The Logical Pathway From "Evolution is wrong" to "Therefore God"

[Loudmouth]

What evidence do you cite that modern Cyanobacteria are not as simple as they were 3.5 billion years ago?

I am citing the observation of the simplest life we know of as the first fossils as evidence that life started simply and evolved complexity over time. Since we don't have the genomes of those ancient genomes, we can't use that as evidence one way or the other.

 

[Loudmouth]

So? We have life with complex features that lose those features as well.

The complexity ratchet does go back a little bit, but only so far. In the cases I know of, it requires a commensal relationship with a more complex species.

 

[AV1611VET]

Um... unless you are suggesting life has always existed,

Life has always existed.

 

[Oncedeceived]

The complexity ratchet does go back a little bit, but only so far. In the cases I know of, it requires a commensal relationship with a more complex species.

Again...So?

 

[Oncedeceived]

I am citing the observation of the simplest life we know of as the first fossils as evidence that life started simply and evolved complexity over time. Since we don't have the genomes of those ancient genomes, we can't use that as evidence one way or the other.

Fine. So where is the evidence that the first cell is incredibly simple? We have a relative complex life form in Cyanobacteria at 3.5 billion years ago. There is no evidence of the first cell, we have no comparison for the life forms we do have evidence for so I hope you will concede that there is no evidence that the first cell had to be incredibly simple. We have no idea other than it being perhaps somewhat simpler than the fossilized Cyanobacteria which is not informative about what came before or how complex it was.

 

[Loudmouth]

Again...So?

There isn't evidence of more complex species in the early fossil record that could serve as a commensal host.

The complexity ratchet is really hard to dial back. At first, an adaptation will be helpful but not required. As evolution proceeds that initial helpful adaptation will be built on until it is a requirement.

 

[Loudmouth]

Fine. So where is the evidence that the first cell is incredibly simple?

Already given multiple times.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Already given multiple times.

I disagree. It has been shown that as early as 3.5 billion years ago we had a fairly complex life form and then we have no gradual rise of complexity but an explosion of complexity around 542 million years ago.

 

[Loudmouth]

I disagree. It has been shown that as early as 3.5 billion years ago we had a fairly complex life form and then we have no gradual rise of complexity but an explosion of complexity around 542 million years ago.

Please show that the cyanobacteria 3.5 billion years ago were complex.

 

[Armoured]

So hey, just out of interest, did you know the new ignore feature completely removes posts from people you're ignoring? You don't even get a place holder "this poster is on your ignore list" post. Just nothing! It's pretty cool.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Please show that the cyanobacteria 3.5 billion years ago were complex.

Even if they were simpler than today's we still have the situation of there being no gradual complexity arising in the fossil record but the sudden appearance of it 542 million years ago.

 

[Oncedeceived]

So hey, just out of interest, did you know the new ignore feature completely removes posts from people you're ignoring? You don't even get a place holder "this poster is on your ignore list" post. Just nothing! It's pretty cool.

So I assume I am on this posters ignore list...this might be fun. evil grin

 

[Loudmouth]

Even if they were simpler than today's we still have the situation of there being no gradual complexity arising in the fossil record but the sudden appearance of it 542 million years ago.

How did you determine that they suddenly appeared?

 

[Oncedeceived]

How did you determine that they suddenly appeared?

That is the evidence.

 

[Zosimus]

Life has always existed.

If God can be defined as "alive" then Christians believe that life has always existed.

 

[AV1611VET]

If God can be defined as "alive" then Christians believe that life has always existed.

Correct.

 

[whois]

Life arose by abiogenesis, which is a completely separate field to evolution. Evolution may, in fact, be utterly wrong, but that doesn't affect the understanding of how life arose.

there is no "understanding" about how life got here.
from koonins "logic of chance":
The origin of life is one of the hardest problems in all of science, but it is also one of the most important. Origin-of-live research has evolved into a lively, interdisciplinary field, but other scientists often view it with skepticism and even derision. This attitude is understandable and, in a sense, perhaps justified, given the “dirty” rarely mentioned secret: Despite many interesting results to its credit, when judged by the straightforward criterion of reaching (or even approaching) the ultimate goal, the origin of life field is a failure – we still do not have even a plausible coherent model, let alone a validated scenario, for the emergence of life on Earth. Certainly, this is due not to a lack of experimental and theoretical effort, but to the extraordinary intrinsic difficulty and complexity of the problem. A succession of exceedingly unlikely steps is essential for the origin of life, from the synthesis and accumulation of nucleotides to the origin of translation; through the multiplication of probabilities, these make the final outcome seem almost like a miracle.
-Eugene V. Koonin, molecular biologist, The Logic of Chance: The Nature and Origin of Biological Evolution (Upper Saddle River, NJ: FT Press, 2011), 391

 

[whois]

2. As creatures evolve, they tend to get more and more complex, so extrapolating backwards, at some point they must have been considerably more simple.

As for modern mono-cellular life being complex, well, yeah. As Thunderf00t so excellently put it, "What you are looking at is the most successful organism on earth; a grizzled heavyweight champion of evolution." Modern mono-cellular eukaryotes are often very complex organisms. There is simply no reason to believe the earliest life forms were anything like that.

you are forgetting what maynard says.
he said there is no reason to expect this increase in complexity, there is no theory for it, nor is there empirical evidence of it.
apparently, the "theory" of accumulating genetic complexity isn't a theory at all nor is there evidence of it.
www.researchgate.net/publication/15314671_The_major_evolutionary_transitions

 

[Armoured]

If God can be defined as "alive" then Christians believe that life has always existed.

We're specifically talking about cellular life. I don't believe anyone has ever seriously claimed that God is composed of protoplasm.

 

[AV1611VET]

We're specifically talking about cellular life. I don't believe anyone has ever seriously claimed that God is composed of protoplasm.

Try ectoplasm.