It seems that Darwinism becoming outdated and obsolete.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

That doesn't invalidate his opinion regarding prebiotic chemistry.

Swell.


What does that have to do with "Darwinism?"

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: dug88

Yet you refuse to even hear what the man has to say. How scientific of you.

No your summary was good enough.

originally posted by: Phage
Tour:

Assuming that I have something significant to contribute to the evolution vs. creation debate, many ask me to speak and write concerning my thoughts on the topic. However, I do not have anything substantive to say about it. I am a layman on the subject. Although I have read about a half dozen books on the debate, maybe a dozen, and though I can speak authoritatively on complex chemical synthesis, I am not qualified to enter the public discussion on evolution vs. creation.

lambfollower.wordpress.com...

Plus...why would I listen to someone's theory on something they themselves say they're not qualified to talk about. Honestly he sounds like a brilliant person, i'm sure he builds great nano machines, but his comments and theories come from his background in organic chemistry and nano technology as well as his own personal beliefs. He can be great at lots of things, that still doesn't mean a theory involving just making up an entity or some other unprovable thing isn't ridiculous no matter where it comes from.

a reply to: Phage

How do you go from spontaneous emergence of life from randomly formed probiotic precursors to universal descent, if we cant even explain how life emerged in the first place? Darwinism attributes evolution to random mutations but it cant even be proven that life emerged from a random process. To my knowledge, a specific biochemical process for any of that has yet to be proven to exist.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Darwinism attributes evolution to random mutations

That's not quite correct.

To my knowledge, a specific biochemical process for any of that has yet to be proven to exist.

And until it was proven that the Earth travels around the Sun, it didn't?

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Evolution isn't random mutations. The mutations happen for a reason.
Considering you just fell right into the worst fallacy about evolution, you don't understand it enough to even try to refute it.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Why must the discussion always be about evolution vs an intelligent being i.e. a creator who can only be the Judeo-Christian god? There are many other possibilities. It's a narrow conversation which only offers two alternatives.

Why not leave religion and personal beliefs out of the conversation for a moment. Can you come up with any other hypothesis which may be on equal footing with evolution or the intelligent being?

Just because we don't have a definitive answer, doesn't mean we have to settle for only two possibilities. We may never have a definitive answer. Science is about evidence and discovery. It builds on itself. There's no door at the end of the hallway that closes permanently. The door is always open for new evidence whether it's a new interpretation of existing evidence or de novo evidence.

Think outside of the box. That's usually the guy/gal who wins the prize.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: strongfp

A taxonomy chart shows that we share similarities with other species, but it doesn't prove that we share a common ancestry. That part has yet to be proven. Its possible that those genetic similarities are artifacts of adaptation to our environment. Or maybe we do share common ancestry. The point is, it has yet to be proven either way.

Taxonomy charts show similarities with more than just other species. But you can easily take those similarities and paint a much bigger picture and literally follow a lineage to one another, you can trace a hippo back to a common ancestor of a snail if you wanted to and see the changes over time.
With that information you can make an educated hypothesis, hmm I wonder which DNA sequences hippos and snails have in common, oh look at that, there they are right where we thought it would be. With the amount of information and fossil records we have we can trace a common ancestor back millions and millions of years.

a reply to: Phantom423

Because people think that evolution = abiogenesis, or some similar story. Which isn't the same at all.
Like I said in my first post in this thread evolution happens, it doesn't matter if it was planted here on earth, or sparked up in a pile of chemically enriched goo, it still happens.
But when there is a creator involved people do tend to lean to the all mighty god of the bible who created us, and all sorts of other creatures at the same time 5000 some odd years ago, or what ever they believe.

a reply to: scojak

The universe contains about 10 billion galaxies

Wanted to point out your mistake, but it's in a good way that supports you!

There is an estimated 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, not 10 billion.

An international team of astronomers, led by Christopher Conselice, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Nottingham, have found that the universe contains at least 2 trillion galaxies, ten times more than previously thought.

source

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

How do you arrive at the conclusion that spontaneous formation of life from a random process is not likely? Can you calculate randomness? How would you calculate the probability distribution? Does the Schrodinger equation give you any insight?

Did life appear spontaneously? Who said it did and what is the evidence? Did it appear over a period of time through a natural process? Or did it land here on a meteorite and we'll never know how it formed? Given the evidence accumulated over the last 150 years, what's the more likely scenario: that evolution is a natural process which began in the past and will continue into the future or that a being planted life on this planet at some time in the past? Which proposal is more likely to at least be partially correct simply based on evidence?

Evolution has evidence. A creator-being has none. If you were calculating the probability of one over the other, what would be the result? Note that I said PROBABILITY. I didn't say CERTAINTY. There's a difference.

I haven't finished your videos, but I will say this. This guy is overwhelmed and hasn't a clue how to approach this problem. If he's a scientist, he should know that melodrama has no place in analytical thinking.

Do we really need another one of these threads?

a reply to: Akragon

What other sort of thread would you expect to find in this forum?

originally posted by: dug88

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: dug88

based on the opinion of a religious organic chemist, therefore god did it.

Dr. Tour builds nano-machines. He understands more about prebiotic chemistry than most, but you want to write him off because of his faith.

What a disgusting attitude to have.

No i write him off because his theory requires believing in a made up being with zero proof.

Surely the point is that the biochemistry defined in lectures constitutes objective and scientifically valid proof?

Your assertion that there is no evidence of God is fallacious. The truth is that everything in existence is evidence. There is no thing that does not evidence a supremely creative intelligence.

Also him making nano machines is not a reason to believe someone when they tell me a magic being exists.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Your use of the word 'magic' in this context would suggest that everything we cannot explain with current physical theories is 'magic' and therefore is an attempt at 'unreason'.

But surely anything that occurs within our universe is entirely natural, having a natural explanation, despite us not knowing the full details. The classification of anything that occurs within this universe as 'supernatural' or 'magic' is an embrace of ignorance, made worse by the comprehensiveness of the observed high level of implicate order of the universe.

I believe that would be an appeal to authority which is a logical fallacy. Also good ad hominem attack. You're debate skills are quite impressive.

An appeal to authority is only a logical fallacy if the authority referred to is presenting a mere supposition as fact. If they are presenting something true and factual, then their authority is substantiated by the facts and this, in turn, endorses their authority to present such facts.

It cannot be a logical fallacy, if it is substantiated in fact. If the reference to the presenter of the facts were removed from the argument, the argument stands on its factual basis.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: Akragon

What other sort of thread would you expect to find in this forum?

Well its close to halloween

How about one with vampires and monsters...

Religion vs evolution has been done so many times.... and it always ends the same

Meaning it never ends... 100 pages of "God did it/prove it/evolution is bogus/heres the evidence/ignore"

Sigh...

There are some basic chemical elements that can "reproduce". Crystals can grow. All they need is a supply of water and raw materials. These are used to make bones, coral reef, and calcite crystals. Then you have oils that can be hydrophobic and water soluble. These form droplets, spots and films on solid objects, which is how some bacteria grow. There are videos on reaction-diffusion equations that show how spot splitting, tubes, planes and other 3D structures can form. The human body uses hundreds of such systems to regulate cell growth, division, hair follicle generation, heart muscle contraction.

You also get various configurations of RNA that can self replicate. If we had a primeval ocean, it would be easy for all of this to happen; crystal formation, oil droplets, self-replicating RNA. Even now there are on the order of 12 million virus particle per cubic cm of the ocean:

www.quantamagazine.org...

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Here's a thought experiment (a "gedanken" as some physicists call it):

You're a scientist on a deep space mission. Your job is to observe and report on any life forms you encounter on the expedition.

You arrive in a planetary system where one or two planets appear to harbor the conditions for life. The spacecraft lands on one of the planets. You plan your trek into the unknown to make observations and collect your samples for analysis in your lab.

During the course of your research, you come across many different forms of "life" - even high forms of life that appear to be cognizant but they all look very different in appearance. The natives are friendly and pose no objection to your taking samples. So you collect dozens of samples and bring them back to your lab for analysis.

During the molecular part of your analysis, you extract a molecule which appears to be similar to DNA, but not quite the same. You do a cross-species analysis, align the sequences of this DNA-like molecule and compare your results. The analysis reveals that all the samples show a homology of more than 90% (recall that the appearance of the subjects is widely different).

What is your first observation given this evidence? Why would all these samples, which are vastly different in appearance and behavior, be homologous to this extent?

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

This is a tough call but this thread is a failure BP
It failed when you asked a bunch of ignorant non scientificaly minded atheists to watch videos about science
They are never going to watch anything related to science or anything that may force
them to think, they don't understand science
Look at the replies that state " I didn't watch the video but", then they reply like they understand the argument
Point scoring attacks on you personally BP by so many, generally because they havnt a real clue to deal with the issue examined

a reply to: Phantom423

Seriously you want to play games about people on spaceships, that's science?

My first observation is you have the mind on a monkey Ghost
We are not talking spaceships or games or other planets or exercising our intellectual incompetence
Deal with the videos and their statements

a reply to: Phage

What does it have to do with Darwinism?
I wonder if you understand evolution and it's relationship with life,

We are not allowed to discuss abiogenesis around here

a reply to: Akragon

Winge winge bitch, complain winge bitch
Why Ak, you don't have to read, don't have to reply, just don't click

Why wade in with your pathetic dribble
If you are not interested, why show up

I know you didn't listen to the video, I am guessing you are just an attention seeker, we don't want it