Elshamah

Please read this: http://afarensis99.w...ting-darwinism/

 

And this http://scienceblogs....-in-the-litera/

 

As both contain answers to the above paper; it's been quite extensively discredited, and the above two are just examples. Before you start yelling about those not being peer reviewed, read them through -- they use peer reviewed data to corroborate their findings, which is more than what was done in this thread.

 

That said, irreducible complexity has been proven bunk for a while now http://www.talkorigi.../faqs/behe.html (will you read talkorigins or should we just give up in advance?)

 

 

I don't know anymore, you keep dancing around the subject and moving the goalpost. People answered multiple time on the claim you keep saying is false. You tell me.

Who is moving the goal posts ? you present now a paper about irreducible complexity . Please define , what do you want to debate about ? evolution, abiogenesis, or irreducible complexity ? and please : just post a link, or youtube video, is a waste.

Please present your arguments here at this thread.

ok I have been seeing this pop up everywhere on the religion section so I wanted to make a thread specifically for it.

In my opinion morality being from god doesn't make sense because people disagree a lot about what is right and wrong: ergo morality is not innate.

Wrong. There is a commom knowledge, that all humans have, even aboriginies, indians etc. that kill, steal, cheat, betray etc. is wrong, and love, help, altruism etc. is good.

Indeed, if God does not exist, than there is no basis for objective morality, and so being, nobody can say, Hitler was wrong, for example to exterminate the jews. Without a moral giver, morals become subjective, and are just based on different opinions. Therefore, no good, and bad really exists.

Information is just a term we humans apply to help us better understand certain things, and DNA really is not information in the way you are asserting, nor is it a book containing information in the way your argument requires.

False

from a peer review paper :

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3246854/

Unfortunately, the student is not taught that those theories still require complex and specified information contained in functioning proteins, which cannot be explained or self-generated

So!!! The whole basis of debate rooted in the ideology that this or that could not have happened such and such a way because we don't know or understand how it might have happened in such and such a way is no way to argue in favor of, "it must have happened my way". You could completely disprove all current theories of abiogenesis and that would provide no evidence whatsoever in favor of anything like intelligent design. Disproving any theory is not evidence in favor of any other theory. What to you hope to accomplish with your unsubstantiated assertions that current theories couldn't be correct?

Well, i think we do have just 3 mechanisms to explain the existence of the universe, and LIFE.

1. Physical necessity.

2. Chance

3. Intelligent design.

If 1 and 2 are discarded, no.3 is a logical deduction.

from my peer reviewed paper :

http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC3246854/

the student is not taught that the four nucleotides do not spontaneously form in nature (20). There is no self-organizing principle that would guide or facilitate alignment of nucleotides (21, 22). Any experimentally manufactured nucleotides are mixtures of L (left-oriented) and D (right-oriented) isomers. Since DNA is composed of only D isomers, the probability of alignment of thousands of specified D isomers becomes even more remote (23, 24). Even if there was a self-organizing pattern, the probability of even a short strand of nucleotides occurring in a precisely specified linear pattern that would code for even the smallest single-celled organism with approximately 250 genes has been calculated to be 1 in 10¹⁵⁰—1 in 10⁷⁰ less than the chance of finding a particular electron in the entire universe

For the sake of consistency and educational purposes for the way scientific discussions probably should be done here, here is a list of proper scientific resources that support evolution.

I must say that if we go at the challenge of posting "all evidence" we will have a very very long very very arduous task, since there are quite a LOT of evidence for evolution, from multiple angles, multiple fields, and over a large span of time.

 

That said, you can start here:

 

• Evidence for evolution by natural selection. http://www.nature.co...olutiongems.pdf
• The Science of Evolution (Berkeley, includes references within): http://evolution.ber.../0_0_0/lines_01
• Smithsonian Institute, Evidence of Evolution (references within) https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence
• Evidence of common descent: http://en.wikipedia...._common_descent
  Yes, I know this is wikipedia, but in this case, it isn't a source of its own, but it is a source of the LINKS for peer reviewed evidence. There are 137 references linked in that article, as references for peer-reviewed articles, and the article does a good job describing their meaning and linking to the source.

 

There are more, if you insist.

 

Enjoy.

 

~mooey

Are we debating Evolution, or Abiogenesis ??!!

here a good number of peer reviewed papers, which do represent my standpoint :

http://www.discovery.org/a/2640

Again, a clear use of analogy. Scientists often make the mistake of using analogy to make things clearer to an uneducated audience. Unfortunately, it's often these very analogies that get quoted and misrepresented, both by the innocently uninitiated and by those with a purposely devious agenda.

False. DNA contains LITERALLY a code.

http://www.dnatutorial.com/

An organism (be it bacteria, rosebush, ant or human) has some form of nucleic acid which is the chemical carrier of its genetic information. There are two types of nucleic acids, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA) which code for all the information that determines the nature of the organism's cells.

http://phys.org/news...na-insight.html

Living systems owe their existence to a pair of information-carrying molecules: DNA and RNA. These fundamental chemical forms possess two features essential for life: they display heredity—meaning they can encode and pass on genetic information

http://www.biology-o...information.htm

Genetic Code

Genes are sequences of DNA nucleotides that carry and transmit the information specifying amino acid sequences for protein synthesis. Each DNA molecule contains many genes. The genome refers collectively to the total genetic information coded in a cell.

http://www.cosmicfin...eists/dna-code/

The book Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life is written by Hubert Yockey, the foremost living specialist in bioinformatics. The publisher is Cambridge University press. Yockey rigorously demonstrates that the coding process in DNA is identical to the coding process and mathematical definitions used in Electrical Engineering. This is not subjective, it is not debatable or even controversial. It is a brute fact:

"Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies." (Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, Cambridge University Press, 2005)

So, you will just choose to ignore the rest of my post that pre-empted your reply and already answered the questions you posed, is that correct?

 

If I understand your argument correctly, you're basically saying that DNA is just information ?

No. DNA is not information. DNA is a information carrier. It contains all the information to develop the functions of a body.

I don't care if the scientists are secular or religious. I want papers that are peer reviewed.

here it goes :

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/01/peer-reviewed_p055221.html

I also don't care for what is "common knowledge". Common knowledge is inferior to actual scientific evidence.

common scientific knowledge is based on actual scientific evidence.

De Duve, a Nobel Prize winning scientist writes:

In all modern organisms, DNA contains in encrypted form the instructions for the manufacture of proteins. More specifically, encoded within DNA is the exact order in which amino acids, selected at each step from 20 distinct varieties should be strung together to form all of the organism’s proteins.

Christian de Duve, “The Beginning of Life on Earth,” American Scientist, Vol. 83, Sept-Oct. 1995, p. 430

!

Moderator Note

Elshamah,

 

You don't get to cherry pick what you respond to. People have offered you rebuttals and links, which you have ignored in favor what is really little more than preaching. It stops now.

 

On a related note, I don't really know what this thread is doing here and so I'm moving it to speculations.

I have no obligation to respond to all posters.

Please point out what i have posted that is close to preaching.

thanks.

Information is just a term we humans apply to help us better understand certain things, and DNA really is not information in the way you are asserting, nor is it a book containing information in the way your argument requires.

DNA contains LITERALLY a code, by all means.

http://www.cosmicfin...eists/dna-code/Information theory terms and ideas applied to DNA are not metaphorical, but in fact quite literal in every way. In other words, the information theory argument for design is not based on analogy at all. It is direct application of mathematics to DNA, which by definition is a code.

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the Human Genome Project (that mapped the human DNA structure) said that one can "think of DNA as an instructional script, a software program, sitting in the nucleus of the cell."

DNA does not store "information."

kkkk....

Do you really know what you are talking about ??

Francis Crick would strongly disagree with you.......

http://nobelprize.or...e-code/how.html

Every living organism contains within itself the information it needs to build a new organism. This information, you could think of it as a blueprint of life, is stored in the organism's genome. When an organism needs to use the data stored in the genome, e.g. to build components of a new cell, a copy of the required DNA part is made. ">The alphabet in the RNA molecule contains 4 letters, i.e. A, U, C, G as previously mentioned. To construct a word in the RNA language, three of these letters are grouped together. This three-letter word are often referred to as a triplet or a codon. An example of such a codon is ACG. The letters don't have to be of different kinds, so UUU is also a valid codon. These codons are placed after each other in the RNA molecule, to construct a message, a RNA sequence. This message will later be read by the protein producing machinery in the body.

Can you quote a peer-reviewed publication, seeing as others here (and talkorigin too) use those to define some minimum of properly done science?

 

We can all dismiss claims with "BS" and post random stuff. We're a science forum, though. We have a minimum set of requirements -- based on the scientific method -- for evidence that support claims.

 

~mooey

Is it not enough that i quote secular scientists, that are specialists in their field ? What i have quoted, is common knowledge. With a little research, you will find that find out.

DNA is not information....

 

Oh sure. BS.

http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/838/

Life (at least today through the molecule DNA) contains huge amounts of information. As previously noted, the Darwinian mechanism requires replication, or reproduction. Prior to the origin of replication, life could only rely upon the basic laws of chemistry. But how could the basic laws of chemistry and physics create the information present in life? The origin of this information that is key to understanding the origin of life. As B. O. Küppers wrote, "the problem of the origin of life is clearly basically equivalent to the problem of the origin of biological information."⁵⁰ Yet, there are no known chemical laws that determine the order of the nucleotide bases in DNA (or any other self-replicating molecule). Küppers notes, "the properties of nucleic acids indicate that all the combinatorially possible nucleotide patterns are, from a chemical point of view, equivalent."⁴⁸ Hubert Yockey writes that the sequence of the DNA is not affected by any physical or chemical law:Informational macromolecules can code genetic messages and therefore can carry information because the sequence of bases or residues is affected very little, if at all, by [self-organizing] physico-chemical factors.⁴⁹The first self-replicating molecule is not said to be DNA. But it is said to have been similar to DNA in that it carried the information needed for life. If there are no known chemical or physical laws which can create this complex and specified information needed for a self-replicating molecule, then this stage of the origin of life faces severe hurdles.

All of it, your question is nonsensical, DNA only represents information because we label it as such, in fact it is not information in of it's self any more than the polyester molecule is information...

i am always very amused when reading such kind of answers.

Richard Dawkins at his book The Blind Watchmaker:

"Every single one of more than a trillion cells in the body contains about a thousand times as much precisely-coded digital information as my entire computer.

By this 'statistics' alone, we should be aware that non intelligent blueprints are more available than ones that 'thinking minds' created.

In that case you should be surely able to present just ONE example of codified, complex, specified information like DNA that has empirically proven a natural , aka non intelligent origin ?

Also, if an intelligent designer did the blueprints for our bodies, then the intelligent designer is a really bad engineer. The blueprints suck, quite honestly, with vestigial organs and a combined plumbing, I wouldn't pay a dime to this designer if he offered to design anything for me.

Even if there was a designer, he (or she) seems either incompetent, or with a really bad sense of humor.

 

That said, you AGAIN misrepresent the theory. No one says life arose by chance. We can't argue a nonexisting argument.

http://www.answersin...estigial-organs

Now that's ironic, coming from you who claims an intelligent force created the universe. How could *you* possibly know?

i don't argue to have absolute proofs. But the evidence points clearly to a intelligent designer.

As stated multiple times before, we actually have a pretty good idea how things started out.

oh really ? please explain then how homochirality came to be, the information stored in dna , and how to overcome the oxygen problem.

That does not follow. It is non-sequitur. It also opens the new question of where did that mind come from?

 

 

It's not chance, though. Each successive generation builds upon the successes of the previous one. Even when you get the level of chemistry, new molecular groupings build on what came before them. Also, your hamlet argument is kind of funny. Another like it is that a wind storm cannot create a 747 out of junk in a junkyard. That one came from Fred Hoyle, and is yet another fallacy, but exactly of the same type as your (what you certainly meant to say) argument that a thousand monkeys banging on a typewriter couldn't reproduce Hamlet. It shows just how completely you need to better educate yourself on this topic before you continue making any further declarations.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoyle's_fallacy

the cell is irreducibly complex.

http://www.epm.org/r...es-not-exist-w/

To sum up the evolutionary dilemma: Even if the physical impossibility of forming and gathering the necessary physical building blocks of a cell were overcome, it would still require information. And it would still require a 'language." And it would need to immediately form a copying mechanism. Looking at it from a different angle, you need a cell to create a DNA molecule. But you need DNA to create a cell. What is required to create DNA and cells is information arising from intelligence. Which brings us back to the Biblical model.

There's no proof for this, and as lovely as the ICR ""research"" (notice the double-double quotation marks) tries to twist things, they are doing it while twisting the known facts, burying known evidence, and ignoring known explanations.

 

You know, you should really go over this site: http://talkorigins.org/

 

It might help going over what "the other side" actually says in response to the claims made by the ICR. If the icr is right, you have nothing to lose.

Actually, for the sake of learning you have nothing to lose even if you end up disagreeing with the entire scientific community.

 

But do go over some of the claims there, they answer the vast majority of the claims made, and they do it a lot better than what any one of us would be able to do on a short time in a discussion forum. Look for the relevant claims, see the answers.

 

A useful place to start is here, about abiogenesis and the possible origin of life: http://www.talkorigi.../faqs/abioprob/

 

 

 

 

~mooey

i know the talkorigins arguments. please present the arguments, which convince you, life arose by natural means.

Doesn't it make sense that a much less sophisticated nucleic acid existed before DNA? Early life didn't need sequences with so much structural purpose. Life started simple and evolved to current complexities over billions of years, we have observed the evidence of this.

what evidence is that ?

Since you capitalized KNOW, you should learn something else about science. It's not about KNOWING or PROOF, it's about the explanation that's best supported by reliable evidence. Again, you really should learn more about the things you ridicule with such fervor.

Its not me making absolute statements. Its obvious, if you make them, i will defy you to present the empirical proofs which do entitle you to talk like you know something with absolute certainty. Otherwise, it makes much more sense to say, i believe so and so, because it seems the evidence points to this direction, and x seems to be the best explanation to support y.

First, as has been said many, MANY times, pure chance was not involved. The natural laws of chemistry preclude the idea of pure chance.

So you have a clue, how the natural laws of chemistry created life ?

Second, even assuming that pure chance was at play, when you have trillions of molecules trying trillions of combinations simultaneously, the chance of any given outcome becomes very close to 1.

http://www.detecting...biogenesis.html

Even if a lot of fully formed proteins and strings of fully formed DNA molecules were to come together at the same time, what are the odds that all the hundreds and thousands of uniquely specified proteins needed to decode both the DNA and mRNA, (not to mention the needed ATP molecules and the host of other unlisted "parts"), would all simultaneously fuse together in such a highly functional way? Not only has this phenomenon never been reproduced by any scientist in any laboratory on earth, but a reasonable mechanism by which such a phenomenon might even occur has never been proposed - outside of intelligent design that is.

So what if the chance is 1 in 1,000,000,000,000 if I have 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 attempts all happening at the same time - the result I need is bound to come up just based on raw probability alone. Let the chance argument go - it's invalid, and it fails to account for all the variables.

why should there be all these attempts at all ?

Second, no living mind was responsible for the blueprint for water.

how do you KNOW ?

http://www.icr.org/presence-of-God/

Just mix hydrogen and oxygen properly and bam, water!

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=origin-of-oxygen-in-atmosphere

I wish you had the time to study what you're scoffing at, you sound like such a smart person!

 

Life wouldn't have started with a nucleic acid as complex as DNA, it just needed a strand with the blueprints for its own reproduction that could catalyze reactions in some of the available chemicals.

So how did your blueprints arise by chance ? A bluepring is ALWAYS the result of a thinking mind. Your " just " implies that reproduction capability and catalyze reactions is peanuts. Do you believe also in Santa Claus ?

Please stop using DNA as an example of irreducible complexity. It wasn't around when life formed.

How do you possibly KNOW ?

In fact, this has been done.

http://idle.slashdot...ate-shakespeare

 

I guess you know have to admit being wrong about complexity not being able to arise from randomness.

http://www.unmaskingevolution.com/20-typing.htm

It has been calculated that it would be statistically impossible to randomly type even the first 100 characters in Shakespeare's "Hamlet". If the monkeys typed only in lower case, including the 27 spaces in the first 100 characters, the chances are 27^100 (ie. one chance in 10^143)

http://www.talkorigi...b/abioprob.html

 

 

abiogenesis is not possible because DNA contains complex, specified, codified information. And that can come only from a mind. In the same way as chance cannot create Shakespeares Hamlet, it cannot create the instruction script for life. Therefor, the best explanation for life is a intelligent, living creator.