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Did Life Originate Underwater?
TuringTest writes "Sciencedaily reports a highly controversial new theory about the origins of life from Professor William Martin of the University of Dusseldorf and Dr Michael Russell of the Scottish Environmental Research Centre in Glasgow. The theory briefly states that inorganic cells where first, then living systems evolved inside these incubators which allowed an enough rich micro-environment. The small compartments would have been formed in iron sulphide rocks near hot, hydrothermal vents on the sea floor, not in the atmosphere. Wow, that would answer the chicken-egg problem."
The real question is, was life seeded from an object from space carrying single celled life? Has this been disproven/proven yet?
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Programming is like sex... Make one mistake and support it the rest of your life.
No Problem.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
Sure, this makes sense but how do these microenvironments start to self-replicate with a genetic code? I guess that's the leap to figure out.
Regular Meta Moderators are not more likely to get mod points.
Wow, that would answer the chicken-egg problem.
:
No, it reduces the Q to "what was first : the fish or the egg ?"
It does offcourse open endless possibilities
Why did the fish cross the road ??????
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Why is this article news?
it's the first time a story of mine got its way to the front page! Enjoy it, slashdotters. I forgot to add a link to the Google News coverage of this news.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
No, it doesn't answer the chicken and the egg problem at all. What came before these things? did they get created out of thin air?
magnanomous.
...new IIS security hole.
When you quote someone from spoken words, it is up to the author to spell everything correctly.
/. submissions are no different in this sense.
When you quote someone from the written word, it is up to the author to keep the original spelling intact.
You may, however, point out typos and spelling errors with a (sic), but it's not necessary. The important thing is that you convey the message as the original author wrote it.
If you quote Shakespeare in an essay, you don't update is grammar and spelling. Goofy
Thus, the slashdot editors are right in just cut and pasting the submissions, with no spelling checks.
Spelling and grammar nazis make asses of themselves whenever they point one out. They think they're being clever and +5 insightful, but they're really showing their lack of skill with the written language.
If the editor adds a comment, complete with a spelling faux pas, then you can bitch at 'em.
In short, fuck you and your 4rth grade spelling bee bullshit.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
One of the implications of Martin and Russell's theory is that life on our planet, even on other planets or some large moons in our own solar system, might be much more likely than previously assumed. Extraordinary claims...
Roving Web-Teleoperated Robot
I love the Dorf series and was looking forward to more crazy shenanigans - "Dorf on Autoracing" was my favorite. "Dorf on Evolution" doesn't seem as exciting.
Your question is irrelavent. It doesn't answer the basic question: Where did life start. It only adds another layer. Even if life on Earth fell from the sky you still have to answer the question of where did that life start. Otherwise you are avoiding the fundimental question.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
In an unrelated paper the creators of this theory, William Martin and Michael Russell, along with fellow collaborators John Edward (noted psychic), and Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor (Prince of Wales)
reveal their theory that the more first names you have the smarter you are.
Billy Ray Bob Cameron-James
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
Of couse, because what we all know happened is there was this big explosion in this place called "space", and for no reason this Earth came about, and it was the perfect place for a bunch of water to swirl around, and Hydrogen and Oxygen and Carbon and some other stuff just randomly mixed together in a life form, for no apparant reason and with the greatest of luck, there was this living single-celled creature. Then the one-celled creature became a two-celled creature, again, for no apparant reason, and then three cells, and four, and then, finally, billions. And then all these genetic defects turned out to be really good things for all these creatures... And so humans "evolved" out of nothing and for no reason... but here we are. HO HUM!
[FromTheMorning]
Hm. Freudian slip, I'd say. Presumably we're talking about hydrophilic compounds--ones that 'like' to intermingle with water, and not...um, something else in water...
~Idarubicin
If I am wrong, please correct me.
Wow, a religious troll. No wonder you're full of crap.
That was the most nonsensical rant I've ever heard. Creationist beleifs have ablsolutely nothing to do with ethics. In fact, no religious construct does. Ethics is a science based on reason, not blind faith.
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
Amazing that all those accidents of nature worked out just perfectly, isn't it? I think that is even more unbelievable than Creation.
A while back I heard a joke about how God and a bunch of Evolutionists were discussing the origins of life. The Evolutionists said they could show how to create life. God said to go ahead and show Him. They said "let's take some dirt and water and ..."
God interrupted and said "Wait a minute. That is My dirt and water. Go create your own."
Does someone out there know, for the purpose of understanding this article, what is the difference between:
1 - A cell which is called "organic".
and
2 - A cell which is called "inorganic".
From a purely scientific (philosophically materialist) standpoint, what is the difference between a small self contained replicating machine and a small self contained replicating organism?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I offer my son as proof that life originates underwater... undoubtedly due to that bit of sex in the hot tub with the wife-to-be one cold August night.
"in essence - life first, cells second and the atmosphere playing a role"
Is this right? The accepted theories for the origin of cells are based on life first, then cells? WTF does that mean? Without cells, how do you define "life"?
Underwater, UV was blocked, but longer wavelengths could penetrate to permit photosynthesis. Once photosynthesis liberated enough molecular oxygen to produce an ozone layer, life was able to move onto dry land.
What's novel about the theory in the article is that it proposes that living cells were preceded by nonliving inorganic cells.
The guy is an idiot. More diversity in pools above on shores. Also ULTRAVIOLET energy from sunlight is very helpful, and originally oxygen (damaging) was low. Also by having evaporation of tidal pools and rainwater pools, various concentrations can be explored.
many protein-rich soups create single walled "bacterium-like" objects of uniform size, but without two walls, there is no way to protect a lifeform object.
Extremophiles are kooks. Its FAR MORE LIKELY that unfavorable living conditions were populated by life LAST not first. Expecially because sunlight is so far away from these environments, and OCCAMS razor indicates that extreme conditions were probably populated last not first.
prions and virii are not life by many peoples definitions, but I wonder how many prion-like entities would form in goddamned ocean water by chance.... not likely... you need tiday pools and amonia and ultraviolet light and electricity.
He just want big-budget funding money because studying deep sea life is expensive and easy to syphon off tons of money.
If I was a biologist I would do the same to justify a huge budget for research. Even NASA is doing it (extreme life studies).
The idea that life started in the oceans is pretty old, and both the surface and depths were considered. Almost immediately after the discovery of hydrothermal vents, the idea started kicking around that they might be where life started, mostly because they are very rich in chemicals and early life forms could potentially have gotten by with pretty simple collections of enzymes. Any theory on the origins of life are still basically completely unsupported.
" As all life is compartmentalized (and generally subcompartmentalized), then compartmentalization is a necessary event in the creation of Earthlike life. The theories that start with the ocean being an amino acid soup (and how did those amino acids get us the DNA we need for replication?) are all fine and good, but they really don't get at how clumps of lipids, proteins and DNA became self replicating and distinct from that clump over there."
It's called mutation. Perhaps reading darwin would explain it to you.
I can say without reservation that its impossible for life to have begun under water. Attempting the relatively simple task of bringing to life a packet of seamonkies shows the impossibility of this. All one can wind up with is some brown briney water...
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
Easiest way to to determine if these organisms and more well-known organisms share a common ancestery is through DNA. Do these deep-sea bacteria have similar DNA structures? Don't all lifeforms studied so far use the same 4 genetic molecules (A, C, G, T ??)?
As long as they have chromosomes, and use the same 4 genetic molecules, there is almost no possibility that they are not related to the rest of life on Earth. What are the scientific chances of two lifeforms forming and evolving, with identical genetic processes?
I'd suggest that using Adam and Eve as the sole basis for the entire human gene pool is factually, provably impossible.
I'm not so sure that you can say this. Even some scientists who don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve have posited the existence of a single mother to all currently living humans, through the tracing of mitochondrial DNA (which inherit genetic infomation only through the mother.)
From a numerical standpoint, though, it is entirely possible. Let's just say for the sake of argument that the human race began from two genetically distinct humans, one male and one female.
Each parent contributes a single chromosome from each of 23 pairs; they each therefore can produce 2^23 distinct gametes. Therefore such a couple is capable of producing 2^46---or over 70 trillion---genetically distinct offspring.
Assuming no genetic mutations, subsequent generations of offspring would recombine the chromosomes in ways not possible for the first generation. With 23 pairs of chromosomes to select, and 4 choices to choose from in each pair, there is the potential for (4!/2!2!)^23 = 6^23---or almost 800 quadrillion---genetically distinct individuals.
That is of course assuming no mutation occurs; with mutation, these numbers can only increase. These numbers might decrease if the first man and woman were not fully genetically distinct, but I think we have some headroom to spare.
People have also been saying that life orginated with complex inorganic clay matrices. An SF book had that in it a while ago (one moment, googling...)
L if e.htm
"Although changes in DNA generate biological diversity, genes are a product of evolution, not its driving force. In fact, geodesic forms similar to those found in viruses, enzymes and cells existed in the inorganic world of crystals and minerals long before DNA ever came into existence. Even water molecules are structured geodesically."
http://time.arts.ucla.edu/Talks/Barcelona/Arch_
Just because a bit of information doesn't answer ONE particular question doesn't mean it's irrelevant. If life came to earth from a meteor hit, that would have many relevant repercussions, including:
1 - We would know it's a waste of time to try to figure out how life began in the universe in general by looking at the evidence available here on Earth.
2 - We would know life on other worlds must exist, or at the very least, must have existed in the past.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
...Christian, but I believe in evolution and all the rest of methodical science.
Confusing?
"In the beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth."
Ok...So we had the Big Bang, everything cooled down a bit, stars were born, and this little dustball of a planet was compacted by gravity into a nice ball of molten rock. Thanks to the parallel axis theorem, the spin of all the dust in the solar system gave us angular momentum, so we now have a day and a night.
At some point, God created life in his image. OK, so now we have biological functions.
Unless you can read Hebrew, all you have to go on is other peoples' interpretations of the original text into a different langauge.
Even the concept Man was created first depends on the translation of that specific word. And did you know Hebrew wasn't spoken natively (again) until the 1900s? Plenty of time for humanity to lose touch with the language.
What's this Submit thingy do?
"God wasn't the creator" is not a presupposition. It's the default hypothesis until evidence sways us otherwise. NOT believing a theory yet is the default, and in the case for God, the ones who say "yes, god exists" are the ones that have taken on 100% of the burden of proof.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
[snipo sarcasm]
There is at least overwhelming evidenc for evolution, where is there evidence for and invisible, omnipotent being?
Just because you cannot understand something doesn't mean that it is rubbish. This goes for both of us.
why run from Vincenzo?
"Holy shit! Did you just see that! I poured this WATER into this GLASS and it FIT PERFECTLY! They must have MADE that glass for the water or something! Damn!
WAIT! All those words I just said! Wow! I sure am glad the Anglos MADE English so I could speak it! Praise the prehistoric barbarians of Scandinavia for this glorious gift to ME!"
Theories about life starting underwater have been around ever since hydrothermal vents were discovered, I beleive, in 1977. The fact that they say organic life developed out of inorganic materials isn't really revolutionary. I mean, the first organic life couldn't have evolved from other organic life, thats paradoxical.
As for absolute ethics, you are pretty much out of luck whether we evolved or not. Absolute ethics is based upon a rather stupid and completely unverified premise--that a Creator must be good. Never mind that it is something that doesn't seem to hold particularly true among human creators, or that even the Bible provides very little evidence for the goodness of it's self-styled "Creator."
My life originated in a hot-tub at the Holiday Inn.
Sex - Find It
The difference is, "science" (I'll use it as a generic term for use of the scientific method), sets out to TEST theories in order to prove them to a certain degree of probability. Believing a book, with no chance of proving it one way or the other, doesn't follow the scientific method. If you want hard evidence, do you try to get some, or simply believe what you have been told to believe?
Besides, the two address the same event from two different perspectives. Genesis isn't explaining 'creation' in scientific terms nor is scientific theory explaining God. They're mutually exlusive no matter how hard one tries to use one to prove/disprove the other.
Pardon? Have you followed the news where backwards-thinking schools have fought to teach Creation in science class? I agree with you, it belongs in religion class. What is disgraceful is when people try to give their theories credibility by leeching on the hard work of scientists - hence the invention of "creation science". There is nothing scientific about it. If you want to believe in something like that, you have the right, but don't try to pass it off as science.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The concept of extreme conditions makes little sense when you do not know the structure of the life form. Sulphur based life forms would find a sunny day on a Disney cruise line extremely hostile.
Come to think of it maybe you do have a point ;-)
Help fight continental drift.
Well, they came to australia by rafts...
You can't take the sky from me...
The last time I checked, suggestions weren't forcing.
Exactly! But that's why I didn't reply to that post, sir. I replied to your follow-up, where you mocked logical theories (this particular one not being explcitly proven to be fair) with sarcasm.
Creationism and intelligent design has the burden of proof. Not the theory of evolution. Note that it is denoted a theory but has such overwhelming evidence in favor of it that it has been accepted by general scientific community as fact until rebuffed.
why run from Vincenzo?
With all due respect, the question of origins is ultimately a philosophical question and not a scientific one. Since we cannot observe and repeat the universal creation process, we cannot subject it to the scientific method.
What we can do is collect evidence and conjecture theories about what caused the evidence.
Ultimately that is what atheistic cosmologists and Christian cosmologists do - collect data, and have a theory about what caused the data.
You may argue that Christian cosmologists have a bias. I would submit to you that scientists with an a priori commitment to materialism have a bias as well.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I work at a US national lab that does a lot of research in nearly every field of science.
;)
In speaking with the different people around the lab I have found that the -vast majority- of master degree holding scientists are Agnostic.
(which is a very fitting stance...as an Agnostic needs -proof- to trust in something's actuality, just as a scientist does when doing research)
Next in numbers are Atheists (comprised mainly of Theoretical Physicists, Biologists and/or Russians. go figure
And finally, the Administration, Utilities, Facilities people, whom I've found to be
predominately Judeo-Christian. (pictures of Jesus in their cube/always out to recruit)
From what I've seen, people with little education are almost predisposed to believe in a god.
(Insecurities? A feeling of helplessness? or just "tradition"...IDK, anybody?)
FYI : These are my observations, I'm not trying to say that belief in a god can be "taught-away"
as there are a few Jesus-fish toting scientists.
There are always deviants among -any- flock....
I'm sure I'm not the only one to notice this, as I've encountered this in many different areas on the country that I've worked...
but never has the education level been this cleanly divided!
I first read the headline as "Did Life Originate Underwear". Which is every bit as good a question, and funnier :)
Actually you didn't answer his statement about you stating that you were somehow being "forced" to believe in God. Why, just because he was being sarcastic and "mocked" evolutionary theory this somehow "forces" you to believe in God?
Note that it is denoted a theory but has such overwhelming evidence in favor of it that it has been accepted by general scientific community as fact until rebuffed.
Well keep in mind that at one point the general scientific community thought the earth was flat and that electrons were tiny bits of stuff that ran in discrete rings around a nuclei. As for your overwhelming evidence, overwhelming evidence of what exactly? That living matter on this planet goes through (and has gone through) an evolutionary process? If so then most creationist would agree with you. Now if you're talking about the absolute origins of life, then thats another thing altogether and one in which the "general scientific community" has a generally accepted theory, but that most are not 100% behind since there is not "overwhelming evidence" of that nature. Just lots of general ideas and theories that are related (such as the one posited in this article).
There is proof that creationism is true also. Do a google search on "proof of creationism" or read this quote:
...believe in evolution for the simple reason that they think science has proven it to be a `fact' and, therefore, it must be accepted... In recent years, a great many people...having finally been persuaded to make a real examination of the problem of evolution, have become convinced of its fallacy and are now convinced anti-evolutionists."
Many
-- Henry Morris, former evolutionist.
Whilst this is an interesting and plausible theory it is not the first one that speculated that "cells came first", if by cell one means a simple compartment. In 1991 there were speculations that simple lipid bilayers could autoassemble and that the protected environment this produced would allow RNA structures to act as enzymes/catalysts in a local environment. Other theories postulated that the RNA-catalyst/enzyme would form on inorganic clays.
Anyway, great interesting theory, but the only truly scientific theories are ones that are falsifiable, and this one is not. It'll join all the other RNA-world/early-evolution hypotheses as interesting and plausible speculation. Nothing wrong with that, but it's a mite more interesting to investigate falsifiable hypotheses, otherwise one might as well be talking to Creationists.
Just to defend myself here, I am college educated, and while my degree is in Computer Science, I took many Biology, Chemistry, and Science classes along the way. The more I learned about evolution the less I believed it. You would say I need to learn more so that I put my Bible down. The reason I picked the Bible up is BECAUSE of what I learned and what science was telling me. Don't assume Christians are stupid people- some of the smartest people I know are atheists, and some of the smartest people I know are Christians. Religion transcends intelligence and knowledge. If it just took more knowlege to refute the Christian Bible, there would be no Doctors at Church. Funny, there are many Docs at my Church.
[FromTheMorning]
Despite the fact that intuitively thermophiles seem like weird kooks, in many molecular phylogenetic analyses, thermophiles occupy the deepest branches, suggesting that life adapted to low temperature from high temperature rather than the inverse. This is also supported by the fact that the origin of life is constantly being forced backwards in time due to new evidence. As the early earth was very hot, this also supports a thermophilic origin of life.
That being said, not all phylogenetic analyses support the thermophile-early hypothesis. That's because different genes may have different histories due to horizontal transfer. Further work on whole genome phylogeny will be useful for clarifying the issue.
...not to mention the fact that we really have no frame of reference to judge the intelligence and organizational value of this universe, unless, of course, someone can point me to an alternative universe that is either more or less intelligently organized than ours, whatever that would mean in reality, so that we can compare.
I for one welcome our new SCOviet Russian overlords to whom all our base are belong.
Did life start underwater? HuH? What are you talking about? It is clearly stated in the Bible that Adam and Eve were in a garden, and I dont think ive ever seen a Garden underwater -- you silly head.
I dont understand why those silly scientists continue to talk about such nonsense, really i mean, we already have the Bible which details the creation of the earth and the universe 4000 years ago! it says it right there, in black and white! I mean, Didnt God just create life on like the 2nd or 3rd day?
You better go ask your priest if you need simple questions like these answered.
Correct. That is how they are forming, the the plates are moving due to volcanic activity (hot rock sliding around under our feet). My post was merely a simplification.
I never said ther wouldn't be oceans like we think of them today. I merely pointed out there might not have been.
Ethics isn't based on science or reason. What we call ethics is based on our evolution as a social primate. Killing and stealing are "wrong" because a small social group can't do very well if they're killing each other and taking each other's stuff.
-B
The first says that life formed in shallow pools, which would help shield harmful UV radiation.
The second is that it was carried to Earth from an extraterrestrial collision with something like a comet; this theory was supported but not proven by the pass-by of comet Hale-Bopp, i believe, due to the fact that spectrometry revealed that it had some organic substances (IIRC, our book has no mention of it).
The final theory (before the advent of this theory) is that life originated from volcanism at eep-sea vents. This would be supported by the life at deep-sea vents like tube worms and the like.
This is NOT to be confused with the 1953 experiment by Stanley Miller where he syntheized amino acids using lightning-like electricity and a proto-Earth atmosphere of methane, hydrogen, ammonia, and other gases. Amino acids are NOT life forms!
I think the title is a little misleading. This theory of life really means that life originated in porous underwater rocks, which is either an extension of the first theory or a completely new theory depending on how you view it.
I'm the Devil the Windows users warned you about.
Yes, before significant amounts of ozone were produced, UV rays would have prohibited life developing on land. That's true.
But, that's not evidence that life formed in water. The evidence for that is the fact that we have water in us, that most of the substance that makes life is water.
Why would life develop with this enormous reliance on water if it developed away from water?
Likewise, DNA contains a rather uncommon mixture of somewhat exotic chemicals. If areas of the seas were found with features that contained large amounts of these chemicals, it would be strong evidence suggesting modern life originated from that area.
If scientific theories are correct, life formed out of a lot of time and specific events happening by chance. Rather than explaining how such an extraordinary chain of events happened, we should be looking for a place where these events aren't as extraordinary. A place where the creation of life is somewhat probable.
P.S. Saying that DNA is amazingly intricate and the nature of inhereted traits suggests an alien "seed life", or even worse, that God must have done it, is not correct.
Life came/originated/manifested itself here billions of years ago. The only life that would survive that long must have been life that could reproduce itself and create similar offspring. The alien/God argument is akin to having a box filled with different sized marbles, cutting a 20-mm hole, and claiming that there was some mystical force at hand, because when you shook the box only 20-mm and smaller marbles came out.
IOW, DNA isn't amazing or miraculous. It had to work that way.
"God wasn't the creator" is not a presupposition. It's the default hypothesis until evidence sways us otherwise. NOT believing a theory yet is the default, and in the case for God, the ones who say "yes, god exists" are the ones that have taken on 100% of the burden of proof.
There is as much evidence--that is, legal evidence, not scientific evidence--for the existance of God as there is that there was a King Richard of England who fought in a war called the Crusades. The theory that (a) God exists is just as sound as the theory that existance is older than the sum of human memory & created through random chance.
Science stops being science when it gets past what can be tested and proven--and it's impossible to prove that a being that can read every human thought and takes action only through apparant random chance does or does not exist.
Your rejection of God Almighty is a religious choice, not a scientific conclusion. Don't pretend it is, or you're as bad a zealot as the church officials that burnt witches or excommunicated early scientists.
Show that there was anything resembling a "scientific community" before it was shown that the earch is not flat.
and that electrons were tiny bits of stuff that ran in discrete rings around a nuclei.At one time, it was a good enough model, but from the beginning it was known to be a flawed model (classical physics predicts that the electrons would spiral into the nucleus of an atom).
Now if you're talking about the absolute origins of life,Actually, evolution doesn't attempt to explain th "absolute origins of life" - this is a seperate issue (though it is ultimately related).
Yet Another Web Site
there is no evidence of macroevolution, one species evolving from another. Scientists and other evolutionists have been looking for the "missing link" for years, without being able to find it
Besides the missing link (for humans), they have still found many examples in the fossil layer to prove their ideas for so-called macroevolution.
why run from Vincenzo?
Kick my PC Box several times and wait long enough eventually the bytes inside of the hard drive and memory are going to start moving around until finally get a sophisticated Operating System capable of multi tasking, multi whatever,.
It seems to have worked for Microsoft!
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Gods existence is in fact entirely irellevant to the question of the beginning of life because it is explicitly stated that the existence of God can not be proven. So there WILL be a natural and reproducible method for the primary generation of life which does not involve the intercession of a deity outside the natural rules of the universe as they have been established. So people need to stop talking about "proving" the existence of God. The next person who tries to do that to you, just slap them. It's not worth the effort of telling them they are an idiot.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
So what compelling evidence have you found that God exists. Philiosphers, indeed men, since the beginning of time would love to have this knowledge.
why run from Vincenzo?
That was the most nonsensical rant I've ever heard. Creationist beleifs have ablsolutely nothing to do with ethics. In fact, no religious construct does. Ethics is a science based on reason, not blind faith.
Real Ethics are based more on experience than reason. Man can reason his way into all kinds of unethical behavior, and only experience shows us which ethics are untenable.
Your parent-poster was referring to "absolute ethics"--that is, that something can be good in and of itself, with no justification. "Moral ethic" is a better word for it.
I believe in absolute ethics, which hapilly goes right along with my religion. The only possible source of absolute ethics I can think of is the so-called 'human nature'--and even that gets us into unethical behavior.
(Don't believe me on absolute ethics? Then explain to me why it's considered unethicial to kill a living human child that will never be able to produce anything in society.)
>Wow, that would answer the chicken-egg problem.
a chicken & an egg are lying naked in bed.
the chicken turns to the egg & says "well i guess we answered that question"
If what you have posted is indeed the sum total of your understanding of the Big Bang, cosmology, biology, and evolutionary common descent, then it is no small wonder that you find them to be silly and unbelievable. However, I would kindly ask that you not blame your inestimable ignorance on the theories themselves, but rather on a deficient education.
However, I find it more likely that you are engaging in an attempt at witty hyperbole, attempting to ridicule modern science (the same modern science that gave you the very keyboard that you use to lash out at it) and make it out to be an atheistic tool of secular humanists with such loaded phrases as "for no reason" and "by accident." This is deceitful and treacherous, and has (unfortunately) become a standard tactic of the anti-science crowd.
The truth, if any of you were willing to listen to it, is that modern science (even some of the more "evil" sciences, such as cosmology, chemistry and biology) are completely silent on religious issues. They do not attempt to answer the big "why" questions, despite your claim that science says that things happen "for no reason" and "by accident." The vast majority of Christians around the world have no problem reconciling biological evolutionary common descent with their faith; perhaps you ought to ask them what their secret is.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
I cant belive we're still not over this "what came first, chicken or the egg" problem.. i mean its OBVIOUS that the EGG came first.... THere has to be a CHICKEN to be given the name CHICKEN or it would just be called EGG.... the first to be called a CHICKEN was already in the egg.. but since thers always evolution EVERY generation of something the .. thing.. that laid the egg that contained the first chicken.. was NOT a chicken.. due to evolution inside the egg that resulted in the first chicken.. therefore.. "What laid the first egg that contained the first chicken... was NOT a chicken.... but when the first chicken was given the name CHICKEN.. the egg automatically becomes wat came first because even tho it had not yet gotten the name CHICKEN.. it was still in the egg.. therefore.. the EGG CAME FIRST"!!!
Its easy.. EGG FIRST..EGG FIRST..EGG FIRST.. its now proven!
You could also ask, "Where did God come from?".
The answer I always get: He created time. Before that he simply "was".
Ok, but if the initial state of the universe contained all the matter we see today (recklessly chopping through some theory here), we could also say that it contained "time" (spacetime) and there was no way to measure "when" or "where", for that matter.
Maybe that initial clump of energy always "was".
Just food for thought.
I couldn't fail to disagree with you less.
Science stops being science when it gets past what can be tested and proven
Small correction from a practicing scientist: science stops being science when it gets past what can be tested and disproven. You can't prove a theory in a strictly scientific sense; you can only show that theories are not supported by the data (are disproven) or are currently (this being the key word) not ruled out.
Of course, you may have meant proven in the colloquial sense, in which case I don't necessarily disagree.
"By the way, where did the material for the Big Bang come from"
I keep asking this, and nobody will answer...
Sir, this question is profound like asking the meaning of life. You cannot expect me or any one person to just have this knowledge. It may surprise you to know that scientists have found but a minor speck of of knowledge in our short time here. Simply pounding your feet when you cannot get an answer to an easily asked question that is difficult for laymen like me to answer is childish.
There are theories that state that this matter/energy has existed and has always existed continually recycling into 'big bangs' and 'big crunches' forever. Of course, this is, at best, a conjecture.
why run from Vincenzo?
after looking at the current mood going on this topic, i'm pretty sure i'll get hammered on moderation for this... but here we go...
Macro-Evolution is a THEORY. And despite what biology teachers like to profess in modern educational institutions, there is absolutely no more proof for it than there is for creationism. Evolutionists like to use the arguement of how easy it is to see the proof of it... but the exact same can be said for Creation. You just have to be willing to look. No matter which way you go, you must be willing to take a leap of faith.
I had the opportunity of seeing a Creation-Science vs. Macro-Evolution debate at my university not long ago. Amongst other things that infuriated the hell out of the evolutionist, was this interesting tidbit: while many species share body parts that are quite similar in design and function (ie. eyes), the genetic coding for those similar parts is not only completely different, but located in a completely different part of the creatures' DNA. Example: Logic would assume that if birds evolved from reptiles, then the genetic coding for the body parts that they share in common would be located in the same place, and be relatively similar. This does not hold true, however. At the genetic level, there is no proof of evolution... as the genetic differences between different families can be immense . Not to mention the broad genetic differences between different classes, orders, phylums and kingdoms! But the physical similarities between different species is often undeniable. So, this begs the question: if there is no genetic similarities (read: evolutionary relationship) between two physically similar creatures of different biologic-families, why do they have so much in common? The answer could very well be a common Creator.
Personally, in the absense of any real, solid and factual proof of evolution, I choose to believe in God and Creationism. At the heart of it, all evolution really is is a religion. Only with evolution the priests are called "biologists."
/dev/random
Your ancestors were monkeys, their ancestors were reptiles, their ancestors were fish and their ancestors were single-celled organisms. Deal with it, monkey-breath.
Hey, we'll say anything to take God out of the picture!
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Life starts in water-based things...
Well, it did start in my 3 week old 2 inch standing coffee cup.
***digs out science kit***
it is explicitly stated that the existence of God can not be proven
And why is that?
IF something cant be measured it doesnt exist. Because we cant measure God dosnt mean he doesnt exist NOR does it mean he does. What the parent-poster was trying to assert was that the proof that God DOESNT exist is unecessary. Proof that he DOES is. Anyone who says " I belive in God. You should too." MUST have a proof that a God exists for him (and myself) to agree. That God exists needs to be proven -- because it cant, sensible people will not agree that he does.
To take it one step further, I say God doesnt exist because the 'proof' otherwise is so baseless, so laughably ridiculous -- so flatly stupid -- that i cant imagine "mistakes" were made in the argument; the 'ideas' forwarded by advocates of judeo-christian mythology are so incredibly preposterous that a correct DEFINITION of "GOD" should still be their goal.
...this is exactly what my teacher in bio teacher in highschool taught us 4 years ago... what a "new theory"!
You are putting words in my mouth... I have nothing against science. Christians, most of them, anyway, are not "anti-science."
[FromTheMorning]
What ever happened to life starting in a garden?
-516
On the question of judeo-christian mythology's God being good or bad, see my favorite source for Bible quotes:
Landoverbaptist.com A real treasure...
Even if ... evolution is the answer, it doesn't answer other profound questions. It doesn't answer what was there before space, what is outside of space, and what is outside of time.
The theory of evolution -- that is, the theory of environmental conditions exerting a cumulative, non-random pressure on life-forms to adapt -- does not have anything to do with what was around before the universe or what is outside of space and time. The only question it seeks to answer is: given that life exists on this planet, how did that life come to exist in the present form in which we know it? "Evolution" as a pejorative used by those who argue for intelligent design may seek to answer the aforementioned questions (with, one assumes, an antagonistic assault on the god of the Bible), but that's a theoretical straw man used by those who are constantly sharpening lances and watching for windmills.
Even if you don't believe in the God of Abraham (I happen to), I fail to see how everything can be explained with no high power involved.
If you're looking for a good book to explain very clearly how a series of random events can over time add up to a non-random outcome, I'd recommend Richard Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker (ISBN 0-393-31570-3). Although there are some portions of the book which are a bit heavy-handed (I thought Dawkins was a bit harsh on Stephen Jay Gould and other punctuationists, and that he made positive feedback loops sound much more difficult to understand than they are), it is all in all a cogent, literate, and witty (in a very British way) treatise on natural selection.
I honestly don't understand what atheists believe in this area. Nobody has ever been able to tell me what is outside of space and time.
Again, there's a straw man present here. "Atheists" are a diverse bunch, just as diverse a group as "religious believers." If I were to say, "Religious believers believe that a god named Yahweh or Elohim exists omnipotently, omnisciently, and omnipresently beyond all physical restrictions, and that this god came to earth in the incarnation of a man named Yeshua," I'd be doing every group but Christians a disservice. There's really no way to know what any given atheist thinks exists beyond the boundaries of reality (or even if there is anything beyond them) without asking him.
On further reflection, it seems to me that your original premise is a bit tautological. You believe in a god as described in the Bible or the Torah, so you can not explain existence without using Yahweh as a reference point. The very statements "before space," "outside of space," and "outside of time" beg the question: is there anything there? You assume that there is (an eternal, mystical being), but there's a problem there:
To answer your final question, this particular atheist believes that nothing's out there beyond the borders, as it were. Even if there were, it's irrelevant because there's no way to observe or prove its existence.
They that would sacrifice their
Actually you didn't answer his statement about you stating that you were somehow being "forced" to believe in God.
I had a nagging feeling 'force' would be misconstrued and you would jump over my words instead of ideas.
I consider myself being forced if i'm sitting in the subway or walking down the street minding my own business and some fellow decides to start shouting for me to repent to Jusus or Allah. Or when I find myself ripping a 'believe in Jesus before it's too late' flyer off my car. Maybe not 'force' but I am annoyed with the people who believe in some religion or superstition but can't just be content with feeling better about it without having to tell everyone they meet how great it is and how wrong they are and why they themselves are right.
Well keep in mind that at one point the general scientific community thought the earth was flat
This was an assumption, NOT something that was thought fact because the so-called "scientific community" had proven it throught some sort of experiments or research.
You know eveolution in entirely a plausable outcome (except perhaps the 'original spark' (who knows maybe that was God?!)), but what is more plausable: that beings slowly evolved through minor natural selection and genetic mutations and punctuated evolution (due to local/global cataclysms) OR is it more plausable that and invisible, omnipotent, super-intelligent has existed since the beginning of time and created the trillions of galaxies each with hundreds of millions to trillions of stars,planets,etc and only one of those planets he magically created what we call life and intelligent life? (Occams Razor??)
Now I ask you, honeslty: Which is more plausable?
why run from Vincenzo?
The theory that (a) God exists is just as sound as the theory that existance is older than the sum of human memory & created through random chance.
Nope. A theory must explain the evidence, make testable predictions, and be falsifiable. "God exists" fails on the last two. Therefore, it is not a theory.
There is very little evidence and a lot of speculation when it comes to life beginning on Earth. There is just too much we don't know.
So why is it we are very interested and passionate about our origins? Why do evolution theories or creation stories peak our interest? Do you think that our origins define who we are and how we relate in this world? I think the answer in part is yes.
The "first organisms" did not produce significant amounts of oxygen, and the atmosphere was a reducing atmosphere and environment (free hydrogen gas, hydrogen sulfide, etc). Even when the first oxygenic organisms arrived on the scene, it is believed to have taken a significant amount of time (I've never seen an estimate lower than millions of year) to produce enough oxygen to change the entire planet's atmosphere from reducing to something resembling today's conditions (nitrogen, oxygen, argon, a little carbon dioxide).
Therefore, the evolution of life almost certainly does NOT preculde another event occuring on primordial earth at all. Please get your science theories straight before posting off-the-hip.
-Microbiology Grad Student
The evidence for intelegent design is overwhelming, as is the evidence of Jesus being God.
OK, let's hear it.
Evolutionists/Atheists have been and are still trying to disprove God's existence and have failed to do so.
Evolutionists don't care if God exists or not, and the only atheists who try to disprove God's existence are very silly atheists, since it's an impossible task.
Nobody knows.
Where do you think it all came from?
Evolution is just a theory.
I do not think that means what you think that means. For an explaination visit here or here.
True. But scientists strive to learn, and acknowledge their deficiencies. Religion does not. The key to religion is belief. That is what is convenient about religion - there is no way to prove or disprove God. So no, I haven't disproven there is a God - but it hasn't been proven to me that there is one. I believe that science and religion should be kept apart, but for some reason religious zealots fear science. After all, it has shown that there is a world beyond ours, and constantly strives to learn. That scares people who have only a belief to rely on.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Maybe I can be of some assistance. You may want to purchase a copy of The Big Bang Theory- A Personal View written by Eccentrica Gallumbits (the triple-breasted whore of Eroticon Six). It is published by Ursa Minor and does not sell quite as well as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
It's quite clear if you look up "Universe" in the Guide link I have provided that the material for the Big Bang came from the spontaneous disappearance of a previous universe which someone had figured out.
There you go, now you are fulfilled.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
Well by your definition of "force", you are "forcing" me to come to your way thinking. I do understand what you're talking about however, though I would claim that those in the evolutionist camp are just as bad as those in the creationist camp (at least in my own personal experience). One thing about creationist expousal in a forum such as /. that one should keep in mind though, we rarely see anything posted that has a christianic bent, we are more likely to see articles such as the one that started this thread since it falls under the heading of "science". So from a christian standpoint, one way of belief is being foisted to the exclusion of another major belief.
;)
As for the earth being flat, the point was that scientist at the time made an assumption based on observation and the "common" knowledge of the times. Which is basically what todays scientists do. Now we are more "sophisticated" for sure, but that doesn't mean that 400 years from now scientists will look at our theories of how life began and call it quaint.
And finally, as to your statement, two things. You have to remember that again, many christians do not not believe in the general theory of evolution, that living things evolve. It's just a matter of how far back you're willing to attribute evolution to. Just because one can't get their heads or hearts around the concept of some all powerful being doesn't make it not so. As to which is more plausible, for me personally, both require a certain leap. Also keep in mind that creationists could always claim that it was the big guy that set things into motion and that the time frames mentioned in the bible/etc are not really human timeframes and that non creationist theory is simply the human level explanation of what happened between the second and third days (don't quote me on the days, my Genesis is rusty
Um, Henry Morris is widely regarded as a crackpot. I'd suggest finding someone else to use as an example. :)
Henry Morris is also a member of the ICR. The ICR is not a scientific organization. Read their Tenets. They assume the know what the truth is, then they go out and look for it; and they discard everything that doesn't agree with what they want to find. That's pretty much the opposite of how real science works.
I think a lot of your questions about how evolution, cosmology, and the rest of science attempt to explain all sorts of phenomena (without resorting to a default "because of God") can be answered by visiting the Talk.Origins Archive.
If they can't be answered, there are some very helpful admins who answer most of the mail they receive with not only answers, but links to the source of the answers.
It's better than wading through the
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
I did it with Sally in 11th grade in the pool. Thank god life did not originate underwater in that case.
wow, either that's a very good spoof site or american christians are even scarier than i thought
hope it's the former
Certainly, some in the evolutionist camp can be zealots, just like in any other cause. It's creepy how people always have an us vs. them mentality in everything on every scale.
I certainly agree that Slashdot does have less believers but unfortunately the believers that do exist are either masquarading trolls, or zealots who make a non-sequitir posts like the guy who started this thread, without any real reasoning or argument to back it up.
Personally, I haven't entirely convinced myself that a god (or even gods) doesn't exist, but I am grounded by logic and science first and formost to give me the facts so that I can make my own decisions and shape my own ideology.
That said, when I hear someone ragging on the religious guy who's minding their own business, I try to point out that that guy doesn't have to prove god exists to himself (or anyone else), he has faith and that is the whole point. ie, he is not supposed to have proof. Hell, if god decided tomorrow that he was going to drop down from nowhere and show us he exists *everyone* would follow him/her/it/whatever.
Unfortunatly for me, even if there exists the guy who doesn't bother anyone and who says 'I believe what I wish to believe, and that is my right.' at some point his (let's be fair: irrational) beliefs have to influence his political/social ideology. ie abortion, gays, etc and force him to push his beliefs on a population that is made of many different religions, not to mention agnostics.
why run from Vincenzo?
For my money, to read the other argument, you can't do better than Jack Chick http://www.chick.com
That is some DARK stuff. Cannibalism, broken necks, violent plane crashes. Gotta love it.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Technically, when we procreate we don't give one entire copy of each of our chromosomes. There are a few processes involved that jumble the chromosomes that are given to our offspring. So it would be better to think of each parent randomly giving a copy of each gene within each chromosome, which would greatly increase the number of combinations involved. Since there's something on the order of millions of genes to create a human, then there are millions^2 possible genomes for a human.
The flip side to this is there are a bunch of genes that don't vary at all between people, as long as they're not mutated. For example, most of the genes that control embryonic development are identical in everyone. This reduces the number of combinations involved.
But the result is there's many, many, many possible combinations without considering mutation.
How exactly?
--Joey
There is as much evidence--that is, legal evidence, not scientific evidence--for the existance of God as there is that there was a King Richard of England who fought in a war called the Crusades.
Which one? I find your claim hard to believe considering that there are literally thousands of different variations of 'gods' that have been worshipped throughout human history.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I simply include "God Exists" as a basic proposition needing no proof, because it's as obvious to me as the nose on anyone's face, it's natural reasoning.
The nose on anyone's face (well, apart from Michael Jackson) can be rather easily demonstrated to the satisfaction of most anyone. How can you do the same for the existence of a 'god'?
Of course, 'nose' itself has a pretty common accepted definition. I can ask several different people to define 'god' and I will likely receive several different (and sometimes contradictory) answers, so you'd better start with a concrete definition of what you mean by 'god'.
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
But if you want to appeal to the perfection of biological design as evidence of an intelligent designer, it is hard to get around the fact that it simply doesn't actually look all that perfect. By human standards, a great deal of biology looks clumsy and awkward--yet perfectly reasonable in the context of evolution.
Pig bones, eh? You should put more effort into your trolls.
Hmm, why do you quote 'they'? Who do you think I meant?
why run from Vincenzo?
Heh. That's quite clever :)
Let's second-guess the work of the Design Firm of God & Son, just as a thought experiment. What would you change?
I'll toss out a few, just for starters:
-- No appendix! Never heard a good word about it.
-- How about a little chlorophyll in the skin, so we have to eat less, and can hold our breath underwater longer.
> What's novel about the theory in the article is that it proposes that living cells were preceded by nonliving inorganic cells.
Okay, am I the only one who is seeing a contradiction here? How can a ``cell" -- which, ignoring the existence of viruses, is the building block of life -- be considered ``nonliving" or ``inorganic"? That's about as nonsensical as saying ``atheist Christian".
And the article pointed to doesn't clear up this odd phrase. Are we talking about living objects, inanimate objects, or a concept so complex the journalists are doomed to garble any explanation?
If it's the later, can someone offer a URL to the original research so those of us whose bullshit meters are beeping at full volume can figure out just what this discovery really is about?
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
I would suggests the answers in genesis [answersingenesis.org] website
:)
There's nothing on answersingenesis except a bunch of stuff about them building a museum.
What happened? I seem to remember there being a lot more, even though it was all wrong.
Oh, and look at the tag line at the top of the page: "Upholding the authority of the Bible from the very first verse!" These are not the words of a group interested in doing real science. These are the words of people who think they already KNOW the answer and don't want to hear any argument.
Who is this article trying to win over? Its widely held by people who believe in evolution that life started underwater. The primordial soup references aren't just cute analogies. In my entire life, I've never come across any serious proposal that life developed in the air first.
The old story:
A bit after the beginning, there were some self-replicating molecules. Some of them might have been proteins, and some of them might have been nucleic acids, and I suppose some of the might have been something we haven't thought of. The molecules that were really good at self-replication did it quite a bit, and there got to be more of them, especially when they had access to the necessary raw materials.
One day, or more likely on a large number of different days, a bunch of these self-replicating molecules all found themselves trapped together inside a sphere made of phospholipids floating in a puddle and started interacting in a synergistic kind of way.
The new story:
A somewhat shorter bit after the beginning, some basic molecules got spewed out of an ocean vent and all found themselves trapped together inside a sphere of rock at the bottom of the ocean. These basic molecules interacted a bit (thanks to their proximity) and formed some self-replicating molecules, which were of course trapped, too. The molecules that were really good at self-replication did it quite a bit, and there got to be more of them, which was easy because they had access to the raw materials they needed to self replicate (because said materials were, as we have said, trapped).
One day, or more likely on a large number of different days, a bunch of these self-replicating molecules all found themselves trapped together inside the same sphere of rock and started interacting in a synergistic kind of way. At some point they must have made their collective way into a phospholipid sphere, I suppose, or else our cell membranes would be made out of rock.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
As an atheist, I know life was created from monkeys.
Such unswerving faith!
You'd make a good Christian.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
http://www.syslab.ceu.hu/corliss/0-TitlePrefContAc k.html
http://www.syslab.ceu.hu/corliss/Nature.html
here's the link at nature.com: http://www.nature.com/nsu/021202/021202-3.html
I'm a Buddhist, there is no deity in Buddhism, in fact it's one of the oldest modern religions that just happens to not have deities. Anyway...
The Buddha noticed this trend 2600 years ago. He was a highly educated prince in India before becoming the Buddha (the first enlightened monk). He noticed people flocked to god out of fear. Native tribal people feared thunder and therefore proclaimed it was from god. They feared floods and flocked to gods in the hopes of protection. When you wisen up and build a damn, god is no longer necessary. This is simplified greatly but whatever.
Your observations are correct and have been observed by others for thousands of years.
The major problem I have with the concept of starting any race from only two beings stems is because inbreeding of small populations of any species causes weaknesses and defects to be exaggerated.
This phenomenon can be seen in modern times within various small subpopulations, such as the Amish, various small Jewish groups in New York (where educational/physical handicaps occur at a very high rate), etc. So any race started by only two beings has to overcome some major drawbacks.
If I remember my Joseph Cambell correctly, a great number of cultures believe that the water/ocean/flooding is the ultimate source of all life.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
Now, maybe the chemicals mostly _came_ from vents, but do we need to look so closely to them for primordial habitats? Wasn't there some other theory that touted certain kinds of clay as a good substrate for interesting molecular reactions?
"White-supremacist Christians"
Hmmm, I think I've found another contradiction in terms.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Why does something have to create "nature" or be outside of "space"? You are perfectly willing to accept that "god" has always existed.
Here I will cite ...Therefore, God Exists:
2. COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT
(1) If I say something must have a cause, it has a cause.
(2) I say the universe must have a cause.
(3) Therefore, the universe has a cause.
(4) Therefore, God exists.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
First off, this gave me a chuckle: "One of the implications of Martin and Russell's theory is that life on our planet, even on other planets or some large moons in our own solar system, might be much more likely than previously assumed."
I'd already been sold on the idea of life on our planet.
Anyway, a fascinating passage in the book "LIFE AT THE LIMITS: Organisms in extreme environments." (Cambridge University Press, 2002), describes the role tides might have played in the origin of life. This is certainly old news for some list members, but I know it will interest others.
Author David A. Wharton, a zoologist, recounts one famous experiment that sets the stage with the MIller experiment relayed in another thread. In 1953, Harvard grad student Stanley Miller and chemist Harold Urey, demonstrated in a bottle that gaseous mix of ammonia, methane, water vapor, and hydrogen gas forms complex organic molecules, including amino acids, when exposed to electricity. That's a young Earth's atmosphere,
with lightning. Subsequently, ultraviolet light was also found to work. This much a lot of us have seen in high school biology films and textbooks.
The problem was that many of the raw materials dusting down to earth from meteorites would have been in a weak solution in the ancient oceans -- a very thin primordial soup. Those basic compounds need to be bunched together to
form the complex molecules that are a step away from life. Miller argues that the most likely place that vital concentration would have occurred is on the clay and sand of shorelines, deposited by the tides. The effect would
have been even more dramatic a couple of billion years back: it seems a nearer moon made the tides 30 times more powerful than they are today.
Of course, the implication is that each year our tides are weakening. The moon slips about 1.6" away from us each year (go ahead -- calculate how much further away from you it is now than when you were born). If we're not swallowed up by
our star turning into a red giant by then, that means eventually the moon will be a far enough away that it will match the Earth's rotation (also slowing) so that both a day and a month will come in at 47 days. In that case there
will be no tidal friction, according to physicists.
Anyway, I was just stirred by that vision of tides acting as midwife to life. There are certainly other theories out there that don't rely on the tides (some call for a hotter Earth, others deep ocean thermal vent chemistry, and
even the lattice structure of ice to concentrate compounds), but I wanted to share this one given our intimacy with this elemental force.
Erik
I'll be happy to grant that it is possible that the atheistic cosmologists have come up with some good explanations.
However, I would submit to you that the currently proposed theories about the start of the universe carry far less pull than your analogy would indicate.
With respect to the Christians who have no problem with these theories, many people don't give any thought to these sorts of things and might object if they understood the theological implications of the cosmologists' theories.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I don't care where you start. I only assumed two genetically distinct initial ancestors. Heck, even that assumption may be flawed if I was trying too hard to follow Genesis 1, which implies that Eve was formed from Adam's tissue. Presumably she was basically a clone of Adam, genetically modified (at the very least) to be female.
But I posted my analysis not to defend Adam and Eve, but to make the very specific, very hypothetical point out that there is quite signficant variation in the gene pool even if you start with just two parents.
The fact that I did this at the chromosomal level instead of the gene level gives numbers that are very conservative---as was the assumption that there are no mutations.
Other people have pointed out that there are sub-chromosomal issues, possible gene exchanges, and so forth, but frankly that only serves to increase the variation. (And I would have eliminated such effects in my assumptions anyway had I known about them. I don't claim to be a genetecist.)
Other people suggested that shared genetic information reduces the variation, but they don't change my numbers. My numbers are valid as long as entire chromosomes are distinct... In other words, each pair of chromosomes could differ by only one or two genes, and my numbers would still be valid.
for historical reasons (which has generated alot of hysterical reasoning).
But it doesn't apply to evolution, anyway, as it describes the operation of a closed system, while evolution operates in an open system.
But then later claims these "theories" were actually hypotheses:
Suddenly their idea is a "theory" even though there is no more evidence that it is correct than for several competing ideas of cell evolution. Of course, among actual scientists, a "theory" is supposed to be the term for a hypothesis that has been demonstrated by empirical evidence to be the most accurate and predictive explanation for an event or set of events.
It's this kind of sloppy use of terms that leads some folks to promote their "theory" of Intelligent Design as equivalent to the Theory (its just a theory) of Evolution.
---Most scientists today have as a basic proposition "God does not exist."---
That's simply slanderous. Basic logic here: lacking the proposition "God exists" is NOT the same thing as holding the proposition "God does not exist."
Besides, scientists operate under no such proposition. What they try to do is explain things by reference to things we can actually understand and demonstrate.
---I find that belief in God is as reasonable as believing in the existence of other minds. Alvin Plantinga, _God and Other Minds_.---
How so? I can't say I was convinced by Plantinga's argument, because the argument for god requires several more layers of abstraction and interpretation than does the assumption that other people have minds (in part because "mind" can be operationalized in regards to other human minds, while "god" cannot). Can you explain why you found Plantinga's argument convincing, or even why the existence of god is obvious.
---in the case for the theory that believes in God's non-existence, the ones who say, "God doesn't exist" are the ones that have taken on 100% of the burden of proof.---
True... but very few people need to bother with claiming that "God does not exist" when "I don't believe God exists" does just as well, and incurrs no burden of proof. I don't have any reason to run around thinking "God doesn't exist!": I just don't have any good reason to run around thinking that God exists either. That means that if you demand I authenticate a proposition that relies upon God's existence, I cannot do it, and the burden of proof lies squarely on you.
---laws win out over theorys.---
Yes, but not necessarily over theories. Theories and laws are not even the same sorts of things to compare. Laws are consistent regularities in the behavior of the universe. Theories, on the other hand, are large bodies of explanation. Laws don't explain things: theories explain (often by using laws as references). So, saying that "laws win out over theories" is a bit like saying "words win out over sentances." In other words, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Anyway, as I'm sure everyone's already told you, the Second Law is not in any sense in contradiction with evolutionary theory. Indeed, few creationists make this argument anymore, because it's pretty universally understood as lousy argument.
---Why is America clearly a Christian country despite its constition?---
I don't understand what you mean. Our Constitution protects religion and government from each other, with the idea that this will benefit both. And for all intents and purposes, that seems to be the case. When the government doesn't regulate belief, people are free to honestly pursue their own religious convictions. It's not surprising at all that the most vibrant private religious convictions and organizations can exist in a publically secular society.
Damn, the point of the research is NOT whether life originated in air or water! The point is that cells would have to be formed first, before self-replicating molecules had had a chance to be created! This title is very misleading.. wake up timothy!
I miss my rubber keyboard.(Homepage)
---Which is harder to believe, that a planet could be organized, and populated with life forms, or that life somehow began in the hot rocks and transitioned to cellular organism, and on up through Darwinian evolution, etc.? In the end, neither is provable.---
Before we get into provability, we should note that only one of those options actually "explains" anything, unfortunately. The first option uses passive voice about the very sorts of actions that we want explained in the first place. You can't compare evolution (a theory of how) to creation (a theory of who). At least abiogenesis provides us with some testable hypothesises for its plausibility.
Just a point of interest, but how many people here on slashdot are actually qualified to discuss evolutionary theory and the beginnings of life? Even more to the point, how many are qualified to responsibly moderate this discussion?
... :)
Of the +4/+5 moderated posts here, how many of the posters have read some links on the web (and we all know how reliable these are) and now consider themselves an expert on the subject?
oh wait, I forgot where I am for a second
"Because it's there." - George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest, March 18, 1923 (New York Times)
Queue "Fuck the Creationists" by MC Hawking!
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.
We can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die!
---Even some scientists who don't believe in a literal Adam and Eve have posited the existence of a single mother to all currently living humans, through the tracing of mitochondrial DNA (which inherit genetic infomation only through the mother.)---
I think you're a little confused as to what they mean by this. "Mitochondrial Eve" was not, in her lifetime, significant in any way. She's only so in retrospect: in the hindsight that all other lineages from her generation eventually happened to die out. As other lines perhaps die out, a new "Mitochondrial Eve" could be, conceptually, crowned. That there must be such an individual at any given time is a mathematical certainty (you can reason it strickly from logic alone), but its not always the same individual, and it isn't the case that this individual's children only bred with each other. Not at all! It's simply that only lineages that include this particular female in them at some point, survive. The exact same thing is true for a "Y chromosome Adam." But again, you're thinking about it the wrong way if you think that he has anything to do with "Mitochondrial Eve," especially timewise. And, like ME, the designation could change to a different, more recent individual if certain lineages happen to die out.
That a living cell is defined as a cell that contains genetic properties (i.e: ones that are carried on to the next generation), thus allowing evolution and other properties of life to form.
The non-living cells would then be micro-mechanisms that contain some of the functionality of living cells, but not genetic properties, and as such they are not "alive", cannot evolve and cannot pass qualities to a "next generation". These non-living cells, however, could be great platforms for living cells to be created "in" (or in place of?).
Absolutely. Which is why I get pissed when someone's comment to a scientific article about searching for the origins of creation is "Read Genesis 1:1". The Bible has nothing to do with science, so people shouldn't pretend that it does.
I agree with what you say, and many scientists will as well, but the Christians will argue that point. That is why they want to teach religion in science class. I don't think any scientist would have a problem with people learning about religion, but DON'T try and pass it off in science classes as scientific.
Religious fanatics creep me out, no matter what their basis of faith is. Funny how Christians want their ideas of the origin of life to be taught in schools, but they would balk at the idea of other religions teaching their ideas of creation.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Of course, that is based on the philosophical "law of causation," which leaves the materialist with the "uncaused cause" problem.
If the material universe (in one form or another) has existed for eternity, then shouldn't it have equilibrated before now?
If it was subject to somewhat different "laws" before the big bang, how can we hope to guess what happened pre-big-bang?
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
I think that we agree on many many points.
Sadly, I believe that you would perceive me to be one of those fanatacis that "creep you out."
With respect to your assertion about not passing religion off in science class, I would suggest that many atheistic scientists cling to their naturalistic philosophy with religious fervor, and that many times what is called science is actually atheistic philosophy class.
Please understand that I believe strongly in science - true science - the pursuit of knowledge. The majority of the scientific giants on whose shoulders we stand today were devout followers of Jesus Christ.
Being a devout follower of Christ is not contradictory to science, but rather gives a philosophical framework that can be followed to persue knowledge.
The idea that an intelligent designer created the universe and life according to a plan provides a model whereby the idea of studying life can show us the design that He used.
Science changes its understanding of the facts frequently, sometimes in large and fundamental measures. Recently cosmologists discovered planets much larger than they had ever seen before, and their very existence invalidated many many assumptions and theories about planetary formation.
The fact that scientific endevours are undertaken by fallible humans means that our pride and prejudice can interfere with our pursuit of pure science. It can also interfere with our study and understanding of philosophy or religion.
Putting scientists to death who contradict "official" religious teaching is an example of such interference.
Regards,
Anomaly
PS - God loves you and logs for relationship with you.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
---it's also possible that this supports the genesis account of creation.---
I'm not sure what you mean. It, by itself, doesn't support or contradict it. If it can be said to "support the genesis account," it is much the same way that the existence of the sun supports the claim in genesis that there is a sun, or the existence of Egpyt supports the Bible's idea that Egypt existed. It supports ANY account which includes sexual reproduction coupled with death of linages. However, just so you know, our current calculations on MEve put her squarely in the midst of existing human populations, not at the start of any. Human beings existed before her for a long long time.
---There is no mathematical certainty at all actually, math won't tell you with any certainty that a family tree of 'unrelated' people will eventually reach a universal mother.---
I'm afraid you're wrong. The claim "Eveolutionary theory general predicts this to not happen, period." is just wrong. As I noted, MEve is not in any way important from the perspective of evolution: she's simply an interesting definitional oddity.
Consider A, the set of all human beings alive today. Each human alive today has precisely one mother. Consider B, the set of all mothers of A. B is necessarily smaller than A, because no one has more than one mother, and some mothers have more than one child. Likewise, set C is smaller still, set D is smaller still, and so on, all the way back to MEve. Note that only set A includes a full set of a population alive at any given period. During the time set C lived, for instance, there were many mothers who did not reproduce, or their female linage did not.
--- That one individual in an entire species would be the only one who's offspring survived is as improbable as those offspring flourishing as mankind has.---
Far from being improbable, it is LOGICALLY NECESSARY. That you could think something that is logically necessary would be "improbable" is a good sign that your calculations of probability are heavily suspect: and hence so is your critique of evolution on the grounds of what is or is not probable (not to mention that you seem confused as to what role probability plays in evolution). To re-iterate: MEve is only designated in HINDSIGHT. There is nothing necessarily significant about her, except that such a person must necessarily exist.
---The pure fact of the matter is that any significant mutation from a common maternal ancestor would be very improbable to reach the level of dominance that mankind has.---
There is no reason at all to think that MEve must have had any sort of "mutation" that made her substantively different from other women of her day. Again, she is distinguished ONLY IN HINDSIGHT. If certain people alive today do no reproduce, then there would be a new MEve crowned in the future.
---The second point I was trying to make was that "creation" theory does not necessarily require 100% compliance with the English translation of old Hebrew religious documents.---
Indeed, it doesn't require compliance with ANY story. But it matters what stories are plausible and testable. It also matters that any creations that require "whos" then simlpy require explanation for the origin of the "whos."
From a burden of proof standpoint, the person who never heard of God is no different than the one who has heard of the idea and doesn't believe it. You don't add any extra burden of proof to me by stating theories in my presence that I don't agree with. It wasn't a "rejection of God" until someone else proposed the existence of god.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
That tired old argument depends on the false premise that people only believe things that are true. Fervent belief does not equate to proof. If it did, then there must have really been a spaceship behind the Hale-Bopp comet that came to take the souls of the Heaven's Gate cultists away. After all, they believed so strongly they killed themselves in anticipation of the spaceship.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
You have are argueing agaisnt a false effigy of the atheist stance, which is NOT the positive claim that God doesn't exist but rather the claim that non existence is the default hypothesis to use with when no compelling evidence has been observed to sway one's self.
This is the way sane people treat EVERY OTHER QUESTION OF WHETHER OR NOT A THING EXISTS other than god. For some reason people treat that one question differently than every thing else. An atheist simply chooses not to make that schism in his thought patterns.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Wrong. King Richard is alleged to be a human being. I have personally witnessed many other examples of human beings. King Richard is alleged to be a King of England. I have witnessed England. Today we have evidence that England currently has a monarchy, if only a ceremonial one. Thus the class of things King Richard is alleged to have been is a class of things that have already been demonstrated to exist in other forms. Not so for God.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Even specifying "the Christian God" isn't anywhere near specific enough. One needs to describe a being in enough theological detail to actually relate it to the world in a concrete and operational way so that we can consider what claims might need to be verified.
---Amazing that all those accidents of nature worked out just perfectly, isn't it?---
No, because they didn't. Imagine a coin flipping contest with tiers and thousands of contestants. After several rounds, you'll have a person who has won six or seven coin tosses in a row. Miraculous? Amazing? No: necessarily inevitable.
---I think that is even more unbelievable than Creation.---
Only in the sense that an actual attempt at explanation takes more thought to consider than a complete LACK of any explanation!
---I fail to see how everything can be explained with no high power involved.---
I don't know what you mean by "high(er?) power." Higher than what, along what scale? The bigger problem is, if you can't explain what your pet theory of a particular higher power is, or how it works, it's no better than no explanation at all. It's like saying "I fail to see how everything can be explained without the involvement of sdfasdfkueifdfdsae." Well, what does the involvement of sdfasdfkueifdfdsae involve, exactly? What is it? How does it work? Either you can answer those questions or you can't: and if you can't you're stuck back at square one with the rest of us.
---I honestly don't understand what atheists believe in this area. Nobody has ever been able to tell me what is outside of space and time.---
It's even worse than that: we don't even know if "outside" is a word that makes any sense to apply to "space" or "time" (the same way "blue" doesn't really make much sense when applied to "justice"). But the fact that no one has any idea about how to even think about these questions doesn't make "God!" the default best answer. "God" just adds and even BIGGER mystery that we ALSO can't explain to the mix, without even doing much of anything to explain what happened (since we can't understand God in the first place).
I work in Software QA, so I am constantly solving problems. When I run into a particularly tough one, I have learned the following: Ask yourself what the root assumption is, and make sure that it is correct. I have found that this is a great tool for solving all kinds of problems, in work and in life.
The root assumption with "Creation" is that there is a thing doing the creating, and doing it with some plan in mind. Those things are unprovable. If you approach science with that in mind, of course a lot of things will fit into place. Evolutionary science is based on a theory as well, but it is a theory based on observation. You are right that it is based on human obversation, and therefore open to error. But I prefer to believe in the observable and the provable.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
But origins can neither be observed nor proven. We are left with speculation based on the evidence that we have.
In situations such as this (a possible parallel is forensic examination of a crime scene) we are left with collection of data and speculation about how that data came to be in that location in that particular arrangement.
The data could support many possible explanations, and I believe that we should use our intellect to sort through it and find the explanation that best fits the facts.
Having observed the facts - the complexity and apparent order involved in life in the universe, the data-richness of the RNA/DNA interplay, the utter improbability of this happening according to chance, and the concept of entropy as applied to the closed system we call the universe, my best explanation is that there is an intelligent designer.
You may choose to disagree, but it's not merely based on a mindless acceptance of Genesis 1.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
---However, comparing evolution to coin tossing would be like someone that tossed the coin a few billion or more times and had it come up heads every time.---
Not at all. How can you criticize evolution as implausible when you don't even have a basic understanding of what it is? Evolution is not a series of lucky accidents that miraculously happen "just so" to produce us. That's thinking deliberately backwards through a process that worked undeterminativly forwards. It is not a game of chance, but rather a selective process with no PARTICULAR end pre-specified.
The point of my coin example is not to analougize how evolution works, but to explain why some outcomes that seem miraculous are actually inevitable and necessary: and why it's understandable that people get them confused.
Another example: say you close your eyes, and throw a dart at a target on a huge wall. You open your eyes to find that you got a bullseye. The chances against this are phenomenal, indeed. However, that is NOT what's going on with how you're thinking about evolution. What is going on is that you are throwing the dart blind, as before, at a completely blank wall, and then, after it's stuck in the wall at a random point, drawing a target around it in such a way that the dart is in the center of the bullseye! That is, for us to speak of a "probability against" at all, we need to specify the event BEFORE it takes place, not afterwards. The chances of the dart hitting a target are very small when the target was drawn before the throw: the chances of it hitting ANY random spot on the wall, however, are 100%, regardless of how special we come to think of that particular spot as being afterwards.
Now, that's a primer on probability. We still haven't gotten into what's going on with evolution. If you are going to attack evolution, then you at least need to describe it correctly: not as a series of lucky accidents, but rather as a whole bunch of totally random accidents, most of which are neither lucky nor unlucky from ANY hindsight of a particular goal. Of these, only a few are selected according to their adaptability, and then they propogate. Random chance is certainly involved, but the process can just as well rely upon it being TOTALY random: no random event needs to be "just so" for the process to work. That's because the actual "process" is the _selection_ of particular dice throws according to some environmental pressure criteria, not the throwing of the dice.
Now, maybe you were just confused: instead of evolution, you meant abiogenesis. That's a very different story, because "evolution" only takes place when there is fidelistic reproduction. Abiogenesis, on the other hand, WOULD require more chance. However, it STILL isn't so simple as a bunch of lucky coin flips. People doing abiogenesis, just like people doing evolution, aren't looking for a series of lucky chances. Instead, they are looking for natural processes that could have been involved with the production of life. If it were all about an airplane coming together in a whirlwind, there would be nothing to study, and it would indeed be implausible. But that's not what it's about. A simple example of more what it IS about that you can try at home: consider the chaotic mixture of a glass of salt stirred together (use a spoon) with lots of black peppercorns. Now, swirl or shake the glass gently. What happens? The peppercorns almost all float to the top: when you add chaotic motion to a chaotic arrangement, you get a form of sorted order! Now, think about the various ways we could characterize what happened. We COULD say that the event is miraculous, because if you work out the chances of all the peppercorns ending up on top of the salt just by random chance, it is infintesimally small. But in fact, far from nearly impossible, the event is almost _inevitable_: it happens every time. So the simple probability calculation is wrong somehow: it's not correctly characterizing what's actually happening. And what's wrong is that there is a _process_ at work here: when the glass shakes and things have freedom to move around chaotically, gravity is sorting the items by density: in a sense they are ratcheting things upwards. When a peppercorn randomly moves up in the salt, the smaller salt grains fall and fill in underneath it more quickly than the pepper corn can move. Random movements of peppercorns downwards are blocked: random movements upwards are easy. So up is how it travels in the long run. So, here we have our example of how total chaos, when in a particular situation, can actually build order. People doing abiogenesis are looking for processes like this: things that DRIVE the formation of simple molecules, and continue to drive them in a certain direction. That's a VERY different thing from simply waiting around for totally random combinations to happen.
Which one? I find your claim hard to believe considering that there are literally thousands of different variations of 'gods' that have been worshipped throughout human history.
There have been thousands of different ideas of what God is, and even more ways to worship Him. But many of these describe the same being.
If God exists, then all references to the same All-powerful creator of the world are references to the same thing. It doesn't matter if Christians and Jews and Muslims kill each other over whether or not God drinks beer and eats pork; He's still the same objective being.
If we take the singular form of God to its linquistic extreme--that being a reference to simply a singular being of great power who looks over human beings while hiding Himself from us--our number of possible instances of evidence for His existance increases dramatically.
The assertion wasn't "there's a bunch of evidence that proves I'm right about what I say God is like." It was "there's evidence that God exists."
Second, if I assume that all the available reports of King Richard are more or less true, they fit; if I assume they are mistakes or hallucinations or fabrications, I've got a very big puzzle on my hands - a huge conspiracy? Mass hallucination?
Tall tales, myth, a lie told by the English King. Take your pick. There are all sorts of stories from the same time period and from the same base of sources that are no longer taken to be true.
If I were to change the King from Richard to Arthur, I doubt that you would make the claim that Arthur was a real historical figure--despite that history was taught as if he were a Real Person for hundreds of years.
If I assume that all the available reports of the Christian god are more or less true, not only don't fit each other (is this an angry or loving diety? how to I reconcile the Quakers with Oral Roberts? not to mention all the biblical contradictions [webster.sk.ca]),
The page you just listed has a rather atrocious style, and makes claims every bit as wild--if not wilder--as the zealots who give my religion a bad scientific reputation. Not to mention that it fails to see the obvious answer that doesn't discredit the message: Hebrew as a language is relatively limited (or was limited at the time), lacking concepts and words that mankind simply did not understand at the time, and God has changed his message over time.
Just a quibble. A better rebuttal is below.
they contradict equally reliable reports about Jewish, Islamic, Hindu, Shinto, Buddhist, et cetera deities; while if I assume they are instances of mistaking subjective mystical experiences for objective phenomena, I can explain all of them consistently.
The Jewish & Islamic claims are about the same guy, Shinto (AFAIK) makes no claims regarding the Jews or the Creator, Hindus no doubt heard of early monotheism and adapted their religion to explain it (ever hear of Brahmin?), and Bhuddism was largely a rebellion against Hindu, but nevertheless does not contradict God's existance. (At the very least, He'd be the first spirit to imagine reality.)
From a purely scientific standpoint, inconsitent details about a Thing do not discret the thing's actual existance. There might be serious dissent as to if Richard the Lionhearted was a homosexual or not, but such claims don't discredit his existance.
A dramatic majority of human beings, even just counting those alive today, believe in some form of superior creator deity who either dictated holy texts to the people of Earth or performed events that inspired the holy writings.
Rejection of this evidence--and the general scientific prejudict against religion--is nothing more than a continuance of a religious conflict dating back to the dawn of science, when early scientists threw the baby out with the bathwater so as to continue their research.
Oh, and no one's ever seriously made the claim that Elvis clones run around stealing socks. No one has seriously claimed to see them, meet them, or get a message from them.
"existance is older than the sum of human memory & was created through random chance" fails on the last two as well.
True. Fortunately, the various theories of evolution are a lot more detailed than that.
It would not falsify the "no god" theory.
"No god" is also not a theory.
Common language lets "theory" stand for any idea that can explain observed facts.
Who cares about common language? We are talking about science here.
True. Fortunately, the various theories of evolution are a lot more detailed than that.
But, when projected backwards and used as history, they're still neither falsifiable nor a good source for predictions. Get a time machine, and then we'll talk.
(note: I believe in the natural prinicple of evolution, and that it shapes every living organism when given enough time. I have no religious belief on if God created the world 6000 real-years ago or 6000 God-years; the allmighty's on a differnet time scale, and I suspect he might have just fast-forwarded through the boring parts inbetween adjusting the flow of evolution...)
Who cares about common language? We are talking about science here.
On slashdot? No, this is a common, colloquial discussion forum open to (and frequented by) laymen with little to no real scientific knowledge. Theory (and other technical terms), unless used in expressly scientific terminology, should be assmed to be used in a colloquial sense. Especially when comparing two things, neither of which is a scientific Theory.
No scientist debates whether or not the universe extends as observed with no sentient guiding hands beyond our own in all four dimensions. It's simply not possible to factor in such a variable to science, so it's easy enough for science to ignore it until when, if ever, said sentient guidng hands decide to make themselves known, at which time science will return to figuring exactly how many angels can fit on the head of a pin...
Again, it seems irrefuatble that, if the Sentient Guiding Hand does exist, He wants us to act in a pracital matter as if He doesn't, and not put real-world plans in motion that hinge on His action or proving His existance or disexistance. (Like a wiccan friend of mine said--He's the world's Biggest Geek, who sat around some day borded so He decided to make Himself some friends.)
But, when projected backwards and used as history, they're still neither falsifiable nor a good source for predictions.
Um, sure they are. Why wouldn't they be? I wonder if the problem is that you are confusing evolution with abiogenesis. Evolution doesn't care how life got started, it takes over from there.
Um, sure they are. Why wouldn't they be?
Ok, tell me how to falsify historical evolution--specifically, the "we evolved from something else" part.
While you're at it, find a good record of predictions that evolution's made.
I wonder if the problem is that you are confusing evolution with abiogenesis. Evolution doesn't care how life got started, it takes over from there.
As I said before, evolution is a great and wonderful biological principle that no one in their right mind can disagree with.
Historical evolution--which is simply taking the percieved principles of breeding and stretching them backwards--is not. Especially when it contradicts things like Intelligent Design.
A thorough school class on the history of life (taught in high school as "biology") should logically get into each of the current ideas that explain where life came from and how it got here, instead of ridiculing "the old belief that life sprang full-bore from mud" and ignoring current religion entirely.
Ok, tell me how to falsify historical evolution--specifically, the "we evolved from something else" part.
Easy. I can think of two way right off the bat. 1. If human-like fossils suddenly appeared in the fossil record without any earlier, less human-like fossils before them. 2. If our DNA wasn't similar to other great apes.
Historical evolution--which is simply taking the percieved principles of breeding and stretching them backwards--is not.
You might as well say that just because gravity makes things fall today, you can't say that it made things fall in the distant past.
Especially when it contradicts things like Intelligent Design.
You can't contradict Intelligent Design because there's nothing to contradict. Coming full circle here, Intelligent Design is not a theory. Just for starters, how do you objectively distinguish something that was designed from something that wasn't?
each of the current ideas that explain where life came from and how it got here
There is ONLY one scientific idea of how life got here. There are a bunch of unsupported fantasies, but they have no place in science class. If you want to teach I.D., then we might as well teach the idea that the Earth is flat too, for they both have the same scientific footing.
With respect to science...
:), Charles Russel, Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith - all of the founders of the major world religions are dead - except Jesus Christ who demonstrated His infinite power by being raised from the dead.
god did it through means that we can't possibly understand
With all due respect, that is not the assertion that I am making, and it seems a bit unfair to suggest that it is.
I belive that God's creation of the universe and life in an orderly way provides the foundation on which we stand when using our intellect to examine the universe. The idea that it was created with order means that we have the hope of discovering that order, and could potentially understand it as well.
answer all those questions in a way that is scientifically falsifiable
I appreciate your reasoning for this line of discussion, but I disagree with you. The issue of origins is a philosophical one, not a scientific one. If you assert that matter or the universe has existed forever, that is not scientifically falsifiable. If you assert that life was deposited here via asteroid, that merely shifts the question to another point of origin - how did life begin there?
Please note that I am not suggesting that these things are not to be examined, but rather that it is disingenuous to assert that science can be used to determine the answers - or that "religion" is unqualified to answer philosophical questions.
With respect to philosophy
Why is your idea of god any more convincing than any of the thousands of others?
Fair question. I believe that the God of Christianity can be more closely examined than any other god using intellect, critical thinking, and historical evidence. The fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is poweful in this regard.
Mohammed is dead, Buddha is dead, Confucious is dead, Nietzche is dead
His followers overturned the most powerful government in the world without use of force - but rather by living lives consistent with the teachings of Christ.
This one man's life has had a more profound impact on world culture, philosophy, and governance than any other person's.
Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life."
Regards,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Mohammed is dead, Buddha is dead, Confucious is dead, Nietzche is dead :), Charles Russel, Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith - all of the founders of the major world religions are dead - except Jesus Christ who demonstrated His infinite power by being raised from the dead.
OMG. I cannot believe that you just wrote that.This is EXACTLY the reason why "Christian-scientists" are an oxymoron. You can believe in Christianity and science at the same time, but put the two together, and you get statements like this. You can say this is your philosophy, and it doesn't impact the scientific side, but if you REALLY believe what you have written, then there is no way you can be objective about science.
His followers overturned the most powerful government in the world without use of force - but rather by living lives consistent with the teachings of Christ.
ROTFL. Yeah, Christians are non-violent, always. They are above that. Holy crap, do you actually believe that?
This one man's life has had a more profound impact on world culture, philosophy, and governance than any other person's. Jesus said: "I am the way, the truth and the life."
I can almost believe this, but I think it has less to do with Jesus, and more to do with the organized religions that have spawned around his name, and their pursuit of power. From my experience, Christianity is one of the religions where the practitioners are the least compliant with what the real message of Christ was about. They twist it, bend it, and mold it to whatever they want it to say.
Man, I was kind of with you up to a certain point, but when I read the above paragraphs, my jaw dropped. What you wrote is a shining example of why I believe organized religion to be a poison to truth.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Christianity is one of the religions where the practitioners are the least compliant with what the real message of Christ was about. They twist it, bend it, and mold it to whatever they want it to say
I could not agree with you more on this particular point. Much of what passes for Christianity today has little to do with the teachings of Christ.
Christians are non-violent, always
Christians are not always non-violent. Two points here.
1) Christ explicitly indicated to Peter that we (Christians) should not look to extend Christianity by force. Christ did not approve of the tyranny of the Crusades.
BTW - The Jews were looking for a messiah that would be a military conqueror, and did not find that in Christ - it's one of the main reasons that they rejected Him.
2) Violence is not always contrary to Christian teaching. I believe that "just war" theory is consistent with the teachings of Christ - but that is in the area of political power, not religious power.
For the most part, I would agree with you that "organized religion" is more about protection of power than about worship of God. I can't go so far as to say that all organized churches are corrupt. They are certainly influenced by the fallible humans that participate there, but there are many Christian churches where folks earnestly desire to submit their lives to Christ, and are not consumed with personal agendas and power.
Truth (absolute truth) does exist, and you can find it in some Christian churches in the world.
Sadly, most churches are more about social causes, clubs, and family traditions than about submission to Christ's leadership. In those you will find that politics, position and power are regarded highly and those are a poison to the pursuit of truth.
more to do with the organized religions that have spawned around his name, and their pursuit of power
Here we disagree. I believe that if you look at history closely, you will find that the organized church only attained power because the early church members were willing to submit themselves personally to whatever it cost them to continue to follow Christ. Without their unswerving commitment to Christ's authority in their lives, the Christian church (as an organization) would never have gained enough credibility to wield any power. Tragically over the centuries, much of the church has become corrupt - take a look at the reformation to see some examples, and at the current day - from televangelists to abusive priests - you're right - power has corrupted.
We must not judge a philosophy by those who abuse it, but rather judge it by those who adhere strictly to the tenets of that philosophy and see the logical outcome. There are deviants in every religious movement. They are not the standard - look closely at those who follow Christ - For example - what about Billy Graham? Is he consumed with power or position? What about Mother Teresa? Was she looking to build an empire in her name? I submit to you that those two individuals have had more influence on the world of the last century than most of the organized Christian church - precisely because of their personal commitment to Christ.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
---To say that if you keep reducing a set with a recursive algorithm will neccassarily reduce the set to a single item requires certain conditions on the elements in the set.---
Conditions I already stated... look it's not THAT hard to work this one out with a piece of paper, or in Excel.
---An MEve will only show up when an entire species is reduced to a very small population size and then manages to recover and survive.---
NO. MEve is NOT an individual who, during the time she lived, had to be the only one (or one of a very few, to bear offspring into the next generation. What she is, is a common maternal ancestor of everyone alive today (i.e. go back in your family tree via maternal lines, and at some point you'll find the same individual) Very different thing.
---But for there to be an MEve for mankind there had to at some point be a very small number of woman who where successfully passing on their genes.---
Again, not at all. The alternate, uncontaminated, maternal lineages die out over many many generations: and this need have nothing at all to do with anything concerning the time MEve lived. Remember, it's not that the entire population, taken as a whole in EACH generation, that contracts back to MEve. Rather, the particular set of people alive today all has MEve as a common maternal ancestor. That's a very different beast, and I don't think you grasp it yet. Try modeling it first.