Yay for abiogenesis

philadiddle · #1 14th May 2009, 02:27 AM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/sc...a.html?_r=2&hp

Matthewj1985 · #2 14th May 2009, 10:48 AM

Originally Posted by philadiddle

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/sc...a.html?_r=2&hp

Get ready for some serious goal post moving and mental gymnastics when it is announced that we as a species have created "life" from "non-life" in the lab. I have a bag of popcorn ready for popping to see how the creationist deal with that one. I am leaning towards outright denial ala transitional fossils myself.

Chesterton · #3 14th May 2009, 12:10 PM

Originally Posted by Matthewj1985

Get ready for some serious goal post moving and mental gymnastics when it is announced that we as a species have created "life" from "non-life" in the lab. I have a bag of popcorn ready for popping to see how the creationist deal with that one. I am leaning towards outright denial ala transitional fossils myself.

Why, what would that prove? That it takes intelligence to create life? Sounds like that would affirm theism.

Smidlee · #4 14th May 2009, 06:40 PM

You don't have to move the goal post when it seems we are talking about "Recipes" to produce these building blocks. It took 20 years to find the right combination of two of the basic blocks to RNA. We are still dealing with an extremely narrow path.

So in one hand we have made good progress in learning how to build nucleotides naturally (and will probably find the other two combination given enough time) yet on the other hand continues to increase the number of tight ropes blind nature must travel which increases one's faith in the incredible power of the god of luck. Thus the god of gaps is ever being replace with the god of extreme luck.

Still even with all the RNA and DNA we have today we haven't yet to build life from scratch. Now I do believe one day (if given enough time) man will learn how to do this yet again walking an extreme narrow path in order to do so.

philadiddle · #5 15th May 2009, 03:49 AM

Originally Posted by Smidlee

You don't have to move the goal post when it seems we are talking about "Recipes" to produce these building blocks. It took 20 years to find the right combination of two of the basic blocks to RNA. We are still dealing with an extremely narrow path.

So in one hand we have made good progress in learning how to build nucleotides naturally (and will probably find the other two combination given enough time) yet on the other hand continues to increase the number of tight ropes blind nature must travel which increases one's faith in the incredible power of the god of luck. Thus the god of gaps is ever being replace with the god of extreme luck.

You don't have to believe in luck. God set the universe up so that it would inevitably give rise to life. Don't you think He's powerful enough and clever enough to do that? There is no blind rope of luck in order for these natural events to occur, they are statistically probable, contrary to what creationist pamphlets may say.

Given the sample space we have in the universe, and the amount of time for planets and life to form, it is almost inevitable that a planet will give rise to life by natural means. I'll use the lottery to explain what I mean. A ticket may have a 1 in 70,000,000 chance of winning, and you probably won't win. However, there seems to be a winner almost every week. This is because the population of ticket holders is large enough that it is likely there will be at least one winner, even though it's still only a 1 in 70,000,000 chance that it's you. Likewise, the odds of a supernova occurring and for some of the debris to form a planet such as ours that will eventually become habitable has a very very small chance. Fortunately for us, there are countless stars to provide a large enough sample space that this actually becomes likely to occur in at least one instance. Once that happens, it is again only a matter of time for self replicating chemical compounds to form and start evolving, since the sample space we are dealing with is a large surface and lots of time. There's no reason to assume luck played a role in this. God did a good enough job for it to work itself out. He's not so incompetent that He has to just poof everything into existence.

Mallon · #6 15th May 2009, 10:19 AM

Originally Posted by Smidlee

So in one hand we have made good progress in learning how to build nucleotides naturally (and will probably find the other two combination given enough time) yet on the other hand continues to increase the number of tight ropes blind nature must travel which increases one's faith in the incredible power of the god of luck. Thus the god of gaps is ever being replace with the god of extreme luck.

If luck were a factor in the creation of life, do you see anything inherently godless about it? Do you believe God is not able to bring about His will via chance circumstances?

tansy · #7 15th May 2009, 10:32 AM

Originally Posted by Mallon

If luck were a factor in the creation of life, do you see anything inherently godless about it? Do you believe God is not able to bring about His will via chance circumstances?

I sometimes wonder if actually, when it comes right down to it, there really IS any pure chance. Baecause it would seem to me that everything happens as a reult of something else,

Matthewj1985 · #8 15th May 2009, 02:31 PM

Originally Posted by Chesterton

Why, what would that prove? That it takes intelligence to create life? Sounds like that would affirm theism.

An argument I see many Christians use is "life is so unique we can fly to the moon but can't even create it under the most perfect conditions, therefore Goddidit".

gluadys · #9 15th May 2009, 05:53 PM

Originally Posted by Matthewj1985

An argument I see many Christians use is "life is so unique we can fly to the moon but can't even create it under the most perfect conditions, therefore Goddidit".

Silly argument. It assumes we know what the perfect conditions are.

Smidlee · #10 15th May 2009, 06:52 PM

Originally Posted by philadiddle

You don't have to believe in luck. God set the universe up so that it would inevitably give rise to life. Don't you think He's powerful enough and clever enough to do that? There is no blind rope of luck in order for these natural events to occur, they are statistically probable, contrary to what creationist pamphlets may say.

Is Robert Shapiro a creationist since he seem to have said something similar :

The chances that blind, undirected, inanimate chemistry would go out of its way in multiple steps and use of reagents in just the right sequence to form RNA is highly unlikely,' argues Shapiro.

Insight into RNA origins

Even though Shapiro has some opposing views from Sutherland I serious doubt this would make him any friendlier toward creationist.
One of the things Science has to deal with is probability.

Now could God have made Mary (a virgin) pregnant the exact same same man could today? Of course yet I doubt he had to uses the equipment (needles,etc.) that man would use. The same with this case. Could God made this building blocks of RNA exact like these men did in the article? Of course yet I have serious doubts that God would have need of a lab or all those tools.

P.S Abiogenesis ,which is in the title, has absolutely nothing to do with God. There is not even a hint of God or any other intelligent agent in the mind of these men in these articles. Abiogenesis is all about blind nature own her own preforming the miracle of life.