MR. MEOWGI-I enjoy these discussions. One thing for sure, if you know absolutely all the above you are a very brilliant person, I guess you have as much faith in your own intellect as I do in God. I am impressed.
Did you read my post? I’ll say again, yes change is a natural thing. It happens in all places in many ways, but it happens in certain ways, and studying this change is in large part what science is about. I guess you could come at that from a faith perspective too, but I’m not sure what the point of that question is. If you’re asking if it requires faith to believe that a rock could rise into the air in contradiction to the laws of gravity, I would say yes. It runs counter to all we know scientifically. The same leap of faith is required with vertical evolution. (As a footnote I haven’t been following other posts in this thread as I haven’t had time to read them all, but for clarity I’m not a proponent of young earth creationism. I don’t think it’s supported by science, or even the Bible for that matter. My issue is with vertical evolution being taught as a scientific certainly, or even a strong likelihood, when this is clearly a serious misrepresentation of the evidence supporting it.)
I'm just not seeing where evolution is taught as law ~ what I continually see is the theory of evolution. I know we've been round and round about this, but theory is not law. _______ theory - A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
you keep talking about faith, but faith never enters a conversation when dealing with science - faith is only useful when there is a complete lack of any evidence like god-belief, santa clause or the easter bunny science has lead rational humans to evolution - sure there are holes in our understanding, but those holes aren't there b/c it is unknowable - it is just unknown right now -plugging those holes with "oh a magic man must of done it" isn't acceptable to science - it is anti-science this is just the tip of the iceberg of the nonsense about evolution you have been saying in this thread - i just picked this one statement out as definitive proof that you have no clue http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010_2.html Response: 1. Biochemistry is not chance. It inevitably produces complex products. Amino acids and other complex molecules are even known to form in space. 2. Nobody knows what the most primitive cells looked like. All the cells around today are the product of billions of years of evolution. The earliest self-replicator was likely very much simpler than anything alive today; self-replicating molecules need not be all that complex (Lee et al. 1996), and protein-building systems can also be simple (Ball 2001; Tamura and Schimmel 2001). 3. This claim is an example of the argument from incredulity. Nobody denies that the origin of life is an extremely difficult problem. That it has not been solved, though, does not mean it is impossible. In fact, there has been much work in this area, leading to several possible origins for life on earth: * Panspermia, which says life came from someplace other than earth. This theory, however, still does not answer how the first life arose. * Proteinoid microspheres (Fox 1960, 1984; Fox and Dose 1977; Fox et al. 1995; Pappelis and Fox 1995): This theory gives a plausible account of how some replicating structures, which might well be called alive, could have arisen. Its main difficulty is explaining how modern cells arose from the microspheres. * Clay crystals (Cairn-Smith 1985): This says that the first replicators were crystals in clay. Though they do not have a metabolism or respond to the environment, these crystals carry information and reproduce. Again, there is no known mechanism for moving from clay to DNA. * Emerging hypercycles: This proposes a gradual origin of the first life, roughly in the following stages: (1) a primordial soup of simple organic compounds. This seems to be almost inevitable; (2) nucleoproteins, somewhat like modern tRNA (de Duve 1995a) or peptide nucleic acid (Nelson et al. 2000), and semicatalytic; (3) hypercycles, or pockets of primitive biochemical pathways that include some approximate self-replication; (4) cellular hypercycles, in which more complex hypercycles are enclosed in a primitive membrane; (5) first simple cell. Complexity theory suggests that the self-organization is not improbable. This view of abiogenesis is the current front-runner. * The iron-sulfur world (Russell and Hall 1997; Wächtershäuser 2000): It has been found that all the steps for the conversion of carbon monoxide into peptides can occur at high temperature and pressure, catalyzed by iron and nickel sulfides. Such conditions exist around submarine hydrothermal vents. Iron sulfide precipitates could have served as precursors of cell walls as well as catalysts (Martin and Russell 2003). * Polymerization on sheltered organophilic surfaces (Smith et al. 1999): The first self-replicating molecules may have formed within tiny indentations of silica-rich surfaces so that the surrounding rock was its first cell wall. * Something that no one has thought of yet. There is no reason to think that the life around today is comparable in complexity to the earliest life. All of the simplest life would almost certainly be extinct by now, outcompeted by more complex forms. Self-replicators can be incredibly simple, as simple as a strand of six DNA nucleotides (Sievers and von Kiedrowski 1994). This is simple enough to form via prebiotic chemistry. Self-replication sets the stage for evolution to begin, whether or not you call the molecules "life." Nobody claims the first life arose by chance. To jump from the fact that the origin is unknown to the conclusion that it could not have happened naturally is the argument from incredulity. Really, the claim is "I can't conceive that (fill in the blank)." Others might be able to find a natural explanation; in many cases, they already have. Nobody knows everything, so it is unreasonable to conclude that something is impossible just because you do not know it. Even a noted antievolutionist acknowledges this point: "The peril of negative arguments is that they may rest on our lack of knowledge, rather than on positive results" (Behe 2003). The argument from incredulity creates a god of the gaps. Gods were responsible for lightning until we determined natural causes for lightning, for infectious diseases until we found bacteria and viruses, for mental illness until we found biochemical causes for them. God is confined only to those parts of the universe we do not know about, and that keeps shrinking.
Is it a leap in evolution when a four eyed catfish arises at the nuclear plant cooling pond? The mechanism is called mutation.
We may not be all that far apart then. This is not a simple question in its greater context. I do understand this and that because there apparently is a context of conflict there, in Kansas in particular IIRC, and there are some proponents of ID seem to have a specific objective that is being objected to, the issue itself tends to become obscured. I just feel that teaching vertical evolution as “truth” is an over statement that stifles other paths of exploration. I would just like it stated in school that although pursuing evolutionary theories is a valid direction of inquiry, life on earth does look convincingly, based on good science and probability studies, like some from of intelligent design. You can go a little farther than that in science class, perhaps talking about the probability that we are not the only intelligent life forms in the universe, and the fact that many people come at this issue from a spiritual direction. With respect to the spiritual angle this doesn’t need to be pursued in science class but it shouldn’t be ridiculed either, and particularly not in ways that aren’t scientifically sound.
Law, theory, what's the difference? The average high school science teacher is probably not just a little fuzzy on this topic.
WOW, I'd like to see your "science" that proves an intelligent designer as to your "probability studies" http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB010.html Response: 1. The calculation of odds assumes that the protein molecule formed by chance. However, biochemistry is not chance, making the calculated odds meaningless. Biochemistry produces complex products, and the products themselves interact in complex ways. For example, complex organic molecules are observed to form in the conditions that exist in space, and it is possible that they played a role in the formation of the first life (Spotts 2001). 2. The calculation of odds assumes that the protein molecule must take one certain form. However, there are innumerable possible proteins that promote biological activity. Any calculation of odds must take into account all possible molecules (not just proteins) that might function to promote life. 3. The calculation of odds assumes the creation of life in its present form. The first life would have been very much simpler. 4. The calculation of odds ignores the fact that innumerable trials would have been occurring simultaneously.
while i agree we should recognize evolution is still theory...not quite so sold on the idea we should be saying life looks convincingly like some form of intelligent design .
I don't think anyone who adheres to the scientific method ever says anything is the truth. Truth is always a matter of perspective and always subject to uncertainty. Accepted theory, like evolution, is the best current explanation that can be supported by repeatable results and peer review. We certainly don't know the truth because we don't know anything about the nature of the universe really.
Biochemistry is not chance. It inevitably produces complex products. What percentage of the general population know what say the citric acid cycle is at the highest levels (versus the individual stages therein)? 5-10%? What percentage of the population can set the time on their VCR? 50%? This whole ID argument about things being too complex to happen naturally is just plain silly, when it proponents would not know natural (eg citric acid cycle) if it was repeatly hit over their head. Methinks the ID proponents are confusing complex with stuff they do not understand. Thus my previous post: If I can not figure out how to program my VCR's time; it must be complex and from an *intelligent design*.
flamingmoe: Do you believe the scientific establishment is infallible? Do you believe that they haven’t backed false theories for long period of time in the past? If so then you’re showing a high degree of faith in them, a blind faith some may say. Here we come back to what Kuhn taught us in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, one of the most important works ever written on the philosophy of science. Here are some summaries. Hopefully they will address the question of the infallibility of the scientific establishment for you. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Structure_of_Scientific_Revolutions http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/kuhnsyn.html The excerpt you posted from talkorigins.org doesn’t answer the question you quoted. That’s another issue that we could talk about but let’s deal with this one first. Where in evolutionary theory is the problem of the spontaneous generation of matter/energy dealt with? Things must evolve from something, from some form of matter, right? Where did that matter come from?
Your VCR IS from an intelligent design. Did you think the the components of your home theater system were randomly thrown together by a strong wind? That they grew on trees?
It appears that you’re having trouble dealing with this discussion. You’re making things up and there’s really no point in my responding such fabrications. It doesn’t advance this discussion any. No one has said that ID, in any of the forms discussed here, has been proven. And again your quote from talkorigins addresses a specific claim made apparently in the Watchtower magazine that has never been raised in this discussion.
Look at an ecosystem. Look at all of them together. Look at weather patters and how the interact with the oceans to create complex systems that support very diverse life in a remarkable sustaining balance. I’d say that that clearly looks like it could not have happened by chance, but is there another explanation? I don’t find it a stretch at all to say that what exists looks convincingly like and intelligent design. That is not to say that it is the result of an intelligent design, of course. If a sound theory comes along to explain how it could have naturally come to be this way, then great. If an unsound theory that is not supported by repeatable results or even a clear mechanism is held up as convincing evidence, as is the case with vertical evolution, then that’s not great. That’s bad science.
Did you think the the components of your home theater system were randomly thrown together by a strong wind? I did not know I even owned a home theater system. Invisible Pink Unicorns strike again; I should never have doubt their omnipresent, ominpotent powers.
Grizzled - not real sure what your talking about that I am making stuff up, fabrications, etc etc - I quoted you directly and responded to your silly statements of fact the bottom line here is that science is working on understanding the conditions that were present 2 billion years ago when the first life forms appeared on Earth - science is also working on how those first tiny microbs evolved into the wonder that is modern biology - ID aka creationism doesn't answer these questions - all ID has is to say "evolution has mechanisms that we don't understand" , period. that is not science now the big question of how did matter itself come into being is a whole other deal - ID aka creationism trys to answer that question with the supernatural - as we learn more about universe - the need for supernatural explaintions will no longer be needed - can you name any scientific field where the more we know, the more we depend on the supernatural as the answer? Can ID make predictions about how atoms interact? can ID help mankind progress?
You’re having some real problems here moe. I identified the logical problems with your posts. If you’ve gone back and looked at them and still can’t see them I don’t know what else I can say. I note you also equate ID with creationism. Again, that’s not been the argument in this thread so you seem to be bringing some of your own baggage into this thread. With respect, I’m not going to respond to your post in this thread anymore because it seems clear that we’re carrying on two different conversations and there doesn’t’ seem to be a way to bridge that gap. One last comment though. As for who’s being silly, I think it’s pretty easy to see who is being silly in this thread and who is putting forward a sound argument. This is a strong strong faith issue with some people though and I’m aware that it can be a very difficult issue for some people to face.
