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The Nano Robots and Machines Inside You,

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Subduction Zone

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Sorry! I assumed you were an atheist.

You don't seem to understand that abiogenesis is widely accepted because it is the only idea that is supported by evidence at all. Not enough evidence to call it a theory yet, but still much more than creationists have.

Let's get rid of the "God" word and perhaps you will see why abiogenesis is widely, but not universally, accepted. Let's say there is an event. A field gets a strange pattern overnight. One group points out that they know of people that do this. That they have learned how to do more complex patterns as time goes by and that it is the only reasonable answer. Another group claims that it has to be space aliens since they can't see how people could have done it. Which response is more reasonable to you? Did people make those crop circles or was it space aliens?
 
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Radrook

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Agnosticism is atheism.

Agnosticism is the view that certain metaphysical claims – such as the existence of God or the supernatural – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe, "agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist". Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of tenets rather than a religion as such.

Agnosticism - Wikipedia
 
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Radrook

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Did you read my post or not?

"For the record, I don't know where the first life came from. I don't make any claim as to where it came from."

Also, I do accept evolution as the process by which life changed over time once life was here. Evolution is not abiogenesis, and abiogenesis is not evolution. You seem to be confusing the two.

Let's say that some designer dropped off a simple RNA replicator on the Earth 3+ billion years ago and then disappeared off into space, never to return. During that 3+ billion years that simple RNA replicator evolved into the all of the species we see today through the simple process of unguided random mutations and natural selection. If this were true, how much of the theory of evolution would we need to change?

NOT A GOSH DARN PIECE OF IT!!!!!

I don't understand how creationists still can't understand this simple point.



You aren't entitled to your own facts.

I never claimed that evolution is abiogenesis. I do understand what you just said and was never in any confusion over it as you believe.
 
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Loudmouth

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Agnosticism is the view that certain metaphysical claims – such as the existence of God or the supernatural – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe, "agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist". Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of tenets rather than a religion as such.

Agnosticism - Wikipedia

That's atheism.

"Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods."
What is Atheism? | American Atheists

Agnostics lack a belief in any deities. That makes them atheists.
 
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bhsmte

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I never claimed that evolution is abiogenesis. I do understand what you just said and was never in any confusion over it as you believe.
Read your own post again. You stated he believed evolution was how life was CREATED. You know, you aren't fooling anyone.
 
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Chriliman

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That doesn't follow at all.

Watches didn't come about through a 3 billion year process of common ancestry and descent with modification. All of the species we see alive today did come about through this process. No one is claiming that watches evolved. They are claiming that humans evolved. Notice the difference.

Yet there is a certain evolution in watches from when they were first invented until now.

The claim of the Intelligent Design crowd is that evolution COULD NOT produce the species we see today.

I see, I'm suggesting that evolution or environmental adaptation is a process that is a result of design in biological life, in the same way that the ticking of a clock is a process that is a result of design in a watch.

When you claim that Intelligent Design was only involved in getting the very first simple life forms started 3+ billion years ago, it does away with their entire argument. Just arguing against abiogenesis falls well short of the grander claims made by ID.

The general thought behind ID is that biological life is the result of intelligence and that that intelligence(God) is still interested in His creation on a personal level.

The only irrational thought is the one you voice above.

Not really, if mindless evolution is responsible for humans then it's also responsible for watches. On the other hand, if a living, thinking God is responsible for giving humans life and free will, then he isn't directly responsible for watches, humans who freely chose to design and invent them are directly responsible as one would expect, but if you don't believe in free will then you may believe that evolution is responsible for everything life does.

Anyhow, nice talk - have a good evening.
 
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Loudmouth

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Yet there is a certain evolution in watches from when they were first invented until now.

But not biological evolution. Watches don't fit into a nested hierarchy like life does. That is one of the things that differentiates intelligent design from biological evolution, a phylogenetic signal.

I see, I'm suggesting that evolution or environmental adaptation is a process that is a result of design in biological life, in the same way that the ticking of a clock is a process that is a result of design in a watch.

That doesn't work, either. Evolution is a stochastic process while watches are mechanical and predictable.

Humans do use genetic algorithms to produce new designs. The kicker is that the designers don't know what the final design will look like because they don't front load the process. They simply create a selective force and allow a random variation and reproduction to find a solution. Some of the solutions are unlike anything humans would design, such as this antenna:

nasa_antennae.jpg


Intelligent Design states that there was no evolution, that the designs were "hand crafted", so to say.

The general thought behind ID is that biological life is the result of intelligence and that that intelligence(God) is still interested in His creation on a personal level.

At least you are willing to admit that they are talking about God.

Not really, if mindless evolution is responsible for humans then it's also responsible for watches.

No, it isn't. Really.

Humans evolved, not watches.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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The "who" is often least important, as it leads to putting the cart before the horse. It's a evolutionary human cognitive shortcoming that's often hard to suppress. Education is the best way of overcoming this, otherwise we start making up explanations; i.e. Thor & lightning. ;)
It's often called the 'hypersensitive (or hyperactive) agency detection device' (HADD). The tendency to attribute agency to anything that moves - or even stuff that doesn't...
 
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Radrook

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Yeah, you did.

"If indeed you wish to believe in evolution as the means by which life was created you are entitled to your opinion as I am to mine."--Radrook, post 51
Ah I see. You misunderstood me with good reason. My apologies. However, I assure you that I am not confusing the two.
 
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Radrook

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I just did.

"If indeed you wish to believe in evolution as the means by which life was created you are entitled to your opinion as I am to mine."--Radrook, post 51
My apologies. I did not intend to convey that meaning.
 
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FrumiousBandersnatch

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If we follow this line of thinking then we must conclude that the watch wasn't designed either, it's also a product of evolution because humans are a product of evolution.
This is just making an equivocation of 'design'. You can have 'design' in the general sense of organization and order, both natural and intentional (e.g. a snowflake or a watch), or you can have 'design' as solely the product of intent - artefacts of creatures capable of planning and modeling (not just humans - there are more creatures capable of this than you might think). When you equivocate the two, you get the kind of fallacious argument you suggested.

An alternative way of thinking of it is that there are two kinds of design - design by stepwise refinement and design by deduction. Design by deduction is the process of deducing the design from the requirements of the goal, something only possible for a creature capable of abstract thought. Many human designs typically start with a design by deduction and are then advanced by stepwise refinement (e.g. watches).

However, design by deduction isn't an essential start point, because existing objects can be used as a basis for stepwise refinement - i.e. making a series of modifications to a found object until it is suitable to achieve some goal (e.g. bending a wire coat-hanger until you can open a car door through the side window).

But you don't always need to modify the same object during stepwise refinement - sometimes selection by trial and error from a population of varying objects can eventually result in an effective design - consider someone on a stony beach trying to skip stones for the first time, who throws many stones before finding that a flatter one skips better than a round one, then continues to refine his selection of flatter stones until he finds the ideal shape for skipping. In this case, the goal of the selection process is set by the stone thrower who drives it. Is his last selection, the best skipping stone, a design? Kind-of, I guess it's a matter of opinion.

With simple life, the selection process itself is the driver for the stepwise refinement from a population of variants - there is no explicit goal; but because only the variants that survive can reproduce to continue the process, it gives the appearance of having survival as an implicit goal, and gives the appearance of design for survival - although these are just anthropomorphisms.

To continue the beach analogy, the random mixing and interactions of organic molecules prior to the first replicating molecules appearing (i.e. abiogenesis) can be seen as analogous to the man on the beach randomly throwing stones into the water until one happens to skip, and the persistence of the few replicators best able to replicate in their environment as analogous to the subsequent selection of better skipping stones.
 
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bhsmte

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You don't seem to understand that abiogenesis is widely accepted because it is the only idea that is supported by evidence at all. Not enough evidence to call it a theory yet, but still much more than creationists have.

Let's get rid of the "God" word and perhaps you will see why abiogenesis is widely, but not universally, accepted. Let's say there is an event. A field gets a strange pattern overnight. One group points out that they know of people that do this. That they have learned how to do more complex patterns as time goes by and that it is the only reasonable answer. Another group claims that it has to be space aliens since they can't see how people could have done it. Which response is more reasonable to you? Did people make those crop circles or was it space aliens?
Here is the deal;evolution is scary enough for the fundy types, but abiogenesis would be a complete game stopper for them. If evidence comes out in time, to show abiogenesis is a well supported theory, the suicide rate of fundies would sky rocket.
 
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KCfromNC

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That doesn't affect the criteria for determining intelligent design one iota.

Which criteria are those again? Are they the ones which also make astrology a science, as creationism's proponents were forced to admit under oath?
 
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KCfromNC

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Agnosticism is the view that certain metaphysical claims – such as the existence of God or the supernatural – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.

According to the philosopher William L. Rowe, "agnosticism is the view that human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the belief that God exists or the belief that God does not exist". Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of tenets rather than a religion as such.

Agnosticism - Wikipedia

That's nice. Your point?
 
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KCfromNC

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Of course. But science, by it's nature, is incapable of asking the "who" question or of formulating an answer to it. That's what religion is for.
I'm not sure of that. Forensic science, for example, seems to do a pretty good job of answering "who" questions.

Sure, science doesn't do well when the who is an immaterial invisible omnipotent magical being - but it isn't like science is the only approach which fails to provide actual answers about such objects. The problem there isn't the method used to investigate them but the lack of concrete claims about them in the first place.
 
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