It seems that Darwinism becoming outdated and obsolete.

While it may not be initially obvious, hopefully, by the end of this post, the reader will realize that this is neither an attack upon atheism, nor is it an exultation of theism, but simply a refinement of those philosophical questions.

If anyone is qualified to test the unproven Darwinian theory of evolution for weaknesses, Dr. James Tour is one of those men. He is a synthetic organic chemist, who specializes in nanotechnology; possessing the knowledge of what is necessary to create living cells from raw chemicals. Indeed it is a very delicate and laborious process. The notion that life emerged from random organic chemical reactions that took place in caves, puddles, or even cavities within meteorites is a largely unsupported assertion. While precursors to prebiotic systems can be produced under natural environmental conditions, making the transition from precursor compounds to the prebiotic elements needed for a biological system is a highly unlikely scenario to occur at random. Creating prebiotic systems requires meticulous precision, discernment, even a design, all within a very time sensitive frame. The probability that something as complex as a single cell could just spontaneously emerge from a chemical soup without the presence of a designer is beyond astronomically low.

Below are two lectures given by James Tour explaining the many inconvenient holes in the unscientific theory of Darwinian evolution.

The first lecture is approximately 30 minutes long, and is more or less framed in layman's terms.



This second lecture is about 1 hour, 20 minutes long, and it is "painfully technical" (to quote Dr.Tour).



NOTE: Everyone is subject to their own personal biases. Many brilliant scientists identify with atheism. Dr. Tour happens to be a Jew who converted to Christianity. This alone makes him a renegade within his own culture, let alone within his professional circles. I hope the viewer will take note of his bias, while objectively examining his arguments.


What I hope to communicate to the reader is that life was most likely created by an intelligent designer. Whether or not you wish to interpret that intelligent designer as God depends on how you define consciousness. Is consciousness nothing more than a harmonious collection of unconscious algorithms, working together to create the illusion of free will? Or is free will a--yet to be understood--phenomenon of its own, from which consciousness emerges ?

This is NOT an attack on atheism, as the existence of an intelligent designer would not discredit atheism. It simply narrows the field of philosophical questions available to us.

Is the intelligent designer God (the theist view) or is it just the program from which all things emerged--an artifact of information (a possible atheist view)?

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest

Is the intelligent designer God (the theist view) or is it just the program from which all things emerged--an artifact of information (a possible atheist view)?

I think it is both - the program which was designed by God. A monkey could never write functional code for even the most simple program. It will always come out as gibberish without an intelligent faculty directing the program code. The genetic code is intuitively the biological program of the Grand Designer.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
While precursors to prebiotic systems can be produced under natural environmental conditions, making the transition from precursor compounds to the prebiotic elements needed for a biological system is a highly unlikely scenario to occur at random. Creating prebiotic systems requires meticulous precision, discernment, even a design, all within a very time sensitive frame. The probability that something as complex as a single cell could just spontaneously emerge from a chemical soup without the presence of a designer is beyond astronomically low.

I admit I didn't spend the time watching the video, but I've highlighted a couple phrases from your OP.

The universe contains about 10 billion galaxies each with about 100 billion stars, which means 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 potential solar systems that have had almost 14 billion years to randomly create life. So saying the odds are "beyond astronomically low" doesn't really matter because the timeline is literally astronomically long and the sample size is literally the entire universe.

Improbable and impossible are two completely different concepts. Prove to me it's impossible to randomly create life and I'll believe you. But if there is even a .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance, then I'm completely unconvinced.

originally posted by: cooperton
A monkey could never write functional code for even the most simple program. It will always come out as gibberish without an intelligent faculty directing the program code.

Ok, but what about a billion trillion monkeys over the course of 14 billion years? Randomness, given enough time, will create perfection.

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

Evolution happens whether you like it or not. If it was a God, that sparked life or if it sprung up on it's own it still happens, from the most intelligent creatures on this planet to cosmic evolution, it happens.

the theory that we evolved from monkeys has as much legitimacy as bigfoot.

a reply to: scojak

According to the laws of quantum thermodynamics, it is physically possible for you to spontaneously teleport from here to Pluto, without any use of technology. This is true, because entropy is a probabilistic process. That which is most likely to happed generally does happen, but it doesn't rule out 'miracles'. So yeah, there is a very unlikely chance that life began at "random", and we all evolved from a common ancestor.

BUT, spontaneous formation of life from a random process is not likely. If somehow it did happen, the likelihood that such a process would continue to produce increasingly complex but stable biological systems which further yield biodiversity from a common ancestor--all without an intelligent designer...well, lets just say that the Santa Clause story is much more plausible.


I encourage you to take the time to watch at least one of the lectures. There is a lot of valuable information on prebiotic chemical processes there.

originally posted by: agenda51
the theory that we evolved from monkeys has as much legitimacy as bigfoot.

naaaah big foot has much more legitimacy than monkey

a reply to: agenda51

No you're right because we didnt. We evolved closer along the lines of the great apes we live with today.

a reply to: strongfp

Right, but the question is, does the process follow Darwin's theory? The more we learn about synthetic organic chemistry, the more obvious it becomes that Darwin's model serves as a very bad approximation of what actually occurs.

Adaptation is proven, but universal common descent does not rest on solid ground. In the video, it is stated that we are discovering that our "junk DNA" (which is 98% of our DNA) isn't really junk after all, and while we share some almost identical DNA segments with chimps (the 1.5% of our DNA that isn't deemed junk), our "junk DNA" has some significant differences from that of our primate cousins.

Universal common descent remains unproven. Its not obvious that humans share any common ancestor with any primate. Our similarities to other primates could be by intelligent design, rather than a product of random mutation. We simply don't have enough information to prove one theory over the other.

I didn't watch the videos but from your post it seems like the summary is it's ridiculously improbable life could arise on it's own, based on the opinion of a religious organic chemist, therefore god did it.

None of that is a compelling argument to me.

Personally after reading through the multitude or research on abiogenesis over the years i'm going to go with the theory that doesn't.involve.just making # up. Every time I read some 'alternative theory that goes against mainstream science' it always involves either making # up or believing in something that goes against years and years of research and testing. That's not science that's the same as religion.

The way I see it sure they don't know how we went from organic molecules to cells, but it's a hell of a lot easier to believe it was random due to specific conditions over extremely long periods of time, considering just about everything else on earth is like that, as opposed to made up intelligent super being from 3.5 billion years ago. It's going to take a lot more than the opinion of a born again organic chemist to make me suddenly believe in such a thing with absolutely no proof. Why when just about every other thing about the earth being the way it is today is due to some random event or occurance would the origin of life be any different?

I mean hell if an asteroid hadn't randomly hit the earth and took out the dinosaurs we probably wouldn't even be having this conversation.

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.

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

a reply to: dug88

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

Sound more like you take comfort in the internal politics of established science.

The way I see it sure they don't know how we went from organic molecules to cells, but it's a hell.of a lot easier to believe it was random due to specific conditions over extremely long periods of time

What separates that from religion?

a reply to: BELIEVERpriest

A taxonomy chart can explain all that for you.
For example. We share basically the exact physical traits as a bonobo and chimpanzee, and have only 1% difference in DNA on the molecular level. They also share similar behaviors as humans.
Everything about our closest cousins can easily just be explained as they are more 'primitive' compare to us. But somewhere along the line hundreds of thousands of years ago a group of our ancestors isolated themselves so much and developed a wild imagination enough to wander into the unknown and spread out creating other small pockets of ancient humans, and even breeding with similar species.
Information is out there, it really is, but the subject of evolution is so vast, and so involved into almost every field of science, you can study it for your entire life and not know everything.
Darwin's contribution is only the tip of the iceberg, his main points were the driving forces behind evolution, and only briefly touched on how it could have all happened.

originally posted by: BELIEVERpriest
a reply to: dug88

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

Sound more like you take comfort in the internal politics of established science.

The way I see it sure they don't know how we went from organic molecules to cells, but it's a hell.of a lot easier to believe it was random due to specific conditions over extremely long periods of time

What separates that from religion?

Well one is based on observation of thinga that have occurred on earth, data collected over many years multiple experiments....the other is...believe my bull# because i'm smart and I say so....

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.

a reply to: dug88

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

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...

a reply to: Phage

That doesn't invalidate his opinion regarding prebiotic chemistry.