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Originally posted by salainen
Yes I see, suppose its not important when you look at it like that. God isn't necessarily needed, it just seems so unlikely that life begun randomly (unlikely, as in its a very small probability).
Originally posted by Xtrozero
It actually seems to be a high probability under the right conditions. It didn't take life very long to start after the earth was formed, and that tells us a lot. Life is a chemical reaction...there are a lot of those in the universe, why does life seem to be a something special?
How could we know that life only began once? What we can say is all life today is related to one such event due the evidence we have but cannot claim it only started once.
That is an interesting thought, but from my biology studies life is an incredibly complicated process. As far as I know, according to the major current biological theory, life only began once, and then eventually evolved to everything we know now.
We cannot know that either. Life already here and established would prevent any other life getting a foothold.
It only happened once billions of years ago, and has never happened since.
We have not looked anywhere else yet. What we can see is that anywhere life can exist it does
If it was a high probability under the right conditions, you would think it would have happened at least a couple of times... We haven't found life anywhere except here (yet).
Originally posted by colin42
How could we know that life only began once? What we can say is all life today is related to one such event due the evidence we have but cannot claim it only started once.
Originally posted by colin42
We tried to rationalise the results of simple cause and effect on a grand scale by seeing a creator. We now see a different picture using modern science.
Originally posted by colin42
Science is a tool we use to look past the effects to discover the cause and nothing more. Those that deny it or feel threatened by it need to look at themselves to see why it affects them in that way and then discover the cause.
My guess is if that is done honestly based on evidence the conflict between science (a tool) and religion (a belief) will be resolved.
Without people that believe in god there would be no such thing as an atheist. The only thing required for atheism is religion.
Modern science wasn't required for atheism, and atheism didn't begin from modern science. Chances are that all ahteists would still be atheists without science. As atheists usually say, its common sense that God doesn't exist. In my opinion it is a bit more philosophical than common sense.
Unless it can be shown that the universe is eternal then the ONLY conclusion is it started at some point. We are here as a result of that event.
Modern scientific research usually uses a disprovable hypothesis. Therefore science cannot prove the non-existance of God, since you can't disprove the hypothesis of something existing. It just can't be done. And I don't think there is any way that you could prove the existance of God either.
The conflict comes from what we place under the label and how unwilling we are to redefine it.
Then again, what conflict is there between science and religion?
Originally posted by colin42
Without people that believe in god there would be no such thing as an atheist. The only thing required for atheism is religion.
Science only requires a questioning mind. Modern science gives it a format in which to work.
Originally posted by colin42
The conflict comes from what we place under the label and how unwilling we are to redefine it.
I maintain that from that point, call it creation or big bang (just labels) this universe evolved due to cause and effects and could not have formed in any other way and that includes life.
Science has built rules to avoid bias but no matter how you define it. At its most basic level science is looking at the effects to find the cause and each time we succeed we find more questions
So you are making a statement from your point of view. I read it as you have not noticed any conflict.
I still don't see any conflict between science and the belief in God.
Originally posted by salainen
That is an interesting thought, but from my biology studies life is an incredibly complicated process. As far as I know, according to the major current biological theory, life only began once, and then eventually evolved to everything we know now. It only happened once billions of years ago, and has never happened since. There is only one lineage of life, not an infinite number of them, every currently living thing (on earth), descended from the LUCA. If it was a high probability under the right conditions, you would think it would have happened at least a couple of times... We haven't found life anywhere except here (yet).
Originally posted by colin42
So you are making a statement from your point of view. I read it as you have not noticed any conflict.
In that case I think from my reply shows we both agree.
Originally posted by Xtrozero
Don't confuse LUCA with the start of life. Basic life was already somewhat complex when we talk about LUCA and a RNA world. Also it is kind of hard to find other life since we have been no where yet. I'm sure at some point we will find very basic life evidence on Mars one day.
Originally posted by wingedmo26
"Theistic Evolution is the anesthetic given to man while his religion is being removed." William Jennings Bryan
Err are we having a translation issue here. You don’t know anything about the conflicts between religions such as creationists and evolution? If that is so read this thread and all the 100's of threads on this subject
What do you mean from my point of view? What conflict is there between science and religion?
Darwin and his supporters paid a heavy price for publicising the theory, a price set by the religious groups of that day and that has continued for many years
Not really though, theistic evolution came with evolution. Religion is a belief, most people who believe in God would also believe in most, if not all, major scientific theories.
Here is your problem. There are many religions and many sects within each religion and evolution does not fit at all well with their version.
Religion and evolution actually fit very well together.
Again, one does not believe in science, you accept or reject it and as for it is not easy to understand. Rubbish.
Still, its understandable that many theists, and atheists, do not believe in evolution. Its not a very easy thing.
I don’t agree but advise you to stop waiting and go find the answers for yourself. Then decide whether you reject or accept what evolution describes.
Nobody has yet provided evidence for it in this thread (still waiting).
Originally posted by colin42
Err are we having a translation issue here. You don’t know anything about the conflicts between religions such as creationists and evolution? If that is so read this thread and all the 100's of threads on this subject
If you are saying there 'SHOULD' be no conflict then again I agree.
Originally posted by colin42
I know it’s just words but you don’t 'believe in science', it is not a faith. You read the evidence, perform the experiments if you can and then apply it to your understanding of the world. Then you either reject or accept. It has nothing to do with belief.
Originally posted by colin42
Darwin and his supporters paid a heavy price for publicising the theory, a price set by the religious groups of that day and that has continued for many years
Originally posted by colin42
Evolution is the most accessible theory of them all and the one most easily applied to observations one can make even in your backyard.
Anyone that does not understand what evolution describes does not want to understand. This is why we see the same people saying the same incorrect statements over and over again. Dishonest misrepresentation and purposeful ignorance. If someone rejects what evolution describes that is a fair judgement. To reject evolution based on purposeful ignorance is not, yet many do.
Originally posted by colin42
I don’t agree but advise you to stop waiting and go find the answers for yourself. Then decide whether you reject or accept what evolution describes.
Before you claim to have the option of sitting on the fence. Those days are over. Science see's evolution as a done deal and there is more than enough evidence to make your decision one way or the other.
No that is not the reason. There are many levels at which one can base a decision on whether to support or reject and many types of evidence available.
Ok, I'll go and look it up again, and then post about it here. But I still believe that the said evidence is a little bit more complicated than what you are implying. You didn't wan't to post it here, so it must either be lengthy, or complicated, or you don't really remember/know.
Originally posted by colin42
As I have written before. At its most simplest it is cause and effect. Small changes, selected by the environment over time.
This is where I feel those that support intervention trip up. They misuse the word random. There is nothing random about how advantages are selected so it looks to them like the hand of intelligent design when in fact every action in this universe will play its part in that selection in some way no matter how small.
Define random in the context of the universe
Everything is random, and is believed to increase entropy.
The changes in the genome may be called random but the selection for advantage is not random at all.
Importantly though any individual changes in the genome etc. are random themselves, and therefore selection is largerly driven by randomness.
Originally posted by colin42
Define random in the context of the universe
Originally posted by colin42
What part of the selection process is random?
Originally posted by salainen
If it was a high probability under the right conditions, you would think it would have happened at least a couple of times...
Originally posted by rhinoceros
Originally posted by salainen
If it was a high probability under the right conditions, you would think it would have happened at least a couple of times...
But the right conditions disappeared as soon as there was life to exploit the available resources..
Yep
I don't really know if anything is truly random, as everything is affected by other things. Perhaps that was the point you were making?
Agreed it is part of the process but the problem arises when people equate what evolution describes as random. It is not.
I suppose you are right in that selection is not random, but what I meant was that it all comes down to the random changes in the genomes. A mouse cannot just begin to select for larger body size, without the random possibility of such a choice arising.
I look at it like this. If you picture the first organism to leave the water and survive at the waters edge. Although the environment would be hostile there would be no competition for any food source found there or any land based predators. So the forces that would shape it would be mainly the drier environment so any changes that give advantage here would be quickly passed into the population. Different food sources again with no competition would also influence selection and encourage the species to diverge at a relatively accelerated rate. So again not random.
And I think that the further we go back in time the smaller the selection power was, and it was driven more by randomness, although I'm certainly not sure of that.