somecallmegenius Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) Yeah I agree that this definition doesn't make sense. Even the basic definitions of "life" include some sort of extra property, like response to the environment and/or having a metabolism. For that matter, computer viruses replicate and can have variations in the replication. Cancer is the replication with (anomalous) variation. Is cancer life? I think the definition is lacking. That's a bit ironic, though. You're saying you believe in a much less plausible and less explainable explanation but demand that the explanation that actually has some merit in reality be explained fully? I say it has merit in reality because we do know, and have witnessed, and can replicate, the *individual* steps that we suspect happened that led to the emergence of life (abiogenesis). That's more than what we can say about any kind of monotheistic belief. You have a right to believe whatever you want, but if you say you hold your belief in one theory until there's proof, you should hold your belief in general until there's proof, and there's a whole lot more circumstantial evidence to abiogenesis than there is to any sort of magical creation story. All hail consistency ~mooey Good argument. Yeah, I prefer to keep this debate scientific. I was just saying that I am open minded towards scientific explanations of any natural/observed phenomena, even though I am religious. It may seem contradictory I know... On a side note, I just discovered this website by chance, today. And I have to say this is great. The fact that it is free to join and that the moderators such as yourself try to keep it as clean and scientific as possible. Well done. No ads either, I wonder how you guys keep it running... One more thought, maybe the "Magical Creation Story" that we read in books of religion is some kind of dumbed-down long-story-short version for what we are now actually discovering to be true about abiogenesis. However improbable you believe it maybe... Also, the laws of nature, why are they the way they are? I do believe that science can eventually explain how everything is the way it is... However, I don't think it can tell us WHY it exists, it just does... I mean, take any theory, it must have some fundamental piece of existance which has to exist in some dimension in order work, even string theory, and any other unified-field theories.. Edited July 31, 2012 by somecallmegenius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan McDougall Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Good argument. Yeah, I prefer to keep this debate scientific. I was just saying that I am open minded towards scientific explanations of any natural/observed phenomena, even though I am religious. It may seem contradictory I know... On a side note, I just discovered this website by chance, today. And I have to say this is great. The fact that it is free to join and that the moderators such as yourself try to keep it as clean and scientific as possible. Well done. No ads either, I wonder how you guys keep it running... Glad tomake your acquaintances, you are going to get a lot of flack from these Atheists who do not seem to know that 90% of the American people believe in an Intelligent Designer or God. They give man credit for intelligence but dismiss the idea of God as silly nonsense Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somecallmegenius Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 Just to be clear. I am not on this website to prove god exists, or argue my religious views. I am here to benefit from what people with scientific curiosity have to say. I am here for constructive scientific debate, and not to convert people or to convince them to believe in divine creation. Nice to meet everyone. Alan, whatever you are trying to prove, you are approaching the matter in a wrong way, with all due respect. My purposes here seem to be different than yours.... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan McDougall Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Just to be clear. I am not on this website to prove god exists, or argue my religious views. I am here to benefit from what people with scientific curiosity have to say. I am here for constructive scientific debate, and not to convert people or to convince them to believe in divine creation. Nice to meet everyone. Alan, whatever you are trying to prove, you are approaching the matter in a wrong way, with all due respect. My purposes here seem to be different than yours.... I thinkthat "we now share the same purpose", futility in trying to reason that even theremotest possibility of an ID has been met by hostility. Please stay in theforum and put your ideas forward a rational thinking scientist. I am anEngineer and I do not think that qualifies me as a scientist, but I love allthings scientific, nevertheless. There is a rudimentary intelligence at thefundamental particle level and most definitely at the microbial level. Thismight indicate that a much higher intelligence has instilled this intrinsic, endogenousintelligent from the macro to micro levels of reality. This intrinsic abilityto communicate and exchange information at baseline is not present in non-life system.So the question remains how did non-life become life in the relatively shorttime it took to come into existence some three billion year ago on planetearth? Define life dear scientists? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imatfaal Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I thinkthat "we now share the same purpose", futility in trying to reason that even theremotest possibility of an ID has been met by hostility. Please stay in theforum and put your ideas forward a rational thinking scientist. I am anEngineer and I do not think that qualifies me as a scientist, but I love allthings scientific, nevertheless. There is a rudimentary intelligence at thefundamental particle level and most definitely at the microbial level. Thismight indicate that a much higher intelligence has instilled this intrinsic, endogenousintelligent from the macro to micro levels of reality. This intrinsic abilityto communicate and exchange information at baseline is not present in non-life system.So the question remains how did non-life become life in the relatively shorttime it took to come into existence some three billion year ago on planetearth? Define life dear scientists? There are satisfactory mechanisms that provide possible pathways from non-life to life - and ockam's razor means that we don't postulate bonkers higher intelligences when we don't need to. your long posts, taking info from creationist websites, that purport to throw doubt on the validity or possibilty of non-ID are full of misinformation, quote-mining, and misrepresentation. Several members have explained in detail why certain quoted scientists do not support these ideas even though a small quote out of context might make them appear to do so. At present your arguments are based on incredulity and misunderstanding. I recommend you read the Prigogine article that you quoted out of context - the full article (which is difficult but an educated layman will get loads from it) shows how even 40 years ago these issues were being tackled without the need of a higher intelligence, and will give you an idea of how scientists approach this problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMJones0424 Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I am anEngineer and I do not think that qualifies me as a scientist, but I love allthings scientific, nevertheless. A scientist is anyone who "does" science. Science is a method explaining the world around us using testable hypotheses. I would hope that all engineers are scientists. There is a rudimentary intelligence at thefundamental particle level and most definitely at the microbial level. Thismight indicate that a much higher intelligence has instilled this intrinsic, endogenousintelligent from the macro to micro levels of reality. This intrinsic abilityto communicate and exchange information at baseline is not present in non-life system. I'm not sure what you mean in the first sentence here, but you can't be using a standard definition of intelligence here. So the question remains how did non-life become life in the relatively shorttime it took to come into existence some three billion year ago on planetearth? Thank you for finally dropping the random chance straw man. Surely by now you've read all that's been posted about current hypotheses on abiogenesis. The field is relatively new, and as is the case with a lot in biology, there aren't yet any firm answers, but we've got pretty good ideas.Define life dear scientists? Especially when you get back to primordial life, the distinction between inanimate and living is difficult to clearly delineate. When I speak of life, I think of dissipative structures that seek to maintain homeostasis, have metabolism, and reproduce. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Good argument. Yeah, I prefer to keep this debate scientific. I was just saying that I am open minded towards scientific explanations of any natural/observed phenomena, even though I am religious. It may seem contradictory I know... It might not be contradictory, I don't know, but I just pointed out you seemed to be avid in saying how much you need evidence for the claim, and then immediately turned it over and admitted you believe in the other claim (that seems to hold less evidence...) Even by the experiments that were done already in terms of "small" abiogenesis, there is a bit more evidence to the natural cause than there is to the supernatural one; and that's before we discuss the "problem" of having to provide evidence that the supernatural exists at all.. Then again, admittedly, that doesn't necessarily mean that abiogenesis *is* the right answer - there may be other options we're not considering. (One "option" people discuss is Panspermia, the idea that complex molecules came from another planet. That might be so but that also leaves us with the question of how did these molecules came to be on whatever other planet they formed in - so it's not quite a good solution to this question even if it does have merit) Take a look here, though, it's a nice small compilation of the experiments done that show some form of the steps of abiogenesis - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis#Fox.27s_experiments On a side note, I just discovered this website by chance, today. And I have to say this is great. The fact that it is free to join and that the moderators such as yourself try to keep it as clean and scientific as possible. Well done. No ads either, I wonder how you guys keep it running... You will find out in a month after we fully lure you in, muahahaha-- ahem. Welcome to the forum, I'm glad you enjoy it! We're doing our best to keep things scientific but still allow for varied opinions and perspectives. We mostly try. One more thought, maybe the "Magical Creation Story" that we read in books of religion is some kind of dumbed-down long-story-short version for what we are now actually discovering to be true about abiogenesis. However improbable you believe it maybe... I heard that claim a lot, and it may well be that. I personally think it's far fetched; even if the biblical stories are some "dumbed-down" long-story-short versions (and some may well be, and seems to me to logically be, actually) the creation story is a bit of a stretch. You'd have to have someone actually knowing it to be able to "dumb it down" to others, which makes a problem (only god was here, if the story is true, and why would he dumb it down?) and also, the stories are different among other religions, but share a lot of common threads that suggest they might be mishmashed together. This is a really interesting debate, but since it's non-science, I suggest we move this particular question to the religion forum. You can start a thread there about the creation stories, we can discuss those properly. Also, the laws of nature, why are they the way they are? I do believe that science can eventually explain how everything is the way it is... However, I don't think it can tell us WHY it exists, it just does... I mean, take any theory, it must have some fundamental piece of existance which has to exist in some dimension in order work, even string theory, and any other unified-field theories.. One can argue nothing can truly explain the 'why', because 'why' suggests purpose, and what we already know about nature is that it doesn't necessarily has a purpose, simply a role. That is, human beings attach "why" to things, but nature doesn't necessarily. Evolution doesn't have a "why" results, it only has a 'why' after-the-fact -- which makes it more of a "how" question. Anyways, that's a really interesting point, let's discuss this one in the religion or philosophy forum too. We're trying to keep mainstream-science as much mainstream as possible. ~mooey Glad tomake your acquaintances, you are going to get a lot of flack from these Atheists who do not seem to know that 90% of the American people believe in an Intelligent Designer or God. They give man credit for intelligence but dismiss the idea of God as silly nonsense Heh, well, you (a) assume we're atheists, and (b) use the ad-populus falacy; even *if* 90% of americans believe in some intelligent designer, that doesn't mean they're right. Nor does it make it a scientific claim. Also, I don't think anyone here dismisses anything off-hand, the fact we have a religion and philosophy forum, and that we quite extensively allow for those debates to be carried out there, shows we too are quite open minded about it. The burden of proof, according to science, is on the person(s) making the claim, and those person(s) -- being 90% of the american population or not -- did not seem to reach that burden. That said, let's try to separate the religious claims from the scientific ones. Even if the abiogenesis "scientific claim" turns out to be unfounded, it doesn't necessarily mean the supernatural is the only alternative. That would be a false dichotomy -- there might be other theories that work even better than either one. Which is why we try to avoid religion in mainstream science threads and concentrate on evidence but if you want to discuss either one of those claims about the population and religion/dismissal claims, you are more than invited to start a thread about thsi in the religion forum. Let me know if you do, I'll join in there. ~mooey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg H. Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Glad tomake your acquaintances, you are going to get a lot of flack from these Atheists who do not seem to know that 90% of the American people believe in an Intelligent Designer or God. They give man credit for intelligence but dismiss the idea of God as silly nonsense Believing in God is not the same as believing in Intelligent Design, as you well know Alan. Next fallacious argument? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan McDougall Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Believing in God is not the same as believing in Intelligent Design, as you well know Alan. Next fallacious argument? I know this and dont think it is a fallacious argument , because I can access statistics to prove what I stated . I said God or an intelligent designer. Together they make up 90% quoted by me! Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to thedesigning intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. Forinstance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character andpurposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must beleft to religion and philosophy." (William Dembski, The DesignRevolution, pg. 42) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_the_US_believes_in_intelligent_design Center for Science &Culture On the other hand, the Center for Science & Culture, which supportsIntelligent Design, claimed much higher percentages in 2001: "Gallup poll after Gallup poll confirms that about 90 percent ofthe U.S. population believes that some sort of design is behind theworld. "While many in the scientificcommunity may question why this issue has been raised again, a new nationalsurvey shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) agree with the basic tenet ofcreationism, that "human beings were created directly by God."" That is only 64% US adults believe that humans are created directly by God (aposition I do not subscribe to, my idea is evolution directed by intelligence)my comment! As everyone from 19th-century British PrimeMinister Benjamin Disraeli to American Author Mark Twain have been quoted,"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics Give me some space I am learning to debate in a scientific manner in a scientific forum , something I am very new to, but I will do my best to improve my debating skills Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Guys, let's try to stick to the original post and the mainstream arguments. If you want to discuss belief, you can open a thread in the religion forum. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 I know this and dont think it is a fallacious argument , because I can access statistics to prove what I stated . I said God or an intelligent designer. Together they make up 90% quoted by me! Intelligent design is modest in what it attributes to thedesigning intelligence responsible for the specified complexity in nature. Forinstance, design theorists recognize that the nature, moral character andpurposes of this intelligence lie beyond the competence of science and must beleft to religion and philosophy." (William Dembski, The DesignRevolution, pg. 42) http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_percentage_of_the_US_believes_in_intelligent_design Center for Science &Culture On the other hand, the Center for Science & Culture, which supportsIntelligent Design, claimed much higher percentages in 2001: "Gallup poll after Gallup poll confirms that about 90 percent ofthe U.S. population believes that some sort of design is behind theworld. "While many in the scientificcommunity may question why this issue has been raised again, a new nationalsurvey shows that almost two-thirds of U.S. adults (64%) agree with the basic tenet ofcreationism, that "human beings were created directly by God."" That is only 64% US adults believe that humans are created directly by God (aposition I do not subscribe to, my idea is evolution directed by intelligence)my comment! As everyone from 19th-century British PrimeMinister Benjamin Disraeli to American Author Mark Twain have been quoted,"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics Give me some space I am learning to debate in a scientific manner in a scientific forum , something I am very new to, but I will do my best to improve my debating skills So this aspect of your argument consists of Billions of flies eat excrement so it must be good to eat? Reality is not up for popular vote, it is what it is and the evidence does not point to intelligent design... your OP is simply an attempt to perpetrate a lie... a strawman argument, chance is not why life came into being, chemistry is why life came into being, it did because it could, because for some period of time conditions were correct to allow complex molecules capable of replication to come into being naturally. It is probable that some wort of mechanism similar to natural selection might have driven this process but at this point we can't be sure. One thing is sure is that not knowing does not mean "god did it" or "aliens did it" the source of lightning was once thought to be god, anyone who was struck by lightning was though to have incurred gods wraith, no other explanation was available but that didn't make the assertion that god did it correct and now we know what causes it and how to prevent being struck by it, at first certain theists actually thought it was wrong to prevent lightning from striking because we were interfering with gods will... god did it is not an answer to anything... and strawmen are easy to burn down... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan McDougall Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 (edited) So this aspect of your argument consists of Billions of flies eat excrement so it must be good to eat? Reality is not up for popular vote, it is what it is and the evidence does not point to intelligent design... your OP is simply an attempt to perpetrate a lie... a strawman argument, chance is not why life came into being, chemistry is why life came into being, it did because it could, because for some period of time conditions were correct to allow complex molecules capable of replication to come into being naturally. It is probable that some wort of mechanism similar to natural selection might have driven this process but at this point we can't be sure. One thing is sure is that not knowing does not mean "god did it" or "aliens did it" the source of lightning was once thought to be god, anyone who was struck by lightning was though to have incurred gods wraith, no other explanation was available but that didn't make the assertion that god did it correct and now we know what causes it and how to prevent being struck by it, at first certain theists actually thought it was wrong to prevent lightning from striking because we were interfering with gods will... god did it is not an answer to anything... and strawmen are easy to burn down... I was responding to Greg H post it had to do with my statement about the percentage of adult Americans who believe in God or an Intelligent designer. He said they were not the same thing and I ageed with him. It was not an argument for ID just aresponse to his post You make statements as if they were fact, I agree that what you state about how life coming into existence is the best theory, but it as of now remains a theory, because we do not even have a good definition of what life exactly isor how it suddenly appeared so early in earths history some 13 billion yearsago Edited August 1, 2012 by Alan McDougall Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
somecallmegenius Posted August 1, 2012 Author Share Posted August 1, 2012 It might not be contradictory, I don't know, but I just pointed out you seemed to be avid in saying how much you need evidence for the claim, and then immediately turned it over and admitted you believe in the other claim (that seems to hold less evidence...) Even by the experiments that were done already in terms of "small" abiogenesis, there is a bit more evidence to the natural cause than there is to the supernatural one; and that's before we discuss the "problem" of having to provide evidence that the supernatural exists at all.. Then again, admittedly, that doesn't necessarily mean that abiogenesis *is* the right answer - there may be other options we're not considering. (One "option" people discuss is Panspermia, the idea that complex molecules came from another planet. That might be so but that also leaves us with the question of how did these molecules came to be on whatever other planet they formed in - so it's not quite a good solution to this question even if it does have merit) Take a look here, though, it's a nice small compilation of the experiments done that show some form of the steps of abiogenesis - http://en.wikipedia....27s_experiments You will find out in a month after we fully lure you in, muahahaha-- ahem. Welcome to the forum, I'm glad you enjoy it! We're doing our best to keep things scientific but still allow for varied opinions and perspectives. We mostly try. I heard that claim a lot, and it may well be that. I personally think it's far fetched; even if the biblical stories are some "dumbed-down" long-story-short versions (and some may well be, and seems to me to logically be, actually) the creation story is a bit of a stretch. You'd have to have someone actually knowing it to be able to "dumb it down" to others, which makes a problem (only god was here, if the story is true, and why would he dumb it down?) and also, the stories are different among other religions, but share a lot of common threads that suggest they might be mishmashed together. This is a really interesting debate, but since it's non-science, I suggest we move this particular question to the religion forum. You can start a thread there about the creation stories, we can discuss those properly. One can argue nothing can truly explain the 'why', because 'why' suggests purpose, and what we already know about nature is that it doesn't necessarily has a purpose, simply a role. That is, human beings attach "why" to things, but nature doesn't necessarily. Evolution doesn't have a "why" results, it only has a 'why' after-the-fact -- which makes it more of a "how" question. Anyways, that's a really interesting point, let's discuss this one in the religion or philosophy forum too. We're trying to keep mainstream-science as much mainstream as possible. ~mooey Heh, well, you (a) assume we're atheists, and (b) use the ad-populus falacy; even *if* 90% of americans believe in some intelligent designer, that doesn't mean they're right. Nor does it make it a scientific claim. Also, I don't think anyone here dismisses anything off-hand, the fact we have a religion and philosophy forum, and that we quite extensively allow for those debates to be carried out there, shows we too are quite open minded about it. The burden of proof, according to science, is on the person(s) making the claim, and those person(s) -- being 90% of the american population or not -- did not seem to reach that burden. That said, let's try to separate the religious claims from the scientific ones. Even if the abiogenesis "scientific claim" turns out to be unfounded, it doesn't necessarily mean the supernatural is the only alternative. That would be a false dichotomy -- there might be other theories that work even better than either one. Which is why we try to avoid religion in mainstream science threads and concentrate on evidence but if you want to discuss either one of those claims about the population and religion/dismissal claims, you are more than invited to start a thread about thsi in the religion forum. Let me know if you do, I'll join in there. ~mooey Hello everyone, I have just created the following thread in the Religion Section of the Forums: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/68062-how-did-life-come-to-be-abiogenesis-or-divine-creation-or-are-they-both-one-and-the-same/ Any and all participators are welcome. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan McDougall Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 (edited) Atheistic Biologists would in my opinion state that the odds of life evolving by chance as 1 to 1 or 100% because we most definitely have life? Creationists or ID advocates would argue from an equally stubborn position that the odds are so huge that it was impossible for life to evolve by chance alone and at least needed some sort of a guiding hand to complete the process from non-life to living entities. Maybe the universe is a huge petre dish or lab primed for life by natural processes within itself. Maybe we are an experiment of some higher reality, like the famous Ant farm analogy? Edited August 1, 2012 by Alan McDougall -3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iNow Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html Every so often, someone comes up with the statement "the formation of any enzyme by chance is nearly impossible, therefore abiogenesis is impossible". Often they cite an impressive looking calculation from the astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, or trot out something called "Borel's Law" to prove that life is statistically impossible. These people, including Fred, have committed one or more of the following errors. <continue reading> 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 Atheistic Biologists would in my opinion state that the odds of life evolving by chance as 1 to 1 or 100% because we most definitely have life? Creationists or ID advocates would argue from an equally stubborn position that the odds are so huge that it was impossible for life to evolve by chance alone and at least needed some sort of a guiding hand to complete the process from non-life to living entities. Stop assuming biologists are atheists, you are demonstrably wrong. There are biologists who are religious, who believe in God, and also know what science shows us. And stop assuming what people say, and instead ASK THEM and treat the claims they actually make - not the ones you insist on putting in their mouths. It's not just fallacious (strawman) it's disrespectful. Stop being as arrogant as to think you're the only real deal in the entire universe, and please have some respect to others. Maybe the universe is a huge petre dish or lab primed for life by natural processes within itself. Maybe we are an experiment of some higher reality, like the famous Ant farm analogy? An ant farm is clearly designed to house ants, and they have everything they need to survive (and thrive) in it. The universe is CLEARLY not designed for humans; we need to go to great lengths to try our best and not die horribly while traveling relatively short distances in it. Seems reality is evidence against this idea. ~mooey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elshamah Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 (edited) 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. Edited August 2, 2012 by Elshamah -2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 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. WOW, the amount of strawman claims is so big, I am not even sure where to START. I suggest you re-read the posts in this thread; answering each point you're making is just going to be repetitive. I will say this, though: if you are so vehemently against something, how about you study what that something says (and I mean *actually* says, not what other people say it says) before you make judgment and decide to spread the word about your opinion? Just a friendly suggestion. Welcome to the forum. ~mooey 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moontanman Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 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. Can you provide any back up to this other than your own assertions? Can you show why the DNA of living creatures cannot create different patterns without outside help? Can you show why DNA cannot create the instruction script for life? Can you show any connection between the complexity of an organism and the complexity of it's DNA? Can you show why an intelligence is the only way that a complex structure can form? Can you show any reason why natural processes cannot form complex structures? Can you show any evidence to support an intelligent living creator as the source of anything? Can you show any evidence of an intelligent living creator? Can you even show that DNA is information independent of the label that humans have put on it after the fact? Did you bother read this thread at all? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 abiogenesis is not possible because DNA contains complex, specified, codified information. 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. Please stop using DNA as an example of irreducible complexity. It wasn't around when life formed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecoli Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 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. In fact, this has been done. http://idle.slashdot.org/story/11/09/26/0139253/a-few-million-virtual-monkeys-randomly-recreate-shakespeare I guess you know have to admit being wrong about complexity not being able to arise from randomness. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elshamah Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 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) -2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg H. Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 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 ? How do you possibly KNOW ? http://www.unmasking...m/20-typing.htm First, as has been said many, MANY times, pure chance was not involved. The natural laws of chemistry preclude the idea of pure chance. 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. 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. Second, no living mind was responsible for the blueprint for water. Simple chemical bonding , available at any molecule near you, is all that is necessary. No divine interaction, no thinking at all. Just mix hydrogen and oxygen properly and bam, water! It's magical (not really). No other chemical molecule requires a living blueprint maker either. Chemistry takes care of itself. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mooeypoo Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 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 ? No, human blueprints arise by a thinking mind. There are quite a lot of 'blueprints' that are natural and did not arise by a thinking mind. At least, there's no shred of evidence that they were. By this 'statistics' alone, we should be aware that non intelligent blueprints are more available than ones that 'thinking minds' created. 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. How do you possibly KNOW ? Now that's ironic, coming from you who claims an intelligent force created the universe. How could *you* possibly know? As stated multiple times before, we actually have a pretty good idea how things started out. We have this idea because we can replicate the small steps that are required in the process in a lab. Since no one can replicate the creation story, then if anything, we can "know" more about abiogenesis than we can about intelligent design. That's science for ya'. ~mooey 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ecoli Posted August 2, 2012 Share Posted August 2, 2012 http://www.unmaskingevolution.com/20-typing.htm Even if this link was correct, it would still be a strawman. The argument is that complexity can arise from randomness is independent of evolution. Fail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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