The Questions That Abiogenesis Needs To Answer, Before Evolution.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
I am not the one claiming to know Macro-evolution is LAWKI.

I don't recall anyone saying that. Macro-evolution is your term. I don't even know what you mean by it and what it has to do with LAWKI.

Well that definitely shouldn't be the answer for something someone is claiming to be part of LAWKI....

I guess you don't understand what LAWKI means.

a reply to: daskakik

And you ran away just like answer its cool though.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

What?

but you don't need to agree with their side to see that they have raised some valid questions about certain things.

And if there are no answers, but some educated guesses, what do you do?

a reply to: daskakik

With hold judgment until someone finds answers. You definitely don't claim something is a true fact when you know its based on a lot of educated assumptions. You can claim to believe it is true or is most likely true, but calling it fact is dishonest.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
a reply to: daskakik

And you ran away just like answer its cool though.

Yeah, you win. Congratulations.

There have been far too many "show me the evidence of evolution/speciation" threads for me to start another one with you.

Go look in one of those if you want evidence. I'm sure you've participated in a few.

In short: I'm all out of give a sh1ts on this one.

a reply to: Answer

Servant of the Lamb has seen the evidence. However this is not what he(?) is after. I base that observation on being in those threads, pulling in very good evidence, and putting the results in laymans terms. The result? Well yeah we all know the result. I'm not about to give up however.

originally posted by: ServantOfTheLamb
With hold judgment until someone finds answers. You definitely don't claim something is a true fact when you know its based on a lot of educated assumptions. You can claim to believe it is true or is most likely true, but calling it fact is dishonest.

Once the answers are in hand then you don't have to judge anything.

The educated guesses are often based on facts or evidence with a certain amount of credibility.

Things are being pieced together but it seems like some people want all or nothing. That isn't how it works.

In this very thread you had the OP saying that abiogenesis and evolution can't be seperated when in fact what happens is that they are studied seperately but that of course one is dependent on the other. You see how that type of miscommunication goes on for pages.

originally posted by: Noinden
a reply to: Answer

Servant of the Lamb has seen the evidence. However this is not what he(?) is after. I base that observation on being in those threads, pulling in very good evidence, and putting the results in laymans terms. The result? Well yeah we all know the result. I'm not about to give up however.

Almost all of these guys are too steeped in their own cognitive biases to be able to look at evidence objectively. Cutting through that is practically impossible - they have to want to change in order for that to happen. They don't.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

LAWKI??? The whole of evolutionary theory is not Life As We Know It.

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that we have been discussing some other form of life discovered by the Star Ship Enterprise.

The only kind of life we can study is "Life As We Know It" - Biological Evolution is specifically defined as the study of change over time in biological organisms as we know them to be.

Please think before you type, you are embarrassing yourself.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

It seems to me what you are saying is the process went a little something like this:

No life.
Something happened.
Life.
Evolution of Life.

Well, yes, since that is exactly the words I wrote. However, "Answer" reworked that statement to read

No life.
Life developed somehow.
Evolution of life.

Which is pretty much the same thing, except that my version emphasized the division between no-life and life a bit more for the benefit of the argument supporting the separation of the two fields of study.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

So many questions arise that I highly doubt you can answer with ample justification:
You are presupposing the the first life is what?

I am not 'presupposing' anything at all except that the first life was not composed of a 'cell' as we know them.

You are presupposing that the first life evolved into a more complex species based on what convincing empirical evidence?

Opening my eyes and seeing the variety of life forms in existence that are much more complicated than the first life form could possibly be.

How does your view account for the Cambrian explosion?

How does what view account for the Cambrian explosion? My view of abiogenesis and whether or not it was natural or supernatural? It doesn't, Biological Evolution accounts for the Cambrian explosion.

While I concede that we can observe variance amongst species, I see no reason to believe that Macro-evolution can be put in the category of LAWKI as its is not known. Macro-evolution is supposedly to slow to observe, and so all we are left with is fossils and rocks and our interpretations of those fossils and rocks. This is not convincing evidence nor is it empirically verifiable evidence.

Where did you pull that chestnut from? Evolution STARTS from the point of view of "Life On Earth As We Know It". Few, if any, biologists recognize any difference between micro and macro evolution, there is just biological evolution. Period.

You tried to slip past my argument by terming it a "matter of fact" that Evolutionary theory is LAWKI.

I did not try to slip past anything. This is the old, old, warning that "The Map is NOT the Territory". You must not confuse them - there be dragons.

"Evolutionary Theory" is NOT "Life As We Know It". "Evolutionary Theory" (proper name "Modern Evolutionary Synthesis") DESCRIBES the evolution of "Life As We Know It". Specifically it describes the changes that take place over time in LAWKI. This is trivially true because there is no such thing as "Life As We Don't Know It" to study.

We can think about LAWDKI, for example silicon based life, but we certainly cannot study it.

a reply to: rnaa

I'm sorry, I didn't realize that we have been discussing some other form of life discovered by the Star Ship Enterprise. The only kind of life we can study is "Life As We Know It" - Biological Evolution is specifically defined as the study of change over time in biological organisms as we know them to be. Please think before you type, you are embarrassing yourself.

And you obviously didn't understand my point...I agree with you. My point of contention was that evolution at or above species level is not part of Life As We Know It. That is your assertion and therefore yours to prove.

a reply to: ReturnofTheSonOfNothing

Its a matter of balance. You can be to cerebral about it, and be a dick head like Dawkins (great ideas, personality of a pike), or you can be a frothing at the mouth religious zealot (bad ideas, personality of a rabid weasel). Either is bad. While I engage the creationist side "vigorously" that is born after decades of trying to be reasonable with them. I've said on ATS that the IDer camp in the "creationist" (ie life was created, not so much God did it) congregation is more reasonable, that might be because they are less ingrained in an inflexible dogma.

I'd be a bit more forgiving if they were intellectually honest, and also consistent. If you ask scientists such as myself to adhere to the scientific method, you bloody well will too, or you have conceded defeat

a reply to: rnaa

Come now, asking Servant of the Lamb to do that is like asking a bird not to fly, or a fish to walk on land. Its possible, there are evolutionary examples (I certainly know the former given New Zealand is flush with flightless birds). But in this case it would require Servant of the Lamb (baaa) to actually be intellectually honest, I've yet to see that as something this poster is capable of, which would mean its pure speculation.

The real problem here is SotL is not in any way shape or form inclined to consider evolution as a possibility in the universe. If we are looking for a consiracy (it is ATS after all) I see one where creationists are trying to dumb the public down, and thus make science suspect to them, rather than lift them up, and allow Homo sapiens to continue to evolve.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

You are a creationist, as you state, because you believe that life was created rather than formed on its lonesome. Why are you resistant to the label? I am not calling you a young earth creationist, because I have yet to see you pull that nonsense from an oriface of your choosing. You however exhibit the creationist bent for attacking evolution, and science, with out actually trying to understand it. In all of our interactions, you have not even tried. You've also made a bunch of assumptions on what I believe. We know you are a Christian of some flavor. Yet what do you know of my beleif systems? My motivations? Nothing. So its another irony from you.

Why if abiogensis is your "problem" here, do you zero in on evolution? Its a familiar target of yours neighbor. Similarly you appear to have a hard on to "destroy" atheism.

What do I base all of this on? Your postings, your threads, your words.

As I've said before, if it quacks, congregates in flocks in the water, and gets shot during certain seasons ... it is probabably a duck. Thus if it argues against evolution, holds extremely hostile views to science, misuses terms like macro-evolution and micro-evolution, and has a strong religious tone. They are creationists.


Oh and you also quote creationist sites as source material. Sorry but that sort of gives it away. Its like if I was to debate theology, and quote Gerald Gardner as my primary source, I could not get offended if I was called a Wiccan. I'm not, but why the hell would I quote him and not expect that to be the likely idea people had. So you are not a creationist? Well if you say so, I'm not a Wiccan, but close.

a reply to: ServantOfTheLamb

I suppose it would come down to the definition of species. I define a species as animals that can mate and have viable offspring.

That is a layman's useful rule of thumb definition and it used to be the accepted definition in science. it is now known that there are too many exceptions to consider it 'correct'. While it is still useful in an informal way, most biologists now avoid the term in formal discussion.

Any breeder knows there are limits to what you can do. I don't know those limits, and they won't be found anytime soon cause no one is doing the research because it disagrees with evolution and any attempt to publish such would get you black listed quick.

That is absolute rubbish and breeding has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.

The kind of research you are bemoaning doesn't exist is done at the genetic level, and there are hundreds if not thousands of researchers doing it and publishing papers all the time. The lineages can be traced very effectively indeed.

I will say its lazy to just assume that can occur on a larger scale.

It is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to pretend that you don't understand it. If lots of tiny changes (mutations) in a population can result in small differences between similar populations of animals, then lots of small changes can result in large differences between related populations, and lots of large changes can result in huge differences between more distantly related populations. There is no 'sudden' shift, just a continuum of constant change.

a reply to: rnaa

Here we have another creationist tactic (Sorry SotL but it is a tactic they use if you don't want to be labled as one, don't act like one):

When one is loosing a debate, inject an idea which is obviously missing the point, but similar, then bitch and moan that its all semantics. I am pretty sure we will get this happen any minute.

SotL has shown that genetics is not their thing. Now I've spent hours crunching the data and cloning the cells (gods I hate that part, its why I like Chemistry more it can be exciting in a "run" kinda way ). If I could just breed a cow and get the result I wanted (what I'd be doing breeding a cow looking or a synthetic lethal combination for the BRAC genes is beyond me but ....) it would be much easier right?

a reply to: rnaa

breeding has absolutely nothing to do with the issue.

You mean there was no gender evolution that effected breeding, hey there is a thread on that too .

a reply to: rnaa

Well this is going no where productive so enjoy your night.

a reply to: Noinden

I've never understood this whole argument even if there was a creator you would need someone to create him. And of course someone to create the creator of the creator etc. Somehow intelligence has to be able to manifest itself there is no other way.