Abiogenesis and Evolution

[justlookinla]

It is.

No, it's not. Point out the negative.

 

[Loudmouth]

No, it's not. Point out the negative.

You are asking people to prove that evolution is not guided. That is a negative. You are the one claiming that guidance exists. Therefore, it is up to you to supply the evidence. We don't have to prove the non-existence of something you have invented.

 

[justlookinla]

You are asking people to prove that evolution is not guided. That is a negative. You are the one claiming that guidance exists. Therefore, it is up to you to supply the evidence. We don't have to prove the non-existence of something you have invented.

Nope, I'm asking for evidence, based on the scientific method, that humanity the result of only random, mindless, meaningless, purposeless and goalless mechanisms.

Do you reject the claim or embrace it?

 

[Loudmouth]

Nope, I'm asking for evidence, based on the scientific method, that humanity the result of only random, mindless, meaningless, purposeless and goalless mechanisms.

Same thing.

 

[justlookinla]

Same thing.

As?

 

[whois]

Not the same thing. It doesn't take faith to recognize psychosomatic reactions.

see?
i told you that you would outright reject it.
doesn't matter though, because it's been proven, over and over and over.

so, you asked for evidence, and i gave it to you.

 

[SkyWriting]

For those who claim that you need abiogenesis in order for the theory of evolution to be true, could you please explain one thing? What part of the theory of evolution would need to change if the first life on Earth were created by God, and all the life and species we see today evolved through natural processes from that first created life that we all share as a common ancestor?

I've never heard anyone claim that. Evolution supporters run from any connection between
the two topics.....as if the laws of nature changed or something after life began.

Creationists point out that evolutionists attempts to illustrate the past reach much too far
into the unknown history for any reasonable chance of being testable and actually within the scientific
method.

 

[Jimmy D]

Great, another thread spoiled by Justlookinla's pigeon chess.

For those who claim that you need abiogenesis in order for the theory of evolution to be true, could you please explain one thing?

What part of the theory of evolution would need to change if the first life on Earth were created by God, and all the life and species we see today evolved through natural processes from that first created life that we all share as a common ancestor?

I wouldn't make such a claim but I can't see that it would make any difference if the earliest forms of life came about from abiogenesis, a God or aliens 'seeding' earth.

Creationists point out that evolutionists attempts to illustrate the past reach much too far into the unknown history for any reasonable chance of being testable and actually within the scientific
method.

It seems 'creationists' are very fond of trying to find fault with natural explanations whilst offering nothing positive of their own, what's your view on why we see such a diversity of life on Earth?

 

[SkyWriting]

It seems 'creationists' are very fond of trying to find fault with natural explanations whilst offering nothing positive of their own, what's your view on why we see such a diversity of life on Earth?

All life is designed by the Creator to adapt to the constant increase in entropy in the Cosmos.
What's your view on why life exists rather than non-life as we see everywhere else?
Non-Creationists are fond of ignoring the absence of life everywhere else and
even the absence of a law of nature that would support it's formation.

 

[Jimmy D]

All life is designed by the Creator to adapt to the constant increase in entropy in the Cosmos.
What's your view on why life exists rather than non-life as we see everywhere else?
Non-Creationists are fond of ignoring the absence of life everywhere else and
even the absence of a law of nature that would support it's formation.

Abiogenesis - I'll freely admit I can't back that up with any scientific explanations, it just seems the most viable option to me. I can't accept the concept of a 'God' behind everything, I honestly don't mean to disrespect your religious beliefs but the notion of a mysterious 'super being' creating everything seems too fantastical to even entertain.

Given the evidence of what we see around us in the natural world common descent looks so obvious I honestly can't get my head around why anyone would think otherwise, the narrative in Genesis is so illogical it raises more questions than it answers when taken literally - although as allegory I actually quite like it.

(Sorry for going off topic).

 

[DogmaHunter]

Where is the evidence that humanity is the result of only random, mindless, meaningless, purposeless and goalless mechanisms?

As has been said to you many times: evolution theory doesn't say that.

Your only complaint here is that supernatural causes and "purpose" and "intention" aren't an explicit part of the theory.

You have also been told that the reason that they aren't an explicit part of the theory is because there is no evidence of such things at all.

Why would a scientific theory include things that are not supportable?

Once more, the theory does not say anything about "ONLY this specific way".
It rather says: "here are the ways we know about..."

If you wish to include additional ways, mechanisms or causes - you can, but you'll be required to support them with evidence and demonstrate how they have an impact.

Can you do that?

 

[DogmaHunter]

So, we're not created fully grown? There's a process which our parents have nothing to do with, other than copulation?

Do you realise how ridiculous this question sounds?
It's like a 3-year old discovering that Storks don't bring babies to people.

 

[DogmaHunter]

I've said over and over in this thread that my view is a faith-based view.

Then your view has no impact on or relevance to scientific discourse. Nore is it a valid objection to any scientific idea.

You may park it in your private garage.

If humanity wasn't produced by random, mindless, meaningless and purposeless mechanisms, how was it produced. Evolution basically teaches that (now it's your turn to attempt to muddy the is sue by demanding references where evolution teaches such a thing). Of course, we are talking about the claims of Darwinist evolution, one of the various views of evolution.

As explained in a previous post, evolution does not claim this at all.
Evolution mentions the mechanisms that are known to be a part of it.

Your faith-based mechanisms, by admission, have no evidence.
So why would we include them?

 

[DogmaHunter]

I think it would be up to you to prove evolution is anything more that just a hypothesis.

That already happened more then a century ago.

Since Abiogenesis has yet to produce a plausible working model to explain the process by which non-living matter becomes living matter, then evolution has no foundation to support its validity as a legitimate science.

No. For evolution to be a legitimate science, life merely needs to exist.
It seems like a safe assumption to state that life exists.

Life exists and we can study it and by doing so, unravel the processes it is subject to.
Once we understand those processes, we can work backwards to investigate how life developed over time.

None of these practices require being able to explain where life itself came from.

And in such, would you care to state one of the Principles of Evolution? Would you say random genetic mutations is one of those princples claimed by evolutionist?

Descent with modification, natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift,...

None of this is dependend on how life came to be.
All of it is dependend on how existing life works and what its properties are.

However life came into existance... that process (or "action" to human the creationists among us) resulted in carbon based life as we know it, as it exists on our planet.

Whatever that process was, it produce carbon based life that is subject to the bio-chemical processes and mechanisms that we have discovered over the years.

What is the problem?

 

[DogmaHunter]

i can give you some well known, and documented, testable, evidence, but you will outright reject it.
the placebo effect.
there is no evidence to the patient at all that a sugar pill will work.
but that patients faith that it WILL work, makes it work.

this effect is so powerful that double blind tests have to be devised to combat it in clinical trials.

Why would LM ignore the placebo effect?
This effect, btw, is very well understood and it has no relevance to the points in this thread.

 

[DogmaHunter]

It's not a negative

That's hilarious.

Let's evaluate that statement:

, as I pointed out earlier. One makes the claim which inferrs humanity is the result of random, mindless, meaningless, purposeless and goalless mechanisms. That's not a negative.

Not a negative??
Do you understand what the suffix "-less" means??
It means "without". Or "NOT" if you will.

Mindless: NOT with a mind
Meaningless: NOT with a meaning
Purposeless: NOT with a purpose
Goalless: NOT with a goal

Did you really think that nobody would notice?
Or, perhaps more likely, you didn't realise it yourself how these words are negatives?

 

[DogmaHunter]

see?
i told you that you would outright reject it.

LM doesn't reject the placebo effect.

What he rejects is your claim that the placebo effect is the same thing as that which you were drawing an analogy to.

doesn't matter though, because it's been proven, over and over and over.

Now, you seem to pretend that by rejecting the implications of your statement, LM is by extension also rejecting the placebo effect itself.

Intellectually dishonest, is what I call that.

so, you asked for evidence, and i gave it to you.

What you gave is not applicable here.
The placebo effect is about psychological effects and how it can have some impact on symptoms etc (with a clear limit as well btw... the placebo effect is not going to cure you from AIDS for example).

But LM was talking about accepting things about the world to be true based on faith.

Which is not the same thing.
Thought patterns might be able to change/regulate internal body chemistry, but they are not able to change the facts of reality.

 

[DogmaHunter]

All life is designed by the Creator to adapt to the constant increase in entropy in the Cosmos.
What's your view on why life exists rather than non-life as we see everywhere else?
Non-Creationists are fond of ignoring the absence of life everywhere else and
even the absence of a law of nature that would support it's formation.

"everywhere else", being Mars and the Moon?

That's akin to scooping a cup of water from the ocean at the coast of France, not seeing any fish in the cup and then stating "there are no fish in the ocean".

Also, what is your evidence of "All life is designed by the Creator"?

 

[justlookinla]

As has been said to you many times: evolution theory doesn't say that.

What part of "random, mindless, meaningless, purposeless, goalless" isn't part of the particular evolutionary view (there are several views) which claims that humanity is the result of only naturalistic mechanisms? Point out the terms in error and tell us why.

Your only complaint here is that supernatural causes and "purpose" and "intention" aren't an explicit part of the theory.

You have also been told that the reason that they aren't an explicit part of the theory is because there is no evidence of such things at all.

Why would a scientific theory include things that are not supportable?

Once more, the theory does not say anything about "ONLY this specific way".
It rather says: "here are the ways we know about..."

That's the problem, there is no 'knowing' of the HOW in Darwinist evolution. At least nothing supported by the scientific method.

If you wish to include additional ways, mechanisms or causes - you can, but you'll be required to support them with evidence and demonstrate how they have an impact.

Can you do that?

No more than you can offer alternative explanations based on the scientific method.

 

[justlookinla]

Do you realise how ridiculous this question sounds?
It's like a 3-year old discovering that Storks don't bring babies to people.

Do you realize how goofy it sounds for someone to respond with "the birds and the bees" in response to the question of how you and I were created?