what exactly do you Know... about evolution???

[fieldsofwind]

lol... that was good seesaw... and everything that you post pertain to things that you have done actual tests on??? You have found these rocks... these fossils... this evidence??? This unquestionalbe evidence???

take care bud

FOW

 

[LadyShea]

fields...you posted too many things to discuss in depth. Pick a topic, ask a question, and let's discuss it. The fossil record? Fine open a topic on that. Dating techniques? Do that topic. Nobody is going to write you a textbook on this many subjects.

All of your intfo has been refuted anyway....go to Talk Origins to find out how, when and where...they've done the work already.

Also, even if evolution is completely untrue...what does that prove? Does it prove the Bible is correct? No...this is not an either or situation.

 

[lithium.]

Originally posted by fieldsofwind
lol... that was good seesaw... and everything that you post pertain to things that you have done actual tests on??? You have found these rocks... these fossils... this evidence??? This unquestionalbe evidence???

take care bud

FOW

well i havn't but other sciencetist have, some Fossils have been PROVEN to be millions of years old, and dinosours are no birds and other animals, and even HUMANS has been in the evolution pool. To bad that people feel that science is evil and nothing that science proofs is real that they fake it all.

 

[fieldsofwind]

(smile)... thanks guys... already have checked it out...there are two sides (scientific) to the story...

to whoever said that this doesn't prove the Bible... PS... I don't need or want proof... thanks anyways...

and yes.. you don't have to print out a text book... in fact you haven't really said much of anything... I agree... it takes a while to take one of these documents and paraphrase it... it'd be better if I could just past it(LOL) but that has already been frowned upon.

Take Care

FOW

 

[TheBear]

Originally posted by fieldsofwind
I've seen some reference to the 'facts' of evolution... lets here some....

I would rather give you a few sources. If you have any specific questions, I am sure you you will find answers from the following scientific institutes.

Academy of Science of the Royal Society of Canada

Alabama Academy of Science

American Anthropological Association

American Association for the Advancement of Science

American Association of Physical Anthropologists

American Astronomical Society

American Chemical Society

American Geological Institute

American Geophysical Union

American Institute of Biological Sciences

American Physical Society

American Psychological Association

American Society of Biological Chemists

American Society of Parasitologists

California Academy of Sciences

Geological Society of America

Georgia Academy of Science

Iowa Academy of Science

Kentucky Academy of Science

Louisiana Academy of Sciences

National Academy of Sciences

New Orleans Geological Society

New York Academy of Sciences

North Carolina Academy of Science

Ohio Academy of Science

Oklahoma Academy of Sciences

Sigma Xi, Louisiana State University Chapter

Society for Amateur Scientists

Society for the Study of Evolution

Society of Vertebrate Paleontology

Southern Anthropological Society

West Virginia Academy of Science



I hope this helps.

 

[fieldsofwind]

ah... but... oh... there are so many... how could they not be right!!!.... how can FOW be saying this preposterous stuff about our beloved institution of evolution...

bear... how about this... simply tell me why I'm wrong

thanks

FOW

 

[TheBear]

Originally posted by fieldsofwind
ah... but... oh... there are so many... how could they not be right!!!.... how can FOW be saying this preposterous stuff about our beloved institution of evolution...

bear... how about this... simply tell me why I'm wrong

thanks

FOW

Wrong about what?

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Originally posted by fieldsofwind

then tell me... why am I wrong on the dating process???

Because I honestly don't think you have a clue how it works. You're just parroting a bunch of information you happen to dig up that opposes radiometric dating. But if you really want some information on the subject, start here:

http://www.tim-thompson.com/radiometric.html (contains links to all sorts of sites with information about radiometric dating, including refuting many creationist claims)

And no, I'm not going to sift through all the data and summarize it for you. Do your own legwork.

and where are the transitions.. the millions that should be there???

Like I said, if you redefine "transitional fossil" to something which scientists would never even expect to find, then you'll obviously never find one. This link was already posted, but if you actually read it, you'll find it contains numerous examples of transitional fossils: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html

Or even better, go to your local museum, library, etc, and do some actual research on the subject.

and yes... I do know how it is done... ( and all of that after two days of study)

After two days??? You read about radiometric dating (from extremely biased and one-sided sources, no less) and you suddenly think you're more qualified on the subject that all the geologists, archeologists, paleontologists, etc, that have studied and used radiometric dating for decades? The conceit is just mind-boggling.

Anyway, you seem to be here solely for the purpose of creating a bunch of arguments just so you can have an excuse to post your "impressive-looking" documents (which I'm still convinced you don't even understand). I see a pattern forming here:

fieldsofwind: Evolution is wrong! Radiometric dating is wrong! Fossil evidence is wrong! Raaaaar!
response: Um, no it isn't. Do you have any idea what you're talking about?
fieldsofwind: *posts scientific-looking document* Look! Big words! It's wrong! Wrong I say!
response: *blink blink* I think you need more education on the subject. Here are some good places to start.
fieldsofwind: You didn't refute me! You're all wrong! I'll post more tomorrow! Raaaaaaaaar!

If you want to successfully debate online, do your research and try to come up with short, concise arguments that are actually answerable in the context of this forum (otherwise, everyone will just wind up telling you to go take a few college level courses on the subject).

 

[TheBear]

Extract of a statement by The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology:

"The fossil record of vertebrates unequivocally supports the hypothesis that vertebrates have evolved through time, from their first records in the early Paleozoic Era about 500 million years ago to the great diversity we see in the world today. The hypothesis has been strengthened by so many independent observations of fossil sequences that it has come to be regarded as a confirmed fact, as certain as the drift of continents through time or the lawful operation of gravity.

Paleontology relies for its evidence on two different but historically related fields, biology and geology. Evolution is the central organizing principle of biology, understood as descent with modification. Evolution is equally basic to geology, because the patterns of rock formations, geomorphology, and fossil distributions in the world make no sense without the underlying process of change through time. Sometimes this change has been gradual, and sometimes it has been characterized by violent upheaval. These processes can be seen on the Earth today in the forms of earthquakes, volcanoes, and other tectonic phenomena. Vertebrates have also evolved at a variety of rates, some apparently gradual, and some apparently rapidly. Although the fossil record is not complete, and our knowledge of evolution will always be less than entire, the evidence for the progressive replacement of fossil forms has been adequate to support the theory of evolution for over 150 years, well before genetic mechanisms of evolutionary change were understood. Paleontologists may dispute, on the basis of the available evidence, the tempo and mode of evolution in a particular group at a particular time, but they do not argue about whether evolution took place: that is a fact.

The fossil record has long been seen as a search for "ancestors" of living forms and of other fossil forms. Some fossil vertebrates appear to have no features that debar them from ancestry to other groups, and so could be seen as potential ancestors. Nevertheless, paleontologists do not focus on a search for direct ancestors, but rather look for sets of evolutionarily derived characters that are shared by fossil taxa that can then be linked as each other's closest known relatives. Proceeding in this way, paleontologists have clarified in recent years a great many mysteries about the origins and interrelationships of major groups of vertebrates, including birds, dinosaurs and their relatives, lizards and snakes, Mesozoic marine reptiles, turtles, mammals and their relatives, amphibians, the first tetrapods, and many groups of fishes. At the same time, techniques of geologic dating, including magnetostratigraphy, radiometric dating of many different isotopes of common elements, lithostratigraphy, and biostratigraphy, have provided independent lines of evidence for determining age relationships of the sediments in which fossils are found. This evidence from the principles and techniques of chemistry and physics support the finds of paleontology based on paleobiological and geological analyses, making the theory of evolution the only robust scientific explanation for the patterns of life on Earth.

Evolution is fundamental to the teaching of good biology and geology, and the vertebrate fossil record is an excellent set of examples of the patterns and processes of evolution through time. We therefore urge the teaching of evolution as the only possible reflection of our science. Any attempt to compromise the patterns and processes of evolution in science education, to treat them as less than robust explanations, or to admit "alternative" explanations not relying upon sound evolutionary observations and theory, misrepresents the state of our science and does a disservice to the public. Textbooks and other instructional materials should not indulge in such misrepresentation, educators should shun such materials for classroom use, and teachers should not be harassed or impeded from teaching vertebrate evolution as it is understood by its practitioners. The record of vertebrate evolution is exciting, inspirational, instructive, and enjoyable, and it is our view that everyone should have the opportunity and the privilege to understand it as paleontologists do."

(emphasis mine)

 

[fieldsofwind]

Gotta say pete... i love all of your info so far... its great...

na... I don't understand it... I read both sides.. the talk.orgins stuff etc... and yes... they did try to teach it to me in school... and we debated there.... and no... I still don't get it

raaaarrr pete... raaaaaarrr

FOW

 

[fieldsofwind]

tell me... does pressure not affect radiometric dating???? are there not daughter isotopes present in the initial rocks...

and those fossils at the museums ... those sure do represent the transitional form... not even by your scientists pete...

these are just a few... a very small amount on the 'other side of the hill'
thanks

have a good one

FOW


hold on... what do I see... a past... oh no... guess I'll have to past something too..

Geological ... stuff PART IOne of the very foundations of evolution and popular science today is the "geologic column." This column is made up of layers of sedimentary rock and is supposed to have formed over millions and even billions of years. Although not found in all locations, and although it varies in thickness as well as the numbers of layers present, this column can be found generally over the entire globe. Some of its layers can even be found on top of great mountains such as Mt. Everest. Obvious examples of this column include such places as the Grand Canyon where many of its layers can be seen in exposed areas as deep as one mile. There is no doubt that the column exists and that it exists on every continent in the world. But, what exactly does it mean?
As one looks at the geologic column, it is obvious that the contact zones, between the various layers, are generally very flat. The layers can extend over thousands of square miles and yet the contact zones remain as flat and parallel as if sheets of glass were laid on top of each other. By flat, I mean that they are flat relative to each other at their contact zones (where they touch each other), and yet they may be at an angle relative to other surrounding landmarks. However, each layer is supposed to have formed over thousands if not millions of years. Would it be logical to assume that there should be a fair amount of weathering of each of these layers over that amount of time? But, this weathering is generally lacking.1 Just about all the layers have un-weathered "flat" contact zones. This is rather odd, especially considering the fact that the current weathering rate for the continents of today is "at the very least 6cm/thousand years for the continental shelves". 2 This means that in less than 10 million years, the entire continental shelves of today would be washed into the oceans. Yes, continents do rise when weight is removed, like floating ships in a body of water who rise when cargo is removed. The continents 600 million years ago might have been somewhat thicker than they are today. However, the geologic column is relatively thin, and yet supposedly it is also extremely old. How did it avoid being weathered away over the course of millions of years of exposure to the elements? It is true that much of the column is formed by marine layers that are said to represent ancient ocean beds. The weathering of underwater sediments is not as significant as that experienced by the exposed continental plates. Perhaps. However, many of them have been exposed to open air and have been subjected to higher erosion rates for the past 200 to 360 million years or so and yet they remain largely intact without having been generally weathered away? The layers that contain fossils of land animals, such as the dinosaurs, birds, and other reptiles, still have no significant weathering between their contact zones with other layers.
Weathering on mountains is even more of a problem for the geologic column. Continental drift and the collisions between the continental plates create enormous buckles and warps in the Earth's crust. These warps and buckles translate into ocean trenches and mountain ranges. The current rate of the rise of some of the mountain ranges in the world is 100cm/1000 years.2 Weathering is greater on mountains (>20cm/1000 years) than it is on flat plains. 2 However, even on some of the tallest mountains, some of the geologic column remains without having been weathered away. How did this column avoid being weathered away over the course of millions of years? Just one million years would average 200 vertical meters of erosion And yet, such erosion has not weathered away a the relatively thin geologic column present on the tops of these mountains in hundreds of millions of years? The common answer for the question is that the layers that are currently present on mountains were covered by very thick layers of sediment in the past. So, it is this sediment that has been weathered away, thus leaving the relatively this layers that we see today, exposed. However, this does not seem to be a satisfactory explanation since no traces of any "overlying" layers remain and the most superficial layer that does remain does not show significant evidence of erosion either. Compare this with areas such as the Grand Canyon. The topmost layer of the Grand Canyon is the Middle Permian Kaibab Limestone. No traces of "higher" layers are noted above this layer. The surrounding surface of the Arizona landscape is obviously flat as a pancake. What happened to the 275 million years of overlying sediment? How did it get weathered away to leave such a flat and even Middle Permian layer on top? I mean, just look at what the little Colorado River did in just 10 million years! It dug a mile-deep canyon! But, aside from the erosion caused directly by the Colorado River, what happened to the erosive forces other than the Colorado River? Erosive forces other than the Colorado River acting over the course of 10 million years should result in at least 500 or so meters of vertical erosion. This is enough erosion to remove 100 million years of the Arizona geologic column down to the Redwall Limestone (Early-Middle Mississippian in age). So what happened? The 100 million years of sediment are still there even though the Colorado has done its work successfully over 10 million years. How is Arizona so resistant to erosion?
Also, consider again how erosion generally forms very uneven surfaces. Now, look at the pictures of the Grand Canyon in this paper and notice the crisp parallel lines between each layer. Then, notice the very uneven and jagged surface of the topmost areas of the canyon caused by erosion over a relatively short time. Notice that this erosion has erased many areas in the column all together, never to be restored. This same sort of erosion should be evident in lower layers as well should it not? Many claim that there are evidences of erosion in lower layers, evidences of rivers, streams, rain, etc. However, these are generally isolated findings such as one might expect if they were formed rapidly, such as occurs with the rapid runoff of waters after a catastrophic flooding event. The general surfaces of each layer remain extremely flat and parallel to the other layers. Just look at the pictures. No one can help but note the uniformity and evenness of these layers throughout the geologic column as compared with what we see erosion currently doing today. Erosion causes comparatively rapid non-uniformity and unevenness. We simply do not see this sort of expected erosion happening in the geologic column.






























The Coconino Sand Dunes

However, what about those ancient desert sand dune layers in the Grand Canyon? The popular science of today declares that the Coconino Sandstone layer (third from the top) used to be an ancient desert formed over eons of time. The Coconino Sandstone layer is quite interesting indeed. It averages 96 meters in thickness (315ft.) and covers an area of 200,000 sq. miles. The total volume of sand is estimates to be approximately 10,000 cubic miles.14 The sand grains themselves are composed almost entirely of quartz, just like most desert sand is. Also, just like in modern deserts, the Coconino Sandstone has inclined “cross bedding” in it. Cross bedding in sand dunes are areas were sand from one dune are covered by sand from another dune in a different orientation (different incline). The Coconino Sandstone is filled with these cross beds just like desert dunes frozen in time.15 The sand grains themselves show microscopic features of long exposure in dry “desert” conditions. These features include “frosting” and “pitting” on the surface of the individual grains of sand. This similarity between Coconino Sandstone and modern desert sand has strengthened the belief that an ancient desert formed the Coconino Sandstone.16 Then comes the clenching argument: All throughout the sandstone are preserved footprints of vertebrates such as lizards or other similar reptilian creatures. These footprints are located on the preserved surfaces of the dunes and are believed to have been covered by the shifting dune sand and thus preserved for all time.17 Given all of these facts, it seems obvious that the Coconino Sandstone is in fact a preservation of a very large and ancient desert.

 

[fieldsofwind]

Part II

Many things appear to be a certain way until a closer observation is made. Consider the fact that the Coconino Sandstone has preserved crisp footprints in delicate detail. Does this happen in dry desert sand? When a lizard walks or runs over dry sand, what happens? Footprint impressions are made, but nothing near the detail and crispness that has been preserved in the Coconino Sandstone. Now, consider the likelihood that shifting sand will preserve very small and delicate footprints made in dry sand. This seems a bit hard to imagine. Another item of interest that is usually never mentioned in the literature is that the vast majority of the Coconino tracks all head uphill.18 Evidently the lizards of ancient deserts did not like going downhill much at all. Often tracks start and stop suddenly without evidence of sand-shift or disturbance… like the creature suddenly vanished into thin air (or swam off in the water). The facts just do not seem to fit the theory. Studies to test other ideas have shown that the Coconino tracks are much more consistent with underwater formation in a heavy current.18, 19, 20
The Coconino sand dunes themselves also are not like the sand dunes of modern deserts. They have an average slope angle of 25° while the average slope angle of dry sand is 30-34° (the “resting” angle of dry sand).21 Sand dunes formed by underwater currents do not have as high an average slope angle as desert dunes and do not have “avalanche” faces as commonly as deserts dunes do.
Still what explanation can be given for the microscopic pitting and frosting of the grains of sand? It turns out that desert sand is not the only sand that can be pitted and frosted. The chemical process of sand cementation in the forming of sandstone can also cause pitting and frosting.22
So, it appears that the evidence best support underwater formation of the Coconino Sandstone. Ocean currents can in fact make very pure quartz sand dunes with specific characteristics that match the dunes in the Coconino Sandstone.23 Heavy ocean currents can in fact amass huge quantities of sand in a very rapid timeframe. Dunes with cross bedding can be made very quickly, easily preserving fresh tracks before they can be washed away. Consider also that there is no significant erosion between Coconino Sandstone layer and either the layer above it (the Toroweap Formation) or the layer below it (the Hermit Formation). All of these layers formed like sheets of glass one on top of the other. Isn’t it strange that sections of layers have not been weathered away to be filled in by overlying layers? This is not strange if the layers were all formed rapidly by water deposition instead of over eons of time. Which theory explains the evidence the best?


Turbidites and Water Sorting

There are some other interesting things to note about the geologic column. Many of its layers, wherever they are found in the world, are sorted with the courser material on the bottom and the finer material on the top of that individual layer (Except in the case of underwater “slumps” where the material is sorted fine to course). 2 Does this sorting make sense to have happened over millions of years? Sorting like this does not take place today except in specific circumstances. This kind of sorting only occurs naturally in water, and specifically in underwater mudslides called turbidites. I think it is interesting that much of the geologic column looks exactly like turbiditic layering.3 In fact, geologist today no longer accept the long prevailing hypothesis of uniformitarian deposition, but have opted instead for a more "punctuated" formation of much of the column. These punctuations are generally felt to be the result of sudden catastrophic events with long intervening periods of relative quietness. The does make some sense in the fact of the fact that turbidites create sedimentary layers almost instantly. However, turbidite flow does not flatten or significantly disrupt lower layers. Thus, any erosion or unevenness in lower layers will be preserved. The fact that the layers are generally flat seems to indicate that they were already very flat before the next turbidite came along.


Nonconformities

Turbodites are not the only problem. There are also so called “nonconformities” located within the geologic column. Nonconformities are aspects of the geologic column that are not expected or whose presence is not readily intuitive given the position that it is an ancient formation. Common examples of nonconformities are the "overthrusts" that are found in many places around the world. These areas are interesting because the layers of the geologic column are apparently in the wrong order with older layers on top of younger layers. A famous example is the Lewis Overthrust. First identified by Willis in 1901, this area encompassing Glacier National Park is more than 300 miles long and 1550 miles wide, with Precambrian strata resting on top of Cretaceous. The fossils are in the wrong order. Evolutionists date the Precambrian rock at a billion years while the Cretaceous is dated at only 150 million years. The contact line between the two different strata is like a knife-edge, without significant evidence of sliding, linear tracking, or other evidences of friction or mechanical erosion between the two surfaces. Of course it is the position of most modern geologists that this 12,000 square mile slab of rock with a thickness of 3-miles did in fact buckle-up, sheer off, and slide over the underlying Cretaceous layer for up to 50 miles.6 The sliding process is thought to have occurred slowly with only portions of the entire slab moving at any given time... like the crawling of a caterpillar. What seems strand however is that they rock actually slid instead of warped or crumbled. The forces required to shake and shimmy a rock of this size would crush the rock or buckle it before they would overcome the inertial and frictional forces needed to cause a sliding motion. Also, without evidence of sliding at the contact zones between the two layers, sliding seems like a rather unlikely explanation. Rather, the evidence seems much more consistent with an original sedimentation event that occurred in the order found.
If this is not convincing, consider the Glarus Overthrust located near Schwanden Switzerland. The geologic order of this overthrust is Eocene on the bottom, then Jurassic, and then Permian on top. Of course it should be Permian, Jurassic, and then Eocene on top. The Glarus Overthrust extends some 21 miles. It appears that they layers have been flipped. But how does one flip 21 miles of solid rock? Perhaps a giant fold created the flipped appearance? If so, then erosion would have to have gotten rid of the overlying layers of the fold without damaging the underlying layers of the fold. Also, there are no striations or linear groves at the contact zones between any of the layers to give some indication that they traveled in a linear direction over anything... like a caterpillar or otherwise. The irregularities at the bottom of each formation have not been worn away either. How is this explained? In fact, it seems that the contact zones of these overthrusts found throughout the world are as crisp as the edge of a knife and yet there are preserved ridges between layers that have not been ground away or disrupted in any manner. A fairly dramatic example can be found in the Empire Mountains of southern Arizona were Cretaceous rock is capped by Permian limestone. The contact zone, between the layers of rock, undulates like the meshing of a gear. If the geologic sequences of this formation were really the result of an overthrust, how did such meshwork avoid getting planed off? There is no other erosive evidence either such as scraping, gouging, or linear striations at the contact zones.9
One must also note the many large gaps in sediment between the layers that are present. In the Glarus Overthrust what happened to the layers between the Jurassic and Eocene (The Paleocene and Cretaceous)? Also, what happened to the Triassic layer that is supposed to separate the Permian from the Jurassic? 7
Also, how are some areas, such are found in the Grand Canyon, explained where different layers of the geologic column are repetitively intermixed? For example, there can be found areas in the Grand Canyon were Mississippian and Cambrian layers alternate back and forth multiple times... like a deck of cards being shuffled.24 I find that rather non-intuitive.
There are many other similar examples that could be listed. I just seems to me, even though I am not a geologist, that such problems have not been clearly overcome by those holding to the view of the ancient formation of the geologic column. In fact, it seems that a rapid and catastrophic depositional event or events could explain some of these problems without near as much difficultly.

Volcanic Signatures

Volcanic activity adds yet another twist. Each eruption has a chemical signature. It is known that a volcanic eruption leaves a specific chemical fingerprint in its sedimentary layer. From the study of active volcanoes, this fingerprint is quite specific. If the same volcano erupts at least 3 months later, it will have a detectable difference in its fingerprint. 4, 5 Many of the sedimentary layers in the geologic column have volcanic sediment in them. It is very interesting to note that in some places, where there are over 20 layers containing volcanic sediment (ie: The layered fossil forests of Yellowstone National Park), there may be only three to four different volcanic "fingerprints" or "signatures” among all the layers.4 How can this be when each layer supposedly took thousands of years to create? Every layer should obviously have at least one unique "signature" if not many different signatures. But, this does not happen. In fact, it gets even more interesting. Many times, the signature in the bottom layer will be exactly the same as the signature found in the top layer.4



Monument Valley














Places like Monument Valley also pose a significant problem. In this valley, there are formations sticking out of the ground in the middle of nowhere. These are sedimentary formations that match the Geologic Column, and yet all around them the rest of the column has vanished. Why are they still there? The current explanation is that "weathering" took the rest of the column away but left this small portion of it in the middle of this huge valley.4 Well, how on earth did this small portion avoid any significant weathering over millions of years, and yet the rest of the entire valley was weathered away? Does this make good sense in the face of what we see happen during flooding and water runs? After any flood on soft soil, look at the landscape and see if it does not remind you of something... like Monument Valley. What we see at Monument Valley seems much more consistent with the idea of a huge flood, rapid sedimentation, and rapid water movement with a quick runoff and not so much with the current idea of eons of selective erosion.

 

[fieldsofwind]

Clastic Dikes

In many places throughout the geologic column, there are what are called “clastic dikes”. A clastic dike is where a layer of sediment beneath another layer was pushed up in spikes through the layers above it like “toothpaste.” This only happens in modern flooding and mudslides if the lower mud layer was still soft and recently deposited just before layers were added on top of it. The extreme pressure of sedimentary layering on top of a soft layer causes the soft layer to “squirt up” at intervals through the layers above it.8 None of this could possibly happen if the layers were laid down over millions of years. Why not? Because in a relatively short time, sedimentary layers turn to rock and solid rock does not “squirt” regardless of the pressure applied to it. It may fracture under pressure, but it does not flow.





































Big Horn Basin and Beartooth Butte




Big Horn Basin and Beartooth Butte, located near Yellowstone National Park, pose yet another interesting problem. Beartooth Butte itself is dated to be around 300 to 400 million years old. It contains many fossils. However, Beartooth Butte matches the same layers located much lower down in Bighorn Basin. The standard explanation is that millions of years ago, Beartooth Butte was lifted up higher during a land “upthrust.” The surrounding layers were weathered away over time, leaving Beartooth Butte as a lone formation. However, if this scenario were true, then the layers that Beartooth Butte came from would have been solid rock before the “upthrust.” If this is true, then why did this upthrust cause a warping of solid rock along the Beartooth Butte side of Bighorn Basin? 4 The Precambrian rock did not warp up during the upthrust. So, why did the solid rock above the Precambrian rock warp upward during the upthrust if in fact it was solid… taking millions of years to form? A more logical explanation seems to be that the layers were not solid and in fact were recently and rapidly formed just before a very rapid upthrust of the “Precambrian” under the Beartooth Butte location. The water, which laid down these sedimentary layers, rapidly rushed off of the upthrusted area. This rapid runoff of water quickly eroded the area leaving only Beartooth Butte standing to dry as the water receded. Logically, everything had to happen quickly, and not over long “periods” of time as is the current popular theory for Beartooth Butte.



Continental Drift










Now, lets take a look at continental drift. According to today’s popular scientists, the continents of today were once connected in an original continent by the name of Pangea. Very slowly, over the course of two hundred million years, the continents split apart and drifted away from each other to their present-day positions. There is obvious evidence to support this theory. As one looks at a global map of the world, it is clear that the continents do in fact seem to fit together like a giant puzzle. Geologic layering and coal samples are very similar at the “separation zones” of the various continents. There is little doubt that continental drift did occur, and that at one time the various continents were in fact connected. In fact, the drift is still occurring at about 1 inch per year and in some places as much as 2.5 inches per year. However, what does seem strange, at least to me, is the vast timeframe involved. Over relatively short time periods, erosion, deposition, and sedimentary river delta deposits change edges of landmasses significantly. For example, three hundred years before Christ, Ephesus was a seaport city on the coast of the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor. Within only 800 years, the city was no longer a port city, but an inland city. The historian Pliney said that, “In ancient times the sea used to wash up to the temple of Diana” [in Ephesus]. The reason for this regression of the sea is that the relatively small rivers of Cayster and Meander run near the city. Over the years they deposited so much sediment that the land extended some several miles in a relatively short time. Today Ephesus is located about five miles inland.
With all the erosion and on all the various continents and rivers depositing deltas like the ones at Ephesus, should the continents not, over a 200 million year period, loose the shape of their ancient coastlines? Currently, according to the US Army Corp of Engineers, the United States coastlines are in serious danger. The Louisiana coastline is being lost at a rate of at least 25sq. miles per year. Both the eastern and western United States are being eroded at rates fast enough to warrant millions of dollars spent on coastal erosion prevention at an annual cost of around $500 million. Florida alone spends over 8 million dollars annually on coastal erosion prevention.11 In just over 50 years, some of the coastlines in Washington State have regressed over 300 meters.12 The coastline of Texas is being eroded at a rate of between 1 and 50 feet per year depending on location.13 The same is true for the eastern and western coastal countries of Africa who depend on the stability of their coasts for tourism. Japan is spending billions of dollars to preserve its coasts from erosion. Every coastal country in the world is worried about erosion. So, knowing this, let us be very conservative and say that an average coastline changes only one centimeter per year. This would not be enough erosion to worry anyone right? However, how much change would that be in 200 million years? The change would be two thousand kilometers (1,200 miles)…. Enough to erode (or deposit) half way through the United States! This does not appear to be the case though. The coastlines of the various continents still match up very well….not to mention the fact that the continents themselves have not been washed away within this time. I mean, judging by the current rate of erosion, Louisiana would have been subjected to 5 billion square miles of erosion/deposition in 200 million years. That is more than 300 times the size of the entire North American Continent (15 million square miles)! That is actually fifteen times more land than the entire surface area of the Earth itself… to include that covered by water (317 million square miles)! I am not saying that rates of erosion do not fluctuate and change, but it seems fairly obvious that with even minimal amounts of coastal erosion, the continents of today would not match up so easily if they had separated from each other over 200 million years ago. The evidence does not appear to fit the theory. An extremely rapid continental drift in the recent past seems much more likely. A great deal of sudden energy would be required to cause such a rapid and global continental drift. Such a sudden release of energy would most likely cause incredible global catastrophe. Massive floods, earthquakes, and volcanoes would occur suddenly on a global scale.
So, what scenario does the current worldwide geologic column fit the best… a slow and ancient formation or a recent and rapid formation?

1. Morris, J. D., The Young Earth, Master Books, 1994. pp. 98-100.
2. American Journal of Science, Vol. 276: 1976.
3. Walker, R. W., Evolving Concepts in Sedimentology, 1973.
4. Coffin Harold G., TheYellowstone Petrified "Forests", Origins 24:5-44.1997.
5. LeMaitre, R.W., The chemical variability of some common igneous rocks, Journal of Petrology, v. 17, 1976.
6. Levin, Harold L. Contemporary Physical Geology. Second Edition. Washington University. St. Louis. 1986.
7. Burdick, C. L. "Geologic Formation Near Loch Assynt Compared With Glarus Formation" Creation Research Society Quarterly Vol. 12 No. 3. December 1975.
8. Morris, J. D. The Young Earth, Master Books. 1994. pp. 109-112.
9. Burdick, C.L. and Slusher, H.S. "The Empire Mountains - A Thrust Fault?" Creation Research Society Annual p. 49. June 1969.
10. Veith, W. J. The Genesis Conflict, 1997.
11. Watson, S., 1997. Economic of beach restoration, Coastal Currents, Florida Coastal Management Program Newsletter, v. 5, no. 3, pp. 6-8.
12. Burch, T .L. and C. R. Sherwood, Historical Bathymetric Changes Near the Entrance of Grays Harbor, Washington, report PNL-8414 prepared by the Battelle/Marine Science Laboratory for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-Seattle District, 1992, p. 52.
13. McKenna, Kimberly K., Davenport, Sally S., and Wadick, Ashley K., Management of the Beach/Dune System in Texas, Proc. Sixth Annual National Conference on Beach Preservation Technology , St. Petersburg, FL, Feb. 10, 1993.
14. Baars, D.L., 1962. Permian System of the Colorado Plateau. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin, vol. 46, pp. 200–201.
15. Middleton, L.T., Elliott, D.K. andMorales, M., 1990. Coconino Sandstone. In: Grand Canyon Geology, S.S. Beus and M. Morales (eds), Oxford University Press, New York, and Museum of Northern Arizona Press, chapter 10, pp. 183–202.
16. Young, D.A., 1990. The discovery ofterrestrial history. In: Portraits of Creation, H.J. Van Till, R.E. Shaw, J.H. Stek and D.A. Young (eds), William B. Eerdmans, Grand Rapids, Michigan, chapter 3, pp. 80–81.
17. McKee, E.D., 1947. Experiments on the development of tracks in fine cross-bedded sand. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology, vol. 17, pp. 23–28.
18. Brand, L.R. and Tang, T., 1991. Fossil vertebrate footprints in the Coconino Sandstone (Permian) of northern Arizona: Evidence for underwater origin. Geology, vol. 19,pp. 1201–1204.
19. Monastersky, R., 1992. Wading newts may explain enigmatic tracks. Science News, vol. 141 (1), p. 5.
20. Geology Today, vol. 8(3), May–June 1992, pp, 78–79 (Wet tracks).
21. Visher, G.S., 1990. Exploration Stratigraphy, 2nd edition, Penn Well Publishing Co., Tulsa, Oklahoma, pp. 211–213.
22. Kuenen, P.H. and Perdok, W.G., 1962. Experimental abrasion — frosting and defrosting of quartz grains. Journal of Geology, vol. 70, pp. 648–658.
23. Amos, C.L. and King, E.L., 1984. Bedforms of the Canadian eastern seaboard: a comparison with global occurrences. Marine Geology, vol. 57, pp. 167–208.
24. Waisgerber, William, Howe, George F. and Williams, Emmett L. "Mississippian and Cambrian Interbedding: 200 Million Year Hiatus in Question" Creation Research Society Quarterly. Vol. 23 No. 4. March 1987.




with all of the documentation and everything how bout it

 

[LadyShea]

The Argument from "I don't get it"??

 

[TheBear]

Where did you cut and paste this from, FOW?

 

[fieldsofwind]

Hey... I love the pasting thing... and if it gets deleted... well.. I'll paraphrase it eventually... and then folks can read the same info another way.... why not just skip the middle man... and let a debate move on...



If naturalistic molecules-to-human-life evolution were true, multibillions of links are required to bridge modern humans with the chemicals that once existed in the hypothetical “primitive soup”. This putative soup, assumed by many scientists to have given birth to life over 3.5 billion years ago, was located in the ocean or mud puddles. Others argue that the origin of life could not have been in the sea but rather must have occurred in clay on dry land. Still others conclude that abiogenesis was more likely to have occurred in hot vents. It is widely recognized that major scientific problems exist with all naturalistic origin of life scenarios. This is made clear in the conclusions of many leading origin-of-life researchers. A major aspect of the abiogenesis question is “What is the minimum number of parts necessary for an autotrophic free living organism to live, and could these parts assemble by naturalistic means?” Research shows that at the lowest level this number is in the multimillions, producing an irreducible level of complexity that cannot be bridged by any known natural means.

Introduction
biogenesis is the theory that life can arise spontaneously from non-life molecules under proper conditions. Evidence for a large number of transitional forms to bridge the stages of this process is critical to prove the abiogenesis theory, especially during the early stages of the process. The view of how life originally developed from non-life to an organism capable of independent life and reproduction presented by the mass media is very similar to the following widely publicized account:
Four and a half billion years ago the young planet Earth... was almost completely engulfed by the shallow primordial seas. Powerful winds gathered random molecules from the atmosphere. Some were deposited in the seas. Tides and currents swept the molecules together. And somewhere in this ancient ocean the miracle of life began... The first organized form of primitive life was a tiny protozoan [a one-celled animal]. Millions of protozoa populated the ancient seas. These early organisms were completely self-sufficient in their sea-water world. They moved about their aquatic environment feeding on bacteria and other organisms... From these one-celled organisms evolved all life on earth (from the Emmy award winning PBS NOVA film The Miracle of Life quoted in Hanegraaff, 1998, p. 70, emphasis in original).
Science textbook authors Wynn and Wiggins describe the abiogenesis process currently accepted by Darwinists:
Aristotle believed that decaying material could be transformed by the “spontaneous action of Nature” into living animals. His hypothesis was ultimately rejected, but... Aristotle’s hypothesis has been replaced by another spontaneous generation hypothesis, one that requires billions of years to go from the molecules of the universe to cells, and then, via random mutation/natural selection, from cells to the variety of organisms living today. This version, which postulates chance happenings eventually leading to the phenomenon of life, is biology’s Theory of Evolution (1997, p. 105).
The question on which this paper focuses is “How much evidence exists for this view of life’s origin?” When Darwinists discuss “missing links” they often imply that relatively few links are missing in what is a rather complete chain which connects the putative chemical precursors of life that is theorized to have existed an estimated 3.5 billion years ago to all life forms existing today. Standen noted a half century ago that the term “missing link” is misleading because it suggests that only one link is missing whereas it is more accurate to state that so many links are missing that it is not evident whether there was ever a chain (Standen, 1950, p. 106). This assertion now has been well documented by many creationists and others (see Bergman, 1998; Gish, 1995; Lubenow, 1994, 1992; Rodabaugh, 1976; and Moore, 1976).
Scientists not only have been unable to find a single undisputed link that clearly connects two of the hundreds of major family groups, but they have not even been able to produce a plausible starting point for their hypothetical evolutionary chain (Shapiro, 1986). The first links— actually the first hundreds of thousands or more links that are required to produce life—still are missing (Behe, 1996, pp. 154–156)! Horgan concluded that if he were a creationist today he would focus on the origin of life because this
...is by far the weakest strut of the chassis of modern biology. The origin of life is a science writer’s dream. It abounds with exotic scientists and exotic theories, which are never entirely abandoned or accepted, but merely go in and out of fashion (1996, p. 138).
The major links in the molecules-to-man theory that must be bridged include (a) evolution of simple molecules into complex molecules, (b) evolution of complex molecules into simple organic molecules, (c) evolution of simple organic molecules into complex organic molecules, (d) eventual evolution of complex organic molecules into DNA or similar information storage molecules, and (e) eventually evolution into the first cells. This process requires multimillions of links, all which either are missing or controversial. Scientists even lack plausible just-so stories for most of evolution. Furthermore the parts required to provide life clearly have specifications that rule out most substitutions.
In the entire realm of science no class of molecule is currently known which can remotely compete with proteins. It seems increasingly unlikely that the abilities of proteins could be realized to the same degree in any other material form. Proteins are not only unique, but give every impression of being ideally adapted for their role as the universal constructor devices of the cell ... Again, we have an example in which the only feasible candidate for a particular biological role gives every impression of being supremely fit for that role (Denton, 1998, p. 188, emphasis in original).
The logical order in which life developed is hypothesized to include the following basic major stages:
1. Certain simple molecules underwent spontaneous, random chemical reactions until after about half-a-billion years complex organic molecules were produced.
2. Molecules that could replicate eventually were formed (the most common guess is nucleic acid molecules), along with enzymes and nutrient molecules that were surrounded by membraned cells.
3. Cells eventually somehow “learned” how to reproduce by copying a DNA molecule (which contains a complete set of instructions for building a next generation of cells). During the reproduction process, the mutations changed the DNA code and produced cells that differed from the originals.
4. The variety of cells generated by this process eventually developed the machinery required to do all that was necessary to survive, reproduce, and create the next generation of cells in their likeness. Those cells that were better able to survive became more numerous in the population (adapted from Wynn and Wiggins, 1997, p. 172).
The problem of the early evolution of life and the unfounded optimism of scientists was well put by Dawkins. He concluded that Earth’s chemistry was different on our early, lifeless, planet, and that at this time there existed
...no life, no biology, only physics and chemistry, and the details of the Earth’s chemistry were very different. Most, though not all, of the informed speculation begins in what has been called the primeval soup, a weak broth of simple organic chemicals in the sea. Nobody knows how it happened but, somehow, without violating the laws of physics and chemistry, a molecule arose that just happened to have the property of self-copying—a replicator. This may seem like a big stroke of luck... Freakish or not, this kind of luck does happen... [and] it had to happen only once... What is more, as far as we know, it may have happened on only one planet out of a billion billion planets in the universe. Of course many people think that it actually happened on lots and lots of planets, but we only have evidence that it happened on one planet, after a lapse of half a billion to a billion years. So the sort of lucky event we are looking at could be so wildly improbable that the chances of its happening, somewhere in the universe, could be as low as one in a billion billion billion in any one year. If it did happen on only one planet, anywhere in the universe, that planet has to be our planet—because here we are talking about it (Dawkins, 1996, pp. 282–283, emphasis in original).
The Evidence for the Early Steps of Evolution
The first step in evolution was the development of simple self-copying molecules consisting of carbon dioxide, water and other inorganic compounds. No one has proven that a simple self-copying molecule can self-generate a compound such as DNA. Nor has anyone been able to create one in a laboratory or even on paper. The hypothetical weak “primeval soup” was not like soups experienced by humans but was highly diluted, likely close to pure water. The process is described as life having originated
spontaneously from organic compounds in the oceans of the primitive Earth. The proposal assumes that primitive oceans contained large quantities of simple organic compounds that reacted to form structures of greater and greater complexity, until there arose a structure that we would call living. In other words, the first living organism developed by means of a series of nonbiological steps, none of which would be highly improbably on the basis of what is know today. This theory, [was] first set forth clearly by A.I. Oparin (1938) ... (Newman, 1967, p. 662).
An astounding number of speculations, models, theories and controversies still surround every aspect of the origin of life problem (Lahav 1999). Although some early scientists proposed that “organic life ... is eternal,” most realized it must have come “into existence at a certain period in the past” (Haeckel, 1905, p. 339). It now is acknowledged that the first living organism could not have arisen directly from inorganic matter (water, carbon dioxide, and other inorganic nutrients) even as a result of some extraordinary event. Before the explosive growth of our knowledge of the cell during the last 30 years, it was known that “the simplest bacteria are extremely complex, and the chances of their arising directly from inorganic materials, with no steps in between, are too remote to consider seriously.” (Newman, 1967, p. 662). Most major discoveries about cell biology and molecular biology have been made since then.
Search for the Evidence of Earliest Life
Theories abound, but no direct evidence for the beginning of the theoretical evolutionary climb of life up what Richard Dawkins and many evolutionists call “mount improbable” ever has been discovered (Dawkins, 1996). Nor have researchers been able to develop a plausible theory to explain how life could evolve from non-life. Many equally implausible theories now exist, most of which are based primarily on speculation. The ancients believed life originated by spontaneous generation from inanimate matter or once living but now dead matter. Aristotle even believed that under the proper conditions putatively “simple” animals such as worms, fleas, mice, and dogs could spring to life spontaneously from moist ”Mother Earth."

 

[LadyShea]

The Bear..I think I found it...CRS http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq/abstracts/sum36_4.html


FOW, why didn't you just post a link so we can read it ourselves then debate?

 

 

[Pete Harcoff]

Well, fieldsofwind has now decended into good old-fashioned trolling. Guess I'll find out if that "ignore" feature works.

And it does! Huzzah!

 

[fieldsofwind]

PART II
The spontaneous generation of life theory eventually was proved false by hundreds of research studies such as the 1668 experiment by Italian physician Francesco Redi (1626–1697). In one of the first controlled biological experiments, Redi proved that maggots appeared in meat only after flies had deposited their eggs on it (Jenkens- Jones, 1997). Maggots do not spontaneously generate on their own as previously believed by less rigorous experimenters.
Despite Redi’s evidence, however, the belief in spontaneous generation of life was so strong in the 1600s that even Redi continued to believe that spontaneous generation could occur in certain instances. After the microscope proved the existence of bacteria in l683, many scientists concluded that these “simple” microscopic organisms must have “spontaneously generated,” thereby providing evolution with its beginning. Pasteur and other researchers, though, soon disproved this idea, and the fields of microbiology and biochemistry have since documented quite eloquently the enormous complexity of these compact liNearly all biologists were convinced by the latter half of the nineteenth century that spontaneous generation of all types of living organisms was impossible (Bergman, 1993a). Now that naturalism dominates science, Darwinists reason that at least one spontaneous generation of life event must have occurred in the distant past because no other naturalistic origin-of-life method exists aside from panspermia, which only moves the spontaneous generation of life event elsewhere (Bergman, 1993b). As theism was filtered out of science, spontaneous generation gradually was resurrected in spite of its previous defeat. The solution was to add a large amount of time to the broth:
Aristotle believed that decaying material could be transformed by the “spontaneous action of Nature” into living animals. His hypothesis was ultimately rejected, but, in a way, he might not have been completely wrong. Aristotle’s hypothesis has been replaced by another spontaneous generation hypothesis, one that requires billions of years to go from the molecules of the universe to cells, and then, via random mutation/natural selection, from cells to the variety of organisms living today. This version, which postulates chance happenings eventually leading to the phenomenon of life, is biology’s Theory of Evolution (Wynn and Wiggins, 1997, p. 105, emphasis mine).
Although this view now is widely accepted among evolutionists, no one has been able to locate convincing fossil (or other) evidence to support it. The plausibility of abiogenesis has changed greatly in recent years due to research in molecular biology that has revealed exactly how complex life is, and how much evidence exists against the probability of spontaneous generation. In the 1870s and 1880s scientists believed that devising a plausible explanation for the origin of life
would be fairly easy. For one thing, they assumed that life was essentially a rather simple substance called protoplasm that could be easily constructed by combining and recombining simple chemicals such as carbon dioxide, oxygen, and nitrogen (Meyer, 1996, p. 25).
The German evolutionary biologist Ernst Haeckel (1925) even referred to monera cells as simple homogeneous globules of plasm. Haeckel believed that a living cell about as complex as a bowl of Jell-o ® could exist, and his origin of life theory reflected this completely erroneous view. He even concluded that cell “autogony” (the term he used to describe living things’ ability to reproduce) was similar to the process of inorganic crystallization. In his words:
The most ancient organisms which arose by spontaneous generation—the original parents of all subsequent organisms—must necessarily be supposed to have been Monera—simple, soft, albuminous lumps of plasma, without structure, without any definite form, and entirely without any hard and formed parts.
About the same time T. H. Huxley proposed a simple two-step method of chemical recombination that he thought could explain the origin of the first living cell. Both Haeckel and Huxley thought that just as salt could be produced spontaneously by mixing powered sodium metal and heated chlorine gas, a living cell could be produced by mixing the few chemicals they believed were required. Haeckel taught that the basis of life is a substance called “plasm,” and this plasm constitutes
the material foundations of the phenomena of life ... All the other materials that we find in the living organism are products or derivatives of the active plasm: In view of the extraordinary significance which we must assign to the plasm—as the universal vehicle of all the vital phenomena [or as Huxley said “the physical basis of life”]—it is very important to understand clearly all its properties, especially the chemical ones ... In every case where we have with great difficulty succeeded in examining the plasm as far as possible and separating it from the plasma-products, it has the appearance of a colorless, viscous substance, the chief physical property of which is its peculiar thickness and consistency ... Active living protoplasm ... is best compared to a cold jelly or solution of glue (1905 pp. 121,123).
Once the brew was mixed, eons of time allowed spontaneous chemical reactions to produce the simple “protoplasmic substance” that scientists once assumed to be the essence of life (Meyer, 1996, p. 25). As late as 1928, the germ cell still was thought to be relatively simple and
...no one now questions that individual development everywhere consists of progress from a relatively simple to a relatively complex form. Development is not the unfolding of an infolded organism; it is the formation of new structures and functions by combinations and transformations of the relatively simple structures and functions of the germ cells (Conklin, 1928, pp. 63–64).
Cytologists now realize that a living cell contains hundreds of thousands of different complex parts such as various motor proteins that are assembled to produce the most complex “machine” in the Universe—a machine far more complex than the most complex Cray super computer. We now also realize after a century of research that the eukaryote protozoa thought to be as simple as a bowl of gelatin in Darwin’s day actually are enormously more complex than the prokaryote cell. Furthermore, molecular biology has demonstrated that the basic design of the cell is
essentially the same in all living systems on earth from bacteria to mammals... In terms of their basic biochemical design... no living system can be thought of as being primitive or ancestral with respect to any other system, nor is there the slightest empirical hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth (Denton, 1986, p. 250).
This is a major problem for Darwinism because life at the cellular level generally does not reveal a gradual increase in complexity as it ascends the evolutionary ladder from protozoa to humans. The reason that all cells are basically alike is because the basic biochemical requirements and constraints for all life are the same:
A curious similarity underlies the seemingly varied forms of life we see on the earth today: the most central molecular machinery of modern organisms has always been found to be essentially the same. This unity of biochemistry has surely been one of the great discoveries of the past 100 years (Cairns-Smith, 1985, p. 90).
The most critical gap that must be explained is that between life and non-life because
Cells and organisms are very complex... [and] there is a surprising uniformity among living things. We know from DNA sequence analyses that plants and higher animals are closely related, not only to each other, but to relatively simple single-celled organisms such as yeasts. Cells are so similar in their structure and function that many of their proteins can be interchanged from one organism to another. For example, yeast cells share with human cells many of the central molecules that regulate their cell cycle, and several of the human proteins will substitute in the yeast cell for their yeast equivalents! (Alberts, 1992, p. xii).

 

[fieldsofwind]

The belief that spontaneous regeneration, while admittedly very rare, is still attractive as illustrated by Sagan and Leonard’s conclusion, “Most scientists agree that life will appear spontaneously in any place where conditions remain sufficiently favorable for a very long time” (1972, p. 9). This claim then is followed by an admission from Sagan and Leonard that raises doubts not only about abiogenesis, but about Darwinism generally, namely, “this conviction [about the origin of life] is based on inferences and extrapolations.” The many problems, inferences, and extrapolations needed to create abiogenesis just-so stories once were candidly admitted by Dawkins:
An origin of life, anywhere, consists of the chance arising of a self-replicating entity. Nowadays, the replicator that matters on Earth is the DNA molecule, but the original replicator probably was not DNA. We don’t know what it was. Unlike DNA, the original replicating molecules cannot have relied upon complicated machinery to duplicate them. Although, in some sense, they must have been equivalent to “Duplicate me” instructions, the “language” in which the instructions were written was not a highly formalized language such that only a complicated machine could obey them. The original replicator cannot have needed elaborate decoding, as DNA instructions... do today. Self-duplication was an inherent property of the entity’s structure just as, say, hardness is an inherent property of a diamond... the original replicators, unlike their later successors the DNA molecules, did not have complicated decoding and instruction-obeying machinery, because complicated machinery is the kind of thing that arises in the world only after many generations of evolution. And evolution does not get started until there are replicators. In the teeth of the so-called “Catch-22 of the origin of life”... the original self-duplicating entities must have been simple enough to arise by the spontaneous accidents of chemistry (1996, p. 285).
The method used in constructing these hypothetical replicators is not stated, nor has it ever been demonstrated to exist either in the laboratory or on paper. The difficulties of terrestrial abiogenesis are so great that some evolutionists have hypothesized that life could not have originated on earth but must have been transported here from another planet via star dust, meteors, comets, or spaceships (Bergman, 1993b)! As noted above, panspermia does not solve the origin of life problem though, but instead moves the abiogenesis problem elsewhere. Furthermore, since so far as we know no living organism can survive very long in space because of cosmic rays and other radiation, “this theory is ... highly dubious, although it has not been disproved; also, it does not answer the question of where or how life did originate” (Newman, 1967, p. 662).
Darwin evidentially recognized how serious the abiogenesis problem was for his theory, and once even conceded that all existing terrestrial life must have descended from some primitive life form that was called into life “by the Creator” (1900, p. 316). But to admit, as Darwin did, the possibility of one or a few creations is to open the door to the possibility of many or even thousands! If God made one animal type, He also could have made two or many thousands of different types. No contemporary hypothesis today has provided a viable explanation as to how the abiogenesis origin of life could occur by naturalistic means. The problems are so serious that the majority of evolutionists today tend to shun the whole subject of abiogenesis.
History of Modern Abiogenesis Research
The “warm soup” theory, still the most widely held theory of abiogenesis among evolutionists, was developed most extensively by Russian scientist A.I. Oparin in the 1920s. The theory held that life evolved when organic molecules rained into the primitive oceans from an atmospheric soup of chemicals interacting with solar energy. Later Haldane (1928), Bernal (1947) and Urey (1952) published their research to try to support this model, all with little success. Then came what some felt was a breakthrough by Harold Urey and his graduate student Stanley Miller in the early 1950s. The most famous origin of life experiment was completed in 1953 by Stanley Miller at the University of Chicago. At the time Miller was a 23-year-old graduate student working under Urey who was trying to recreate in his laboratory the conditions then thought to have preceded the origin of life. The Miller/Urey experiments involved filling a sealed glass apparatus with methane, ammonia, hydrogen gases (representing what they thought composed the early atmosphere) and water vapor (to simulate the ocean). Next, they used a spark-discharge device to strike the gases in the flask with simulated lightning while a heating coil kept the water boiling. Within a few days, the water and gas mix produced a reddish stain on the sides of the flask. After analyzing the substances that had been formed, they found several types of amino acids. Eventually Miller and other scientists were able to produce 10 of the 20 amino acids required for life by techniques similar to the original Miller/ Urey experiments. Urey and Miller assumed that the results were significant because some of the organic compounds produced were the building blocks of proteins, the basic structure of all life (Horgan, 1996, p. 130). Although widely heralded by the press as “proving” the origin of life could have occurred on the early earth under natural conditions without intelligence, the experiment actually provided compelling evidence for exactly the opposite conclusion. For example, equal quantities of both right- and left-handed organic molecules always were produced by the Urey/Miller procedure. In real life, nearly all amino acids found in proteins are left handed, almost all polymers of carbohydrates are right handed, and the opposite type can be toxic to the cell. In a summary the famous Urey/Miller origin-of-life experiment, Horgan concluded:
Miller’s results seem to provide stunning evidence that life could arise from what the British chemist J.B.S. Haldane had called the “primordial soup.” Pundits speculated that scientists, like Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein, would shortly conjure up living organisms in their laboratories and thereby demonstrate in detail how genesis unfolded. It hasn’t worked out that way. In fact, almost 40 years after his original experiment, Miller told me that solving the riddle of the origin of life had turned out to be more difficult than he or anyone else had envisioned (1996, p. 138).
The reasons why creating life in a test tube turned out to be far more difficult than Miller or anyone else expected are numerous and include the fact that scientists now know that the complexity of life is far greater than Miller or anyone else in pre-DNA revolution 1953 ever imagined. Actually life is far more complex and contains far more information than anyone in the 1980s believed possible. In an interview with Miller, now considered one of “the most diligent and respected origin-of-life researchers,” Horgan reported that after Miller completed his 1953 experiment, he
...dedicated himself to the search for the secret of life. He developed a reputation as both a rigorous experimentalist and a bit of a curmudgeon, someone who is quick to criticize what he feels is shoddy work....he fretted that his field still had a reputation as a fringe discipline, not worthy of serious pursuit.... Miller seemed unimpressed with any of the current proposals on the origin of life, referring to them as “nonsense” or “paper chemistry.” He was so contemptuous of some hypotheses that, when I asked his opinion of them, he merely shook his head, sighed deeply, and snickered—as if overcome by the folly of humanity. Stuart Kauffman’s theory of autocatalysis fell into this category. “Running equations through a computer does not constitute an experiment,” Miller sniffed. Miller acknowledged that scientists may never know precisely where and when life emerged. “We’re trying to discuss a historical event, which is very different from the usual kind of science, and so criteria and methods are very different,” he remarked... (Horgan, 1996, p. 139).
The major problem of Millers experiment is well put by Davies,
Making the building blocks of life is easy—amino acids have been found in meteorites and even in outer space. But just as bricks alone don’t make a house, so it takes more than a random collection of amino acids to make life. Like house bricks, the building blocks of life have to be assembled in a very specific and exceedingly elaborate way before they have the desired function (Davies, 1999, p. 28).