Evolution

[fatboys]

There are those that instead of intelligent design for how we came to be believe that all living things came from chemicals that accidentally came together and formed the basic structure for life. I cannot wrap my mind around it. How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

 

[LoAmmi]

You're not asking about evolution but abiogenesis. They are two very different scientific concepts that get thrown together usually for no good reason by those who oppose evolution. Evolution explains the diversity of life in the world where abiogenesis describes how life came to be. Evolution is something that has been tested and tested to show it happens. Abiogenesis is not in any stage where a scientist can say exactly how it happened.

 

[jacknife]

There are those that instead of intelligent design for how we came to be believe that all living things came from chemicals that accidentally came together and formed the basic structure for life. I cannot wrap my mind around it. How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

The start of life without a intelligent designer is called abiogenisis. Evolution is a separate beast it only deals with things that are alive and its true regardless of how life came to be. Honestly it makes a lot of sense looking over the fossil record and other evidence heck we've done studies to show bacteria switch to a new food source over time. There's an evolution subfourm on here with people who are much better teachers then I am however.

 

[dlamberth]

How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

Chaos has a way of both birthing and evolving most everything in this universe, including this planet.

.

 

[BobRyan]

There are those that instead of intelligent design for how we came to be believe that all living things came from chemicals that accidentally came together and formed the basic structure for life. I cannot wrap my mind around it. How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

They tried to get that "Chemicals-did" it thing going back in the 1950's with the Urey-Miller experiment - but it flopped. As far as I know it was such a dead-end nobody has gotten it past that point since.

But we do have "stories" instead.

 

[jacknife]

They tried to get that "Chemicals-did" it thing going back in the 1950's with the Urey-Miller experiment - but it flopped. As far as I know it was such a dead-end nobody has gotten it past that point since.

But we do have "stories" instead.

Last I checked some interesting efforts have been put into it read it while lurking the evolution subfourm.

 

[BobRyan]

Last I checked some interesting efforts have been put into it read it while lurking the evolution subfourm.

They were having a problem with the amino acids being randomize in chiral orientation so nothing that could be used in viable proteins as I recall.

 

[jacknife]

They were having a problem with the amino acids being randomize in chiral orientation so nothing that could be used in viable proteins as I recall.

Can't remember but I do remember that it didn't lead to anything conclusive, it will be awhile before anything comes of abiogenisis in my uneducated opinion.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

There are those that instead of intelligent design for how we came to be believe that all living things came from chemicals that accidentally came together and formed the basic structure for life. I cannot wrap my mind around it. How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

That is both an argument from incredulity and a VERY misleading description of abiogenesis.

Long story short, the "laws" of nature and the properties of water and carbon-compounds make the formation of the kind of molecules that eventually form biological life almost an inevitability, given the right circumstances - like a puddle filling a hole in the ground.

What Creationists do is basically akin to said puddle pointing to the hole in the ground and stating: "Look at how perfectly I fit into this hole! It must have been specifically created to contain me by a big puddle in the sky that operates and thinks just like I do, only without my liquid body."

It's overly simplistic and more than a tad naive to project human processes of intentional matter-rearrangement upon the natural world, even though mankind has been spinning such myths since time immemorial, exlaining properties that were unfathomable to them at the time.

The difference between an ancient tribesman attributing lightning to angry gods and a person living in the 21st century, however, is that we CAN and DO know better than that. At this point in history, such ignorance is entirely self-inflicted, avoidable, and deliberate.

 

[Jane_the_Bane]

I also noticed that you seem to be conflating "evolution" and "abiogenesis". The former concerns itself with how lifeforms adapt to their surroundings, the latter is concerned with the origin of biological life.

 

[AV1611VET]

That is both an argument from incredulity and a VERY misleading description of abiogenesis.

Long story short, the "laws" of nature and the properties of water and carbon-compounds make the formation of the kind of molecules that eventually form biological life almost an inevitability, given the right circumstances - like a puddle filling a hole in the ground.

What Creationists do is basically akin to said puddle pointing to the hole in the ground and stating: "Look at how perfectly I fit into this hole! It must have been specifically created to contain me by a big puddle in the sky that operates and thinks just like I do, only without my liquid body."

It's overly simplistic and more than a tad naive to project human processes of intentional matter-rearrangement upon the natural world, even though mankind has been spinning such myths since time immemorial, exlaining properties that were unfathomable to them at the time.

The difference between an ancient tribesman attributing lightning to angry gods and a person living in the 21st century, however, is that we CAN and DO know better than that. At this point in history, such ignorance is entirely self-inflicted, avoidable, and deliberate.

Welcome to Planet Earth, Jane, where faith is alive and well; and people can believe differently from others.

 

[fatboys]

So how does someone that does not believe in God feel life begin

That is both an argument from incredulity and a VERY misleading description of abiogenesis.

Long story short, the "laws" of nature and the properties of water and carbon-compounds make the formation of the kind of molecules that eventually form biological life almost an inevitability, given the right circumstances - like a puddle filling a hole in the ground.

What Creationists do is basically akin to said puddle pointing to the hole in the ground and stating: "Look at how perfectly I fit into this hole! It must have been specifically created to contain me by a big puddle in the sky that operates and thinks just like I do, only without my liquid body."

It's overly simplistic and more than a tad naive to project human processes of intentional matter-rearrangement upon the natural world, even though mankind has been spinning such myths since time immemorial, exlaining properties that were unfathomable to them at the time.

The difference between an ancient tribesman attributing lightning to angry gods and a person living in the 21st century, however, is that we CAN and DO know better than that. At this point in history, such ignorance is entirely self-inflicted, avoidable, and deliberate.

Do you believe life exist else where? Do you believe that this process is continuing today on this planet? Can man in our limited knowledge produce a living cell?

 

[LoAmmi]

Not addressed to me but I feel like answering so....

Do you believe life exist else where?

I do believe there is life on other planets. To quote Hitchhiker's Guide, "Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space." I think it highly unlikely that in all of that vast space, life ONLY exists on this planet.

Do you believe that this process is continuing today on this planet?

It would take a great feat of denial to believe that natural selection though adaptation is not ongoing today. Denial to the point that you are blatantly ignoring the world around you.

Can man in our limited knowledge produce a living cell?

Not yet. Seeing that we cannot do something now doesn't mean we can't do it later. People didn't believe man would be able to fly and yet we can zip around the planet now in jets.

 

[ViaCrucis]

There are those that instead of intelligent design for how we came to be believe that all living things came from chemicals that accidentally came together and formed the basic structure for life. I cannot wrap my mind around it. How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

What you just described isn't evolution. You just described, crudely, the theory of abiogenesis. These are completely different theories.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[ViaCrucis]

So how does someone that does not believe in God feel life begin

As someone who does believe in a Creator God I don't have any hangups with abiogenesis. Abiogenesis would describe how God created life.

Do you believe life exist else where?

Until we discover evidence of extraterrestrial life it remains an unknowable possibility.

Do you believe that this process is continuing today on this planet?

No evidence that abiogenesis has taken place since the advent of complex life that I'm aware of.

Can man in our limited knowledge produce a living cell?

Yes, we could create a synthetic cell.

"The future is in the creation of a protocell, or a cell which has all the minimum requirements for life. Members from the J. Craig Venter Institute have used a top-down computational approach to knock out genes in a living organism to a minimum set of genes.[5] Recently, the team succeeded in creating a replicating strain of Mycoplasma mycoides using synthetically created DNA deemed to be the minimum requirement for life which was inserted into a genomically empty bacterium.[5] It is hoped that the process of top-down biosynthesis will enable the insertion of new genes that would perform profitable functions such as generation of hydrogen for fuel or capturing excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.[57] the myriad regulatory, metabolic, and signaling networks are not completely characterized. These top-down approaches have limitations for the understanding of fundamental molecular regulation, since the host organisms have a complex and incompletely defined molecular composition.[58]" - Source

-CryptoLutheran

 

[LoAmmi]

No evidence that abiogenesis has taken place since the advent of complex life that I'm aware of.

The existence of life would probably mean that even if abiogenesis could occur, it wouldn't because it would be eaten by bacteria or similar.

 

[ViaCrucis]

The existence of life would probably mean that even if abiogenesis could occur, it wouldn't because it would be eaten by bacteria or similar.

That would make sense.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[cloudyday2]

There are those that instead of intelligent design for how we came to be believe that all living things came from chemicals that accidentally came together and formed the basic structure for life. I cannot wrap my mind around it. How could something so that is in such chaos turn into something so complex?

I think it would be interesting to ask religious people how they could NOT believe in intelligent design. Maybe a deist has some excuse, but what sort of lazy, good-for-nothing God would not take an interest and become involved in abiogenesis and evolution? Why worship such a feckless being?

 

[AV1611VET]

I think it would be interesting to ask religious people how they could NOT believe in intelligent design.

I don't believe in Intelligent Design.

I believe in creationism.

Intelligent Design is a cheap attempt to shoehorn creationism into the science arena, where it doesn't belong.

 

[BobRyan]

That is both an argument from incredulity and a VERY misleading description of abiogenesis.

Long story short, the "laws" of nature and the properties of water and carbon-compounds make the formation of the kind of molecules that eventually form biological life almost an inevitability, given the right circumstances - like a puddle filling a hole in the ground.

How fascinating then that we cannot reproduce "a puddle filling a hole in the ground" in the lab that comes up with a sing eukaryote cell. Not even one. No matter the efforts to get it to occur - artificially.

in fact we cannot take a single living cell - a single eukaryote -- then irradiate it down to constituent chemical parts - and then "re-assemble" to a living cell - even though we have all the right ratios of chemical elements in that scenario.

If living animals are simple a property of gas, dust, rocks, water ... then we should be able to "reproduce it" artificially in the lab.

And we cannot.

in Christ,

Bob