Poll about evolutionary science

[Sky]

There is a big difference. Our bodies contain water, but all of our natural cells are living matter. All of a pen's molecules are non-living matter. The pen may have living things on it, such as bacteria, but the pen itself is composed of non-living matter. If there was no difference between living and non-living matter, that pen could start evolving into a living creature! If abiogenesis is true, then why aren't non-living things evolving into living things?

 

[Hank]

Originally posted by Morat  
That's nice. It's always pleasant when people share their opinions. How about I nip on down to the biochemists involved in abiogenesis work and tell them they're not scientists.

  Oh wait, I'll need a reason. 

You could tell them: "Hank said so, and he also said that they should stay with science fiction which abiogenesis is."
Also if you are a biochemist you should know that biochemistry has no real clue on how life begun, they use admittedly imaginative ideas, but this is it. If you are tempted to state which Prof. Dr. PhD said other wise, those people make money on how many papers they issue; quantity vs quality from the University  ergo most is garbage, thus make sure the paper you quote would hold up.    

 

[Chris H]

For what it's worth God could have used the prinicples behind abiogeneisis (assuming that it's a valid concept at some point) to initially create life.

What's wrong with a being who creates a universe that evolves life?

Chris

 

[MSBS]

fa

Originally posted by franklin
And don't tell me it's off the topic or not related to your theory.  That is beginning to sound like a cop out!

 

In other words, you get to define what the theory of evolution is, even though, by your own words, you have never studied it and are almost entirely ignorant of biology? 

 

From what I've been able to gather from your various posts, you are lumping pretty much anything from modern science that you feel to threaten your veiw of what the bible says, as being part of the theory of evolution.  Thats why you are all over the map, bringing in theories from cosmology, physics, biochem, biology, and information theory.  When we tell you "this is not a part of the theory" it is because it is darn well not a part of the theory.

Your questions about cosmology, etc. are like someone jumping onto a thread about the battle of Gettysburg and insisting that everyone answer questions about Sherman's march to the sea.  Then when everyone says this thread is about Gettysburg, telling them it's a cop out and demanding that they answer questions relating to the wilderness campaign.

 

[Hank]

Originally posted by Chris H
For what it's worth God could have used the prinicples behind abiogeneisis (assuming that it's a valid concept at some point) to initially create life.

What's wrong with a being who creates a universe that evolves life?

Chris

Frankly, I can see 'evolution' as in adapting-to-the-environment as a build-in part of the DNA design. To make entire mammals on sheer evolutionary processes is illogical. If true, there ain't no God no where.

 

[LadyShea]

I started accepting abiogenesis as likely after hearing about then studying extremophiles http://www.astrobiology.com/extreme.html

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Hank
Frankly, I can see 'evolution' as in adapting-to-the-environment as a build-in part of the DNA design. To make entire mammals on sheer evolutionary processes is illogical. If true, there ain't no God no where.

I don't see how this follows at all. It seems pretty plausible to me. I don't think my personal experiences which have convinced me of God's existance are valid or invalid depending entirely on some bit of biology.

 

[Sinai]

Originally posted by MSBS


Your questions about cosmology, etc. are like someone jumping onto a thread about the battle of Gettysburg and insisting that everyone answer questions about Sherman's march to the sea.  Then when everyone says this thread is about Gettysburg, telling them it's a cop out and demanding that they answer questions relating to the wilderness campaign.

Please forgive me for asking a question that has virtually nothing to do with this thread's topic, but your "Civil War history buff" analogy was just too much of a temptation. Have you read the new book April 1865: The Month That Saved America? If so, what did you think of it; if not, I heartily recommend it.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Sky.

 

Can you please tell me the difference between living matter and non living matter.  Please give me a textbook or website to refer to, since I have never encountered those terms.  YOu admit that the water in a cell is not living matter.  Water comprises over 90% of a cell.  So the remaining 10% is living matter?  You mean to tell me that hydrogen and oxygen atoms within the lipids of the cell membrane are different then those in the water within the cell.  How does  oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous or sodium in a cell differ then in a rock?   Ok, obviously the constituent atoms making up the cell are not alive.  Even you have to admit that sky.   So what about the next step in complexity the molecules.  Lets take an amino acid like glutamic acid.  Are you going to try and tell me that a molecule of glutamic acid inside a cell is living matter, but a molecule of glutamic acid on an asteroid is nonliving.  You can see the sillyness of that one .  DNA caries our genetic code. DNA can also be manufactured in a lab.   They are the same molecule, just much more complex then amino acids., but still no distinction for manmade DNA in a testtube and natural DNA in a chromosome.  So, we can conclude that at the molecular level, there is no difference between living and nonliving matter. 

How about something more complex.  A cell membrane?  Lipid bilayers exist in nature outside of living cells.  The organelles of a cell?  Perhaps only a whole cell?  How about when the cell dies.  Does the matter in the cell (except for the water which composes 90% of it's mass) know somehow that it is nolonger living matter.  Even after a cell dies, lysosomes are released from vacuoles which break down the cell.  Complex biochemistry is still occuring, even though the cell is dead.  Is there something in that process by which transforms the matter from living to non living?

 

Life is usually defined as being something which responds to the environment, replicates, grows, and has metabolism.  There is no scientific distinction between living matter and nonliving matter.  Unless I missed those classes.

 

 

 

[MSBS]

Originally posted by Sinai
Please forgive me for asking a question that has virtually nothing to do with this thread's topic, but your "Civil War history buff" analogy was just too much of a temptation. Have you read the new book April 1865: The Month That Saved America? If so, what did you think of it; if not, I heartily recommend it.

 

Sinai, no I haven't read it, but thanks for the recomendation.  Civil War history is one of many interests that I have right now that are taking a back seat to my thesis project  .  I'll try to pick up a copy of it some time though.

 

[Hank]

Originally posted by seebs
I don't see how this follows at all. It seems pretty plausible to me. I don't think my personal experiences which have convinced me of God's existance are valid or invalid depending entirely on some bit of biology.

What I mean is, if evolution as per Darwin is correct, in all areas, we really don't have a God. If there is a God who did that, He basically put a cell together threw it in the ocean and said "Bon voyage"; and thus your personal experiences are then obviously a fiction of your imagination, or so I would argue.

 

[RufusAtticus]

Originally posted by Hank
What I mean is, if evolution as per Darwin is correct, in all areas, we really don't have a God. If there is a God who did that, He basically put a cell together threw it in the ocean and said "Bon voyage"; and thus your personal experiences are then obviously a fiction of your imagination, or so I would argue.

Point 1: Evolution per Darwin is incorrect since he did not know about Genetic Inheritance. The Modern Synthesis maintains the importance of natural selection, but also includes other forces for descent with modification.

Point 2: Evolution is not concerned with the origin of life, only the diversification of it. Plenty of christians accept evolution as it is undstood by science. Many of them see God as a creator of the first lifeform. Whereas others see His importance in the gift of the soul.

 

[Morat]

There is a big difference. Our bodies contain water, but all of our natural cells are living matter. All of a pen's molecules are non-living matter. The pen may have living things on it, such as bacteria, but the pen itself is composed of non-living matter. If there was no difference between living and non-living matter, that pen could start evolving into a living creature! If abiogenesis is true, then why aren't non-living things evolving into living things?

  Define "living". A pen and a person are both made out of elements. The only difference is that a "person" or a "life form" is a self-replicating system. But so are viruses. And some ordinary chemical reactions. Self-organization and replication happen often enough in chemistry.

 

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Frankly, I think sky does not understand that living orgainisms are made up of ordinary chemicals, no different then those found in rocks, soil, and air. At the molecular level, the only difference between non life and life is in the level ofchemical activity. Organisms have a myriad of reactions going on, often with complex molelcules - all fed by a constant input of energy. And at that, the distinction is not that clear. Many chemical systems are on that fuzzy boundry between living and nonliving. But the matter involved is essencially the same.

Sky asked why abiogenesis does not occur today. The earth is covered with life. If you put the raw chemicals for "making life" into the environment, well the bacteria and microbes and other organisms would just consume them in short order. This is essencially what happens when you fertilize your lawn with Scott's Turf Builder, or dump PO4 based detergents in a lake.

Sky still refuses to render an explanation for his terms living and nonliving matter.

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Hank
What I mean is, if evolution as per Darwin is correct, in all areas, we really don't have a God. If there is a God who did that, He basically put a cell together threw it in the ocean and said "Bon voyage"; and thus your personal experiences are then obviously a fiction of your imagination, or so I would argue.

I don't see the connection here at all. Imagine, if you will, that the universe has the quality that, given time, life will arise in it, as a simple consequence of the underlying physics of this universe.

How does this invalidate anything? The theory of evolution is not incompatible with the idea that God arranged the whole thing, or the idea that, once the expected results (basically intelligent life) had come up, God came in and provided souls. Nothing in the theory of evolution addresses questions like "souls" or "afterlife".

So, I don't particularly care whether or not God intervened in any measurable way between the Big Bang and the first /homo sapiens/. What I care about is that I believe that He has clearly intervened *SINCE* then.

 

[Hank]

Originally posted by RufusAtticus
Point 1: Evolution per Darwin is incorrect since he did not know about Genetic Inheritance. The Modern Synthesis maintains the importance of natural selection, but also includes other forces for descent with modification.

Point 2: Evolution is not concerned with the origin of life, only the diversification of it. Plenty of christians accept evolution as it is undstood by science. Many of them see God as a creator of the first lifeform. Whereas others see His importance in the gift of the soul.

I know you know that. Follow back where I quoted my argument. Note 'evolution' not evolution. Somehow we need the quote of quote system, thus train of thoughts are recognized. Which word would you have used?
Abiogenesis was not the issue.

To 2 - I am not a Christian. Let's say God made the first life form. My original premise still stands. Instead of 'cell' read first live form. Christians have been in the habit to include 'foreign' doctrines. - What soul? There is no such thing. I either am or I am not. I have no 'dual' existence. Thus either science follows through and fills the holes of 'evolution' and shows there really is no God, or when the holes (abiogenesis) are filled it shows there might have been a god after all.

 

[Hank]

Originally posted by seebs
I don't see the connection here at all. Imagine, if you will, that the universe has the quality that, given time, life will arise in it, as a simple consequence of the underlying physics of this universe.

How does this invalidate anything? The theory of evolution is not incompatible with the idea that God arranged the whole thing, or the idea that, once the expected results (basically intelligent life) had come up, God came in and provided souls. Nothing in the theory of evolution addresses questions like "souls" or "afterlife".

So, I don't particularly care whether or not God intervened in any measurable way between the Big Bang and the first /homo sapiens/. What I care about is that I believe that He has clearly intervened *SINCE* then.

Thus everything was planned by God within the Big Bang and thereafter?

I don’t even think there was a Big Bang. There is no logic behind this fairytale called Big Bang.

The concept of evolution if that one specie had its descendant evolved into different groups of species and so on would be proof that there is not God. What was the first life form? Came it really from the sea? Why can you not drink sea water? The ph level is close enough, but boy you can not drink it, even so you need salt to survive? Was that a side step by evolution? Let’s say the first life form popped up on the ground. A little tough on young earth. Again you need to accept that species affected earth atmosphere and environment as well as earth affected the development of species. One needs to tolerate numerous sub theories to follow what happened after the first life form. I accept basic happenings within life which does evolve; I don’t accept those processes to give us the homo sepia.


BTW, intervened how?

 

[Morat]

I don’t even think there was a Big Bang. There is no logic behind this fairytale called Big Bang.

  Yeah, it's a conspiracy by cosmologies (most of them with at least one advanced degree, if not several, in one of the most intellectually challenging fields in existance). Or they're too stupid to see the gaping holes in the Big Bang easily noticable by the average Joe on the street.

   That's what I love about Young Earth Creationists. The arrogance. Either they're the victims of a mass conspiracy, or they're so much smarter and more intuitive than all those 'experts'. They can see these gaping flaws, so obvious that even a total laymen can spot them, yet that somehow elude the experts...

 

 

[Hank]

Originally posted by Morat
  Yeah, it's a conspiracy by cosmologies (most of them with at least one advanced degree, if not several, in one of the most intellectually challenging fields in existance). Or they're too stupid to see the gaping holes in the Big Bang easily noticable by the average Joe on the street.

   That's what I love about Young Earth Creationists. The arrogance. Either they're the victims of a mass conspiracy, or they're so much smarter and more intuitive than all those 'experts'. They can see these gaping flaws, so obvious that even a total laymen can spot them, yet that somehow elude the experts...

 

Not sure where you come from.

I am not a creationist. Am I arrogant? I just ask for prove. Show some substantial logic behind this Big Bang thing. If you know cosmology you should know the Schwarzschild horizon. Anything beyond it is simply is fiction. Also please show where anyone even remotely mentioned conspiracies of the evil scientist LOL  I questions things, everything from Christians to scientists.

Big Bang - Hubble observed that the cosmos expands, from this observation science flocked to the idea of a Big Bang. If you believe in the Big Bang, fine. People believe in Santa Claus and the monster of Loch Ness. Those people can not prove one iota of it, neither can anyone the Big Bang. If you can otherwise show me. If you can't ... I heard that from a priest, how dare do you argue against God's word? What are scientists? The writers of the new bible we have to follow?

 

[seebs]

Originally posted by Hank

The concept of evolution if that one specie had its descendant evolved into different groups of species and so on would be proof that there is not God.

How so? I see absolutely no connection between these. God is a loving creator. The Bible doesn't say "God is Love, but is specifically negated by a change in phylum occurring over time through gradual mutation".

What was the first life form? Came it really from the sea? Why can you not drink sea water? The ph level is close enough, but boy you can not drink it, even so you need salt to survive? Was that a side step by evolution?

Huh? I don't even understand the question. I have generally assumed that the first life forms were single-celled, and probably much more tolerant of various environments than we are.

Let�s say the first life form popped up on the ground. A little tough on young earth. Again you need to accept that species affected earth atmosphere and environment as well as earth affected the development of species. One needs to tolerate numerous sub theories to follow what happened after the first life form. I accept basic happenings within life which does evolve; I don�t accept those processes to give us the homo sepia.

I don't see any reason for them not to have given rise to us.

BTW, intervened how?

Well, I believe that every last interaction of so much as a particle, or the tiniest amount of force, anywhere, is a specific and active decision by God to continue enforcing the physics He chose. This would mean that small tweaks would be pretty easy for Him.

I don't know. Maybe He dropped a rock on something that was about to eat the grandfather of the thing He planned to put the first soul in. Maybe not. I don't really care; all I care about is that, once we existed as beings with souls, God told us that we were loved.