Lucaspa:
Philosophical naturalism holds that there are no supernatural causes or entities. That's pretty much atheism, isn't it?
As to interpreting scientific evidence based on our philosophies, that doesn't work. There are too many scientists with different philosophies that all accept evolution. Also, remember that creationism was the scientific theory prior to 1831. The people who falsified it were all theists or deists. Now, if evidence is only interpreted by your philosophy, then creationism couldn't have been falsified in the first place. It's the data. It's always the data.
A definition of naturalism in my dictionary states: "Doctrine rejecting spiritual explanations of the world" among other things. It sounds atheistic to me, too. So it seems to me that the philosophy underlying evolutionary naturalism is perhaps bound with atheism. Just thoughts.
As to scientists with many philosophies accepting evolution; of course. That's because many, many different religions are based in naturalistic philosophies--their 'gods' evolved too, if you will, just to higher state of being. Or, we're all gods. Things like that. I think that the only religions, to my knowledge, that hold to special creation are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Perhaps there are other majopr religions that hold to such, I do not know.
Of course it's always the data, but data can be interpreted differently by different people with different ideas--even within evolution, you know this to be true. This is true even for different theories--Wachtershauser might interpret one thing to support his pyrite idea, while Miller might interpret it to go against it. Much of the time, dare I say
most of the time, the evidence isn't black and white. Then a creationist comes in and interprets the same data to falsify certain ideas about chemical evolution in a sense--why's that so much different from contrasting ideas within the evolutionary camp?
A literal interpretation of the Bible and evolution are quite contradicting. However, even Biblical theism is not only literalism. What the Darwin quotes showed was that Darwin did not believe that evolution falsified a deity or eliminated the necessity of one.
As AiG often stresses, it's not just a literal interpretation--it's a
natural interpretation. Sure, you can bend the meaning of almost any document to suit your interests. But what Genesis says is obviously within a literal-type context. And Revelation is obviously in a prophetic/symbolism-type context; it SAYS he's having a dream. Ken Ham uses this illustration: "Back in my father's day, it took one day to drive across the Australian outback during the day." As you can see, day takes on three different meanings here: time, one solar day, and the period of daylight, respectively. I don't really wish to discuss theology here too much, but--there's my thoughts.
About Darwin, he began to compromise greatly with the natural understand of Genesis after reading a book introducing geological
naturalism--if my memory serves me, it was authored by Huxley.
All the data I have seen is that Fox's protocells are alive. Therefore, the secondary causes of chemistry will yield life just like the secondary cause of gravity keeps the planets in orbit.
I'm sorry, can I have a reference for that again? Sorry for the inconvenience.
Right here is your god-of-the-gaps. If there are no known at present chemical processes that yield life, then you invoke god. That is exactly what god-of-the-gaps is. So what happens when a material (naturalistic) cause is found? No god. Chase, what you are unconsciously doing here is accepting the basic statement of faith of atheism: natural = without God. Even if there is a naturalistic mechanism, is God absent?
It doesn't really matter if I believe life arose naturally or not here. I'm just discussing whether it can be explained naturally, because it interests me. As for a 'creation scientist', he would probably start with the bias that such a cause will not be found.
No, it was the plea of another poster that I go easy on you because of your youth.
Lol, I don't expect you to go easy nor do I wish you to. I simply want you to explain things so that I may understand them, because my own understand is somewhat limited. I of course don't expect to really prevail in the discussion, so to speak. I wish to learn what others have to say about different arguments in this issue.
And here is your concern. You have fashioned the debate such that evolution = atheism and creationism = theism. What you have done is said: if God created by evolution there is no God. Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it? Or, put another way, you have taken your literal interpretation of Genesis and said: If God didn't create this particular way, then God didn't create and doesn't exist. Can you see the does-not-follow here? If God is as powerful as you say, can't God have created by evolution?
I would say in my mind that evolution = philosophical naturalism which, as I've always understood it, underlies evolutionism. Creation would equal non-strict naturalism, or uniformitarianism. That is, Uniformitarian means are not always necessary, and evidence can be explained on the supernatural level ONLY where the Bible specifically mentions events that affect scientific history--that is, the Flood as it applies to geology and population genetics, or whatever.
I think that if God created by evolution, it falsifies the Bible's God--but not necessarily any god at all. If I were to change the up-front meaning of Genesis 1-11 because of scientific evidence, I would consider it a worthless Bible.
Mass action works in a situation where 1) the system is in equilibrium and 2) the energy of bond formation is low. Such as ionic interactions. However, the energy of the covalent bond in the peptide bond is such that just having water around isn't going to provide the energy to pull the peptide bond apart. Sulphur gave you a good point: proteins in your cells are in water. Why aren't they disintegrating?
Well, obviously because of activation energy level--they still are disintegrating, just very very slowly. Sarfati's article, which I highly suggest, is located here: <
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3998.asp>. I discussed this with Sarfati once, and he said that he'd presented in the information in Queensland, saying: "I mentioned aspects such as stabilising alpha helix. This was experimentally verified by some of the references I cited. For example, polymerization experiments with various optical purity, and small amounts of allochiral impurities markedly shortened the maximum possible chain that could be formed. I also pointed out in more detail that allochiral impurities disrupted oligomerization of RNA."
I found an interesting section of an article that is relevant to this:
"This means that condensation reactions, like the synthesis of peptides from amino acids, are <I>inhibited </I>by excess water, and the reverse reaction is favoured. Professor A.E. Wilder-Smith, commenting on this fact, writes:<I>
</I>The consequence of this well-known fact of organic chemistry is important: concentrations of amino acids will combine only in minute amounts, if they combine at all in a primeval ocean providing excess water, to form polypeptides. Any amounts of polypeptide which might be formed will be broken down into their initial components (amino acids) by the excess water. <I>The ocean is thus practically the last place on this or any other planet where the proteins of life could be formed spontaneously from amino acids. </I>Yet nearly all textbooks of biology teach this nonsense to support evolutionary theory and spontaneous biogenics. It requires a very great unfamiliarity with organic chemistry not to take into consideration the above-mentioned facts when proposing postulates for biogenesis
.<SUP>
13</SUP> (Emphasis in the original.)
In the case of biogenesis, these reversible reactions are all in equilibrium with one another, since there is no cell machinery to remove products selectively. In the body, organic reactions such as the synthesis of proteins and the oxidation of fats occur because of the intervention of specific enzymes (acting as a type of chemical machinery)<SUP>
14</SUP> acting specifically at each step along the reaction chain. However, enzymes are proteins, and one cannot claim synthesis for a product if one begins with the product one is trying to end up with."
-Russell Grigg, "Could Monkeys Type the 23rd Psalm?"
Creation13(1):30-33, December 1990-February 1991. His references were: 13:
A.E. Wilder-Smith, <I>The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution </I>(San Diego, CA: Master Books, 1981), Chapter 2, Biogenesis by Chance? p. 16. AND 14: Cell machinery ensures that products are removed from the reaction before they can revert to reactants, which results in irreversibility. The primordial soup, from which life is alleged to have evolved, would have no such elaborate machinery, so the reaction would tend towards equilibrium which is away from life.
But the papers do explain everythig about protein synthesis. It does take place in water. Quite well. Data trumps claims about "mass action".
I suspect this is because the energy barrier is broken, under conditions which many consider implausible. I again suggest Sarfati's article, if only to give you an idea of his arguments.
Glycine is neither D nor L. Which refutes Sarfati right there.
No it doesn't. He refers to glycine as the simplest, non-chiral amino acid, as it contains only a H atom for its R-group.
No, they simply fold differently. They may have a random walk (unfolded) sequence in the middle, but wherever they can fold, they will.
I was under the impression that they would denaturize if most of the R-groups didn't form H bonds.
If you can, get a copy of Lehninger's Biochemistry.
Thanks--I'll see if I can find one.