Evolutionary Confusion

Off Topic
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[quote]pomanatschool wrote:
Professor X has hit upon the crux of the matter; life from non-life is an impossibility. This theory is simply a re-packaging of the “spontaneous generation” theory which was prevalent in the 18th century, and later completely refuted by Pasteur and his infamous “swan-neck flask experiment”. This is not a theological argument; its a question that each of us who has a quest for knowledge seeks the answer to. Life is infinitely complex on the cellular level. Even a single E. Coli bacteria is many times more complex than these computers we are typing on. How do we account for this? Remember physics class, and Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics? The universe and everything in it, is in a constant state of chaos and constantly decreaasing order. Things are slowing down, and becoming less organized when left to their own devices. How can a highly complex system such as a cell organize itself, by itself, starting from a less organized state? Even at that basal level, it doesn’t make sense. Something HAD to introduce order to the system, or it would continue to de-volve. Whether its God or not is another debate, but evolution has yet to even come close to a rational explanation for this. To believe in that theory takes far, far more faith than to believe in a Creator.[/quote]

It is possible, Dawkins " the selfish gene", for Christ?s sake, and I mean it, read it.

If not, I will randomly pull bible quotes out of my ass that I have made up on the spot, one second before they have left my mouth.

Hint: anyone that wants to critizice a theory must first try to understand it. No, not the half-assed way. Really. Putting hard work into trying to understand it. To grasp the basics that?s 3 months, not more. Anyone not willing to spend that time and still critizicing the ET is just willfully ignorant.

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[quote]pomanatschool wrote:
Professor X has hit upon the crux of the matter; life from non-life is an impossibility. This theory is simply a re-packaging of the “spontaneous generation” theory which was prevalent in the 18th century, and later completely refuted by Pasteur and his infamous “swan-neck flask experiment”. This is not a theological argument; its a question that each of us who has a quest for knowledge seeks the answer to. Life is infinitely complex on the cellular level. Even a single E. Coli bacteria is many times more complex than these computers we are typing on. How do we account for this? Remember physics class, and Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics? The universe and everything in it, is in a constant state of chaos and constantly decreaasing order. Things are slowing down, and becoming less organized when left to their own devices. How can a highly complex system such as a cell organize itself, by itself, starting from a less organized state? Even at that basal level, it doesn’t make sense. Something HAD to introduce order to the system, or it would continue to de-volve. Whether its God or not is another debate, but evolution has yet to even come close to a rational explanation for this. To believe in that theory takes far, far more faith than to believe in a Creator.[/quote]

What a dumb post.

a. Life from non-life is not an impossibility because there is really no hard and fast boundary between the two. All “life” is simply something that can replicate itself. Like someone pointed out earlier, a virus is right on the very fuzzy boundary between the two. Funny how the Christians turn into the biggest materialists when it comes to the inorganic world.

b. If you think Pasteur “disproved” that “life” can come out of “non-life,” you are an idiot. He disproved that maggots spontaneously appear on meat, not anything regarding the origins of life! LOL, what an absolute joke. In fact, you mention the 18th century in passing, but that was also the time in which people (Diderot, Maupertuis, Herder, Schelling, etc…) began to break down the boundaries between humans and animals, animals and plants, and life and non-life, things which in your backwards state of mind you still refuse to accept today. There isn’t even a firm line between different species, yet your ideology keeps you 150+ years in the past.

c. Of course e-coli is more complex than a computer. It took millions of years to evolve. The computer has only evolved for a few decades. Your objection means nothing and is only designed to appeal to people’s ignorance and “common sense.” It doesn’t “seem possible” that the earth is moving very rapidly, since the world appears still to us. Yet we know we are actually moving. It doesn’t “seem possible” to a creationist that a cell was the product of evolution. But it’s a fact nonetheless.

d. Newton didn’t write any laws of thermodynamics. Maybe you are the one that should go back to science class. Funny how someone who doesn’t know basic science or its history presumes to be smarter than people with Ph.D.s. The appeal to thermodynamics is a classic piece of creationist sophistry anyway. Yes, entropy in any closed system increases. Entropy in the universe is always increasing. But last time I checked, the Earth is not a closed system. We have heat and light from the sun adding energy into the mix. Because you refuse to understand science, you fail to realize your objection only applies to closed systems.

e. Just remember, when trying to explain Gravity, Newton believes “something HAD to” intervene in order to make it work. Nowadays we laugh at these silly ideas of Newton’s. Your ideas about intervention into the evolutionary process are just as silly.

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[quote]pomanatschool wrote:
Professor X has hit upon the crux of the matter; life from non-life is an impossibility.[/quote]

No no no, no, no. You cannot say that! You may believe it if you wish, but you simply cannot state such a thing so matter of factly!

There are a number of plausible theories that postulate how life could have evolved from inert matter, and they haven’t been discredited or disproved. We don’t know which one is correct, if any of them are, but they show that in theory it is possible to go from inert matter, to living matter, in a number of different ways.

If you are against Evolution, you will say “they’re just theories, you don’t know that it happened like that.” Indeed, I don’t know, but I know that there are a number of processes by which it could have happened. This means that it’s a falacy to state, as you do, that it is impossible to create “life from non-life.”

If you believe it’s impossible, that is your choice, and you can explain why you don’t believe it (that’s what a forum is after all: A public meeting place for open discussion). But please don’t say it’s impossible.

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[quote]
emember physics class, and Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics? The universe and everything in it, is in a constant state of chaos and constantly decreaasing order.[/quote]

I’ll add that it refers to total entropy, and even though organization into life seems like a decrease in entropy, all living things, by living, increase total entropy.

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ProfessorX Wrote:
"Actually, the alternative is more like:

  1. The Universe came into existance all by itself one day with a huge “bang” that no one really has proof of."

Actually, the Big Bang has been proven. Dr. Muller a Scientist at UC Berkeley has identified radiation expanding from the explosion nearly 15 billion years ago.

Sounds crazy but you can see and photograph the light from billions of years ago, all the way back in time to seconds before the singularity exploded.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
Actually, the alternative is more like:

  1. The Universe came into existance all by itself one day with a huge “bang” that no one really has proof of.[/quote]

Big Bang theory is the theory that currently fits the best with the most observations. It does not posit anything about the “cause” or the “before” of the Big Bang. Cosmology attempts to understand how the universe came to be and what path it’s birth and early life took. The various theories put forth are not proposed as any final truths but as plausible explanations for the existence of the universe.

We don’t know that. Life could have happened dozens, hundreds or millions of times across the universe on other planets around other stars and in other galaxies. Maybe the universe is structured so that life is a common occurence. Life could also be an extremely rare event, requiring such a precise alignment of various factors that it has only occured once across space and time.

Here again, science does not offer simple, complete answers. Science is not truth, it is the quest for truth.

Can life spontaneously start from non-life? Maybe, maybe not. But would it not be nice to know? If all abiogenesis hypotheseses eventually prove wrong, and no one can come up with any plausible new ones, then we’d have as close a proof to the existence of God (or “The Designer”) as anyone could ask for. If some of them prove right, then we’ve explained something mysterious that was improperly understood.

The way is see it, by asking the question and trying to find out, we win either way. We either get a better understanding of life, or we get nearly incontrovertible proof of the existence of God. And if it does turn out that life can start on its own, given the right conditions, well that in no way prevents anyone from having faith in God. Who’s to say an omnipotent being does not create life simply by creating a universe with the right physicals laws and contants?

I don’t really understand this point. Early self-replicators had no “will” or “desire” to live. They simply self-replicated. Might as well ask why snowflakes make nice six-armed shapes when it’d be a simpler choice to simply coalesce in some random ball.

Just as physical laws govern the way snowflakes are made, it could be that physical laws will eventually produce life when given the proper elements and conditions.

I don’t agree. That “superspecie” would need to be exposed to every possible environment and adapt simultaneously to each of them.

Speciation can be seen as life taking advantage of environmental opportunities that hadn’t been previously exploited.

If there is a source of untaped energy (food, water, sunlight, etc) and some life adapts to be able to live from it, then it grows and florishes. Some other life can eventually adapt to feed from on the first form and so on.

A single superspecie would almost be proof of an Intelligent Designer. Miriads of different competing species looks more like random successes from an enormous amount of trials.

I’m not getting in those debates anymore. :slight_smile:

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A few random thoughts from reading other posts (I don’t want to quote a few lines from each one):

Saying that life from non-life is an impossibility is wrong. Unless you can prove it. If you can, you’ll get your name in Biology books forever and get a Law named after you. Pomanat’s Law of Impossible Abiogenesis or something.

The second law of thermodynamics only applies to closed systems. If you take the Earth as a closed system, then it is possible to increase order within it, because the Earth receives abundant energy from the Sun (ie, it’s not really a “closed” system). If you take the universe as the closed system, the total entropy of the universe increases more from the Sun’s fusion than any amount of order being created on Earth. In other words, order from chaos on Earth violates no law.

As to where the initial order comes from, the universe operates according to physical laws. Gravitation, speed of light, chemical bonds between elements, etc. Those laws can be seen as the “initial order” from which chaos can organize itself. Even simple water is not “chaotic” all the hydrogen atoms are paired with oxygen atoms in an extremely ordered way. It is all H20, not H40, or HO5 or random groups of atoms clinging to each other. If you take gaseous hydrogen and gaseous oxygen, mix them together an provide a catalyst – an open flame will do – you get a small explosion and then water rains down. Order (water in H2O molecules) from chaos (a cloud of two gases).

Dawkins’ books “The Selfish Gene” and “The Blind Watchmaker” are extremely interesting books. Even if you disagree with some of their theories and hypotheseses (I do), anyone interested in the matter of evolution of life should give them a read. As a bonus, not only do they discuss evolution, but also abiogenesis (life from non-life) which is often confused with evolution but is actually a separate line of inquiry.

Computer’s don’t “evolve”. They’re designed and built. Let’s be careful with the metaphors. :slight_smile:

Even Newton’s “Law of Gravity” was eventually corrected by Einstein’s Relativity. “Laws” of Science can still be proved wrong (usually in very specific cases) and be replaced by better “Laws” or theories.

Mini-Rant: It’d be nice if everyone stopped with the “but it’s only a theory” as if that meant that it’s just a random guess. Science calls guesses “hypothesis” and they’re generally informed and/or educated guesses. A step above gets you a “theory” which is an hypothesis or a group of hypotheseses that have been verified time and time again, to the point that you can consider it a fact. Evolution is a fact; some aspects of it are not completely understood yet, or still disputed, but Evolution in it’s most general meaning is a “fact” as much as Science can provide one.

The last step is “Law” which would be a theory that has been proved right countless times an never been shown to be wrong. Those have gotten pretty rare in the 20th century, because theories are now very complex, the simple stuff having already been explained years ago. In the case of Relativity Theorie and Quantum Field Theory, they’re both “Theories” because while each is extremely successful in it’s domain, they are incompatible with each other. So one or the other is wrong, or both, or we’re still missing something to unify them.

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[quote]bonzi50 wrote:
ProfessorX Wrote:
"Actually, the alternative is more like:

  1. The Universe came into existance all by itself one day with a huge “bang” that no one really has proof of."

Actually, the Big Bang has been proven. Dr. Muller a Scientist at UC Berkeley has identified radiation expanding from the explosion nearly 15 billion years ago.

Sounds crazy but you can see and photograph the light from billions of years ago, all the way back in time to seconds before the singularity exploded.

[/quote]

I’m sorry, but the Big Bang is still a theory. It has not been proven yet to have happened as fact that the entire universe blew up from a single point of matter or antimatter. It also begs the question of what created that point of supercondensed matter that held the ability to create an entire universe.

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I’m really amazed at the level of scientific ignorance. I thought that this religious war on science had been dsicarded a long time ago. Isnt this the sort of thing that only Islamo-fascists in Saudi Arabia and Iran get all worked up about??

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[quote]pookie wrote:
Mini-Rant: It’d be nice if everyone stopped with the “but it’s only a theory” as if that meant that it’s just a random guess.[/quote]

I hear you, Pookie.

Creationists make it sound as though a “theory” is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

-Isaac Asimov

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In the end everyone of you guys, the Creationists and the Evolutionists are just stumbling in the dark, thinking one is more enlightened then the other. But in reality none of you have the right answers.

Evolutionists have a system of rules that can be called the scientific method that halps them understand this world. In this case the evolutionist crowd has alot of the things right, but on alot of the issues are just jumping to conclusions based on limited knowledge. But in truth they don’t know, and it’s hard to admit and be comfortable with saying we don’t know, when you life is this type of work. They “speculate” and thorise based on current models. In the end it’s based on their faith in a system. Faith.

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The easiest way to prove this once and for all is for experiments to be setup. Let’s set up the right conditions with the right elements and let’s see how long it will take for a simple life form to form. Something from nothing. It may take a billion tries or more but let’s start working on it, who knows we may get lucky and it may happen in the first week or in a decade or more. But enough theories and let’s start the process.

Everything we realise and undestand today is based on the sum of the experiences we have had to this day. This can be a dangerous place to be because we don’t know how much we don’t know and all that we know is what we know up until today and tomorrow may cause a polar shift in thinking, so let’s not be too rigid and take too firm a stance on any one system of beliefs.

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Interesting reading the posts. So many evolutionists get militantly angry when challenged and assume that all creationists are idiots who have no knowledge of science and the scientific process. What it boils down to is that evolution is their religion and when they feel their religion is attacked they get very defensive, which is understandable. I get defensive if someone attacks my God too.
For the evolutionist, the concept of God brings with it too many uncomfortable feelings. If God exists, they will have to answer for their lives and admit that there is someone or something more powerful than they. In the evolutionist world, they are Neitzche’s Uberman and they answer to no one.
Bottom line, a belief in God makes them have to question themselves.
We will all find out when we die what the truth is. I for one would rather believe in God and be wrong than not believe and be wrong. If the creationists are right, and I believe they are, then we will all answer to our Creator one day. When that day comes you better hope you were on the right team.

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[quote]Floortom wrote:
I’m really amazed at the level of scientific ignorance. I thought that this religious war on science had been dsicarded a long time ago. Isnt this the sort of thing that only Islamo-fascists in Saudi Arabia and Iran get all worked up about??[/quote]

I saw a show on Discovery years ago called the “Golden age of Islam”. It was when Europe was in the dark ages and the Muslim world was thriving.

One of the reasons discussed was the Churchs suppression of science. Galieo, Kapernicus sp.? and others. You where not alowed to discover anything contrary to church teach. So science and advancement stalled and Europe was in trouble. Like what happened in Afganistan after the science hating Taliban took over.

At that time the Islamic world let science thrive and it did, Algerbra, Zero, and other advances occured. The belief in place is that you could NOT possibly discover anything contrary to god because of course what ever you discovered was created by god.

That was then this is now and things have changed. For the better and back again. I’ve talked to doctors about the Terri Schiavo situation and all agreed that she was gone and that she did not feel a thing when she died. Some folks want to believe its because we are in some kind of “culture of death” and dont value life.

We do value life, very much thats why many of us pick the field we are in. However when that person is no longer conscious and there is no hope of recovery, and we feel confident the evidence shows this. We feel its the most human thing to do, to let the person go.

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I dont really get angry about people attacking evolution. But man from what I was told about Jesus and his kindness and forgiveness, I cant imagine he is going to send me to hell because I was “on the wrong team”.

What about Us non-believers who live moral and ethical lives? Raise our children properly, contribute in our careers to society, and in general to our world and the people around us in a positive way. All we dont do is believe in Christianity. You think your god is going to send those people to hell?

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[quote]Miserere wrote:
pookie wrote:
Mini-Rant: It’d be nice if everyone stopped with the “but it’s only a theory” as if that meant that it’s just a random guess.

I hear you, Pookie.

Creationists make it sound as though a “theory” is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.

-Isaac Asimov[/quote]

Yes, great point.

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[quote]rocksolid wrote:
Interesting reading the posts. So many evolutionists get militantly angry when challenged and assume that all creationists are idiots who have no knowledge of science and the scientific process. [/quote]

This is actually true.

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[quote]Aleksandr wrote:

emember physics class, and Newton’s Laws of Thermodynamics? The universe and everything in it, is in a constant state of chaos and constantly decreaasing order.

I’ll add that it refers to total entropy, and even though organization into life seems like a decrease in entropy, all living things, by living, increase total entropy.[/quote]

That is what my wife says when I cook and she has to clean up the mess.

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[quote]pomanatschool wrote:
Then the converse is also true. You cannot say life CAN evolve from non-life, and we both have no leg to stand on, and thus nothing more to argue about.[/quote]

There are many abiogenesis hypotheseses. For now, none of them have been proven or disproven. So saying that it’s impossible for life to form on its own is wrong, but saying that it could happen (not that it does or did) is acceptable.

Like I said, if life can form from non-life, wouldn’t we like to know? Again, that does not threaten the notion of God in any way, as an omnipotent being can choose to create life in any manner he wishes.

It just seems premature to me to declare that such a thing is obviously impossible. Our scientific knowledge of Nature is still very far from complete. In just about every field, be it Biology, Genetics, Chemistry, Physics, Archeology, etc. discoveries are still being made, questions being asked, etc.

Formation of crystals would be an example. Sodium chloride (salt) molecules will align themselves in extremely ordered rows. Snowflakes too: water vapor condenses and eventually freezes, forming myriads of hexagonal forms. Snowflakes display order that the initial water vapor did not.

That’s what I meant when I said the the “initial order” was in the physical laws that govern nature.

[quote]Computer’s don’t “evolve”. They’re designed and built. Let’s be careful with the metaphors. :slight_smile:

My point exactly; they were CREATED.[/quote]

Well, yes, of course they were. Computers are not living things, they don’t self-repair nor self-replicate. They don’t adapt to their environment. It’s the watchmaker argument with a computer instead of a watch.

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The funniest thing is when creationist “scientists” (LMAO) try to convince themselves that evolution is a religion and evoutionary biology is nothing but a system of faith. In a sense I really respect creationists for the great amount of personal delusion and deception they are able to generate. It really is mind-boggling. Only religious people are creationists, but to be fair most reasonably intelligent religious folks are able to use their brains and discard thousand year old mythologies in the face of insurmountable evidence.

By the way, here is the Institute for Creation Research’s oath that every “scientist” must take before conducting his “research” and becoming a member.

Yep, this looks like science!LOL!!

  1. The Bible is the written word of God, and because we believe it to be inspired throughout, all of its assertions are historically and scientifically true in all the original autographs. To the students of nature, this means that the account of origins in Genesis is a factual presentation of simple historical truths.

  2. All basic types of living things, including man, were made by direct creative acts of God during Creation Week as described in Genesis. Whatever biological changes have occurred since Creation have accomplished only changes within the original created kinds.

  3. The great Flood described in Genesis, commonly referred to as the Noachian Deluge, was an historical event, worldwide in its extent and effect.

  4. Finally, we are an organization of Christian men of science, who accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. The account of the special creation of Adam and Eve as one man and one woman, and their subsequent fall into sin, is the basis for our belief in the necessity of a Savior for all mankind. Therefore, salvation can come only through accepting Jesus Christ as Savior.