quote:Fine and good -- but this is the opposite of what science does. Science tries to disprove things. I think anyone can concede that intelligent design can produce a regular system. But we need some method which could determine that intelligent design couldn't produce a regular system like our universe. Is there one? If there is, we can try it, and if it fails, ID gets a boost. So far, we don't have any tests that could disprove ID. Do we?
I think someone posted a link to an article giving you just that....somewhere above.
Ah yes, the one claiming carbon atoms came alive through a kind of mitosis.
Oh and Fugu proved it. None of his Carbon Atom combinations created life.
posted
CStroman: putting a bunch of molecules together, adding heat, and stirring do not constitute ID, as they are conditions known to exist repeatedly in nature.
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And I didn't say they created life, I was dismissing your bizarre notion that atoms and molecules do not combine to form more complex molecules in nature.
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quote:Your claiming that a carbon atom without ANY catalyst suspended in nothingness will automatically change. In and of itself.
I don't see where anyone has claimed this, Chad. Neither of the two theories for abiogenesis you mentioned above -- A nor B -- say "a lump of carbon was sitting all by itself when suddenly it changed." In fact, the difference between A and B lies only in what the theory suggests may have happened to the carbon; in the first theory, for example, it encountered a unique mix of other chemicals and an electrical stimulus.
quote: In all honesty that suggestion is based on the assumption that life exists outside this planet, which again, has no basis at all in any evidence and pretty much all factual evidence is exactly contrary to it.
Right. Perfect. You're almost there. That particular form of ID, that specific "how," relies on the claim that there is life on other planets and that it is more likely that this life was somehow created and then created us than it is that abiogenesis occurred.
As you've pointed out, this is a silly claim; it's easier to believe that we evolved than to believe that a more advanced race evolved, made us, and then left no traces of its existence.
But this is one of two prevaling forms of ID. The other one, of course, is that an invisible man in the sky created us in His own image. Which is more scientific?
quote: Please tell me what they are and how they are so much superior to ID experiments?
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that you have not yet been able to come up with a single ID experiment (which isn't too shameful, by the way, because ID proponents haven't, either), I can give you one that I know has been performed:
1) Lump together some chemicals likely to have existed on prehistoric earth, run some electricity through 'em, and see if amino acids form.
But you're talking here of an experiment designed to recreate the conditions that may have produced life. That's not, in general, the type of experimental evidence we've been talking about when we explain that evolution is a predictive theory.
quote: See the theories outlined are based on the FALSE assumption that dead molecules self replicate and reproduce. Basically MATTER creating itself from nothing. Which is against science.
I don't understand what you're saying here, Chad. Molecules change all the time. This change -- this reaction to other molecules -- doesn't make them alive in any way. And when one molecule of something is changed into another molecule (or a more sophisticated compound) by running into a different molecule, or through the expenditure of energy, or both, certainly a new form of matter has been created.
It seems to me like you fundamentally misunderstand enormous chunks of science; apparently at some point you have heard sound bites -- like "matter cannot be created" -- and failed to understand what was meant.
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One last post in this thread before I get burned at the proverbial stake for heresy here.
Tom
quote:I don't see where anyone has claimed this, Chad. Neither of the two theories for abiogenesis you mentioned above -- A nor B -- say "a lump of carbon was sitting all by itself when suddenly it changed." In fact, the difference between A and B lies only in what the theory suggests may have happened to the carbon; in the first theory, for example, it encountered a unique mix of other chemicals and an electrical stimulus.
The article states THUS with emphasis added:
quote:some by chance acquired functions,
This assertion is proven false by current PROVEN science. Proven science being there exist NO Macromolecules on this life filled earth that have acquired functions. EVER. But there are an almost infinte amout that have not.
quote: such as the ability to catalyze other reactions.
Again, everything in science proves this to be false. It doesn't exist but everything contradicting it does.
quote:With the rise of catalytic molecules, increasingly complex macromolecules were produced and eventually by chance molecules with the ability to catalyze their own imperfect REPLICATION appeared.
Again, scientifically they don't exist.
quote:these first replicators at first probably represented only a tiny fraction of the large array of macromolecules, with the ability to catalyze their own replication, they would have soon become increasingly more abundant.
To the point that they don't exist. De-evolution from a replicating molecule after life was created to one that isn't? (I'm trying to throw you a bone here) But that would mean we could replicate it now. All scientific experiments result in the exact opposite.
quote:This would have marked the transition from purely abiotic chemistry to primitive biochemistry.
A claim of evolution from Dead matter to living, replicating matter.
It's making the jump from 1+1=2 to 1+1=3 and then never being able to replicate it again and all the base elements returning to their 1+1=2 state forever after that.
Each and every one of those claims has been refuted by actual provable science in test after test after test.
Dead molecules when lumped together, zapped with electricity, broken appart, shot around a superconductor, polarized, etc.
NEVER REPLICATE and always remain dead. Their matter and the properties of matter apply to them always, unless you don't believe in science.
You go ahead and put your "faith" (because that's what it is if you believe in those theories by the very definition) in the Life from Dead matter theory.
I'll stick with the proven fact that Life comes from Life. I'll say it again as it is a fact that bears repeating: LIFE comes from LIFE.
I'm such a heretic.
Thanks for your opinions.
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quote:This assertion is proven false by current PROVEN science. Proven science being there exist NO Macromolecules on this life filled earth that have acquired functions. EVER. But there are an almost infinte amout that have not.
That's an awfully loaded statement. I think it's pretty clear that life could have developed spontaneously. While there aren't experiments that demonstrate a potential "how it happened", there are many that illustrate that it's certainly possibility that it did.
quote:Again, everything in science proves this to be false. It doesn't exist but everything contradicting it does.
I'm having trouble parsing this. Is this stemming back to the catalyst that allowed life to begin? People keep bringing up catalysts, but I suspect they don't mean what they think they mean. Nonetheless, given the context I think you’re wanting, and assuming our current models are true, the driving force behind the first formations of life is unquestionably water. Which would seem to make sense, the current driving force behind all life is water.
quote:
quote:With the rise of catalytic molecules, increasingly complex macromolecules were produced and eventually by chance molecules with the ability to catalyze their own imperfect REPLICATION appeared.
Again, scientifically they don't exist.
You're wrong, Chad. Polymerization reactions are very, very common. Replication is, in a sense, polymerization, and polymers don't only form in cells.
quote:
quote:these first replicators at first probably represented only a tiny fraction of the large array of macromolecules, with the ability to catalyze their own replication, they would have soon become increasingly more abundant.
To the point that they don't exist. De-evolution from a replicating molecule after life was created to one that isn't? (I'm trying to throw you a bone here) But that would mean we could replicate it now. All scientific experiments result in the exact opposite.
It's no surprise that the initial polymers wouldn't be around today. Conditions would have changed an awful lot over a couple of billion years. And no, that doesn't mean we should be able to replicate it now. But it does mean we should be able to replicate this in the future. As it stands, there are no reasons to assume it's impossible and a good deal of reasons to assume it is, ergo all the study on the subject.
Chad, you're taking a current lack of success and assuming it's proof positive of ultimate failure. But there's no reason to believe that. Biochemistry is the study of chemical process that occur in, but are not restricted to the body. Many very simple and absolutely critical reactions occur outside Life all the time. Consider the formation of fat vesicles. It's what gives cells and organelles their integrity, and it happens whenever you put fat in water. It's the first thing you learn in any biochemistry class; the single most important process in biochemistry is the hydrophobic effect. In fact, most biochemistry is entirely focused on water. What is soluble, what isn't, and what are the concentrations within the solvent.
The processes of life are not magical. They are, by and large, pretty well understood when taken on their own. It's the sum of all those many, many parts that is daunting and, for now, elusive. It may be that pulling all those things together impossible, but there's currently no reason to believe this is the case.
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Ah. You misunderstood the quote, then. The scientists are not saying that this lump of carbon was sitting off to the side, ruminating on its lonely fate, when suddenly and for no reason -- BAM! -- it acquired some functions.
Rather, they are saying that it was floating in a soup of unusual chemical compounds and being exposed to electricity when, in a very rare conjunction of events, it polymerized. This may have happened hundreds of thousands of times over millions of years, and only a handful of those times produced anything like self-replicating carbon compounds.
Does that help you understand?
It occurs to me that you have probably taken very few -- if any -- organic chemistry courses. I would be happy to send you my old o-chem textbook if you would be willing to read it.
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quote: I'll say it again as it is a fact that bears repeating: LIFE comes from LIFE.
It's not a fact, Chad. It's a sound bite. And it's inherently untrue.
Why? Because if life can only come from life, at some point you're left with the FIRST life. And if it could only come from life, it could never have existed. All the "life comes from life" crap does is push the required event back farther in time.
(And, besides, I'm still not sure you understand what life is, or what even makes it life. I'd really like you to say, for example, whether you consider viruses alive or not.)
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Chad, You truly are a champion of the ID cause and do much to show that you are among their best proponents. I especially love how you cling desperately to the most narrow definition of what you read so that you have something to ridicule.
You read:
quote:there have also been numerous suggestions that life began elsewhere and was transported to Earth
and then you laugh and point fingers at the scientists claiming "aliens brought us here". The claim above can also mean many other things that have the potential of scientific verifiability(not that alien trasportation is completely without scientific verifiability, see below).
For instance, life might have arisen on Mars and through some cataclysmic event been transported to Earth on meteors heaved up from the Martian surface. We could potentially verify this by going to Mars. If we find evidence of ancient life there, especially if it could be dated and appeared older than any evidence of life on Earth, this would be strong evidence for that theory. If we could study some of its DNA (if it had DNA) this could provide further evidence of the theory.
Another theory of "transportation" could be that life arose in the cataclysmic explosions of a supernova, drifted in the proto-solar-system dust clouds, coalesced into the icy bodies that form our current Oort Cloud and rode to a primordial Earth on a comet. This could be supported if we found any evidence of primitive life, or even the basic components of life, in cometary dust, especially any we could retrieve it directly from a comet itself.
Then, of course, there is the alien transportation possibility. This could be supported if we found evidence of early alien visitation, or if the aliens returned themselves and told us what they did. (I'm not really holding my breath for either of those events, but I won't discount them out of hand.)
I, personally, won't claim that my three ideas are the only possible interpretations of "transported to Earth", but they do show that one doesn't have to jump straight to aliens as a way life might have been transported here.
Chad, Every one of these guys has given your posts far more respect that they deserve, and far more respect than you have shown to them in turn. There is ample evidence that they have at least read what you have written and taken the time to form a coherent and grammatically understandable reply. You, for your part, show evidence that you only skim posts enough to find a few words with which you can form straw men, assume a victim attitude, or hurl epithets of close-mindedness and dogmatic adherence to bigoted ideas, none of which has been shown toward you in this thread.
Dude, your arguments are sloppy at best, and dishonest at worst. If you hope to go through life screaming blindly into the abyss and patting yourself on the back for your debating prowess, you're well on your way. If you want to be taken seriously, though, you really need to learn to return respectful consideration to respectful and considered dialog from people like JVP, BtL, fugu, TomD et. al.
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quote:science being there exist NO Macromolecules on this life filled earth that have acquired functions. EVER
Help me out here, bio-guys. Arent viruses (virii) non-living macromolecules that reprocuce themselves (that's a function, right?)? I know that at least two out of the three are true, but they may be more complicated than one might typically want to be able to refer to them as "macromolecules."
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You wouldn't be able to get away with calling them macromolecules, considering they're made up of multiple macromolecules, among other things.
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Your continued inability and/or unwillingness to even attempt to speculate on answers to the questions in my post on page 4 is sufficient proof that, at least from your standpoint, ID is not scientific. To you, 'it just is,' with further inquiry neither possible nor justified.
It is not the possible answers that interested me so much -- of course I didn't expect definitive let alone proven answers, since few exist in science, especially on the speculative fringes of what is knowable (e.g., Big Bang, origin of life) -- but rather I was interested in your ability to engage in a scientific discussion. You responded that not all of my questions were answerable -- but did not deign to identify nor answer those that were.
I will henceforth address my comments in this thread to others who may be interested in having a sensible exchange of views.
1) ID is Evolutionary theory with "God" inserted in the mix somewhere in the past and from then on taking a hands-off approach, or,
2) ID is a theory that says the creator is active today and part of what the creator does is subtly mask any actions to make it look like it was all natural.
In the first case, you make God basically irrelevant from a scientific standpoint. In the second case, you make God out to be a trickster and all of Nature to be a fraud not worthy of study.
ID is a useless theory from the get-go because it doesn't actually say anything from a scientific point of view. It's creationism dressed up for use by religious people with educated friends.
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quote:ID is Evolutionary theory with "God" inserted in the mix somewhere in the past and from then on taking a hands-off approach
quote:In the first case, you make God basically irrelevant from a scientific standpoint. In the second case, you make God out to be a trickster and all of Nature to be a fraud not worthy of study.
Not quite. If we can identify a point in the chain of molecule formation to life that couldn't happen naturally, it would certainly be worth knowing.
I don't see how we would do that, though. Even if we verified that 999,999 possibilities didn't make it from molecule to life, we couldn't be sure we tried them all.
However, we did find a scientific theory that nothing can travel faster than light. Conceivably, we could find a similar barrier between life and non-life that can be explained scientifically. And if we did find such a barrier, we would have a clear candidate for divine intervention.
But ID as it stands doesn't come close to what would be necessary to do that.
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But Dag, every time throughout history where God has been inserted as the "cause" of observable phenomenon, sometime later a plausible mechanism has been figured out. That's why I said it's useless from a scientific standpoint. Even if I believe it to be true, there's no science there. It's just moving God around until we find a safe haven for God's influence on the physical world. Sooner or later, if science can study it, science will figure out a means by which it could've happened without the influence of an intelligent designer. Things are only unexplained, not unexplainable if they are questions that science can be used to answer. Eventually, God'll just get kicked out...again.
It's all a bunch of hopeful nonsense, IMHO.
The sooner people just agree with the separate magesteria argument, the better off we'll all be.
There are irreducible things, sure, but they are at the level of "why are we here?" not "how did it happen"
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But the creation of life wouldn't be observable. Conceivably, it could be a onetime event, akin to the Resurection.
I guess what I really meant is that it is entirely possible the origins of life are not explainable by science, not matter how far we advance in our capabilities and understanding.
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(oops, I edited to address that). Yes, and that's what separate magesteria is all about.
Stuff that can't be observed or explained by science -- fine, it's not science.
Stuff that can be explained by science...that doesn't mean God didn't have a hand in it. It just means that we have a proximal explanation that works for the "how" of it, so we don't NEED to insert "God" as an active participant.
Whether God did it or not.
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There are physicists who seriously discuss creating a universe under laboratory conditions but at best, that would be semi-intelligent design.
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quote:Stuff that can't be observed or explained by science -- fine, it's not science.
The designation of which group any particular piece of "stuff" goes into is not something we can know in advance. Science certainly has not proven that the origins of life belong in the category "stuff that can be explained by science."
To step into physics for a moment, the base constants of the standard model are all determined experimentally - the math works with a lot of different values, although it doesn't match observed results.
One of the things speculated by M-Theory is that the constants will be able to be predicted mathematically. That is, an electron has the charge it does because it must. Of course, there may very well be another set of constants that are set as arbitrarily as the charge of an electron is in the standard model. But, in theory, there should be fewer of these constants.
If this is indeed true, M-Theory will have taken us a good deal deeper into the causal chain than the standard model.
The question is, can this process continue indefinitely, or is there a place where we can stop and say there is no deeper we can go?
I don't think we're close to answering that question.
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Separate magesteria (as outlined by Pope whats his face) didn't say that origins of life was a God thing. He was saying that the spiritual realm (the soul) was the magesteria that was the exclusive province of religion (or he said "the Church" I think).
It's true that we can't know what "stuff" could eventually be explained by science. But it would seem to me that we don't need to worry about that if we deal with separate magesteria.
There's always going to be some point where there was nothing just before there was something. If that's the origin, so be it. Surely there's more important parts to worry about in the province of both religion and science?
And at that point, it's pretty meaningless in the realm of science. Testability of hypotheses, or at least testable predictions, would be the important thing for science. It doesn't mean that some scientist somewhere can't entertain a non-religious notion about it. It just means we've left science behind and gone into the realm of philosophy.
Scientists aren't immune (or barred) from being unscientific in such areas either.
Just because a scientist said it doesn't make it science either.
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quote:But it would seem to me that we don't need to worry about that if we deal with separate magesteria.
I'm not quite clear how I was "worrying about it," to be honest.
You seemed to respond pretty strongly ("hopeful nonsense") to what was essentially a corallary to what you're saying here. I'm not sure what your objection is to anything I said in the post that spawned this exchange.
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quote:Originally posted by Dagonee: If this is indeed true, M-Theory will have taken us a good deal deeper into the causal chain than the standard model.
The question is, can this process continue indefinitely, or is there a place where we can stop and say there is no deeper we can go?
I don't think we're close to answering that question.
Certainly no smaller than the Planck Length. Although there is plenty of room for structure between that and the Standard Model experimentation at such scales may well be impossible. Thus M-Theory isn't really a theory yet at all. Especially in the context of a discussion about ID which has the same flaw but for very different reasons.
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quote:Certainly no smaller than the Planck Length. Although there is plenty of room for structure between that and the Standard Model experimentation at such scales may well be impossible. Thus M-Theory isn't really a theory yet at all.
This is where "The Elegant Universe" lost me. It seemed to me to be saying that it would be possible to meaningfully explore the structure of strings smaller than the Planck length.
But I couldn't understand how that would be possible.
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Strings are magnitudes larger than the Planck Length. An electron is not made of strings, it IS a string in the theory, which again is more like an explanation or interpetation than a theory, as of yet.
The explanation does reach down to Planck Legnth but there can be no structure beyond that. You need to be at least Planck Length to pop into dimensionality.
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I worded that badly - I didn't mean the strings were smaller than the Plack length, but that their structure (or maybe their vibrations???) could be studied at smaller than the Plack length.
It's been a while since I read it. Something about the wavelength of the vibrations being smaller than the Plack length, maybe?
My recollection was that in some ways it would move beyond the Plack length and that this was possibly a big deal.
If, of course, this experimentally unverified system with some equations we can't even solve aproximately pans out. Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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With all due respect to my esteemed theoretical colleagues, string theorists don't understand this stuff. It's one thing to have an equation you can't solve, but to have an equation you don't know what is - well, that's why the technical term "waving your hands" was invented.
I wonder if comrade CStroman is misunderstanding what is meant by 'replicate'? I get the impression from his posts that he thinks self-replicating molecules create copies of themselves out of the pure vacuum.
Incidentally, there is an excellent example of a self-replicating molecule in the world today; namely, DNA. And RNA in some cases. And, rather simpler, any crystal in a solution of its constituents. Ordinary sugar is a self-replicating molecule if the chemical conditions are right, which admittedly isn't often unless someone is making fudge.
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Since no ID proponent has shown up and been willing to give any way to falsify ID, I'll assume ID is not falsifiable. Certainly there's been plenty of time for such a proponent to show up, if any exists on Hatrack.
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Sorry, y’all, for coming to the discussion so late, and having such a long post because of it!
Fugu said:
quote:Yes; theistic evolution is not a term for a scientific theory, but a term for the whole belief a person has which encompasses support they have of evolutionary theory as well as their belief a God or Gods is intimately involved in the process of evolutionary theory.
I agree. Nice explanation! Intelligent Design says that we can demonstrate a creator of some kind by looking at life. Theistic evolutionists are people who think that life shows us that organisms descended from a common ancestor, and that the diversity of the species comes about through descent with modification. Now, I believe in a creator God for reasons largely unrelated to science. Since I believe in God, and I accept evolutionary theory, I label myself a theistic evolutionist--I believe God uses evolution to create. But the God part, that isn't science. It's faith.
Vid said:
quote: With that in mind, I think it should also be made clear that it's impossible to know, through science, whether creation was random chance or ID. I'm not saying that teachers need to have a unit on faith or philosophy or anything, but I think they need to make it clear what exactly we learn through science.
If I’m ever in the position of teaching high school biology (or any science), I’ll probably start off by discussing the philosophy of science, and the limitations of the scientific method. I haven’t run into hostile biology teachers, but I’m willing to believe that they exist. Fundamentalist atheists are almost as annoying to me as fundamentalist Christians.
SC Carver said:
quote: I am going to try to explain why people are so adamant about ID. It’s because they see how evolution has permeated our thinking, our points of view. Because whether or not the science of evolution says there is no God, it does imply it. It does say we are no different from the animals, we just happened to develop brains which allow us to solve problems and use speech. In short evolution takes away the soul.
… Most people don't notice this, they just accept Evolution as fact and keep going, but once you start looking for ways evolution has changed your point of view it becomes very hard to escape.
Yes, becoming a Theistic Evolutionist did change my point of view! Instead of creation being a remote act 6,000 years ago, it is a process that goes on around us every day. Things aren’t static. Without evolution, life couldn’t adapt to changes in the environment. I think it’s a pretty shiny mechanism that generates diversity and causes adaptation all by itself. God must have been quite intelligent to design that
Evolution doesn’t require a God. So theists lost the ability to “prove” to atheists that there must be a God. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a God, just that there doesn’t have to be one. Big deal. Science has also explained that little organisms, not God, make people sick. How dare they challenge the power of the Almighty! How dare the germ theorists say there is no God!
Also, if you have a problem with humans being animals, you ought to take it up with Carl Linnaeus, who classified humans in this manner before Charles Darwin was even born. By the way, Linnaeus was a Christian. And the origin of our bodies has nothing to do with our souls. If I wanted to, I could believe that after millions of years, lifeless molecules developed into the diverse life-forms we see today. And maybe God noticed that some naked apes had developed a remarkable amount of self-awareness and decided to breathe a soul into them. Or maybe not. I find enough self-worth by looking at myself and saying, “Holy crap! I’m a collection of atoms, made of the same stuff as everything around me, but I’m a sentient being!” The Bible doesn't seem to be all that specific on what this "soul" thing is, anyway.
Accepting evolution has done nothing to diminish my regard for other humans, has led me to believe in treating other animals with a bit more kindness, and has actually increased the respect I have for God. Also, as I mentioned on the other thread, the theory is useful! So please don’t try to tell me that I can’t have faith in God and be an evolutionist, or that it’s done harm to my morals. That’s just not true.
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I think you define well (if not precisely where) the science leaves off and religion takes over. It also means, I assume, that your belief in God as THE intelligent designer working unseen, but not unseeable, through the mechanism of evolution means that you view science as a way to study God.
If so, I'd have to say my views align quiet nicely with what you've expressed here.
I don't think this relegates God to a role as trickster or as the hands-off deity who merely set it all in motion millennia ago.
And, most importantly, you don't seem to be claiming that we have to instruct others in classes on science that God did anything at all.
Sadly, I don't believe that ours is the dominant position within the group promoting ID in the schools.
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For the record, were I to read an opening post like the one in this thread about a belief I held, I wouldn't have posted at all.
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Hmmm... Will's opening seems like a staightforward request for information to me. And the hearing given to both ID and Chad seems more than fair, Hatrack is a fairly sympathetic audience.
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A request for information that closes with a warning that one will be argued with indicates that the poster is not merely seeking information.
If one wants to start a debate, one should at least stake out a position first.
If one wants to understand the other side, then one should be seeking to be informed. Not of "the truth" but of what the other side believes.
Look how the character of the thread changed after JVP posted. He staked out a position, and several people responded. As a corallary, there are many threads started by agnostics or atheists asking for explanations about a particular doctrine or event. Some of these (see KarlEd's for good examples) are clearly seeking to understand another worldview. They usually lead to very good discussions. And the most successful ones don't include a statement that the responders will be argued with.
It's the same as those "could someone who supports politician X please explain Y?" threads. They smack of calling someone on the carpet, not genuine exchange.
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In response to both the scientific based as well as numerous philosophical questions that attempted to call themselves all "scientific questions" (get rid of the "why" gentleman and ladies) that require me to be either:
A. A scientist B. A philosophist
Of an order higher than I can claim, I can however point to the article mentioned above which caused such a great stir about ID at the Smithsonian and does give some better data on ID as an alternative or explanation to the "brink wall" (being the SWITCH from dead matter to living matter) that exists at the end of the Darwin approach.
I'm not saying it's a basis for the theory, but it addresses a perceived flaw in the evolutionary theory of life beginning and basically says that TIME requires that for the Evolutionary theory to be true, an almost instantaneous (in evolutionary time called the "short fuse") "next replicte cycle evolution" from one simple form of cambrian life to a another has to be true. It questions that genetic changes and/or amplification and/or "evolution" and the forming of a complex form (blueprint) from a simple one.
It mentions "Self-Organization" theories and some evidence where "top down" organization occurs (where the complex form is available from the very first and the simple form evolves to fill it's plan it already contains. Reaching it's potential and fulfilling it's "design"). He questions the "Long Jump" mutation theory (as I would) I think because it requires the mutation to amost sequentially Predict instead of React and to actually "plan" or amplify itself for no reason. To jump from having A,B and C to A through Z and to have it happen to random mutation.
He touches on Punctualists using fossil record gaps to suggest evolutionary JUMPS followed by evolutionary STASIS, points out the small pool of lifeforms that natural selection to choose from, as a flaw.
He then touches on Structuralism which has been touched upon in the most rudimentary forms by myself above (I didn't even know what structuralism was until this article). This is the piece of the article that I think opens the door to ID theory (assuming that it's not science now) as a possible conclusion to the road it leads. I like how it creates a parallel between existing physical laws and questions the origin of biological law being a result of biologic evolution (at least to some degree).
posted
Chad, that's an excellent article (although there are one or two major problems with using it as a foundational argument; I'll get to those later). It points out a major flaw in evolutionary theory -- one which many evolutionists (though by no means all) admit -- and argues that for this reason more research into the possibility of "intelligent design" might be warranted.
It does not, however, actually make an argument for intelligent design. In its entirety, it says "here's a major flaw in evolution that I consider to be fatal. ID is currently the most prominent alternative theory, and we should look at it more seriously." (The author realizes how flimsy this sounds towards the end, in fact, and throws in references to Darwin and Gould in a somewhat desperate-sounding attempt to remind people that he, too, is a scientist. But I think he IS, and his desperation is unwarranted.)
The difficulty here -- for your purposes -- is that there's still no argument for ID. The whole article is an argument for the development of arguments for ID.
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The problems, by the way, are these:
ID advocates make much out of this article because it was actually published in a peer-reviewed journal, making it one of the very few reputable scientific articles on ID. Unfortunately, the article was not submitted to any of the associate editors for review, and moreover published what is essentially a thought piece on evolutionary microbiology in a taxonomy journal run by a board member of a quasi-creationist institute. In other words, it wasn't as peer-reviewed as it should be, and it was reviewed by the wrong peers (a fact essentially conceded when the senior editor of the journal resigned shortly after the article's publication.)
posted
The question I have about the barrier between "life" and "non-life" being such a huge problem for evolutionary theory is this:
Did it have to happen more than once? It's one of those weird things that science can postulate about, or you can throw up your hands. Either way, we don't know what happened. What we do know is that we have a pretty decent explanation for how things worked since then, and how they work today.
In which case, the only point under contention is a one-shot event that we don't know much (if anything) about. If that's where someone wants to insert an intelligent designer, I'm fine with that, as long as they don't claim that somehow they are being scientific when they do so.
Just as I don't particularly think people are being scientific when they postulate some sort of "just right" conditions to get that molecule to start building copies of itself.
Really, it's just a bunch of speculation. Again, just because a scientist does it, doesn't mean it's "science."
Everyone's allowed to speculate. And if all we had to teach in biology classes was the possible explanations of the origin of life, hey, I'd be happy to give EVERY flippin' theory equal time.
Instead, we have a theory that explains everything pretty well from that point on. And another theory that uses the same mechanisms and adds another (unnecessary) dimension of explanation.
While I might even agree with that addition, I have to say, this is really not science, whereas eveolutionary theory is. It generates useful, testable predictions. It postulates an underlying mechanism over which we can exert control and it works in the predicted fashion.
The problem with ID AFTER the point of that initial spark is that it is irrelevant. We already have a simpler theory that works as well.
IF A=C and A+B=C, either B is zero or A, B, and C are zero. Either way, the value of B is zero.
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posted
If it comes to that, why is everybody accepting the sharp distinction between life and non-life? It is not so obvious as all that. I would love to see comrade CStroman give a good operational definition of life. For example, is a virus alive?
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For the record, were I to read an opening post like the one in this thread about a belief I held, I wouldn't have posted at all.
There are a number of topics that I will not discuss on this forum anymore, but the fact that I don't comment in threads involving those topics does not imply in the slightest that I accept the arguments of people whose views I do not share.
Silence does not equal assent.
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posted
I've often wondered (non-scientifically, of course) what the ultimate difference is between biology and mechanics. For instance, as we peer into biology, looking at ever smaller parts of the whole, learning the mechanisms of the cell and single-cell creatures, and even smaller than single-cell creatures (like virii) and at the same time we research nano-technology, creating ever smaller machines -- maybe even some that can replicate themselves -- at what point, if any, do the two subjects become indistiguishable? If we are someday able to create nano-techs out of individual atoms so that the finished machine is basically just a string of individual molecles or atoms that does what we want it to, how is this fundamentally different from a virus in structure, and how might we tell one from the other?
Could better understanding the structure and functionality of virii lead to breakthroughs in nanotechnology? If we were able to replicate aspects of a particular virus and create a <something> that could patrol the blood-stream and scrub out unwanted cholesterol deposits, have we created something biological or mechanical? Did we create a nanobot or a virus? Is one more "alive" than the other? And if not, at what point in complexity does one cease (or begin) to be alive and the other not?
posted
basd on Karl's post... It does seem like at some point in the near future we will need to redefine our definition of life. It doesn't seem like we're far off from creating software that is programmed to learn and adapt. Add that to a self-replicating mechanism and we're eerily close to replicating the fundamental definition of life. Other implications would be with the marriage of humans and technology. Is there a point where a person is more machine than man?
Recently scientists talked about uploading the contents of a human brain into a computer. What if we are able to in 50 years be able to create a computer clone of a person's brain? Suppose Bill is brain dead, so they create a computer clone of his brain, replace his organic brain with the computer, and Bill wakes up. Is Bill alive? Since the real Bill is brain dead, does new Bill have legal rights?
This probably isn't the thread to post these thoughts, but it seemed like an interesting idea based on the context.
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posted
Most scientists are pretty open with a relatively expansive definition of life, simply because that seems most useful for purposes of things like evolutionary theory.
Also, the definition of life isn't agreed upon among scientists, because every definition seems to have philosophical flaws, and several are equally useful.
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posted
Even something as apparently digital as male/female turns out to be a continuum. About 1 in 200 humans are born ambiguously, sometimes to be resloved at puberty, sometimes the ambiguity is never resolved.
Sometimes we lose sight that male and female are categories that we use to understand phenomenon, not the phenomenon itself. Similarly, life and death are not so digital as the words might seem. I was dead for a short time myself, yet here I am typing away.
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posted
interesting thought...It does seem like we generally view things digitally, yes/no, left/right, etc. Is there really a distinct line that separates the living and non-living? Perhaps we're nothing more than a mathematical formula or function nested within increasingly larger mathematical formulas, and consciousness is nothing more than a variable.
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posted
Perhaps we will never be completely captured by any system of categorization. Perhaps we are historical creatures. Perhaps the universe itself is historical and open ended, being determined by real events rather than objective forces.
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quote:Instead, we have a theory that explains everything pretty well from that point on. And another theory that uses the same mechanisms and adds another (unnecessary) dimension of explanation.
While I might even agree with that addition, I have to say, this is really not science, whereas eveolutionary theory is. It generates useful, testable predictions. It postulates an underlying mechanism over which we can exert control and it works in the predicted fashion.
I agree. Evolutionary Theory is a valid scientific theory on how life came from that "first" life until today. It's not a valid theory on how life "began". (that's if it did begin at all, leaving the door open to the "life was transferred here" theory.) As the article points out, Darwin's theory requires the potential exist for mutation to fulfill. In the case of life, it's not there in Macromolecules.
I also find it interesting that the "primordial soup" theories that are counted as science, have an element that is contradicted by basic scientific reasoning. And that is the 1+1=2 but we doubt it and keep hoping that it will eventually lead to 1+1=3. I can't remember what the scientific term is for this, but it boils down to replicating the same experiment and hoping for a different result. Molecular scientists have attempted to "breathe" life into macromolecules not a few times, and what have the results been?
I imagine they've been about as successful as people using various specrometers when monitoring people's death to prove there's a "spirit". I really don't know.
As for Virii, there basically an unplugged computer that get plugged in with the introduction of a living cell. They have alot of pre-programmed potential, but it's pointless without juice.
My main concern is that there is an equality on what we judge as science and what we don't. That the rules of what is considered as "scientific theory" apply. It may be only my perception, but there are alot of "quasi-science" theories out there (The Life from another planet source one is one of those) that have NO direct evidence in the positive to support it, but in fact have negative evidence against it. Mountains of it, but that are still considered "scientific".
We need to be equal and say that if one theory isn't scientific and another is, but they both have an equally absent basis, then they are BOTH unscientific or both scientific.
KarlEd brings up a good point which answer could redefine what is life (as well as the morals/ethics that govern laws regarding life).
Unless we define life as having specific genetic code AND the ability to self replicate.
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