Intelligent Abiogenesis

[AnotherAtheist]

So, give me one example.

The plastic eating bacteria experiment took 20(?) years under intensely controlled, most favorable lab condition. And the bacteria is still the same bacteria, only have appetite changed.

What is a better example than that?

Different diet is a big change, 20 years is a very short time, very good example. It's no longer the same bacteria.

Chihuahuas and Great Danes are the product of human selection, and will not naturally mate because the differences in physical size. Different species.

 

[juvenissun]

Different diet is a big change, 20 years is a very short time, very good example. It's no longer the same bacteria.

Chihuahuas and Great Danes are the product of human selection, and will not naturally mate because the differences in physical size. Different species.

What are the species names of Chihuahua? Great dane?

I think the "changed" bacteria are still called the same species name. Why?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

What are the species names of Chihuahua? Great dane?

I think the "changed" bacteria are still called the same species name. Why?

They're not. Take fruit flies, split them into two populations, speciate them, and bam, you have two new species of fruit fly. The original species, D. melanogaster, now exists alongside two descendant species, D. melanogaster A and D. melanogaster B (or however you want to label them). They co-exist in much the same way a mother co-exists with her two daughters. Each species is distinct, and each new species inherits all the taxonomic classification of its parent species - as evolution demands.

If we could evolve fruit flies to become elephants - that is, if species could cross taxa - then evolution is wrong.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

What are the species names of Chihuahua? Great dane?

I think the "changed" bacteria are still called the same species name. Why?

This is human naming, and does not define reality.

As I said, dogs are called dogs because we know they are bred varieties. If the variety of dogs that we see now had arisen naturally and we found them like that, they would be different species. Show me one example of animals in the real world where the morphology varies as much as between a Shar-Pei and a Bedllington terrier and they are not assigned to different species.

Physical size differences between a Great Dane and a Chihuahua means that they would not naturally be able to interbreed. This satisfies pretty well all species definitions.

This supports my point: which is that we can show that kinds can vary enough to produce sufficient difference to make things different species. As dogs demonstrate that. Whether we as humans decide to assign them different species names or not does not in any way affect whether or not dogs demonstrate how much a originating species can vary giving selected breeding.

How does human naming invalidate this argument?

 

[SkyWriting]

Well OK then, "God did it" will not be acceptable as a hypothesis by Atheists because it requires a God that they believe not to exist. Same meaning, less opportunity for quibbles.

Well of course. I'd never expect an Atheist to accept the influence of God.
Accepting God as Creator is a matter of pure faith and observation of the existence of matter and order in spite of it's being against the Law.

ENTROPY, THE FIRST AND SECOND LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS AND THE LAW OF MAXIMUM ENTROPY PRODUCTION

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Well of course. I'd never expect an Atheist to accept the influence of God.
Accepting God as Creator is a matter of pure faith and observation of the existence of matter and order in spite of it's being against the Law.

ENTROPY, THE FIRST AND SECOND LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS AND THE LAW OF MAXIMUM ENTROPY PRODUCTION

I'm not going to divert to the laws of entropy, as that's another argument.

But I will say that if Genesis was true, then we should be able to observe creation indirectly as we would see the consequences of creation in the world around us. Hence the acceptance of a literal Old Testament God would not have to be on faith alone. Unless of course a literal Old Testament God deliberately created an earth that looks exactly as if it was very old and that life on it had evolved by natural processes.

 

[SkyWriting]

This is human naming, and does not define reality.

As I said, dogs are called dogs because we know they are bred varieties. If the variety of dogs that we see now had arisen naturally and we found them like that, they would be different species. Show me one example of animals in the real world where the morphology varies as much as between a Shar-Pei and a Bedllington terrier and they are not assigned to different species.

Physical size differences between a Great Dane and a Chihuahua means that they would not naturally be able to interbreed. This satisfies pretty well all species definitions.

Species are also considered distinct if they don't interbreed. It can be for personality reasons, not just physical. There are a handful of definitions.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

Species are also considered distinct if they don't interbreed. It can be for personality reasons, not just physical. There are a handful of definitions.

Agreed. There are at least the biological species concept (can't interbreed and produce fertile offspring), the recognition species concept (could interbreed but choose not to), the morphological species concept (look "sufficiently" different), and others that I'd have to google.

I can't imagine that a Great Dane and a chihuahua would be able to successfully breed and produce offspring.

 

[SkyWriting]

You should have stopped at the word 'faith', 'Accepting God as Creator is a matter of pure faith'.

I'm obligated to tell the whole truth and nothing but the Truth.

 

[SkyWriting]

Agreed. There are at least the biological species concept (can't interbreed and produce fertile offspring), the recognition species concept (could interbreed but choose not to), the morphological species concept (look "sufficiently" different), and others that I'd have to google.

I can't imagine that a Great Dane and a chihuahua would be able to successfully breed and produce offspring.

I wonder that artificial insemination wouldn't be possible, and strongly desire to see the result.

 

[SkyWriting]

I'm not going to divert to the laws of entropy, as that's another argument.

But I will say that if Genesis was true, then we should be able to observe creation indirectly as we would see the consequences of creation in the world around us. Hence the acceptance of a literal Old Testament God would not have to be on faith alone. Unless of course a literal Old Testament God deliberately created an earth that looks exactly as if it was very old and that life on it had evolved by natural processes.

You mean if Jesus turned water into wine, we should be able to test it and show that it was water just minutes before?
That just doesn't hold.
Or if a blind man is healed, we could examine him and show his lifetime of blindness up until yesterday?
I won't deny you the possibility, but I'm not convinced on the logic of being able to scientifically see God's work.

 

[Skaloop]

It's important to note that even if it could be done, it would prove that intelligence was required.

No, it wouldn't. It would prove that intelligent beings could do it, not that intelligence is required.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

I wonder that artificial insemination wouldn't be possible, and strongly desire to see the result.

I would guess that if it was a female chihuahua then this might result in the death of the mother. It might work the other way around.

There are lots of species where it is possible to do "manual" cross-fertilisation producing fertile results. But in a natural environment, the species can't or more often won't interbreed.

I would put it to you that if we released a population of Great Danes and a population of chihuahuas into a suitable natural environment and let them be, that the overwhelming majority of the successful breedings would be between Great Danes and other Great Danes, and Chihuahuas and other Chihuahuas.

If the environment we put them into has two good ecological niches, one suiting Great Danes, and one suiting Chihuahuas, then any cross-breeds that did occur would be selected against, which would then help maintain the population as different species.

Remember that my point is not that they are separate species, but just to show that it's quite plausible that a single "species" can evolve into something noticeably different.

 

[AnotherAtheist]

You mean if Jesus turned water into wine, we should be able to test it and show that it was water just minutes before?
That just doesn't hold.
Or if a blind man is healed, we could examine him and show his lifetime of blindness up until yesterday?
I won't deny you the possibility, but I'm not convinced on the logic of being able to scientifically see God's work.

First: You created the example of water into wine, and then demolished that example. That wasn't anything like what I was saying, as I was specifically talking about the evidence we'd see around us if the world had actually be created according as per a literal reading of Genesis.

The most obvious thing would be the evidence of a young earth. You'd be able to see that. The same way that there are mountains of evidence (pun intended) that we actually have an old earth.

We'd also see evidence that all the creatures appeared immediately, and that there wasn't a sizeable change in the species on earth over time.

If the earth had been made according to a literal interpretation of Genesis, there would be many "smoking guns" of evidence left behind as to how our world came to be. And an absence of evidence saying that it actually came to be by quite different means.

 

[SkyWriting]

No, it wouldn't. It would prove that intelligent beings could do it, not that intelligence is required.

Yep....you got me on that.

 

[SkyWriting]

First: You created the example of water into wine, and then demolished that example. That wasn't anything like what I was saying, as I was specifically talking about the evidence we'd see around us if the world had actually be created according as per a literal reading of Genesis.

The most obvious thing would be the evidence of a young earth. You'd be able to see that.<snip>

I disagree. From the description of earth (dirt) and trees with fruit (trees don't fruit one day after planting) and rivers, and animals, Adam and Eve walking around......the evidence would be an Earth more than 7 days old.

Cooled bedrock....the list is endless. There would be no evidence of a Creation event. Just like with the wine.
No evidence of a Creation event would exist.

 

[juvenissun]

They're not. Take fruit flies, split them into two populations, speciate them, and bam, you have two new species of fruit fly. The original species, D. melanogaster, now exists alongside two descendant species, D. melanogaster A and D. melanogaster B (or however you want to label them). They co-exist in much the same way a mother co-exists with her two daughters. Each species is distinct, and each new species inherits all the taxonomic classification of its parent species - as evolution demands.

If we could evolve fruit flies to become elephants - that is, if species could cross taxa - then evolution is wrong.

If fruit fly is so easy to generate new species, then how many fruit fly species have been produced? Why is the fruit fly so easy to make new species, but not other flies? If these questions are not answered, then it suggests that the original experiment on the speciation of fruit fly had some problems. The melanogaster A, B, C, ... may not be true species.

 

[juvenissun]

This is human naming, and does not define reality.

As I said, dogs are called dogs because we know they are bred varieties. If the variety of dogs that we see now had arisen naturally and we found them like that, they would be different species. Show me one example of animals in the real world where the morphology varies as much as between a Shar-Pei and a Bedllington terrier and they are not assigned to different species.

Physical size differences between a Great Dane and a Chihuahua means that they would not naturally be able to interbreed. This satisfies pretty well all species definitions.

This supports my point: which is that we can show that kinds can vary enough to produce sufficient difference to make things different species. As dogs demonstrate that. Whether we as humans decide to assign them different species names or not does not in any way affect whether or not dogs demonstrate how much a originating species can vary giving selected breeding.

How does human naming invalidate this argument?

A species should have a name. So what is the species name of each dog? Why don't they have specified species name?

 

[AnotherAtheist]

A species should have a name. So what is the species name of each dog? Why don't they have specified species name?

As I said before, dogs don't have different species name. That is utterly irrelevant as to whether or not the selective breeding of dogs has produced sufficiently different individuals that they would definitely be classified as different species if animals varying that much in physical form were found to have arisen in nature. I note that you are unable or unwilling to address my actual point, and that you've concentrated on an irrelevant question.

 

[Skaloop]

I note that you are unable or unwilling to address my actual point, and that you've concentrated on an irrelevant question.

That's the Creationist M.O.