs - can have an enormous cost for a society in the long term.
[/quote]

I’m not vilifying science. I am just concerned about how scientific results are presented as rock-solid fact, this is absolutely how it is, there is no other
possible explanation, every other opinion is wrong. I have no problem with sceintists stating the there is evidence of this and that and we believe this may be how it happened, but to come out and say “these are the undisputable facts”, everyone else is wrong is, well, wrong.

I don’t claim to be a scientific mind. I have a degree in English and a Masters in Management (science mostly makes my head hurt). You are obviously much more well versed in the field of scientifc discovery than I. A lot of what you have said is fascinating and has really made me think, however it has also led me to more questions and has even deepened my faith in the Almighty.

Somebody posted that life has been spontaneously created in a lab. I’d be interested in finding out more.

I wouldn’t worry about religion getting in the way of science. Scientific discovery abroad is more of a reflection of the American school system’s obsession with catering to the lowest denominator, and cheap international labor. All those international scientists are for a large part trained in American colleges then return to the homeland.

Also, other countries tend to have lower ethical standards and are able to conduct research tht would be illegal here. Again, I’m not an expert. Perhaps you have a differing opinion. Religious beliefs are not a stumbling block. We’ve pretty much killed God in this country.

[lucasa]

[quote]Beowolf wrote:
To put a knock in here, life from non-life has been done in lab setting. If the Earth was mostly CO2 and Nitrogen (as opposed to Oxygen) back then, abiogenisis theories are entirely possible.[/quote]

Moreover, Craig Venter plans to reanimate a dead bacterium, effectively creating life from non-life and most know about the researchers at SUNY that created polio using a completely cell-free environment. More reasons to correct/append/abandon the “no life from non-life” “theory”.

[PGJ]

[quote]lucasa wrote:
Beowolf wrote:
To put a knock in here, life from non-life has been done in lab setting. If the Earth was mostly CO2 and Nitrogen (as opposed to Oxygen) back then, abiogenisis theories are entirely possible.

Moreover, Craig Venter plans to reanimate a dead bacterium, effectively creating life from non-life and most know about the researchers at SUNY that created polio using a completely cell-free environment. More reasons to correct/append/abandon the “no life from non-life” “theory”.
[/quote]

Who said anything about life from non-life? I’m talking about creating life from NOTHING. Stand in an empty room and create life. At some point way back in history, there had to be nothing. No planets, no water, no air…nothing. Man will never be able to create life from nothing. What does “Craig Venter PLANS to…” mean? I PLAN to be rich and famous.