In the link on his website he talks about both as separate issues. http://www.jmtour.com/?page_id=27 In regard to both he is skeptical in regard to prevailing theories. I'm not sure he's being deliberately obtuse, as rhad puts it, since he says he doesn't have a particular explanation he is advancing. I didn't see him list though what his specific objections are based on chemistry.
Complex behaviors emerge from the interactions between agents following simple rules. It's not luck, it's not design, it's just reality.
a reality we've never observed to the extent we're talking about the inanimate becoming the animate though, right?
If you mean we missed the first amino acid reaction that began self similar replications I forgot to put tape in the machine.
:grin: awesome. we've never seen the original time...and we've never seen it, otherwise. in any way. we've never seen the inanimate become the animate, unless I'm mistaken. We can certainly observe a species change...and I can accept that one species would become another...that's what I call evolution. But if we're talking about origin of life...I have no framework to understand something from nothing. I have no framework to understand life popping up from something that wasn't living. I have seen a rabbit come out of a hat once, though. honestly, i pointed out in the original post, i'm not real interested in having the debate...we've discussed it here umpteen-thousand times before. i appreciate that there are questions and enjoy trying to understand other people's points of view.
I haven't spent the necessary time googling, but I recall seeing a few stories over the years about experiments where inanimate has become animate. I'm trying to think back. Weren't there experiments that replicated some of the hot water undersea action near those vents where it's just hot water and gases coming out and eventually you start to see micro-organisms? I could be wrong, I just remember stuff like that. Then there's the recent post-death stuff you read about associated with Michael Jackson. Like that thread about the one doctor who has brought people back to life after a few minutes of, technically, "death", by providing care in a certain way. I guess that's more a case of animate becoming inanimate becoming animate again. Same with that frog that completely freezes in the winter time - though maybe you could consider that animate still, even though there is no heart or brain activity at all during that time. there's a lot of crazy stuff out there i don't understand, but scientists do, or that I and scientists still don't understand. perhaps rocketsjudoka point is the most interesting - not that he is confused or doesn't agree with macro-evolution, but that it is interesting that as a scientist, it's not clear what he believes in its stead....especially in light of the science on macro-evolution....and his work as a scientist.
How long have we been on earth? Few hundred thousand years maybe. How long have earch been here? Several billion years. If you never observed a tree fall in forest, does the tree ever fall? I am not sure how it all happend, but to say just because we humans have never observed the procss is hardly solid evidence the process never took place.
I don't know if God created everything or not, he could very well have done it (for all I know he could have just created the first cells for fun). However, I doubt it happend as decribed in some books written by men a few thousand years ago. Out of the billions trillions of planets, god just so happen to choose this insignicant tiny planet called earth to create something that look like him? Was he too bored after creating the universe? We people think too highly of our existance.
Here's what AirLanghi posted in this very thread, earlier today: Because faith and science are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Science requires facts while faith requires faith.
To which I say, it is a pretty widely publicized fact that about 40% of scientists believe in a personal god. When you get to the elite level, the US national academy of scientists, that number drops to about 15%. Doesn't give any more or less credibility to the concept, either.
I won't pretend to know why God creates or created. I have no idea what all exists in this universe beyond us. God may ascribe infinite worth to human beings, as I believe He does, and still create a beautiful expansive universe, teeming with life. I can't apply my limited logic, knowledge or capacity for love to a being that is not limited by those things. I do not believe the Genesis account is a literal account...nor do I believe it was ever meant to be interpreted that way. And don't let anyone tell you that "created in His image" has anything to do with what we look like.
It can be publicized elsewhere all it wants to be. But you know as well as I do that there are quite a few posters here who ridicule anyone of faith...and suggest they're morons simply for believing. I'm certainly not saying that's you...but that's what I had in mind when I wrote that introduction in the original post. Honestly, I wasn't trying to start an argument...but trying to simply explain why I was posting it here instead of in the Hangout. I would have rather posted it in the Hangout, but I was sure it would get moved.
Just to be clear: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/science sci⋅ence /ˈsaɪəns/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sahy-uhns] Show IPA –noun 1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences. 2. systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. My understanding is that the key distinction between science and faith is observation. When you start talking about the origin of life...the inanimate become animate...you're certainly not talking about what's been observed, unless I'm just unfamiliar with studies that have replicated the notion that what is not living can suddenly spring into a living thing.
