In the beginning there were chemicals...

[Micaiah]

... or so the evolutionists will argue. Those chemicals were supposed to have somehow randomly come together to form the molecules that form amino acids that form proteins that form life.

Evolutionists usually call this abiogenesis. While evolution is supposed to have resulted from random mutations and natural selection, it is hard to see how abiogenesis resulted from anything other than random change. Of course the chances are so low that it is impossible. But that never stopped the evolutionist before.

Now before someone starts arguing that evolutionists believe in evolution, and not necessarily abiogenesis, let me ask 'Do they?'. How do the TE's in this forum claim that the postulated first organisms of life came from the slime pool.

Keep the explanations in your own words if possible please, and post links as appropriate. If you don't know, feel free to make that your answer.

 

[Gold Dragon]

... or so the evolutionists will argue. Those chemicals were supposed to have somehow randomly come together to form the molecules that form amino acids that form proteins that form life.

Evolutionists usually call this abiogenesis. While evolution is supposed to have resulted from random mutations and natural selection, it is hard to see how abiogenesis resulted from anything other than random change. Of course the chances are so low that it is impossible. But that never stopped the evolutionist before.

Now before someone starts arguing that evolutionists believe in evolution, and not necessarily abiogenesis, let me ask 'Do they?'. How do the TE's in this forum claim that the postulated first organisms of life came from the slime pool.

Keep the explanations in your own words if possible please, and post links as appropriate. If you don't know, feel free to make that your answer.

Excellent. This is much better use of language and phraseology than your "new information" threads.

I am a TE who has looked into the abiogenesis experiements and theories and concluded them to be too weak to base any sort of trust in. While scientific evidence may come to light to more strongly support abiogenesis, that currently is not the case. This is very similar to how I view the experiements, papers and theories of YEC Creation Scientists.

So my current understanding of origins does not include abiogensis, life from non-life. I do not have a solid theory of how life was first formed on earth or what were the first "common ancestors" in evolution, and that is ok.

 

[Micaiah]

Seems to me that would leave your explanation of origins with a rather large hole in it.

 

[notto]

In science it is better to say 'we don't know' than to try to fill a hole with something unscientific.

As far as my personal view, first, it really doesnt matter from a theological point of view, second, I have no problem with God using observable natural phenomena's to create. I tend to accept that the first life was formed through chemical means, after all, this is the way the rest of creation works.

The opening post uses words like 'random' and asserts that the chances are impossible. This is simply poor understanding of chemistry and probablity (unless the poster would like to actually put forth the model and assumptions under which this was determined). Chemistry is anything but random.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Seems to me that would leave your explanation of origins with a rather large hole in it.

Yes, my scientific understanding of origins has many large holes in it. Just like my scientific understanding of matter and subatomic particles and string theory. My scientific understanding of a host of diseases like lupus which still have no medical explanation. And that is ok. There may be evidence in the future that brings light to these issues, but for now, they are scientific uncertainties.

The fact that there are unknowns does not affect either my theological understanding of creation or my scientific understanding of it.

 

[Micaiah]

Alright, so you have no explanation for how the first signs of life apparently appeared. But I take it you believe that the first lifeforms came by naturalistic processes from the slime pond. Can you confirm this is your belief.

 

[herev]

... or so the evolutionists will argue. Those chemicals were supposed to have somehow randomly come together to form the molecules that form amino acids that form proteins that form life.

Evolutionists usually call this abiogenesis. While evolution is supposed to have resulted from random mutations and natural selection, it is hard to see how abiogenesis resulted from anything other than random change. Of course the chances are so low that it is impossible. But that never stopped the evolutionist before.

Now before someone starts arguing that evolutionists believe in evolution, and not necessarily abiogenesis, let me ask 'Do they?'. How do the TE's in this forum claim that the postulated first organisms of life came from the slime pool.

Keep the explanations in your own words if possible please, and post links as appropriate. If you don't know, feel free to make that your answer.

why is it that when you discuss evolution here, you always fail to add God into the equation? As Theistic Evolutionists, it's not random change if God is behind it. Why is this such a difficult concept?

 

[meebs]

... or so the evolutionists will argue. Those chemicals were supposed to have somehow randomly come together to form the molecules that form amino acids that form proteins that form life.

Evolutionists usually call this abiogenesis. While evolution is supposed to have resulted from random mutations and natural selection, it is hard to see how abiogenesis resulted from anything other than random change. Of course the chances are so low that it is impossible. But that never stopped the evolutionist before.

Now before someone starts arguing that evolutionists believe in evolution, and not necessarily abiogenesis, let me ask 'Do they?'. How do the TE's in this forum claim that the postulated first organisms of life came from the slime pool.

Keep the explanations in your own words if possible please, and post links as appropriate. If you don't know, feel free to make that your answer.

Yes i beleive in abiogenesis. By definition abiogenesis is living matter arising from non living matter. Thats what i beleive God did, he sprang life from non-life. Then set the course of evolution. Its hard to explain what i beleive about it. But i think God created the laws of life, the universe and everything. And can change things according to his will, but it was all sort of predestined- like he knew what was coming next. Thats how i think he chose us from primates. Hope you get what i mean - but you did ask us to put it in our own words!

(what i said could be a whole lot of rubbish though )

 

[Gold Dragon]

Alright, so you have no explanation for how the first signs of life apparently appeared. But I take it you believe that the first lifeforms came by naturalistic processes from the slime pond. Can you confirm this is your belief.

Just as evolution can be believed to be directed by God and is not necessarily purely naturalistic, neither does abiogenesis need to be believed as a purely naturalistic phenomenon. As I said earlier, the current theories of abiogenesis are very weakly supported by evidence at this moment. However, this could change.

As a Christian who believes that Genesis is a story about the intimate relationship between God and creation, any scientific process discovered as part of our origins was intimately part of God's design. And as always, science does not say anything about whether a supernatural power was behind what appears to be a naturalistic process or not. It is beyond the scope of science to make that determination.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

i'd like to capture a couple of phrases in this thread:

It is beyond the scope of science to make that determination

The fact that there are unknowns

scientific understanding of origins has many large holes in it

In science it is better to say 'we don't know' than to try to fill a hole with something unscientific.

So my current understanding of origins does not include abiogensis,
-----

first lifeforms came by naturalistic processes from the slime pond.


.....


science uses a principle of methodological naturalism, this versus the philosophic principle of naturalism which assumes the sufficiency of naturalism. That is PM assumes a naturalistic answer will someday occur to every scientific problem. science itself makes no such claim. non-scientific trained people, often YEC's confuse the two positions: PM and MN. they are not the same.

I have lots of holes in my scientific understanding of things. some because i don't understand the science, most because i haven't studied it, and a lot because science doesn't have the answer.

"i dont know". is a sufficient answer in science.
likewise "not my area of study or expertise" is likewise a good answer.

so most TE's say, like the postings above, that abiogenesis is a not-developed enough science and yields more speculations than good data, and it is not part of TOE which starts with a replicatible something(maybe a cell, maybe something simpler).
and that is a decent scientific answer.

 

[seebs]

I don't know.

Is this a hole in my explanation? Yes.

So? I don't claim to have a complete explanation of everything; I am mostly concerned with the reliability of the claims I *do* make. I would rather be accurate than complete.

If I said "magical leprechauns created the first biological cells", my theory would be more complete, but very questionable. I don't see the need to fill in "gaps"; it's okay to say "I don't know" sometimes.

 

[Vance]

Right now, I would say we simply don't yet have enough information to determine exactly how God initiated life (and, theologically, the only real point is that He did). There was a time when we didn't know about the God-given processes of photosynthesis or the details about a thousand other natural processes that God established in this creation of His. We are learning more about God's Creation all the time, including a lot about how He brought it all about. But we are still in this learning process, and there are HUGE gaps in this knowledge. We have a long way to go, but I find my awe of God increasing with each new discovery, rather than having it diminish.

The Genesis accounts aren't meant to give us a detailed, scientific account of HOW and WHEN God created, it is, instead, a powerful statement of the WHO and the WHY, and establishes the relationships of God to creation, Man to the rest of creation and, most importantly, of Man to God.