Origins TheologyForum for the discussion of Creation Science (Young/Old) vs Theistic Evolution. Discussion of Atheistic Evolution should be taken to the Discussion and Debate forums.
Point of order...RNA may have evolved without being alive. Evolution does not require life to occur, merely self replicating systems.
You are playing with words a bit. Evolution as in change through time does not specifically require life, but the ability to gain selective advantage and maintain that advantage does require life. A self replicating molecule still faces the big bad world of chemical thermodynamics. The essence of living evolution is the ability to "capture" the advantage of random change and then maintain that change despite deterministic pressure to lose it. Life does this via homeostasis, metabolism and replication.
Or when you say "we aren't close to a workable theory of" do you actually mean "we havn't definitively identified the actual method of"... because they are quite seperate statements.
Or when you say "we aren't close to a workable theory of" do you actually mean "we havn't definitively identified the actual method of"... because they are quite seperate statements.
You made the claim we had "workable theories". These are all gross speculations some of which are borderline science fiction. I suspect the wiki authors were attempting to lend credibility to the myth that we have an inkling of understanding of how abiogenesis occurred. We don't.
You made the claim we had "workable theories". These are all gross speculations some of which are borderline science fiction. I suspect the wiki authors were attempting to lend credibility to the myth that we have an inkling of understanding of how abiogenesis occurred. We don't.
I meant a theory in the normal scientific sense.
Whats that, an apparently logical hypothesis explaining a phenomena that is contiguous with all available experimental and/or observational evidence?
In fairness, the burden of explanation falls on the person claiming explanatory power, but in a nutshell they don't explain abiogenesis. At worst they are wildly speculative, and at best they describe some basic processes but leave huge unbridgeable gaps in their extrapolation to life.
In fairness, the burden of explanation falls on the person claiming explanatory power, but in a nutshell they don't explain abiogenesis. At worst they are wildly speculative, and at best they describe some basic processes but leave huge unbridgeable gaps in their extrapolation to life.
Lacking as they are they are workable in comparison to:
"God did it"
(which is not an explanation but a lack of one, which is never a valid explanation)
Last edited by MattLangley; 24th July 2009 at 07:22 PM.
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