evolution, the facts that inform the theory'?

originally posted by: MrConspiracy

originally posted by: Xenogears

originally posted by: MrConspiracy
It always makes me smile when people use Evolution as a tool to explain life.

I think it's a pretty solid theory. But it answers so little. No point arguing about it.

It's probably partly... maybe mostly true - but the question of where life began is far too vast and incomprehensible.

Also.

Aliens. And I'm not even kidding.

Life is complex machinery. How did it arise? Well considering it is here, and considering there's no evidence of supernatural events occurring, the likeliest explanation is that there exist extremely simpler machines that can spontaneously arise and serve as initial steps with a line of intermediate complexity machines to get to the current point.

Alternatively, I've heard quantum physicists say that even complex spontaneous appearances of objects, even brains is possible just extremely unlikely. So an entire cell appearing out of thin air is seemingly allowed by known science, if I'm not mistaken, but it is far far more likely that simple machines arose from spontaneous chemical reactions in the beginning.

Logically, this can't happen in the first instance.

Something can't come into existence out of nothing and IN to nothing.

The thing is the quantum vacuum is not really nothing, though some call it that. It has the potential of arbitratrily popping anything into existence, if I'm not mistaken.

In physics thought experiments, a Boltzmann brain is a self-aware entity that arises due to extremely rare random fluctuations out of a state of thermodynamic equilibrium...

The average timescale required for formation of a Boltzmann brain is vastly greater than the current age of the Universe. In modern physics, Boltzmann brains can be formed either by quantum fluctuation, or by a thermal fluctuation generally involving nucleation-wiki

As for empirical evidence of abiogenesis, again I repeat. We see a planet, we see everything follows physical law as far as we can see into the cosmos, it is safe to assume the planet formed as a result of physical processes, if we have evidence to prior simpler states without planets. Like a crime scene, we can deduce what happened from the evidence at hand, the crime need not be duplicated in a laboratory for the more likely explanation to be made. The presence of life in a planet is evidence it can arise from known physical law on the material world. There is no real evidence for any alternative causal power within the material world other than the physical laws.

As for life moving from planet to planet, there are lifeforms that can withstand direct exposure to the radioactive vacuum of space. They can also operate in suspended animation, spore like or even frozen for great periods of time. In naturally occurring suspended animation form life can withstand extreme temperature and radiation. Buried deep in a large chunk of matter ejected by a violent impact, life can survive entry into some other bodies.

PS
IF you believe in eternalism, and that reality, existence, is digital at heart. You cannot be destroyed, only access to your person removed from a location. Your essence, your pattern, exists in an abstract eternal form.

Things like boltzmann brains or simulations, it matters not the infinity of identical copies, a copy is like a link to the eternal original, it is merely looking at it from multiple points of views.

The question is what is your fate? Given immortality, what determines your fate or destiny? There's an infinity of factors outside your control that determine your next state in the current world. But will that always be the case? Can you ever attain some manner of control over your eternal destiny?

The Mods allow this behavior because their Pro-Padawan.

Yup I said it... Padawan.

Now watch the Mods remove this post cause Raggadyweiner can dish it, but can't take it.

Coomba98

originally posted by: paraphi

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Evolution didn't cure any diseases, scientists did.

Now, that's not actually true. In natural selection (aka survival of the fittest) organisms that are able to survive against disease pass on those genetic traits to their offspring. There are examples of this if you look.

Overall though the term evolution and its adherents have no proof and have yet come up with anything meaningful.

The theory of Evolution is mostly a waste of time at this point.

It is more than clear that literally all of Existence cannot be explained by this poor...and boring theory.

originally posted by: JoshuaCox
a reply to: Raggedyman

Yes Christianity, Islam, Mormonism and Judaism are all religions of kissing cousins..


That is what happens when your creation myth has one family populate the earth..


Brother and sister, cousin and cousin all have to bump uglies..


BWAHAHAHA..


You can’t do stupid???? did you read your OP.. I think the vast majority of humanity would agree you know stupid personally.

Agreed the religions are full of absolutely insane stuff.

So is the religions of climate science and evolution.

To those with half a brain to look objectively they both need to be sneered at as much.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: Raggedyman

Question back at ya, why does your Bible not mention the many cool Ammonite fossils I collect frozen in time in Limestone rock? Did they get preserved in the 7 day creation claims? Which day did your god do that, the 3rd day maybe?

Oh, and to dismiss any silly claims that I religiously have faith in scientists, nope, I don't, but I tend to believe claims which are verifiable, unlike your completely unverifiable god claims.

Who really cares what the Bible says...care to mention how a claim can be verifiable?

If it is not a fact it is unverified...which is a claim.

What claims regarding evolution have EVER been verified

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: ClovenSky

Strange how 'power of the mind' cannot grow new limbs for amputees though isn't it. Same with prayer, all gods seem to ignore amputees. Science is equally unable to regrow new limbs for amputees but it doesn't claim to be able to do so.
Stem cell research though who knows the future, but one thing is for sure, if I need a pacemaker I'll take that any day over the power of prayer or the mind.

How is that strange?

I have never heard of a religion that claims limb regrowth LOL.

Actually science is making claims all the time that are flat out wrong.

You are like the rest...you falsely believe that because religions are unprovable that automatically science is somehow morally bound to be telling the truth.

Great swaths of science are nothing but a speculative waste of time where people grandiosely cheer anything that is anti-religious...that does NOT make science right.

Science believers make me shake my head..they believe the myths as much as a crowd of sheep in church.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: Raggedyman

Well I don't ever say evolution is a 'proven science' as you put it, I only say it is a pretty damn strong theory.
As I said, I collect fossils, lots in my area, and with the knowledge of tectonic plates, sedimentary rock formation, fossilisation processes, etc it is a strong theory to suggest the lovely specimins I've collected are 350 million years old.
God did it or something else like that has zero evidence to support it.
Evolution theory = lots of supporting evidence.

And what supporting evidence of these timelines can be had...you realize how incredibly wrong those numbers could be...along with just about every other part of the theory.

Collecting specimens and using testing systems to take a stab at it are hardly proof.

Will likely NEVER be provable.

The theory of Evolution will be laughed at in disbelief in the not too distant future...in fact great numbers of people already are leaving that religion behind.

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy

originally posted by: bulwarkz
That is interesting. From what point in history did that ideology take hold?
Because atheism is a very recently accepted idea. Almost all cultures revolved around omnipotent gods. Atheists were rare, ridiculed and considered rogue outcasts until just the last few centuries. Where do you get these ideas from?a reply to: JoshuaCox

Every child is atheist until some adult brainwashes them that god/s exist.

What came first the child or the Adult...

originally posted by: CornishCeltGuy
a reply to: bulwarkz
Bollocks, children only believe in 'god' when they are taught to.

So how did religions come to be then...if noone taught them..i call bollocks on you.

Or better yet perhaps religion is part of "Evolution" and is perfectly natural lmao.

originally posted by: rnaa
a reply to: whereislogic

You really should go back and review the first 2:40 or more of the video I posted - because it explains exactly why the beginning of your video is completely wrong.

1) Your video accuses science of failing to reproduce "spontaneous generation" and as something modern scientists have been trying to do.

You've been tricked and you are misrepresenting what the scientist in the video actually says. He just describes something that has often been called "spontaneous generation" that has also been called "abiogenesis" and "the chemical evolution theory of life". Just because the term "spontaneous generation" has gone out of fashion because of the amount of times it's clearly been shown to be a myth doesn't mean it still isn't telling the same storyline (which your video says nobody could come up with in the past, conveniently ignoring that the Pagan philosophers in Greece and India already came up with 'Mother Nature did it' thousands of years ago, it's a part of some forms of pantheism). Your video also conveniently neglects to mention that it's been called "the chemical evolution theory of life" or simply "chemical evolution", for obvious reasons regarding the distracting comment that 'abiogenesis has nothing to do with the theory of evolution'. Go capitalize on the ambiguity of language some more when the word "evolution" and the verb "evolve" are used extensively in literature that is pro-abiogenesis talking about abiogenesis a.k.a. chemical evolution. I'm not going to debate it again on this forum, I've found all of the fans of evolutionary philosophies to be entirely unreasonable, stubborn and/or dishonest about that subject. The whole zooming in on and attempting to argue about the use of the term "spontaneous generation" in that video (which is used correctly to describe an evolutionary philosophy that is only promoted by evolutionary philosophers that refer to themselves as "evolutionary scientists", "evolutionary biologists" or even just "evolutionists") is a red herring anyway.

Since the video you used loves to incorporate Jack Zsostak's glorified soap bubbles that he and his fans refer to as protocells into their storyline which provides no reasonable evidence to back up any of the key claims made in that storyline:

a reply to: whereislogic

You've been tricked and you are misrepresenting what the scientist in the video actually says. He just describes something that has often been called "spontaneous generation" that has also been called "abiogenesis" and "the chemical evolution theory of life".

No.

He is making the claim that natural abiogenesis is spontaneous generation when it is NOT and has NEVER been described as such by anyone except those in the anti-science propaganda machine trying to poison the well.

The claim is FALSE. The claim is MISLEADING. The claim is INTELLECTUALLY DISINGENUOUS. The claim is a LIE. The claim is HYPOCRITICAL LYING PROPAGANDA.

Spontaneous Generation has NEVER had ANYTHING to do with abiogenesis, and was proven to be FALSE by scientists over 300 years ago, a finding that was revisited 200 years ago and again 150 years ago with the same result.

Spontaneous generation has not had an scientific credibility for over 150 years, and for this commentator to conflate the idea with natural abiogenesis exposes his anti-science agenda.

This is ridiculous.

Regards abiogenesis, we don't know if it can be proven in reasonable time within a laboratory. If you have simple molecules interacting perhaps for hundreds of thousands or millions of years before anything close to a cell comes to be, something that may have been what happened, like planet formation it may not be recreatable in a modern day lab. None would be satisfied with any of the initial steps being shown in a lab, and the full sequence may take too long to replicate, not to mention without knowledge of the conditions it is a difficult endeavor.

This idea that we should be able to reproduce cells from inert matter in a lab in a matter of months or years, is untenable. No different a suggestion than those who want a monkey to give birth to a man or deny evolution, it is a nonsense suggestion that sparks from misunderstanding the complexity at hand.

We have the fossil record, we have the genetic evidence. You may say fossils, genetic similarity between species even similarity of inert mutations, for which there is no real reason for there to exist vast similarity. Again, all the evidence points to evolution.

IF we have the principles of geology, you don't ask did the grand canyon pop into existence as is, or was it the product of time given physical law. Nor do you ask for the grand canyon to be recreated in a lab.

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: Raggedyman

Evidently evolution has so much solid evidence that evolution doesn't need any more evidence, no I don't get that either

Theres a stack of threads that show things you clearly "don't get"... but as for your question

Sure... We like more evidence, to stack upon the pile...

Plus the fact that we can observe it happening... not that its actually needed

Obviously you've seen this... but i figured we should add a few of your excuses to deny the theory to the first page

Point of order, that isn't evolution any more than a person with Sickle Cell Anemia being resistant to malaria or Tay-Sachs confering resistance to tubercolosis is an evolved human.

originally posted by: rnaa
a reply to: whereislogic

You've been tricked and you are misrepresenting what the scientist in the video actually says. He just describes something that has often been called "spontaneous generation" that has also been called "abiogenesis" and "the chemical evolution theory of life".

No.

He is making the claim that natural abiogenesis is spontaneous generation ...

He doesn't even mention abiogenesis, I did, because I was talking about the same overarching argument of both those terminologies that 'nature did it' (but I on the other hand didn't talk about "spontaneous generation" until you began playing through the usual cards that have already been played over and over on this forum). Just because the details of the overarching storyline constantly change and branch into multiple storylines over the past 2600 years at least, doesn't warrant the statement: "Spontaneous Generation has NEVER had ANYTHING to do with abiogenesis". It has the same source and origin for its popularity (Pagan philosophy based on Mother Nature-worship, Gaia-worship; Plato and Aristotle in particular as the main promoters and the cause for its popularity), it has the same overarching argument ('nature did it') and it has the same type of people adhering to it and promoting it (as either a viable testable hypothesis, a fact/reality, a plausible or most likely fact/reality or as an implied "scientific theory" or as a reasonable, accurate or plausible description of events in the past, a postdiction rather than a prediction, etc.; allthough they are unlikely to use the term "postdiction" as to not draw any attention to the fact that what Haldane&Oparin referred to as "the chemical evolution theory of life" makes no predictions whatsoever, and there's another so-called "theory" that makes no accurate predictions and focuses on postdictions, sometimes twisted and presented as predictions as in the case of Kenneth Miller and the mythological postdiction that the Human Chromosome #2 is the result of the fusion of 2 other chromosomes in a mythological unspecified apelike common ancestor humans share with chimpanzees). Regardless, I brought up the video for entirely different reasons and to go down this road any further I guess would only encourage more of this pattern:

I guess "spontaneous generation" is one of those trigger-words that can be used for a chatbot to draw from a database of standard arguments and accusations to make. Like "information", "complex(ity)", "life", etc.

In 2008, Professor of Biology Alexandre Meinesz highlighted the dilemma. He stated that over the last 50 years, “no empirical evidence supports the hypotheses of the spontaneous appearance of life on Earth from nothing but a molecular soup, and no significant advance in scientific knowledge leads in this direction.”

It really is the same core idea, 'nature did it by chance', spontaneously generated by only the forces of nature acting on liefeless matter, i.e. a spontaneous generation or appearance of life on Earth. Just changing the details and the name when the old name has lost its marketing value because the details in it have all been shown to be far beyond reason, experimentation and observation and lay deep in the realm of mythology and wishful thinking, or simply have been proven beyond any reasonable doubt to be wrong/incorrect, isn't going to negate the relation between these different terminologies that promote the same core idea/philosophy. And it also doesn't make it more credible as if it's been updated with increased knowledge once you start looking at the details that have been changed a little closer. You are not following where the evidence leads, not the evidence of past centuries, and not the last 50 years Professor Alexandre Meinesz is talking about. And a little too impressed with intelligently glorified soap bubbles, like the cute character Bubbles in Finding Nemo. I'm just swimming by in the back trying to remind people of something.

a reply to: paraphi
The appendix is a useless antiquated organ. Mine’s gone and I’ve not missed it as far as I know, but you’re right, I think some things take time to evolve. Although I hear it was useful in caveman days when they ate grass. So how long before the first human is eventually born without one?


Overall I think I’m more convinced evolution is real.

I couldn’t list anything to prove it. Not really looked into it, except it’s hard not to compare ourselves to primates.

originally posted by: Teikiatsu

originally posted by: Akragon
a reply to: Raggedyman

Evidently evolution has so much solid evidence that evolution doesn't need any more evidence, no I don't get that either

Theres a stack of threads that show things you clearly "don't get"... but as for your question

Sure... We like more evidence, to stack upon the pile...

Plus the fact that we can observe it happening... not that its actually needed

Obviously you've seen this... but i figured we should add a few of your excuses to deny the theory to the first page

Point of order, that isn't evolution any more than a person with Sickle Cell Anemia being resistant to malaria or Tay-Sachs confering resistance to tubercolosis is an evolved human.

You don't believe that a human and bacteria have a few differences?

IF not a few trillion?

this is an example of evolution on a microscopic scale... the same thing that happens in every organism

Its just easier to identify, and actually witness in simple things like bacteria...

originally posted by: violet
a reply to: paraphi
The appendix is a useless antiquated organ. Mine’s gone and I’ve not missed it as far as I know, but you’re right, I think some things take time to evolve. Although I hear it was useful in caveman days when they ate grass. So how long before the first human is eventually born without one?


Overall I think I’m more convinced evolution is real.

I couldn’t list anything to prove it. Not really looked into it, except it’s hard not to compare ourselves to primates.

Took a while to get rid of our tail... and theres still evidence of it hanging around...

Some are still born with one... let the creationists figure that one out

God gave you a tail... lol

a reply to: rnaa
The video you used says at the end "think about it", which I have several times since I've seen it several times. The trick described in the video below from 9:18 - 12:48 is very similar, allthough your video has a slight twist in how it talks past the issues and dismisses them as not being an issue or details that need to be further discussed at all, and pretends one can just go on with the storytelling without addressing it. Your video does it in such extreme cartoonish ways, that it's almost funny:

a reply to: whereislogic

ok.. im dizy...

why do the words move around so much

3 mins into that video and i'm slightly ill

a reply to: Akragon
You might want to just watch the part I was referring to, just like I used the earlier video only in a reference about my usage of the word "cheating".
What Is the Origin of Life?

...
Most science courses focus on the adaptation and survival of life-forms instead of on the more central question of the very origin of life. You may have noted that attempts to explain where life came from are usually presented in generalizations such as: ‘Over millions of years, molecules in collision somehow produced life.’ Yet, is that really satisfying? It would mean that in the presence of energy from the sun, lightning, or volcanoes, some lifeless matter moved, became organized, and eventually started living—all of this without directed assistance. What a huge leap that would have been! From nonliving matter to living! Could it have occurred that way?

Back in the Middle Ages, accepting such a concept might not have seemed a problem because spontaneous generation—the notion that life could arise spontaneously from nonliving matter—was a prevailing belief. Finally, in the 17th century, Italian physician Francesco Redi proved that maggots appeared in rotten meat only after flies had laid eggs on it. No maggots developed on meat that flies could not reach. If animals as big as flies did not just appear on their own, what about the microbes that kept appearing in food—covered or not? Although later experiments indicated that microbes did not arise spontaneously, the issue remained controversial. Then came the work of Louis Pasteur.

Many people recall Pasteur’s work in solving problems related to fermentation and to infectious disease. He also performed experiments to determine whether tiny life-forms could arise by themselves. As you may have read, Pasteur demonstrated that even minute bacteria did not form in sterilized water protected from contamination. In 1864 he announced: “Never will the doctrine of spontaneous generation recover from the mortal blow struck by this simple experiment.” That statement remains true. No experiment has ever produced life from nonliving matter.

How then could life come to be on earth? Modern efforts to answer that question might be dated to the 1920’s, to the work of Russian biochemist Alexander I. Oparin. He and other scientists since then have offered something like the script of a three-act drama that depicts what is claimed to have occurred on the stage of planet Earth. The first act portrays earth’s elements, or raw materials, being transformed into groups of molecules. Then comes the jump to large molecules. And the last act of this drama presents the leap to the first living cell. But did it really happen that way?

Fundamental to that drama is explaining that earth’s early atmosphere was much different from what it is today. One theory assumes that free oxygen was virtually absent and that the elements nitrogen, hydrogen, and carbon formed ammonia and methane. The concept is that when lightning and ultraviolet light struck an atmosphere of these gases and water vapor, sugars and amino acids developed. Bear in mind, though, that this is theory.

According to this theoretical drama, such molecular forms washed into the oceans or other bodies of water. Over time, sugars, acids, and other compounds concentrated into a broth of “prebiotic soup” where amino acids, for instance, joined to become proteins. Extending this theoretical progression, other compounds called nucleotides formed chains and became a nucleic acid, such as DNA. All of this supposedly set the stage for the final act of the molecular drama.

One might depict this last act, which is undocumented, as a love story. Protein molecules and DNA molecules happen to meet, recognize each other, and embrace. Then, just before the curtain rings down, the first living cell is born. If you were following this drama, you might wonder, ‘Is this real life or fiction? Could life on earth really have originated in this way?’

And Oparin called this storyline, which clearly shows its relation to the concept of "spontaneous generation" as shown again above (only the details differing, but the general "notion that life could arise spontaneously from nonliving matter" is the same): "the chemical evolution theory of life".

Genesis in the Laboratory?

In the early 1950’s, scientists set out to test Alexander Oparin’s theory. It was an established fact that life comes only from life, yet scientists theorized that if conditions differed in the past, life might have come slowly from nonlife. Could that be demonstrated? Scientist Stanley L. Miller, working in the laboratory of Harold Urey, took hydrogen, ammonia, methane, and water vapor (assuming that this had been the primitive atmosphere), sealed these in a flask with boiling water at the bottom (to represent an ocean), and zapped electric sparks (like lightning) through the vapors. Within a week, there were traces of reddish goo, which Miller analyzed and found to be rich in amino acids—the essence of proteins. You may well have heard of this experiment because for years it has been cited in science textbooks and school courses as if it explains how life on earth began. But does it?

Actually, the value of Miller’s experiment is seriously questioned today. (See “Classic but Questionable,” pages 36-7.) Nevertheless, its apparent success led to other tests that even produced components found in nucleic acids (DNA or RNA). Specialists in the field (sometimes called origin-of-life scientists) felt optimistic, for they had seemingly replicated the first act of the molecular drama. And it seemed as though laboratory versions of the remaining two acts would follow. One chemistry professor claimed: “The explanation of the origin of a primitive living system by evolutionary mechanisms is well within sight.” And a science writer observed: “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.” The mystery of the spontaneous origin of life, many thought, was solved.—See “Right Hand, Left Hand,” page 38.

Moods Change—Riddles Remain

In the years since, however, that optimism has evaporated. Decades have passed, and life’s secrets remain elusive. Some 40 years after his experiment, Professor Miller told Scientific American: “The problem of the origin of life has turned out to be much more difficult than I, and most other people, envisioned.” Other scientists share this change of mood. For example, back in 1969, Professor of Biology Dean H. Kenyon coauthored Biochemical Predestination. But more recently he concluded that it is “fundamentally implausible that unassisted matter and energy organized themselves into living systems.”

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