How could the first living cell have evolved?

reply to post by bias12


a big part of your guys argument i think is personal definitions of the term designer,, or even intelligence,,,..,

you imagine this to mean a rd party non physical fairy magic deity,,, but i do not think this would match up with what your opponent is arguing for,,

reply to post by ImaFungi


What do you think a designer means?

I take issue with an "intelligent designer." That suggests a being or something along that line.

As the origin of life is unexplained I'm open to new ideas, but a being or person purposefully making life happen on earth is just too far for me, there is no evidence. And if life is so improbable to occur randomly then surely that makes the idea of a designer, who would have had to come into existence at some point, twice as unlikely to have made life on earth.

I am open to an "influencing factor." A natural phenomenon that changed the conditions of our planet to make the improbable take place. Something that we don't know about and can't explain. I can buy that.

Originally posted by Aim64C
reply to post by bias12

 

It's a vanishing group of biologists that cling to the "anti-intelligent" thesis. Physicists and mathematicians that regularly handle statistics and readily defined systems take one look at cellular mechanics and say: "Yeah, that didn't come about by chance."

Wait... you're not seriously trying to suggest that ID is the mainstream scientific consensus, are you?

reply to post by bias12


thats primarily the problem with atheists,,,, denying the existence of god in relation to the definition of god from mans religion or their own supposed definition,.,.,..,

id say people who believe in god see proof of an intelligence permeating the existence of the universe,,, as you or scientists see the existence of the universe,,, its a qualitative interpretation of the data,,,, science doesnt like to do this,,, thats why it pats itself on the back for all of its objective facts,,,,, but what do these facts mean,,,,, you and some scientists think it means a lot of random chaos can make a lot of complex and sophisticated order,,.,.,. people who believe in intelligent design or god,,, may see the data and existence of the universe to mean,,, there is more to the universe in regards to structure, order, reason, purpose, potential, possibility,, then those scientists give it credit for,,,, you will have to ask aim64c what his personal definition is,.,.,.,,. i personally dont know,,,,, but I dont know how you can say there is no intelligence in nature,,, or that nature doesnt design with purpose,.,.,.,. every part of the human body including the human body has purpose in its design,,, same with a bee and their flowers,,, and the fruit and vegetable animal eats,,, and the worm tilling the soil,, and the spider is equipped with the ability to spin a web,,, these are all mechanical and intelligent designs,,..,,. you believe yourself to be intelligent yet you could not create a human from scratch,,,, including creating the quarks and protons and atoms,, and other universal lab constants that led to the potential for life to "stupidly/unintelligently create itself?" ,.,..,.,.,.,. your outlook is like wanting to look at the history of car parts,,,, and not wanting to give the designers any credit because it was only a matter of chance and trial and error before the creators got the car parts right,,,, if they were to work at all they had to work that way,,, so there was no intelligence behind it persay,,, only random fiddling till the puzzle was complete,,,,,,


also you seem to view the existence of the universe as a default,,,,, this comes with the territory of believing in no god,, or essence responsible for the universe,,, there for it is a junkyard of probability,, just there for the taking and making,,.,.,. it has to be,,, because it is,,,,, if it wasnt it couldnt,,,, do you even know where we are or what we are,,,, how space exists around you and in your head,,,,, and surrounding you for quadrillions of light years,,,, this space is just suppose to be here,,, with all the energy and matter,,,, in its forms,, and geometry is a given,,,, no intelligence had to figure it out because it is just suppose to exist and be mathematically sound, and symmetrical,,,



the other problem is the ability to view other perspectives without believing them,.,,. not being scared to see all possibilities from all sides,,,, to understand your opponent,, i have no emotions involved in these things,,, i wish i knew the exact truth of the matter,.,,.,. i understand your point of view,, i have since i was in highschool biology and chemistry classes,,,

Originally posted by bias12
reply to post by ImaFungi

 

And if life is so improbable to occur randomly then surely that makes the idea of a designer, who would have had to come into existence at some point, twice as unlikely to have made life on earth.

I completely agree, and would love to hear from those who defend the corner of some kind of intelligent design on this particular point.

AIM64C, stop posting up BS from creationist websites and post up the evidence that suggests mainstream science is a) receptive to the idea of a designer, b) considers such a notion scientific, c) considers it more plausible and scientific than abiogenisis and d) has discovered evidence for this designer. Surely it cannot be that hard, can it? After all, the non-ID crowd of biologists and physicists is "vanishingly small"

reply to post by bias12


Human life had to be engineered because dinosaurs were Earth's natural evolutionary creatures.
Then the Earth mysteriously dropped in oxygen levels and bipedal creatures came about.
Not to mention the humans with brains larger than ever before in Earth's past somehow
came about in an extremely short amount of time. Unlikely its evolution or a magical deity.
It was our gods, whomever they are or were, from which ever system they may.have.came from.

Originally posted by ImaFungi
reply to post by bias12

thats primarily the problem with atheists,,,, denying the existence of god in relation to the definition of god from mans religion or their own supposed definition,.,.,..,

Ok, what? What else would I deny the existence of a god by, if not what I define a god as???
I suppose religious people don't believe in a god in only the narrow terms by which they define their god? That's why christians are all fine with worshipping buddah or allah...wait, they're not!!!

id say people who believe in god see proof of an intelligence permeating the existence of the universe,,, as you or scientists see the existence of the universe,,, its a qualitative interpretation of the data,,,,

It isn't a qualitative interpretation of the data. It is looking at the data and imparting meaning where there is none.

Originally posted by TheBeastly0ne
reply to post by bias12

 

Human life had to be engineered because dinosaurs were Earth's natural evolutionary creatures.

That's a false dichotomy, and by all means please define what "Earth's natural evolutionary creatures" actually means.

Then the Earth mysteriously dropped in oxygen levels and bipedal creatures came about.
Not to mention the humans with brains larger than ever before in Earth's past somehow
came about in an extremely short amount of time.

Huh? We have a fairly good idea what wiped out the dinosaurs but really it is of no real consequence. There is nothing whatsoever to suggest that man's evolution was abnormal, what you call "an extremely short amount of time" was in fact hundreds of thousands of years.

Unlikely its evolution or a magical deity.

"Unlikely" it's not evolution? Care to post up the scientific evidence that suggests this?

It was our gods, whomever they are or were, from which ever system they may.have.came from.

This claim is unsupported by evidence.

Originally posted by TheBeastly0ne
reply to post by bias12

 

Human life had to be engineered because dinosaurs were Earth's natural evolutionary creatures.
Then the Earth mysteriously dropped in oxygen levels and bipedal creatures came about.
Not to mention the humans with brains larger than ever before in Earth's past somehow
came about in an extremely short amount of time. Unlikely its evolution or a magical deity.
It was our gods, whomever they are or were, from which ever system they may.have.came from.

Wow, I didn't think people actually believed things like this. It takes a strong mind to hold onto everything that is wrong with this statement. Well done.

How do you think we were engineered, what tools do you think your creators used?

Originally posted by Ookie
reply to post by SplitInfinity

 

Again, TRILLIONS of "attempts" per day over the course of millions of years. Never going to happen in a lab. The human mind cannot comprehend the numbers. If every human on Earth had a lab and did the experiment every second the human race would be busy for near eternity just replicating ONE DAY of foam washing up on beaches. And this went on for at least 300 million years. If trying to create life was ALL everyone ever did it would take hundreds of millions of years before it happened. Why is this so hard to understand?

I dunno. With life being able to thrive everywhere (even in outer space, in the bone crushing depths of the sea, in arsenic, and in the arctic) it sure seems like life WANTS to survive. Wouldn't it make a little sense to take it one step further and say that life WANTS to be created? If life occurred naturally once, it just seems to me that it would occur over and over and over, and that the lack of lab results is from our lack of knowledge and not in the rarity of occurrence.

Originally posted by john_bmth
AIM64C, stop posting up BS from creationist websites and post up the evidence that suggests mainstream science is a) receptive to the idea of a designer, b) considers such a notion scientific, c) considers it more plausible and scientific than abiogenisis and d) has discovered evidence for this designer. Surely it cannot be that hard, can it? After all, the non-ID crowd of biologists and physicists is "vanishingly small"

Thank you!!!

reply to post by bias12

Show us the quality, peer reviewed research papers backing up your claims. I notice that you provided none of the evidence I asked for in support of the existence of your "designer"

You'll notice on the pages I linked to, all of them have citations which link to published articles.

Bluntly - you're too much of a douche to be worth going through all of them. You're not actually paying attention to the debate and merely restating baseless claims.

I would hazard that if the process has indeed completely stopped it may be due to the differing conditions on our planet now, compared to what the environment was like in the distant past. Although I have seen no quality, peer reviewed research that has proven that there is no new development of life anywhere on our planet.

While this is true - you're also arguing a logical fallacy. "Well, there's nothing that says it isn't happening... so I'm going to side with the belief that it is."

Which is exactly the fallacy you accuse ID of using.

Even if irreducible complexity was an accepted scientific principle in biology

Because individuals with PhDs in various sectors of biology putting forth the ID argument working in the field since the 60s don't add up to much.

It's an illusion that "biology" is of a consensus on the issue.

darwiniana.org...

Abiogenesis is about the origin of life. Evolution, technically, is about what happened after life arose on Earth. Life origins studies proceed under a number of hypotheses and remain very tentative during this early period of investigation. A recent summary of research is in The Spark of Life : Darwin and the Primeval Soup by Christopher Wills and Jeffrey Bada.

You'll notice:

The definition of evolution is being stretched to include the origin of life only by the creationists. Change in gene frequency through time is the genetic basis for any definition.

Which is not the argument being posed by ID. At least - not those who truly understand the ID premise.

www.asa3.org...

A browse, here, betrays many of the same underlying concepts.

The question of the origin of life has a long and controversial history. Many readers will come with a point of view - perhaps looking for material to bolster their convictions. Others will come with questions as they seek to come to an understanding that fits their theological position.

However, an interesting paradox can be noted in the headlines:

"An important rule in reconstructing the earliest events in life's history is to assume that they proceeded without the benefit of foresight. Every step must be accounted for in terms of antecedent and concomitant events. Each must stand on it's own and cannot be viewed as a preparation for things to come. Any hint of teleology must be avoided." American Scientist September-October, 1995

Basically - you can't play the role of replicating molecules and/or guide the process with knowledge of a future goal.

However, one notes the headline:

Selecting life: Scientists find new way to search for origin of life (Nov 9, 2006) Over the last half century, researchers have found that mineral surfaces may have played critical roles activating molecules that would become essential ingredients to life. Identifying which biomolecule/ mineral surface pairs, however, has stumped scientists for years because of countless possible combinations. Now a team of researchers, led by Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution's
Geophysical Laboratory, has developed new protocols and procedures for adapting DNA microarray technology to rapidly identify promising molecule/mineral pairs.

.... Explain how that's anything other than imposing selection based on knowledge of a future goal (an inherently intelligent process)...

I hear you saying a lot of things to challenge our current theories, "irreducible complexity" and improbable statistics included, but where is the evidence in support of a designer?

It's a fundamental part of the information theory and the law of conservation of information. As explained in the work of Dembski and other statisticians developing, testing, and utilizing the theory.

It allows one to look at a sequence and determine whether or not chance, law/necessity, or design is the best explanation for the sequence observed.

If chance is sufficient for the probabilistic resources of the system (the likelihood of you flipping a coin four times in a row and getting all heads is possible if you are given several hours to run trials - in fact it's almost a statistical guarantee - cheating is not suspect). If there is a repeating pattern, law/necessity is at play. Else - Design is suspect when the sequence displays specificity.

reply to post by Aim64C


I think you have proved my point. Statistics are not evidence. Dembski's work has been discredited and is considered pseudoscience by the scientific community.

You have proven that there is no evidence what so ever for Intelligent Design. None. Its just a wild, baseless, nonsense. You can post all the creationist propaganda you want, but hard science doesn't support Intelligent Design, and until any evidence comes forward to support it, hard science never will.

The world is full of evidence that our reality is solely made from explainable, physical processes. If you need to ignore reality to comfort yourself, you can do that, but please don't make us with rational minds experience your lunacy with you.

I'm sure you, dembski and behe will all be happy worshiping your designers, but you do the world a dis-service by pumping out this creationist crap that flies in the face of common sense.

p.s I did read your articles and while they reference journals, they do so only in assertion of the biological facts in the articles. There is not one published, peer reviewed article in either link that supports intelligent design. Given that the links are to creationist propaganda, the fact that not even they can find a reputable source to back up their claims, is truly telling!

reply to post by Aim64C


His request was direct and to the point. My request was direct and to the point. Post up the abstracts of the papers from credible journals that support the notion of ID or the existence of a designer. You know this sort of thing would be explicitly mentioned in the abstract so there's really no need to keep posting up excerpts from websites and sources of a dubious origin. Let's just cut to the chase and see these papers, eh? If the non-ID position is "vanishingly small" then such a monumental discovery would leave a paper trail a mile long from a whole slew of credible journals. I do not see the difficulty in complying with this reasonable request.

Originally posted by john_bmth
reply to post by Aim64C

 

His request was direct and to the point. My request was direct and to the point. Post up the abstracts of the papers from credible journals that support the notion of ID or the existence of a designer. You know this sort of thing would be explicitly mentioned in the abstract so there's really no need to keep posting up excerpts from websites and sources of a dubious origin. Let's just cut to the chase and see these papers, eh? If the non-ID position is "vanishingly small" then such a monumental discovery would leave a paper trail a mile long from a whole slew of credible journals. I do not see the difficulty in complying with this reasonable request.

The reason that AIM64C will never comply with our requests is that he is not physically able to, as no such articles exist! I'm afraid all I get, when making these requests, is references to creationist propaganda and insults!!

reply to post by Aim64C


Aim64C is so full of crap. All he ever posts are links to creationist propaganda... Like the Discovery Institute is a reputable scientific source... LOL!!

Maybe he should swap the bible and creationist nonsense for some respected scientific journals. He might learn a thing or two.

However, this prospect is as likely as us having an intelligent designer.

I must admit I look forward to reading his next futile attempts to defend his outrageous beliefs though. They have so far been very funny!

reply to post by pieleg

I completely agree, and would love to hear from those who defend the corner of some kind of intelligent design on this particular point.

The same argument applies to both sides.

What created the matter that constitutes biological compounds?

What created that?

And that?

Why did the big bang happen? Why is our universe comprised of more matter than antimatter? Why is there uneven distribution of galaxies and other material? Chaos principle? Why does that exist? What created the physics that make the process of uncertainty so?

You ultimately end up at a stale mate. You can't answer any more.

Likewise - let's say you walk outside and see that your driveway is covered in colored chalks forming something you recognize to be a picture.

Who drew it?

Immaterial to the fact that it is a system that displays specified information that performs a function and carries a specific meaning. Which belies an intelligent origin, plausibly human (though it could have been your neighbor's dog displaying a freak moment of brilliance yet to be identified in canines... research is ongoing).

You would logically suspect that intelligence, the only known cause of such meaningful structures, was responsible for the artwork and/or language expressed on your driveway. You would also likely suspect it was a human - since humans are the only known propagators of such intelligent systems.

You don't drop suspicion of a human factor because you do not know the parents of the individual responsible (or even the individual responsible). You don't drop suspicion because you can't trace back down the infinite regression answers back to the big-bang.

It's a silly line of reasoning.

reply to post by john_bmth

AIM64C,

Since you seem to be either incapable of reading or simply refuse to do reading (simply claiming any source posted as a "creationist website" - despite the fact I quote from talkorigins.org and other similar sources), I really don't see much point in addressing your concerns further.

You need to realize that, in terms of this subject - you know nothing I do not already know. Discussion with you is an altruistic endeavor. I typically debate or discuss to mine people for information. You're tapped out, and Bias is repeatedly failing to produce any unique data to analyze.

Try finding me a theory for how ATP could have come into existence, for example. ATP - the energy unit for all known cellular life, requires the ATP molecule in the synthesis of further ATP molecules. This creates what is known as "irreducible complexity" - both ATP and its synthase had to exist in conjunction at the same time. Further - since this is used universally throughout the cell for a number of processes involving replication - it's a rather critical process to be able to describe the origin of.

As opposed to saying: "Well, it just had to be chance combined with some natural affinity for life. Since we know it couldn't have been any kind of intelligent cause."

... Which isn't really science, either.

Nowhere does science stipulate a bias for or against intelligent causes.

Look up the "Quantum Enigma" and its corresponding crisis within physics to the "DNA enigma" (or the "information enigma") within biology. The two are similar in that science cannot answer the fundamental questions such enigmas provide. Quantum mechanics implies that we live in a conspiratorial universe that has our every decision engraved into it - or that conscious decisions has the potential to change the past (a little dramatically worded - but the issue has been a skeleton in the closet since the dawn of the 20th century). There really aren't many other interpretations of the phenomena of quantum mechanics (well - none that do anything to make one feel more certain about things).

Physics has been forced to accept and deal with the quantum enigma and the fact that the truth is - so far as we can determine - unknowable.

The "DNA enigma" will likely go the same route for biology. Simply adopt a Copenhagen equivalent interpretation - presume that life exists and just calculate how it will evolve. Postulate on how it got here to begin with... and you are being too much of a hippie: for all practical purposes - life exists and it follows natural selection.

reply to post by Aim64C


Come on AIM64C, enough bluster. Enough insults, enough monologues and enough pussy footing around with the issue. We're 10 pages into this thread already, now would be a good time for you to quit trying to give us the run around the houses and post up the abstracts from papers published in credible journals that support the notion of a designer, the existence of a designer or the refutation of the mainstream materialist hypothesis for life's origins in favour of a designer. Take your pick, just be sure to post up the abstract where these claims are explicitly mentioned. I know you are no fool, such findings and conclusions would be mentioned unambiguously in the paper abstract, it really is a trivial matter to post them up, no? After all, findings would be ubiquitous in scientific literature, I mean it must be a mundane exercise for scientists to even to validate such findings if physicists casually take one look and come to the conclusion, and in their professional opinion, that "it must have been designed", right?

I eagerly await this academic literature.

reply to post by Aim64C


Thanks for the story, however I was more hoping for some kind of reasoning as to the logic behind saying 'it's nearly impossible for life to be created on it's own, therefore we must have been designed'. When, in actual fact, this view requires the infinitely small chance of life being created to have happened, not once, but twice.

And for no evidence of the Intelligent Designers to be left behind.

Please, Aim64C et al, enlighten me.