Greg H.

.Thatis right

 

In their book Evolution from Space, astronomers Sir Fred Hoyle and ProfessorChandra Wickramasinghe calculated that the odds of randomly producing therequired enzymes for a simple living cell were 1 in 10^40,000.Since the number of atoms in the known universe is only 10⁸⁰,they argued that even a whole universe full of "primordial soup"wouldn't stand a chance. Hoyle also compared the random emergence of thesimplest cell to the likelihood that "a tornado sweeping through ajunk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein- zero!

Every time I read that quote about the 747 it makes me chuckle, because it's the biggest strawman of the lot. No serious scientist is claiming that life went from a bunch of chemicals directly to a living organism. There were intermediate steps in the process, and the probability of some of those steps may be nearly close to 100%.

Here's what Dr. Ian Musgrave, from the University of Adelaide says on that:

So the calculation goes that the probability of forming a given 300 amino acid long protein (say an enzyme like carboxypeptidase) randomly is (1/20)³⁰⁰ or 1 chance in 2.04 x 10³⁹⁰, which is astoundingly, mind-beggaringly improbable. This is then cranked up by adding on the probabilities of generating 400 or so similar enzymes until a figure is reached that is so huge that merely contemplating it causes your brain to dribble out your ears. This gives the impression that the formation of even the smallest organism seems totally impossible. However, this is completely incorrect.

 

Firstly, the formation of biological polymers from monomers is a function of the laws of chemistry and biochemistry, and these are decidedly not random.

 

...

 

No matter whether the first self-replicators were single molecules, or complexes of small molecules, this model is nothing like Hoyle's "tornado in a junkyard making a 747".

 

 

Feel free to read the entire paper - it covers quite a bit about the steps involved in going from "soup" to life.

Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations

edit to fix an obnoxious font.

Unless children are involved, the best place for your gun at night is under your pillow, with the safety off and fully loaded. Otherwise, you don't have a gun even if you own a thousand. Yes! Guns and their use should be understood, not reviled as murderous weapons.

This is the kind of asinine statement that makes it easy for the "Ban the gun" crowd to make their points. Even when I was in the military in the field we didn't sleep with our weapons loaded. Loaded, under a pillow with the safety off? I am never, ever staying at your house, and I sincerely hope no one else does either. I don't want to get shot trying to wake you up because the kitchen caught fire.

Evidently, you are not too well trained in the use of fire arms.

And evidently, you are a dumbass. And yes, I know that's an ad hominem, but in this case it also appears to be the truth, at least where firearms safety is concerned.

Personally, as a gun owner, I am all for training requirements, licensing, and title/tag registration for firearms. I spent time as a kid with my dad learning how to handle a weapon appropriately (mostly while hunting), spent time in the service learning how to use one effectively, and accurately, and now I go out about once a month and burn through a couple magazines just to make sure I still feel comfortable in my skill to handle one and hit what I'm aiming at. Proper training, and maintaining that training should be required, and I am definitely for restrictions on who can own a gun.

The real problem is that this topic is as polarizing for most people as abortion. You say the words "gun control" and they either nod sycophantically ("Yes yes ban the guns!"), or they turn into raving rage monsters ("You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!"). The moderate group in the middle can't even be heard over the gnashing of teeth. Responsible gun ownership is not the same as taking away guns from the people. What it should be, if done correctly, is insuring that those people that own guns know how to use them properly and, much more importantly, when not to use them.

The folks at Kansas university have put together a helpful guide on doing just this sort of thing. It also includes folks you can contact.

http://paleo.ku.edu/fossilid.html

Since you mention it may have been recovered from New Mexico, you can also try:

http://geoinfo.nmt.edu/faq/minerals/#id

The problem of origin of life is unsolvable by the positivism of science and hence the origin of life should be accepted as an axiom. Science doesn't know and cannot know how life originated through natural processes with its scientific methods.

Really? Why can't science figure it out? That's a rather large assumption, deciding a priori that science will never figure out by what mechanism life could have arisen naturally.

Again a mindless lawgiver!

I addressed this in post 18 of this thread. Natural laws are not a legal system of jurisprudence - and I do not for a moment believe you are naive enough to think otherwise. Please drop the strawman.

So it's a Jellyrat? Sounds like it should be in the candy aisle next to gummi worms.

The minimal level of energy is a step size of energy.

 

It is the level of energyy needed for a minimal step size in work. Something measurable, so it can't be zero.

There is an energy minimum based on the uncertainty principle - is that what you're asking about?

 

Lawsusually need a thinker behind them don't they?

Legal systems require someone to invent them. Natural laws do not, which is what I was discussing, as you well know. Strawman fallacies will not push your arguments very far, but feel free to keep trying.

By logic, I will list them out.

1.Christianity

2. Atheism

=other religions

Atheism is illogical, and so are other religions.

So as opposed to Christianity, all other religions (and lack of religious belief) are illogical. So, essentially, what you're saying is that anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong. That's good to know. I can stop wasting my time trying to have a serious discussion with you.

Then please tell me exactly how life came to be?

DH already answered this, but I figured I would weigh in to, since it was ultimately addressed to me. The short answer is, we're not entirely sure (at least based on my readings on the subject) but there are a couple of good theories. The Abiogenesis article at Wikipedia covers most of the history and general information on the topic.

The important thing to remember is that life would not have risen entirely randomly, as DH pointed out. Chemistry has laws, just like every other science, and those govern the combinations of atoms into molecules and molecules into proteins, etc. And as someone else pointed out, it would not have needed a long span of time (geologically speaking) to find a combination that worked since there would have been billions of molecules trying to combine in billions of different ways constantly. All it took was one to get it right, and start the process of self-replication. After that, evolution would have taken over.

Then pretend you believe in one, and show me that it is better.

i'm not the one claiming that religious creation myths = science. I was simply pointing out that you seem to be laboring under the misconception that the Bible has the only horse in that race.

I am talking about the creation of our world, yes there are crazy theories out there!

I am well aware of what you're talking about - and my point stands. The Bible does not have a monopoly on religious creation stories. And if you're so willing to dismiss those as crazy theories, why should we take your religiously based theory any more seriously?

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-misconceptions.html

"The theory of evolution says that life originated, and evolution proceeds, by random chance."

 

There is probably no other statement which is a better indication that the arguer doesn't understand evolution. Chance certainly plays a large part in evolution, but this argument completely ignores the fundamental role of natural selection, and selection is the very opposite of chance. Chance, in the form of mutations, provides genetic variation, which is the raw material that natural selection has to work with. From there, natural selection sorts out certain variations. Those variations which give greater reproductive success to their possessors (and chance ensures that such beneficial mutations will be inevitable) are retained, and less successful variations are weeded out. When the environment changes, or when organisms move to a different environment, different variations are selected, leading eventually to different species. Harmful mutations usually die out quickly, so they don't interfere with the process of beneficial mutations accumulating.

 

Nor is abiogenesis (the origin of the first life) due purely to chance. Atoms and molecules arrange themselves not purely randomly, but according to their chemical properties. In the case of carbon atoms especially, this means complex molecules are sure to form spontaneously, and these complex molecules can influence each other to create even more complex molecules. Once a molecule forms that is approximately self-replicating, natural selection will guide the formation of ever more efficient replicators. The first self-replicating object didn't need to be as complex as a modern cell or even a strand of DNA. Some self-replicating molecules are not really all that complex (as organic molecules go).

 

Some people still argue that it is wildly improbable for a given self-replicating molecule to form at a given point (although they usually don't state the "givens," but leave them implicit in their calculations). This is true, but there were oceans of molecules working on the problem, and no one knows how many possible self-replicating molecules could have served as the first one. A calculation of the odds of abiogenesis is worthless unless it recognizes the immense range of starting materials that the first replicator might have formed from, the probably innumerable different forms that the first replicator might have taken, and the fact that much of the construction of the replicating molecule would have been non-random to start with.

 

(One should also note that the theory of evolution doesn't depend on how the first life began. The truth or falsity of any theory of abiogenesis wouldn't affect evolution in the least.)

 

In short, life does not evolve by chance alone, nor does the theory of evolution have anything to do with how life began. That's a completely different theory.

2. The Bible tells the story of creation, whereas Harry Potter doesn't fit with anything we see today.

 

Minor correction. The Bible tells a story of creation. It's not the only one available. It's not even the only religious-without-a-scrap-of-scientific-evidence one available.

Making the assumption that you were referring to the Christian God of the Old Testament, consume all of my hypocritical worshippers in a fireball of damnation - as an object lesson to the rest of humanity to straighten out and fly right.

Oh, and I'd put it on pay per view.

I repeat the key phrase in my example was "BUT NEVER FOUND OUT ABOUT IT." An IRS agent coming to your door to NOTIFY you is, I'm pretty sure, FINDING OUT ABOUT IT. Here's one that has been around for a while and can convey almost the same message;

 

"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"

- http://en.wikipedia....lls_in_a_forest

Well,, if we lived in a magical world where large piles of unaccounted for money can simply hang around and no one notices or cares, then I doubt it would have any impact on your state of bliss at all. Why should being unaware of things you are unaware of make you any more or less happy?

And if a tree falls in the forest, sound is created whether any suitable receptors are there to receive it or not. Sound is just one form of energy created when the potential energy of the tree's vertical position is released by it falling over.

Well I must say, I feel like going on a bloody rampage right now as my absence of certain beliefs fails to inhibit my ability or will to do so.

I'll get the pitchforks. Who was bringing the torches?

This seems paradoxical in the sense that they are fully aware that men like Galileo, Coperniicus and Newton, all profound men of science, carried sincere and deeply rooted beliefs in a Divine Creator and Supreme being.

Yes, they had deeply rooted beliefs, which matter not one whit when answering the question "Why are they important?" They are lauded because of their scientific achievements, not their ability to believe in the divine.

There is no God, end of discussion.

You said that once already. And once again, I ask, what does that have to do with the effects of religious belief?

Unless you are purporting that because God does not exist, it follows that neither does religion?

Prayer, of course, is not a phenomenon of nature. It is a willful engagement of humankind directed at being that transcends the physical, empirically measurable elements and natuarlly derived processes of the physical universe.

 

The function of prayer, therefore, falls outside of the bounds of the criteia of the strict Scientific Method which applies to empirically measurable phenomenon and events ONLY. It is, therefore, beyond the criteria set forth by the sceintific community and their accepted forms of experimentation.

In other words, it's all woo - and any "evidence" is a load of horse droppings.

So perusing the article, I'd have to say, without reading the study, it looks more like an apologists attempt to prove that religion is good than anything else (IMO).

However, I found the original paper on the author's website, so I am with holding judgment until I actually read it.

For anyone that is interested in doing the same:

http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/mmccullough/Papers/Relig_self_control_bulletin.pdf

Congrats.

Ahh. Ok. Over my head then.

There is no god, end of discussion.

While I agree with your premise, I fail to see how it ends the discussion about the effects of religion, which does, demonstrably, exist.

Moontanman, do you have a link to the article or better, the study? I'd be curious to have a look at their methodology - self-control seems to me to be one of those ephemeral things that might be a little hard to quantify.

And yet "high gravity slows time" is still not an accurate portrayal of the effect.

Here's a question that I'm really not sure of the answer of

Let us suppose that I am in a rocket capable of travelling at .9c, and I am falling through a gravity well in that rocket at .9c (i.e. the gravitational attraction of the massive body is capable of propelling my rocket at the same speed as the engines.)

Obviously, I will feel some relativistic effects as I fall through the gravity well, due to my velocity.

My question is, if I turn on the rocket engines with an acceleration vector that exactly counters the force of the gravity:

A) Would my motion through the gravity well stop, assuming no other outside influences, and

B) Would that cancel the relativistic effects of my former motion?