Darwinian evolution - still a theory in crisis.

[Hans Blaster]

Matter that doesn't form a living organism ... aka lifeless matter.

Life isn't special.

 

[Buzzard3]

Life isn't special.

So a human being is no more special than a rock?

 

[BCP1928]

So a human being is no more special than a rock?

Only to themselves and their creator.

 

[Larniavc]

Do you mean it's a fact that life arose naturally from inanimate matter?

Sure. It happens every day. You get a bunch of the right molecules and elements, give 'em some energy and boom: organic chemistry.

 

[Larniavc]

So a human being is no more special than a rock?

It depends who you are talking to And what definition of 'special' you are using. Ore containing plutonium is really special in terms of building a nuclear power plant. A random guy walking past said power plant? Not so much.

 

[The Barbarian]

So a human being is no more special than a rock?

Not if God gives each of us an immortal soul. If that weren't true, we'd be mere physical entities, albeit sentient ones.

 

[Bradskii]

Wake me up when someone manages to produce a viable organism from inanimate matter.

You got kids? Well, you did it.

 

[Hans Blaster]

So a human being is no more special than a rock?

Perhaps I should have said "life isn't magic". There is no special essence to lifeforms. They are made of ordinary matter. Animate/inanimate is a meaningless distinction.

 

[Buzzard3]

Animate/inanimate is a meaningless distinction.

So the distinction between a human being and a rock is meaningless. Got it.

 

[David Lamb]

You got kids? Well, you did it.

But first, sperm is or contains living matter, so does the ovum. Second, parents don't bring ova and sperm into existence.

 

[Buzzard3]

You got kids? Well, you did it

You're comparing abiogenesis to reproduction?

 

[Buzzard3]

Sure. It happens every day. You get a bunch of the right molecules and elements, give 'em some energy and boom: organic chemistry.

Very funny.

 

[Bradskii]

But first, sperm is or contains living matter, so does the ovum.

The constituent parts are not alive. Carbon, sodium molecules etc. Maybe you could give your definition of what we can term 'alive'.

Second, parents don't bring ova and sperm into existence.

They are a product of the processes within each of us which transforms inanimate matter into what we describe as living material. At which point we'll need that definition I think.

 

[Bradskii]

You're comparing abiogenesis to reproduction?

No. You wanted to know when someone had transformed inanimate matter into life. You did that. Your sperm was not formed from animate matter. Well, you might have eaten parts of a cow so it was animate before you ate it. But it sure wasn't after you'd bbq'd that t bone.

This is going to be fun...

 

[David Lamb]

The constituent parts are not alive. Carbon, sodium molecules etc. Maybe you could give your definition of what we can term 'alive'.

They are a product of the processes within each of us which transforms inanimate matter into what we describe as living material. At which point we'll need that definition I think.

What I meant was that a husband and wife don't start off with the non-living constituent molecules, and then bring them together in the correct combinations to form egg and sperm. I was answering your post where you seemed to be suggesting that husband and wife turned non-living into living. They didn't; their eggs/sperm were already living. They didn't take carmon and sodium molecules, etc. and combine them to form the eggs and sperm.

 

[1Tonne]

Quote from Charles Darwin
"As by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in the countless numbers in the crust of the earth? The number of intermediate links between all living and extinct species must have been inconceivably great."
Darwin was onto something when he said this.

In the Cambrian period, we see what’s often called the “Cambrian Explosion” — a relatively short window of geological time when a huge variety of complex animals with entirely new body plans suddenly appeared in the fossil record.
What’s striking is that these creatures seem to emerge fully formed, with little to no clear transitional fossils showing how they developed from simpler ancestors.
Some point to tiny pre-Cambrian life forms as possible precursors, but these do not convincingly show the step-by-step changes you'd expect from Darwinian evolution. There's a major gap between those simple organisms and the complex, organised body structures that suddenly show up in the Cambrian layer.
This raises a fair question: If evolution is gradual, where are the in-between forms leading up to all these new body types?

Also, Jesus disproved evolution in one sentence. So, as Christians, we either believe Jesus or we make Him out to be a liar.
He said, "In the beginning God made them male and female."
For a Christian, this should blow evolution out of the water.

 

[Warden_of_the_Storm]

Quote from Charles Darwin
"As by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in the countless numbers in the crust of the earth? The number of intermediate links between all living and extinct species must have been inconceivably great."
Darwin was onto something when he said this.

In the Cambrian period, we see what’s often called the “Cambrian Explosion” — a relatively short window of geological time when a huge variety of complex animals with entirely new body plans suddenly appeared in the fossil record.
What’s striking is that these creatures seem to emerge fully formed, with little to no clear transitional fossils showing how they developed from simpler ancestors.
Some point to tiny pre-Cambrian life forms as possible precursors, but these do not convincingly show the step-by-step changes you'd expect from Darwinian evolution. There's a major gap between those simple organisms and the complex, organised body structures that suddenly show up in the Cambrian layer.
This raises a fair question: If evolution is gradual, where are the in-between forms leading up to all these new body types?

Also, Jesus disproved evolution in one sentence. So, as Christians, we either believe Jesus or we make Him out to be a liar.
He said, "In the beginning God made them male and female."
For a Christian, this should blow evolution out of the water.

I'll start off with the quote-mine by giving the rest of Darwin's quote, since this is a quote-mine from two different chapters of Darwin's work, On The Origin of Species, with the first half being from chapters 6 - Difficulties on Theory:

"But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? It will be much more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the geological record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed; the imperfection of the record being chiefly due to organic beings not inhabiting profound depths of the sea, and to their remains being embedded and preserved to a future age only in masses of sediment sufficiently thick and extensive to withstand an enormous amount of future degradation; and such fossiliferous masses can be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the shallow bed of the sea, whilst it slowly subsides. These contingencies will concur only rarely, and after enormously long intervals. Whilst the bed of the sea is stationary or is rising, or when very little sediment is being deposited, there will be blanks in our geological history. The crust of the earth is a vast museum; but the natural collections have been made only at intervals of time immensely remote."
And the second half from chapter 9 - On the Imperfection of the Geological Record:

"By the theory of natural selection all living species have been connected with the parent-species of each genus, by differences not greater than we see between the varieties of the same species at the present day; and these parent-species, now generally extinct, have in their turn been similarly connected with more ancient species; and so on backwards, always converging to the common ancestor of each great class. So that the number of intermediate and transitional links, between all living and extinct species, must have been inconceivably great. But assuredly, if this theory be true, such have lived upon this earth.

On the lapse of Time. Independently of our not finding fossil remains of such infinitely numerous connecting links, it may be objected, that time will not have sufficed for so great an amount of organic change, all changes having been effected very slowly through natural selection. It is hardly possible for me even to recall to the reader, who may not be a practical geologist, the facts leading the mind feebly to comprehend the lapse of time. He who can read Sir Charles Lyell's grand work on the Principles of Geology, which the future historian will recognise as having produced a revolution in natural science, yet does not admit how incomprehensibly vast have been the past periods of time, may at once close this volume. Not that it suffices to study the Principles of Geology, or to read special treatises by different observers on separate formations, and to mark how each author attempts to give an inadequate idea of the duration of each formation or even each stratum. A man must for years examine for himself great piles of superimposed strata, and watch the sea at work grinding down old rocks and making fresh sediment, before he can hope to comprehend anything of the lapse of time, the monuments of which we see around us."

You do know that Cambrian explosion was a period of several million years, right; 13 to 25 million years? That's 'relatively' short, but not amazingly short enough to be impossible to happen. There are several transitional fossils, but since fossils are hard to obtain anyway, especially those from much earlier time frames, we can only work with what we have.

As for the 'in-between forms': that's every fossil found. There is no end form of any evolutionary lineage. Life keeps evolving.

Your last point is nothing more than just a theological claim which has no real bearing on the topic.

 

[Larniavc]

Very funny.

And accurate.

 

[BCP1928]

So the distinction between a human being and a rock is meaningless. Got it.

That is correct. It is up to you to supply the meaning. That is our duty before God.

 

[The Barbarian]

Very funny.

Guess how we know you aren't an organic chemist.