DARWIN's DOUBT - The End of Darwinistic Materialism

Cafolini, a reputable evolutionist, Leslie Oregel, said, " It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it is also seems impossible to have one without the other And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means". You see, Calfolini that spontaneity and complex developments or evolutionary sequences are not that easy! Michael Denton, a famous Australian Biologist, wrote, "To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process, is simply an affront to reason. But to Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt--the paradigm takes precedence". Complex structures bespeak a designer. Please do not belittle yourself and use the "snowflake" example again.

Orphan and Calidore, reputable evolutionist, Steven Stanley, writes, "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that a gradualistic model can be valid". E R Leach further opined, "Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt for sure that they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing, and seem likely to remain so". The gaps in the fossil record will never be filled in, and will never prove evolution!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Contrary to biological evolutionists dogma, mutations are more harmful than good. Alex Williams remarked, "directly contradicting mutations central role in life's diversity, we have seen growing experimental evidence that mutations destroy life". In the medical field, most physicians reguard mutations as deletrious. Mutations can effect reproductive cells as well as other types of cells. Also, mutations can cause: cancer, aging, and infectious diseases. The amazing evolution scale relies on selective variation to bring about positive, utilitarian changes in the gradual formation of species. If mutations generally produce more harmful effects than good ones, then evolutionists must rely on fortuitous circumstances whiich would allow a long, productive, sustained pattern of upward mobility. The best that current evolutionary apologists can do is to cite damaging mutations that have beneficial side effects. Is this enough to put together a biological chain of species' development? I think not!

---

Simply false, even some of the most radical mutations, like those which cause a frame shift (a complete deletion of a bp rather than a substitution of one nucleotide for another) have been shown to be able to produce beneficial mutations. The famous case of the nylon digesting Flavobacterium strain discovered in Japan was the result of a gene duplication, which caused a redundant copy of a gene to be in the bacterium's genome, followed by a radical frameshift mutation which created a brand new, never before seen enzyme which allowed this bacterium to thrive in the unique niche of a pool of water next to a nylon factory.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Cafolini, a reputable evolutionist, Leslie Oregel, said, " It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it is also seems impossible to have one without the other And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means".

---

Again this is a matter of abiogenesis that has nothing to do with evolutionary theory. Nonetheless, quote mining a biochemist like Orgel in this fashion is also intellectually dishonest. The sentences immediately following the one you quote goes on to explain that this initial impression is faulty because RNA could have been self-catalytic and capable of producing proteins without help of other proteins, two predictions that have been corroborated in recent studies of self-replicating ribozymes. Orgel was quite astute in that he was able to recognize the necessary conditions required for RNA to arise before proteins.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Michael Denton, a famous Australian Biologist, wrote, "To the skeptic, the proposition that the genetic programmes of higher organisms, consisting of something close to a thousand million bits of information, equivalent to the sequence of letters in a small library of 1,000 volumes, containing in encoded form countless thousands of intricate algorithms controlling, specifying, and ordering the growth and development of billions and billions of cells into the form of a complex organism, were composed by a purely random process, is simply an affront to reason. But to Darwinist, the idea is accepted without a ripple of doubt--the paradigm takes precedence". Complex structures bespeak a designer. Please do not belittle yourself and use the "snowflake" example again.

---

Denton is perhaps a famous biologist, but not a reputable one. He is another shill for the Discovery Institute. Also, I'm not exactly sure what you think this quote demonstrates, other than the fact that a famous ID proponent thinks evolution is improbable, quite the revelation. The ID concept of "information" is so muddled and full of **** that it doesn't impress anyone other than the scientifically ignorant like yourself.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Orphan and Calidore, reputable evolutionist, Steven Stanley, writes, "The known fossil record fails to document a single example of phyletic evolution accomplishing a major morphologic transition and hence offers no evidence that a gradualistic model can be valid".

---

This is a hilarious quote because clearly you don't know what a gradualistic model is in comparison to punctuated equilibrium. The fact that you think Stanley is criticizing the fossil record is another striking example of your ignorance on this subject.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

E R Leach further opined, "Missing links in the sequence of fossil evidence were a worry to Darwin. He felt for sure that they would eventually turn up, but they are still missing, and seem likely to remain so". The gaps in the fossil record will never be filled in, and will never prove evolution!

---

Yes, there are gaps in the fossil record but that's not really a problem for evolutionary theory as even with those gaps there are still massive amounts of evidence. Say you set up a camera to take pictures of a stone falling at set increments (say every 20 milliseconds), would you say it would be unreasonable to take the data from that camera and chart the likely path of that falling stone even with those thousands of gaps in your picture album?

Quote:

---

Perhaps the world's leading cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, has declared God's existence unnecessary to the universe's beginning. You say "something cannot come from nothing." So again I ask - from whence God?

---

Yes, Hawking said we got 1000 years to get off this planet ... too recently ... the same time as the milenium ... its already been proved something comes from nothing. Or what the Bible or any reasoning average man would call nothing.

Unless you can tell me why, if we could travel at or near light speed, the mass and energy to move an object becomes more difficult and eventually impossible to achieve, the mass becomes so heavy the universe reaches a 99.99 mass value and space = a NULL value. This Null space is the space they are refering to.

Not all forms of God are measured by your limited standards ... in hebrew, God was merely the catalyst that brings order to chaos ... To the Jews and gentiles he was Alpha and Omega ... most cultures have a creator God ... Shang Di has many spookily similar facets similar to Yahweh or Jehovah, etc ...

You can't measure PI you can only approximate it ... If we know stars can collapse into black holes why can we see them? Do you know gravity can drag space, time and matter into and out of existance? Not really a good question.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Common sense tells you that something cannot come from nothing. Inferior beings presuppose a greater supernatural force, being.

---

Modern science (quantum physics, cosmology, biology, neuroscience, even mathematics) has definitively demolished the reliability of our common sense. From neuroscience you can learn how our brains come equipped with millions of reality-distorting biases that innately prevent us from understanding how reality actually works (we are innately illogical). From quantum physics you can learn the counter-intuitive nature of how particles behave; either they randomly collapse into one world because we observe them, or they deterministically decohere into multiple worlds that we can't access. From mathematics you can learn how bad humans are at cognitively producing probabilistic formulas that best model reality (eg, Bayes Theorem). From cosmology you can, indeed, learn how the universe can indeed come from nothing; in fact, Krauss shows that not only can a universe come from nothing, but because nothing (meaning the absence of matter, space, time, and gravity) is so unstable, it will inevitably produce universes, and probably lots more than just ours. Another thing you can learn from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology is that, because of how our brains evolve, we constantly produce false positives with regards to assuming agency behind unexplained phenomena; this means that we are programmed to innately assume that something conscious/willful is behind everything we don't understand, whether it be the universe, or, back in the day, more common things like wind, lightning, rain, etc.

To conclude, our common sense and intuition are just about the worst things you can rely on if what you're after are truths and facts about reality. It has been proven wrong time and again, especially so within the 20th century when our knowledge of the natural world and ourselves has exploded. To sit back and rely on the same thing that people hundreds of years relied on is just willfully ignorant and foolish.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

It takes much more faith to believe that matter came from nothing, and evolved into a complex form, than to believe an intelligent person designed it. Think about your experience in the material world that you live in. Does any complex construct come into being without a designer?

---

It takes more faith if you are completely ignorant of the science; if you aren't ignorant of the science then it takes no faith whatsoever. Your claim about our experience in the natural world is simply false (there are plenty of complex structures that arise naturally as has been pointed out to you); but even if it were true, you can't extrapolate our experiences from the natural world and apply it to the universe. Why? Because we live in a universe where matter is governed by the laws of spacetime and gravity, and when you're talking about how the universe came into being you're talking about a point where such laws don't exist. It's a bit like trying to apply the rules of basketball to explain baseball, they're two completely different games. If you're looking to explain the origin of matter and the universe, then you need to find something that isn't governed by the laws of gravity or spacetime, but could actually create them as well as matter. Guess what? We actually have such a thing, and it's called the quantum field.

Pop, goes the weasel...

QM is not even worth looking into but after the fact. Considering a-priori design by analogy to events within the fact is even far more stupid.

As far as the bacteria mutations from which a lot of you are extrapolating. On the bacterial mutations, Kevin Anderson, said, "Bacteria frequently develop mutations that enable them to survive and adapt to a variety of environmental conditions. These mutations are generated by many different mechanisms, and provide a wide range of phenotypic modifications. However, most of these modifications can be classified as a form of antagoninistic pleiotropy. Some existing systems are sacrificed as a means for surviving certain environments..... If the environmental conditions change, the mutation usually becomes less beneficial and perhaps even detrimental. Hence, these mutations do not provide a genetic mechanism that account for the origin of biological systems and functions".

True faith was never based, nor it will ever be based but on the mystery at the point where facts begin to appear. We have no way and will never have a way to solve this genuine mystery. O, yes. We write mysteries that we set up to solve in a theater completely divorced from the genuine mystery. To no avail, except to exercise the mind in solving puzzles. Who killed Popoff? Broccoli? Goldfinger? Hollywood? Who discovered Topaz at the end of the story? Wasn't Topaz, like Popoff, already discovered from the very beginning?

True Calofini, the facts are made to fit the paradigm. Evolution is a religion, even though its adherents see it as an anti-religion.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cafolini

QM is not even worth looking into but after the fact. Considering a-priori design by analogy to events within the fact is even far more stupid.

---

I don't follow here...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

True Calofini, the facts are made to fit the paradigm. Evolution is a religion, even though its adherents see it as an anti-religion.

---

I think you just mixed up ID and evolution. No evolutionary facts have been "made to fit the paradigm" at all.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by KillCarneyKlans

There's already quite a bit of buzz around Stephen C. Meyer's forthcoming book, Darwin's Doubt:...

---

Oooh, I would imagine the only place a buzz will be caused is in the very small, already-believe-ID camp.

You don't really think anyone is going to take it seriously, do you? You know, the 10,000,000 pieces of scientific evidence vs 0 pieces of scientific evidence.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MorpheusSandman

I don't follow here...

---

I know. You don't follow here nor there. ROFLMAO

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

As far as the bacteria mutations from which a lot of you are extrapolating. On the bacterial mutations, Kevin Anderson, said, "Bacteria frequently develop mutations that enable them to survive and adapt to a variety of environmental conditions. These mutations are generated by many different mechanisms, and provide a wide range of phenotypic modifications. However, most of these modifications can be classified as a form of antagoninistic pleiotropy. Some existing systems are sacrificed as a means for surviving certain environments..... If the environmental conditions change, the mutation usually becomes less beneficial and perhaps even detrimental. Hence, these mutations do not provide a genetic mechanism that account for the origin of biological systems and functions".

---

Well Anderson, whatever his qualifications are because I can only find reference to him on Answering Genesis, is wrong. As I already said the nylonase gene arose from a duplication followed by a frameshift so it is not pleiotropic, we can forgive Anderson for not knowing this because he apparently stopped reading about the bacterium in 2006, we wouldn't want to think he was so dishonest that he deliberately ignored any research that contradicted his asinine apologetics. His entire argument in that article is ridiculous given that we know that very harsh niches promote specialization which makes organisms susceptible to environmental changes, it doesn't follow logically from this observation that these kinds of mutations could not produce new systems and functions (the latter of which is a bizarre statement because new functions are described in his own damn essay). If you took a worm from a hydrothermal vent it would immediately die in any other environment, despite its ability to survive at extremely high temperatures and pressure at the bottom of the ocean.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Contrary to biological evolutionists dogma, mutations are more harmful than good. Alex Williams remarked, "directly contradicting mutations central role in life's diversity, we have seen growing experimental evidence that mutations destroy life".

---

Wow, just imagine! Even if the overwhelming number of mutations were harmful rather than just neutral (and they're not) then those mutations are culled out by natural selection, leaving the small number that are fortuitously beneficial to spread through the gene pool. Who knew! :coolgleamA:

Fortuitously beneficial, but not nearly enough to form a biological system with complex functions.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Fortuitously beneficial, but not nearly enough to form a biological system with complex functions.

---

LOL

Hey, if natural selection weeds out the deleterious mutations, does nothing to the neutral mutations and effectuates the spread of the mutations that give an advantage in a particular environment, can you guess which mutations spread? :coolgleamA:

See the discussion on frameshift mutations and nylon-eating bacteria for a perfect example.

P.Z. Myers destroys intelligent design in 45 minutes, followed by beer. :wave:

If evolution were bogus then the name of the scientist to debunk it would be as famous as Darwin's. It wouldn't have entire university departments devoted to its study. People who don't believe in evolution simply have no conception of how the scientific establishment works. Paradigm shifting research brings with it fame and grants. Dishonestly propping up an existing paradigm provides absolutely no benefit to a scientist at all. People who do not accept evolution are believers in the greatest conspiracy any nut has ever madly postulated.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Darcy88

People who don't believe in evolution simply ....

---

...blame Satan.

(FTFY)

Gary Parker noted, "according to the neutral theory of molecular evolution much of the staggering variation in species is due to mutations that are either neutral or slightly deleterious.....Interestingly, says Kimura, the amount of variation within species is too great for selection models of evolution, but too little for the neutral theory".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WyattGwyon

Intelligent design is pseudo-science written for the willfully ignorant by fools and charlatans.

---

That judgment seems a bit too harsh and glib. There are quite a few folks who do understand biological science and Darwin's theory of evolution
by means of natural selection but who also keep an open mind about the possibility of a Creator (i.e. God) as somehow involved in the origin
of life.

It does seem that Darwin's general idea that natural selection is the driving force behind the evolution of life forms is correct. It is really a very simple
idea, and it's remarkable that no one was able to come up with such an explanation before Darwin and Wallace figured it out in the mid-19th Century...

There have been many criticisms, by serious academic biologists, about the details of natural selection. Darwin felt that evolution depended on gradual changes,
and some critics point to apparent sudden changes as evidence that Darwin was mistaken. I don't see this as a refutation of the basic rightness of natural
selection. We now have a better understanding than Darwin did about the mechanisms of heredity, whether it occurs None of this new knowledge "refutes" natural selection
as the mechanism of speciation, whether it occurs "gradually" or "suddenly."

That is to say: once "living organisms" appeared on Earth, natural selection does a fine job of explaining how these organisms could have evolved. Natural selection requires only a few very simple things to "work." What you need are the following-- an organism capable of: 1) interaction with its environment; 2) replication...specifically the reproduction of "progeny" with inherited characteristics that are similar to their "parents;" 3) the possibility that progeny may not be exactly identical to their parents; 4) competition between organisms for environmental resources; and, 4) differential survival, based on items #1 and #4, such that some organisms, based on their characteristics, will do better than others at "survival," meaning that these "more fit" organisms will produce more progeny that survive and go on to reproduce themselves.

An interesting thing about natural selection is that it has been shown to work not only for living organisms and "real" environments, but also for such non-living things as self-replicating computer programs that exist only in electronic computers... To me this is a strong indication that the idea of natural selection is a powerful explanation of "life-like" behavior, whether we are trying to understand living organisms or "inorganic" computer programs.

The real problem for a complete understanding of "life" is figuring out how living organisms came into being from the inorganic matter that was available billions of years ago when the Earth was formed. There's been a lot of speculation about this, but we still don't know how this "abiogenesis" occurred. Knowing exactly how this occurred is the deep scientific mystery for those who want a "scientific" explanation of life. I haven't read "Darwin's Doubt," but I suspect that any doubt he had about his explanation would come down to his inability to come up with a good explanation for abiogenesis.

However, once scientists come up with a compelling explanation for abiogenesis, then the Wallace-Darwin idea of natural selection can certainly explain how live evolved on Earth. Lacking such a convincing scientific explanation for the emergence of life from inorganic matter, I think we might be able to excuse folks for hypothesizing that perhaps some supernatural agent (e.g. God) created the first "living things." At that point the Creator stepped back and let those simple critters evolve. This view would be similar to the Deist's idea of God.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli

That judgment seems a bit too harsh and glib. There are quite a few folks who do understand biological science and Darwin's theory of evolution
by means of natural selection but who also keep an open mind about the possibility of a Creator (i.e. God) as somehow involved in the origin
of life.

---

That isn't "intelligent design". What you've described is how Catholic, Anglican and many other churches see the hand of god in creation - they accept evolution, but believe a creator god gave it the spark.

Intelligent design proponents are a very small, but vocal group of christians who believe the entire living world was designed by a god, without the benefit of evolution, which is anathema to intelligent design. If in doubt, you could try visiting the creation museum.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Atheist

That isn't "intelligent design". What you've described is how Catholic, Anglican and many other churches see the hand of god in creation - they accept evolution, but believe a creator god gave it the spark.

Intelligent design proponents are a very small, but vocal group of christians who believe the entire living world was designed by a god, without the benefit of evolution, which is anathema to intelligent design. If in doubt, you could try visiting the creation museum.

---

OK. So is the author of Darwin's Doubt one of these "unscientific" ID'ers, or is he a scientist who is making an argument that God created life and allowed evolution to play out according to physical laws (that he also created when He created the universe? I really haven't studied the ID arguments very much, but I'll take your word that all ID proponents simply reject natural selection as having any explanatory role in organic evolution.

I guess that there is still room for good scientists to believe in God as Creator of the universe and of life. Scientists have certainly not disproven the existence of God. the point I was trying to make in my previous post was that we still have no compelling explanation for abiogenesis, i.e. the emergence of life from non-living matter. Darwin never concerned himself with this essential first step. His theory of evolution by means of natural selection begins with the assumption that self-replicating life exists.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli

OK. So is the author of Darwin's Doubt one of these "unscientific" ID'ers, or is he a scientist who is making an argument that God created life and allowed evolution to play out according to physical laws (that he also created when He created the universe? I really haven't studied the ID arguments very much, but I'll take your word that all ID proponents simply reject natural selection as having any explanatory role in organic evolution.

---

Stephen Meyer is a rarity - a scientist who denies science to promote intelligent design. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen...lligent_design

There have been a few actual scientists who promote ID, notably Michael Behe, of Dover fame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Behe#Court_cases

ID and science are completely incompatible, so it's a bit confusing that some scientists choose to follow that path.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli

I guess that there is still room for good scientists to believe in God as Creator of the universe and of life. Scientists have certainly not disproven the existence of God.

---

I agree with you on both counts: firstly that there is room for theists (including scientists) to see a creator causing evolution to begin, and secondly, that science has not (and almost certainly never will) proven the non-existence of god/s.

In terms of a creator god that sparked the big bang or evolution, you nailed it in the previous post when you likened that belief to deism.

As far as proving non-existence, Bertrand Russell called that a century ago when he posited a teapot orbiting Venus - it's hard to prove the non-existence of something, so very few scientists would bother trying. Occam's Razor and some simple logic takes care of that anyway.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli

the point I was trying to make in my previous post was that we still have no compelling explanation for abiogenesis, i.e. the emergence of life from non-living matter. Darwin never concerned himself with this essential first step. His theory of evolution by means of natural selection begins with the assumption that self-replicating life exists.

---

Quite right again. Abiogenesis is one of the last refuges of the creator god, but the fact that we can't explain it doesn't bother me too much. It happened 4 billion years or so ago and we can't be sure what the chemical or climatic makeup of the planet was at that stage. The proof will come when we replicate living organisms for ourselves.

It's an interesting subject, but I see no need for the hand of a god in the process. I know one very respectable scientist who has an interesting theory to do with binary input of the sun being the driver of abiogensis. Each day, the sun rises and sets, so we have a binary input of 1,0,1,0,1,0. Then the days change length, so further input is added, and so on. At this stage, I can't say that's wrong, although it seems less likely than some of the options advanced.

The other complication is what constitutes life? Is a virus "alive" even though it may not have a lipid envelope? If it is, then what are prions? They are also pieces of replicating protein, but it would be a stretch to call it alive.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli

OK. So is the author of Darwin's Doubt one of these "unscientific" ID'ers, or is he a scientist who is making an argument that God created life and allowed evolution to play out according to physical laws (that he also created when He created the universe? I really haven't studied the ID arguments very much, but I'll take your word that all ID proponents simply reject natural selection as having any explanatory role in organic evolution.

I guess that there is still room for good scientists to believe in God as Creator of the universe and of life. Scientists have certainly not disproven the existence of God. the point I was trying to make in my previous post was that we still have no compelling explanation for abiogenesis, i.e. the emergence of life from non-living matter. Darwin never concerned himself with this essential first step. His theory of evolution by means of natural selection begins with the assumption that self-replicating life exists.

---

Read the thread, why don't you, before commenting or calling some responses glib? The quality of the author's "science" is addressed at great length by some bright and informed people. What I initially said is borne out in the discussion.

I did read the posts. I also understand the science of evolution, and I understand the criticism of ID by folks like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers. I don't know much about the arguments of the ID'ers, except that they are considered to be scientifically ignorant.

My main point is that the Darwin/Wallace theory of natural selection seems to be almost certainly correct, for reasons that I mentioned in my previous posts. Natural selection certainly can explain the evolution of living things. The big unanswered question is how did a "living thing" come into being from "non-living" matter in the first place? It seems that all life forms now existent derive from a single ancestor, because all life forms we know of have the same 64-bit DNA genetic code for amino acid transcription....

Once we have a self-replicating life form it is no big deal to envision how natural selection would lead to he evolution of what Darwin described in his final paragraph of The Origin of Species:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

This indicates that Darwin himself accepted the possibility that the emergence of life from "non-life" was somehow "breathed" into non-living matter. The word "creator" was added in the second and subsequent editions of The Origin. Referring to a "Creator" really doesn't matter...the point is that Darwin didn't have a convincing explanation for the emergence of life from non-life, and neither has anyone else since Darwin (and that includes folks like Richard Dawkins).

I have no idea what sort of arguments ID'ers are using to claim that natural selection can't explain evolution. I accept that natural selection provides a very good explanation of how complex organisms, including ourselves, evolved. I also believe that it is acceptable for scientists to assume that the origin of life from non-life (abiogenesis) could be explained by God.

Darwin was certainly a very good and honest scientist. I have little doubt that he understood that his theory of evolution by natural selection could explain how from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

The sticking point is that crucial detail of that "simple beginning."

That mystery is something that the anti-ID folks, including Dawkins, have seemed to gloss over.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Nick Capozzoli

The sticking point is that crucial detail of that "simple beginning."

That mystery is something that the anti-ID folks, including Dawkins, have seemed to gloss over.

---

I don't think it's glossed over at all - the answer is always an honest "we don't know".

There's no shame in not knowing, but it isn't a good reason to call for a creator.

I'm sorry but creationism does not deserve to be given equal weight as current hypotheses of abiogenesis. There is substantial experimental evidence and models that explain how life could have arisen from non-life, as opposed to no real reason other than faith to believe in a creator's interference. The answer might be a "we don't know," but we have a number of plausible ideas of how it could have happened.

Evolution has never stopped happening. It is happening right now. Humans continue to evolve. Mutations have never stopped, and happen all the time in all organisms. Finally, evolution is not a chance process. However, the opposite of chance is not design. So you show you have zero knowledge of evoution by this one short post.

The above was in response to this:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Why did the evolutionary chain of the development of species stop? The species evolved and the mutations stopped themselves at a defined point in time. This is ludicrous. A self-sustaining system not guided by a peripheral hand or a set of laws. CHANCE, CHANCE, CHANCE! If you are dumb enough to believe that life can evolve in a vacuum without cause or effect, then I think that you are delirious.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

It takes much more faith to believe that matter came from nothing, and evolved into a complex form, than to believe an intelligent person designed it. Think about your experience in the material world that you live in. Does any complex construct come into being without a designer?

---

Seriously? You're using William Paley's watch on the heath argument? Holy ... cow.

Think about this: complex constructs made by people don't reproduce with variation under changing circumstances.

There's a video on the Web that shows how easily a wristwatch could evolve from prior parts, if the parts reproduced with variation and the environment tended to favor watches. It's a really a bloody cinch. The eye evolved with stunning rapdity.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

Orphan, your guru defends the fossil record, which is a spottily, constructed gap of evolutionary forms. He defends, but does not address the genetic anomalies. His rationale is no better than Meyer's thesis. Either you believe in the sloppily constructed fossil chronology or you don't. I think that many of the transitional forms are fakes or mistaken deformities. If you want to believe in the contrived fossil record more power to you. I do not accept it.

---

You are completely wrong on all counts, and undoubtedly know nothing about cladistics or molecular biology.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

You choose to ignore the origination of matter. The evolutionary theory relies on a self-originating, self sustaining chain reaction of matter into more complex forms. If you have no creator or designer, then you have a process fueled by Chance. I know that the evolutionary biologists believe that over a lengthy period of time (millions of years) that even unseemly, unlikely sharing of DNA information among species can result in steps forward in the evolution of species. I do not believe this. The idea that chance combinations that have an almost 0% chance of occurring in nature would happen if given enough time is preposterous to me. Evolution seeks to describe the origin of the species without establishing the originator.

---

This is a misrperesentation of biology and abiogenesis, and you don't know what you are talking about.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by virtuoso

I wholeheartedly disagree. Common sense tells you that something cannot come from nothing. Inferior beings presuppose a greater supernatural force, being. Evolutionists really do not believe in a cause. They believe that the effect is married to the cause.

---

Something comes from nothing all the time, even as we speak. See: quantum mechanics.

That said, life did not come from "nothing."

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cioran

Finally, evolution is not a chance process.

---

If you mean that the universe is strictly deterministic and that no random events really happen, then the statement can be correct. I remain unconvinced that that is the case.

If "chance" means, as most people would think, that unexpected events like climate change, meteor strikes, solar radiation storms and viral infections are random events, then it doesn't work, because all of those have had an effect on evolution.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Atheist

If you mean that the universe is strictly deterministic and that no random events really happen, then the statement can be correct. I remain unconvinced that that is the case.

If "chance" means, as most people would think, that unexpected events like climate change, meteor strikes, solar radiation storms and viral infections are random events, then it doesn't work, because all of those have had an effect on evolution.

---

No, it's not that. It hasn't got anything to do with determinism.

Evolution is popularly mischaracterized as a chance process by its detractors, who demand to know how we can get the wonderful complexity of life by "chance alone."

The confusion arises in this "random mutation" bit. The "random" part is misleading. All "random" means in this context is that some mutation x is uncorrelated to the environment. As a matter of fact, this is precisely what we would expect from an undesigned process. A designed process, or at least a well-designed one, would minmize or if possible eliminate coying errors (which is what mutations are) or else would try to ensure that they were, in fact, correlated to the environment. Then, for instance, organisms encountering an enviornment getting steadiy colder might, in response, produce mutations that lead to nice fur coats. But that's not what happens. The mutations aren't correlated to the environment, and it is purely fortutious that some number of mutations happen to be beneficial. So there is that "chance" element (again, not what we would expect of a designed system).

But the process as a whole is not "by chance" because mutations are filtered through the sieve of natural selection. The environment "selects for" (not deliberately, of course) those mutations that just happen to give organisms a slight advantage, and over time those will spread throught the population. Thus the process as a whole is not a chance process.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cioran

Then, for instance, organisms encountering an enviornment getting steadiy colder might, in response, produce mutations that lead to nice fur coats. But that's not what happens. The mutations aren't correlated to the environment, and it is purely fortutious that some number of mutations happen to be beneficial. So there is that "chance" element (again, not what we would expect of a designed system).

But the process as a whole is not "by chance" because mutations are filtered through the sieve of natural selection. The environment "selects for" (not deliberately, of course) those mutations that just happen to give organisms a slight advantage, and over time those will spread throught the population. Thus the process as a whole is not a chance process.

---

I think you're playing semantics, and will ultimately end up confusing people.

You have the process right, but you need to ditch the word "chance". How about "random mutations, of which some are successful"?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by The Atheist

I don't think it's glossed over at all - the answer is always an honest "we don't know".

There's no shame in not knowing, but it isn't a good reason to call for a creator.

---

Thanks for the response. I can see that we disagree about the need to call for a Creator to explain the very critical point of
abiogenesis but we both agree that the origin of life itself is, so far, a mystery. And I think that we agree that once life
appeared, the theory of evolution by natural selection provides a plausible explanation for the evolution, from so
simple a beginning, to life forms as we know them.

Just because we haven't come up with a plausible physical mechanism for abiogenesis doesn't mean that such
a mechanism doesn't exist. It does however suggest that the origin of life from non-life, if we assume it arose by
natural processes, is extremely unlikely. I mean "extremely unlikely" in a thermodynamic sense, which is to say
in the sense that it would be extremely unlikely for an 8 oz glass of water at room temperature to suddenly turn to
ice. Is it possible? Yes, and you can even calculate the probability that it will occur. Absent any plausible
physical mechanism for life to appear from non-living matter, I'd say that we'd have to view life's appearance as
close to unlikely as the possibility of a glass of room-temperature water turning to ice...

While such a possibility is not zero, it is quite improbable, even when we consider the whole Universe. What it means
is that it is possible that life originated on earth (by pure chance) and nowhere else in the Universe.