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The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 1)
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Soul Winner wrote: »But that's what we were discussing all along, that much should have been blatantly obvious to you, plus even if it wasn't, my definition hardly qualifies as deeply ignorant and inaccurate now does it?
You have stated a number of times that chemicals cannot evolve by the process of Darwinian evolution and you have used this as the basis for the assertion that there must have been an intelligence acting upon these chemicals to get to them to the point of early life.
A few examplesNatural Selection theoretically can only kick in after the first self replication systems comes about, so how on earth can you apply natural selection to a pond full of chemicals that do what they do according to the laws that govern them i.e. the laws of physics?????? ???? Natural Selection doesn't work at this level, it can'tSo if natural selection cannot be applied to the chemical constituents which go to make up basic self replicating molecules then the advent of life on this planet is either a fluke (as Wicknight suggest) or it was designed.
That is deeply ignorant and inaccurate. It is the equivalent of saying that Neptune cannot have an atmosphere because aerodynamics only applies to things on Earth.
Correct, in fact Darwinian principles only apply to self replicating systems, so that much is redundant. Darwinian evolution is a description of how self replicating systems can evolve.Soul Winner wrote: »We were specifically talking about applying Darwinian principles to self replicating systems.
Your mistake is thinking that it only applies to life. It doesn't, it can apply to any self replicating system, including chemicals.Soul Winner wrote: »An admission to being incorrect in your assessment to my definition and an apology to me would have sufficed and saved a lot of time.
Your definition was wrong on a number of levels.
Excusable before this has been explained to you. But it was repeated even after this was explained to you.Soul Winner wrote: »I said that Mobert and I agreed to define life as any self replicating system. If non-living chemicals self replicate, then we must define them as life also, are we willing to do this? Are self replicating chemicals living systems?
No, that would be stupid. A self replicating genetic algorithm isn't alive in any biological sense. Neither is a self replicating molecule.
Rather than trying to back track by defining any self replicating system as "alive" a far easier route would be to simply admit now Darwinian principles can be applied to non-living systems, a claim you originally refuted.Soul Winner wrote: »So we cannot define life as a self replicating system, correct? If that is so then how can we define what a living system is?
What? I just said life was a self replicating system, but not the only one. Your response is to proclaim we can't say life is self replicating system? What?Soul Winner wrote: »I wasn't aware that chemicals can make replicates of themselves.
I'm aware of that. Perhaps in future it is better not to proclaim something is impossible without understanding it.
RNA occurs naturally.Soul Winner wrote: »Can you give us an example of this please? Too lazy to Google
Soul Winner wrote: »So the specific sequencing of nucleotide bases in the DNA of the most basic living system can naturally configured itself into that specific sequence?
DNA isn't the most basic configuration. It is estimated DNA appeared a 600 million years of evolution. RNA or something like it is considered the initial molecule.
You do know there isn't a scientist alive (other than Creationists) who think DNA just formed?Soul Winner wrote: »You do know that these sequences are part of the genetic code which has to be decoded and executed throughout other parts of the organism don't you?
The first cells only appeared after 1 billion years of evolution. We don't even know if DNA was present thenSoul Winner wrote: »So even if the chemicals could naturally come together to form the physical structure of the molecule, from whence comes the information that tells the various other parts of the cell what they need to do in order to decode, transport and execute their instructions etc in order to get proper function for the cell as a whole? Are you seriously suggesting that this process just occurs by necessity given the laws that govern the formation of chemicals?
From 1 billion years of evolution. Think of the cell as the end result of this process (abiogensis) not the start. The start is a simple self replicating molecule.Soul Winner wrote: »We know that the universe didn't start out having all the heavy elements that go to make up life, that we needed a certain amount of time for stars and galaxies to eventually form and produce the heavier elements in the cores later on, elements that go to make up life eventually, and that part of these basic elements include amino acids, proteins and so forth, which are themselves a combination of various other basic elements. But the question remains, how can they all have come together in the correct sequence which go to make up livings systems when we consider the unimaginable number of other possible combinations that they could have combined into which don't make up living systems?
There isn't an unimaginable number of other possible combinations if you understand the basic laws of chemistry.
It is like saying what are the odds of a rock falling down in a straight light when there is an infinite number of directions it could have fallen (ie up 30 degress, to the left 45 degrees)
Of course the question seems silly to us because we know things only fall down because of the law of gravity.
Likewise there isn't an unimaginable number of possible combinations of these molecules if you understand which can form naturally and which can't.Soul Winner wrote: »So basically what your saying is that life came about by of the workings of the laws of chemistry?
Yes, exactly. Given enough time and enough space life is the inevitable conclusion of the basic lasws of chemistry0 -
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Mostly, I'm in support of First Amendment type laws on free speech.
Edit: It would depend what you are defining as hatred here. It's a rather thin line.
Jakkass I think your missing my point. I am not asking you if you agree or disagree with the law or the punishment. I am asking you would it be accurate to say Fred was been persecuted because he is a Christian if he was arrested for it.
You make the connection so easily between doing or saying X (Abortion is wrong) to it being persecution of Christianity to have a law against it.
The law was not set up to persecute Christianity and plainly enough acceptance of abortion for example is not considered to be against Christian teaching by many Christians.
My point is that this is not a religious issue, it is a political issue, a democracy issue, a free speech issue, a civil liberties issue.
It's not religious persecution because that law has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. It doesn't care what the beliefs of the offender is anymore than a law against drunk driving would care if the offender was a Christian after a cup of wine at church.
Of course it is wrong, we completely agree here. But it is not religious persecution.Indeed, it is a crime in spite of human rights standards which affirm the free speech of individuals.
Absolutely, completely agree.Ultimately the Chinese government is anti-religion.
And your missing the point again. The Chinese government are not anti-religion, they are anti-any organisation which may lead to civil disobedience. Religion is just a small part of it. Religion is only cared about for its usefulness or it's detrimental effects on the population.
For example the government are currently funding a lot of Buddhist temples etc, promoting an image of China they think is beneficial for the world to see. They are also sticking funding into the state sanctioned churches for the same reason.
But do they care about religion for religions sake ? of course now.This and other reasons certainly do show that the Chinese government is anti-religion. Let's leave that aside though, as this is clearly based on your own anti-religion agenda.
I think we're having a serious communication problem here. I agree with you. But to say they are anti-religion does not bring across the correct situation at all. They are anti-any organisation which could be responsible for civil disobedience. Religion is just a small part of it.
To say they are anti-religion is to say they are against religion for religions sake, which they certainly aren't. They are very pro-religion when it suits their purpose.The problem is that the political motivation comes from their faith. I.E - They cannot be separated.
Their political motivation comes from Christianity ? I've lost you.Nobody asked you to explain the Chinese government position or to be their almost-apologist on this thread. Surely all that needs to be said is that it is grossly out of order what they are doing?
And what is wrong with explaining the details of the situation ? What is wrong with explaining that these state sanctioned churches are not just stooges for the government ?Given your track record, and given PDN's. I certainly trust PDN over you.
1 What track record ? Please show me where I have ever lied on this forum.
2 I caught PDN out on a lie which I will quote again;PDN wrote:The Chinese government also spreads the lie that their State-run churches are sufficient to meet the needs of all the Christians in China and that there is no need for more churches. So no more churches are going to be registered, even if they were willing to abandon their Christian principles and become the mouthpieces of the Communists.
One Chinese Christian website;
http://www.amitynewsservice.org/page.php?page=1150
Is the church growing? Yes. Though the percentage of new believers varies quite a bit from one area to another, growth is occurring and in some areas the rate is very high. In addition, new churches are constantly being organized and built.
And yet you still believe him ? Even with the evidence right there in front of your eyes ?
I mean, you can google yourself and see that I'm telling the truthI'm not going to indulge your complaints about South Korea. If you wish to do that there's plenty of room on the Humanities forum.
Priceless.
Unfair laws against Christians in China and your immediately behind them believing everything your told without a single piece of evidence.
Christians persecuting other religions in other parts of the world and you just reject them straight off the bat.0 -
Jakkass I think your missing my point. I am not asking you if you agree or disagree with the law or the punishment. I am asking you would it be accurate to say Fred was been persecuted because he is a Christian if he was arrested for it.
There is a difference between the situation you are describing. Abortion is wrong in mainstream Christianity, preaching hatred isn't warranted in mainstream Christianity.
Although, I would be more inclined to permit demonstrations rather than deem them illegal personally. It is only by allowing people to voice their views that you can adequately challenge them.You make the connection so easily between doing or saying X (Abortion is wrong) to it being persecution of Christianity to have a law against it.
Prohibiting this is in effect prohibiting mainstream practice of Christianity. It seems as if you are justifying this law at this point admittedly.The law was not set up to persecute Christianity and plainly enough acceptance of abortion for example is not considered to be against Christian teaching by many Christians.
The Chinese government persecute Christians as a result, and other groups who wish to speak freely. I'm quite aware that other religious groups are also persecuted, and I think this is just as wrong.My point is that this is not a religious issue, it is a political issue, a democracy issue, a free speech issue, a civil liberties issue.
It certainly is a civil liberties, democracy, free speech issue, that's about as much as I agree with you on. It also results in the persecution of Christianity and other faiths.It's not religious persecution because that law has nothing to do with religion whatsoever. It doesn't care what the beliefs of the offender is anymore than a law against drunk driving would care if the offender was a Christian after a cup of wine at church.
Both laws are not equally valid. These comparisons as such as invalid.Of course it is wrong, we completely agree here. But it is not religious persecution.
I'm afraid I disagree.
The rest of the post pretty much is going around in circles, so I've cut out sections to shorten it.Their political motivation comes from Christianity ? I've lost you.
Opposition to abortion & one child policy comes from Christianity.1 What track record ? Please show me where I have ever lied on this forum.
2 I caught PDN out on a lie which I will quote again;
1. Fanny Craddock has outlined at least one case of your hostility to Christianity on this forum. It's clear that this is your agenda. Trying to equate state based persecution with a Christian university in South Korea remaining Christian in ethos is one such distortion that I've seen on this thread alone.
I trust PDN more given his experience there. I suppose part of it comes from the fact that I've heard PDN talk about this in person (he's an absolute gent by the way) before as well.One Chinese Christian website;
http://www.amitynewsservice.org/page.php?page=1150
Is the church growing? Yes. Though the percentage of new believers varies quite a bit from one area to another, growth is occurring and in some areas the rate is very high. In addition, new churches are constantly being organized and built.
Em. This isn't PDN lying I'm afraid. The church can be growing without Chinese Government assistance.And yet you still believe him ? Even with the evidence right there in front of your eyes ? I mean, you can google yourself and see that I'm telling the truth
Yes, I believe him all the more because your evidence is insufficient.Priceless.
Unfair laws against Christians in China and your immediately behind them believing everything your told without a single piece of evidence.
Christians persecuting other religions in other parts of the world and you just reject them straight off the bat.
It isn't persecution in the slightest in the latter case, as you have the free choice not to go to a Christian university. If you are born in China, you don't really have the free choice to leave in every case given financial pressure and general visa restrictions.0 -
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Both laws are not equally valid. These comparisons as such as invalid.
Why are they not equally valid ?
Is it not a persecution of Christian rights if a catholic gets caught for drink driving after taking communion ?Opposition to abortion & one child policy comes from Christianity.
No it certainly doesn't. People of any faith can be against those things.
Do you think Buddhists for example want only 1 child by default ?1. Fanny Craddock has outlined at least one case of your hostility to Christianity on this forum. It's clear that this is your agenda. Trying to equate state based persecution with a Christian university in South Korea remaining Christian in ethos is one such distortion that I've seen on this thread alone.
Trying to equate two things means I am untrustworthy even when I provide evidence ?I trust PDN more given his experience there. I suppose part of it comes from the fact that I've heard PDN talk about this in person (he's an absolute gent by the way ) before as well.
I live in Asia permanently and have done for years. I regularly visited parts of China sometimes for several months at a time and I am friends with dozens of Chinese here.Em. This isn't PDN lying I'm afraid. The church can be growing without Chinese Government assistance.
Jakkass are you purposely pretending to misunderstand this ?
PDN said the Chinese government lie that there is no more need for more churches in China because there are enough churches for the amount of Christians.
I just linked you to a government sanctioned church website saying the exact opposite.
Neither of us said anything about government assistance.
He lied about what the Chinese authorities are saying.Yes, I believe him all the more because your evidence is insufficient.
My evidence from and link to a government sanctioned church website is insufficient to dispute PDN's claim about what government sanctioned churches say ? Really ?
Are you honestly saying that ?0 -
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You have stated a number of times that chemicals cannot evolve by the process of Darwinian evolution and you have used this as the basis for the assertion that there must have been an intelligence acting upon these chemicals to get to them to the point of early life.
That is deeply ignorant and inaccurate. It is the equivalent of saying that Neptune cannot have an atmosphere because aerodynamics only applies to things on Earth.
For starters I said no such thing.
Premise 1:
Darwinian principles is a process whereby Natural Selection acts on random mutations using the environment as a feedback systems so that traits which are better suited to that particular environment will continue and others which are not as well suited will not get used and hence become obsolete and fade away over time.
Premise 2:
Chemicals don't mutate i.e make bad copies of themselves.
Conclusion:
Darwinian principles cannot be applied to them as a mechanism to explain how they found a way to configure themselves into the self replicating molecules which become the information processing constituents of the cells in living things. Information which instructs the cell's nano machines to do one thing and other nano machines to do other things i.e. encode, decode, transport and execute the information in the instruction contained in the molecule.
So if its highly improbable that chance played a part in this process and we know from our everyday experience that intelligent agents are capable of producing such effects, effects like the information processing that goes on in the cell, then by default Intelligent Design becomes the better of the two explanations for how life must have arisen on this planet even if we cannot identify who the designer actually is.
To say that ID is not a scientific theory because it cannot identify the designer is like saying that the theory that intelligent design must have been involved in the making of arrow-heads and cuttings tools found on archaeological sites is not a good explantion for how they were formed, because they cannot identify who the designers actually were. Its absurd in the extreme.Correct, in fact Darwinian principles only apply to self replicating systems, so that much is redundant. Darwinian evolution is a description of how self replicating systems can evolve.
And that as I've said time and again, I've no problem with it, its the mechanism which produced the first self replicating system that I want to know about.Your mistake is thinking that it only applies to life. It doesn't, it can apply to any self replicating system, including chemicals.
And again I will ask this. If all self replicating systems cannot be defined as living system then tell me what defines a living system?No, that would be stupid. A self replicating genetic algorithm isn't alive in any biological sense. Neither is a self replicating molecule.
OK, so when does something become a living thing?Rather than trying to back track by defining any self replicating system as "alive" a far easier route would be to simply admit now Darwinian principles can be applied to non-living systems, a claim you originally refuted.
My you are slippery aren't you? For the umpteenth time. Mobert and I (for the sake of argument in this part of the discussion) had agree to define life as any self replicating system. I then went onto say that Darwinian principles cannot be applied to anyhting that comes before living systems, living systems been stipulated to mean any self replicating system. Then you come along and say that not all self replicating systems can be defined as living systems so Darwinian principles can be applied to non-living systems. Well of course they can if you change the definition of what a living system is. Now I'm asking you to define what a living system is if it cannot be defined as a self replicating system. But I will now say that before any self replicating system can arise (be they living or not) they will be made up of basic chemicals, and basic compounds of basic chemicals, and as already pointed out above chemicals don't mutate or make bad copies of themselves hence Darwinian principles cannot be applied to them.
Comprenda???What? I just said life was a self replicating system, but not the only one. Your response is to proclaim we can't say life is self replicating system? What?
Read over all the posts again and you'll be able to follow the discussion better and know exactly where we are in this thread and how we got to this point. Me thinks you interjected too soon and inferred meaning into things I said that just aren't true.I'm aware of that. Perhaps in future it is better not to proclaim something is impossible without understanding it.
Giving the odds of it occurring by chance its not far from impossible. 1 chance in 10^130 is roughly the number of particles in our galaxy. Imagine that all the particles in our galaxy were red and one was white and you set off to find Mr White, the chances that you would find Mr White is 1 chance in 10^130, i.e it would take you a very long time indeed, but you also have to add in that you are not even looking for Mr White to begin with so you would have to just happen upon it and the chances of that happening are vanishingly small as to be impossible. For the first self replicating system to have come about by chance is so vastly improbable that by the time it would happen by chance alone our sun would cease to be a main sequence star rendering life on earth impossible to arise given that it would need the sun burning in the main sequence in order to support life.RNA occurs naturally.
Yeah, in the lab under conditions designed to produce it. But the primordial earth did not know what to produce which means that the constituent parts that go to make up RNA need a mechanism to explain its fomration. Saying it just occurs naturally is as much a cop out as me saying that God did it.DNA isn't the most basic configuration. It is estimated DNA appeared a 600 million years of evolution. RNA or something like it is considered the initial molecule.
We still don't have a mechanism that can explain how RNA could have come about from the random collision of its basic chemical constituents in the primordial soup. i.e. just the right base chemicals coming together to form amino acids, and just the right sequence of these amino acids a chain length to make up the proteins which are the basic building blocks of life, and then to have these proteins to form in just the right shape and be located in just the right location to make up the structure of the DNA and RNA molecules themselves and then for them to contain all the information needed to provide all the other constituent parts of the system with the instructions they need to carry out in order to have a proper functioning system.You do know there isn't a scientist alive (other than Creationists) who think DNA just formed?
Did I say that DNA just formed? I know that it is supposed to have evolved from a simpler state but nobody seems to be able to determine what that was. They seem to be going around in circles, because like J C said earlier, you need DNA to get DNA. Its a real chicken an egg scenario. Now considering what it does, i.e. stores instructions for cell development like the blue prints of a structure, IDers hold to the view that ID is a better explanation than chance because we know that intelligent agents are capable of producing information storage and processing systems like this and that chance alone is not capable of producing it.From 1 billion years of evolution. Think of the cell as the end result of this process (abiogensis) not the start. The start is a simple self replicating molecule.
And yet again, by what mechanism could the very first self replicating system have come about given that all that was around were chemical elements with no plan to produce such a thing?There isn't an unimaginable number of other possible combinations if you understand the basic laws of chemistry.
So the chemical components of DNA i.e. Phosphate, Deoxyribose, Cytosine and Thymine do not need to be arranged in a specific way on order to bring about proper function in the cell?It is like saying what are the odds of a rock falling down in a straight light when there is an infinite number of directions it could have fallen (ie up 30 degress, to the left 45 degrees)
No its not like saying that at all Wicknight, come on stop being silly. That's like saying that no matter what numbers I pick for the lotto they are bound to come out everytime I play it.Likewise there isn't an unimaginable number of possible combinations of these molecules if you understand which can form naturally and which can't.
Imagine I had a 10 combination lock and only one sequence of numbers will unlock it. The odds of DNA having the just the right sequence of these basic chemicals in the right place at the right time would be like me asking you to try to unlock my combination lock in one try,your chane are very slim, now multiply that by multiplied by many orders of magnitude when it come to billions of lines of code in DNA.Yes, exactly. Given enough time and enough space life is the inevitable conclusion of the basic lasws of chemistry
That sort of goes against what you said here see below quote for quick ref:Which is why the vast majority of the universe contains no life and conditions where life as we know it could not survive. There is 4.2 light years of cold vaccum between us and the next star where no life can survive, and that star system has no planets that could support life.
The vast vast vast vast vast vast vast majority of the universe cannot support life.
We are a fluke. The idea that the universe has been set up to support us, a tiny speck in the vast universe, is frankly retarded.
Retarded indeed. In one post you say that life is inevitable and in the other you say that it is a fluke. Which is it?Yes we do. That is what 95% of evolutionary biologists working this area are working on. What are the conditions that produce RNA. And a lot of progress has been made in this area in the last 15 years.
How can they replicate a fluke happening?That is what a mutation is. A mutation in a life form is just a different arrangement of DNA, which itself is just a molecule.
Which in most cases produces detrimental effects instead of beneficial effects.DNA, RNA and genes are chemicals. They are chemical molecules.
They are self replicating molecules made up of four different chemical components. So what mechanism can be applied to these components that can produce this effect?0 -
the black hole of boards.ie ... you cannot escape!!! :P
It's the nature of internet discussion boards I'm afraid.
A question was asked about the Bible (given that it is the Bible, Creation & Prophecy thread) and how someone would approach the Bible from the standpoint of reading it for the first time with no Christianised background to colour their opinions. I happened to know someone who fitted that description. Everything else on China in this thread since has been a monumental piece of dancing and evasion to try to discredit the fact that the guy approaching the Bible with a clean slate found it to be compelling and convincing.
Still, it's been fascinating from a psychological standpoint to see the lengths someone will go to avoid having to say, "Fair enough - you have a point there." 0 -
I swear I didn't Google this guy or anything. I came across him after just receiving an out of the blue text from a friend of mine to check out: www.darwinsdeadidea.com. So I did, then I Amazon'd his book, and then I Youtubed him and came across these:
His name is John J May and he is Irish and he has written a book entitled: 'The Origin of Specious Nonsense.' My friend who text me doesn't know I'm debating this topic on Boards so the relation between what this guys is saying and how it mirrors my own questions on the subject in this thread is very coincidental.
Anyway, J C you're gonna love this guy
Tears are still rolling down my face from laughing, I love his approach to the subject..
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WHAT are the chances???Soul Winner wrote: »I swear I didn't Google this guy or anything. I came across him after just receiving an out of the blue text from a friend of mine to check out: www.darwinsdeadidea.com. So I did, then I Amazon'd his book, and then I Youtubed him and came across these:
His name is John J May and he is Irish and he has written a book entitled: 'The Origin of Specious Nonsense.' My friend who text me doesn't know I'm debating this topic on Boards so the relation between what this guys is saying and how it mirrors my own questions on the subject in this thread is very coincidental.
Anyway, J C you're gonna love this guy
Tears are still rolling down my face from laughing, I love his approach to the subject..
Chance would be a fine thing!!!!
He isn't a religious believer or a Creation Scientist ... but I suppose you can't have everything!!!
It took an ordinary Dub to cut through the baloney ... and show what Evolution is!!!!
I especially like his 'Wildesque' description of Evolutionists as believers in "the highly improbable foisting the impossible on the impressionable.":)
BTW ... one of those videos makes me feel distinctly 'shortchanged' by what passed for sex-ed when I was at school!!! :eek:0 -
Soul Winner wrote: »For starters I said no such thing.
Premise 1:
Darwinian principles is a process whereby Natural Selection acts on random mutations using the environment as a feedback systems so that traits which are better suited to that particular environment will continue and others which are not as well suited will not get used and hence become obsolete and fade away over time.
Premise 2:
Chemicals don't mutate i.e make bad copies of themselves.
Conclusion:
Darwinian principles cannot be applied to them as a mechanism to explain how they found a way to configure themselves into the self replicating molecules which become the information processing constituents of the cells in living things. Information which instructs the cell's nano machines to do one thing and other nano machines to do other things i.e. encode, decode, transport and execute the information in the instruction contained in the molecule.
So if its highly improbable that chance played a part in this process and we know from our everyday experience that intelligent agents are capable of producing such effects, effects like the information processing that goes on in the cell, then by default Intelligent Design becomes the better of the two explanations for how life must have arisen on this planet even if we cannot identify who the designer actually is.
To say that ID is not a scientific theory because it cannot identify the designer is like saying that the theory that intelligent design must have been involved in the making of arrow-heads and cuttings tools found on archaeological sites is not a good explantion for how they were formed, because they cannot identify who the designers actually were. Its absurd in the extreme.
And that as I've said time and again, I've no problem with it, its the mechanism which produced the first self replicating system that I want to know about.
And again I will ask this. If all self replicating systems cannot be defined as living system then tell me what defines a living system?
OK, so when does something become a living thing?
My you are slippery aren't you? For the umpteenth time. Mobert and I (for the sake of argument in this part of the discussion) had agree to define life as any self replicating system. I then went onto say that Darwinian principles cannot be applied to anyhting that comes before living systems, living systems been stipulated to mean any self replicating system. Then you come along and say that not all self replicating systems can be defined as living systems so Darwinian principles can be applied to non-living systems. Well of course they can if you change the definition of what a living system is. Now I'm asking you to define what a living system is if it cannot be defined as a self replicating system. But I will now say that before any self replicating system can arise (be they living or not) they will be made up of basic chemicals, and basic compounds of basic chemicals, and as already pointed out above chemicals don't mutate or make bad copies of themselves hence Darwinian principles cannot be applied to them.
Comprenda???
Read over all the posts again and you'll be able to follow the discussion better and know exactly where we are in this thread and how we got to this point. Me thinks you interjected too soon and inferred meaning into things I said that just aren't true.
Giving the odds of it occurring by chance its not far from impossible. 1 chance in 10^130 is roughly the number of particles in our galaxy. Imagine that all the particles in our galaxy were red and one was white and you set off to find Mr White, the chances that you would find Mr White is 1 chance in 10^130, i.e it would take you a very long time indeed, but you also have to add in that you are not even looking for Mr White to begin with so you would have to just happen upon it and the chances of that happening are vanishingly small as to be impossible. For the first self replicating system to have come about by chance is so vastly improbable that by the time it would happen by chance alone our sun would cease to be a main sequence star rendering life on earth impossible to arise given that it would need the sun burning in the main sequence in order to support life.
Yeah, in the lab under conditions designed to produce it. But the primordial earth did not know what to produce which means that the constituent parts that go to make up RNA need a mechanism to explain its fomration. Saying it just occurs naturally is as much a cop out as me saying that God did it.
We still don't have a mechanism that can explain how RNA could have come about from the random collision of its basic chemical constituents in the primordial soup. i.e. just the right base chemicals coming together to form amino acids, and just the right sequence of these amino acids a chain length to make up the proteins which are the basic building blocks of life, and then to have these proteins to form in just the right shape and be located in just the right location to make up the structure of the DNA and RNA molecules themselves and then for them to contain all the information needed to provide all the other constituent parts of the system with the instructions they need to carry out in order to have a proper functioning system.
Did I say that DNA just formed? I know that it is supposed to have evolved from a simpler state but nobody seems to be able to determine what that was. They seem to be going around in circles, because like J C said earlier, you need DNA to get DNA. Its a real chicken an egg scenario. Now considering what it does, i.e. stores instructions for cell development like the blue prints of a structure, IDers hold to the view that ID is a better explanation than chance because we know that intelligent agents are capable of producing information storage and processing systems like this and that chance alone is not capable of producing it.
And yet again, by what mechanism could the very first self replicating system have come about given that all that was around were chemical elements with no plan to produce such a thing?
So the chemical components of DNA i.e. Phosphate, Deoxyribose, Cytosine and Thymine do not need to be arranged in a specific way on order to bring about proper function in the cell?
No its not like saying that at all Wicknight, come on stop being silly. That's like saying that no matter what numbers I pick for the lotto they are bound to come out everytime I play it.
Imagine I had a 10 combination lock and only one sequence of numbers will unlock it. The odds of DNA having the just the right sequence of these basic chemicals in the right place at the right time would be like me asking you to try to unlock my combination lock in one try,your chane are very slim, now multiply that by multiplied by many orders of magnitude when it come to billions of lines of code in DNA.
That sort of goes against what you said here see below quote for quick ref:
Retarded indeed. In one post you say that life is inevitable and in the other you say that it is a fluke. Which is it?
How can they replicate a fluke happening?
Which in most cases produces detrimental effects instead of beneficial effects.
They are self replicating molecules made up of four different chemical components. So what mechanism can be applied to these components that can produce this effect?
You're still making a meal of this. We all agree that there is some level of chance involved in going from a set of chemicals to a self-replicating configuration of chemicals. We were so close to breaking new ground, and discussing what those primitive systems could have been when we backtracked.
Look, that number 10^130 has absolutely nothing to do with abiogenesis. Nobody is claiming DNA emerged by chance. It is as irrelevant to investigating abiogenesis as JC's super-special definitions of transition fossils and information are to evolution and biological information. It is the equivalent of me starting a thread here arguing that Jesus couldn't possibly have forgiven us our sins because hampsters don't have the intelligence to forgive people? It is completely and utterly utterly utterly utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
So with your permission, I propose we actually move onto this new ground, where we will actually have a chance to discuss the science of the spontaneous development of self-replicating systems.0 -
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You're still making a meal of this. We all agree that there is some level of chance involved in going from a set of chemicals to a self-replicating configuration of chemicals.
That is a very key statement and one that is overlooked all to easily in discussions like this. To say that chance plays any kind of role in the configuration of the chemical compounds that go to make up any kind of organic self replicating system is like saying that chance was involved in producing the very first computer operating system. The first Microsoft operating system (DOS) is very primitive when compared with what it has evolved into today i.e. Windows XP and Windows 7 etc.., but it still required the input of intelligent agents to compile it. And the hardware it was to run on also required the input of intelligence agents.
Now, in order for this software to work properly it must have all its lines of code in the proper sequence. If one line of code or even one character in one line of code is incorrect then the software will generate an error. And considering the billions of lines of code that go up to make 1 strand of DNA ,to say that it evolved as a means of trial and error is just begging the question. How can such a molecule have evolved to compile the code needed to provide proper function in cells which go to make up living systems when that desired outcome could not have been present without the input if an intelligence who desired that outcome? To say that billions of lines of code can evolve by itself in order to produce a functioning single celled organism is like saying that DOS will evolve into Windows 3.1 without the need to invoke the expertise of any software engineers.
The standard evolutionary concept states that natural selection acts on errors like this in living systems and has thus produced the complexity we see in nature using the conditions in the environment as a feedback system which dictates what traits are more and/or less beneficial for the survival of the organism in the process of its evolution. But when we look at what nature produces we see proper function and fully formed species which are completely adapted to their environments, species which supposedly descended from other species which were also perfectly adapted to their environments. It begs the question; how can errors and deviations from the original plan account for this kind of complexity and proper function and proper adaptation? But even it can be accounted for by means of the process of natural selection acting on these errors or mutations, then by what mechanism did the original blueprint or plan come together when one considers there was no desire to produce such an outcome in the first place? Or is the development of life like water overflowing from a bath where it finds its own level and have no discernible purpose or function? Life doesn't appear to be like that but if the theory that natural selection acting on random mutations is correct then this is the way life would look like, sloppy, malformed and unadapted.
Do chemicals need to adapt to their environment? Can these chemicals mutate? If chemicals do not need to adapt to their environments in order to survive and if they don't mutate then the principles of Darwinian Biological Evolution do not and cannot apply at this level. So in the absence of a similar mechanism that can be applied to chemicals at this level then chance played more than just a passing role in producing these effects if in fact there was no designing intelligence guiding it.We were so close to breaking new ground, and discussing what those primitive systems could have been when we backtracked.
Shakes fist at Wicknight :mad:Look, that number 10^130 has absolutely nothing to do with abiogenesis. Nobody is claiming DNA emerged by chance.
I never suggested that DNA emerged by chance but if the process that started the whole process off was a chance happening of chemicals just coming together in just the right way and number and sequence to form the specific constituents that go up to make DNA (and RNA) then both DNA and RAN are descended from this initial chance happening. So even if we can show how DNA evolved from a simpler form, we still need to explain the mechanism that produced that effect and how DNA can evolve to contain the information that instructs cells what to become and how to function.It is as irrelevant to investigating abiogenesis as JC's super-special definitions of transition fossils and information are to evolution and biological information.
I disagree, I think its very relevant. If chance did not play a role or only played a small role, then how did it happen? If by simple natural means then what where they? If Darwinian principles are out then what was he mechanism? If necessity - as Wickinght suggests when he says that the basic laws of chemistry will eventually produce life given enough time - is not the cause, then what other options are left? There is only one other: Intelligent Design. And as we already know from our everyday experience that intelligent agents can bring out such effects then it is the best theory to explain it.It is the equivalent of me starting a thread here arguing that Jesus couldn't possibly have forgiven us our sins because hampsters don't have the intelligence to forgive people? It is completely and utterly utterly utterly utterly irrelevant to the discussion.
I've been talking about how the first self replicating system could have come about how is that irrelevant to this discussion??So with your permission, I propose we actually move onto this new ground, where we will actually have a chance to discuss the science of the spontaneous development of self-replicating systems.
Fire away 0 -
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Soul Winner wrote: »That is a very key statement and one that is overlooked all to easily in discussions like this. To say that chance plays any kind of role in the configuration of the chemical compounds that go to make up any kind of organic self replicating system is like saying that chance was involved in producing the very first computer operating system. The first Microsoft operating system (DOS) is very primitive when compared with what it has evolved into today i.e. Windows XP and Windows 7 etc.., but it still required the input of intelligent agents to compile it. And the hardware it was to run on also required the input of intelligence agents.
Now, in order for this software to work properly it must have all its lines of code in the proper sequence. If one line of code or even one character in one line of code is incorrect then the software will generate an error. And considering the billions of lines of code that go up to make 1 strand of DNA ,to say that it evolved as a means of trial and error is just begging the question. How can such a molecule have evolved to compile the code needed to provide proper function in cells which go to make up living systems when that desired outcome could not have been present without the input if an intelligence who desired that outcome? To say that billions of lines of code can evolve by itself in order to produce a functioning single celled organism is like saying that DOS will evolve into Windows 3.1 without the need to invoke the expertise of any software engineers.
The standard evolutionary concept states that natural selection acts on errors like this in living systems and has thus produced the complexity we see in nature using the conditions in the environment as a feedback system which dictates what traits are more and/or less beneficial for the survival of the organism in the process of its evolution. But when we look at what nature produces we see proper function and fully formed species which are completely adapted to their environments, species which supposedly descended from other species which were also perfectly adapted to their environments. It begs the question; how can errors and deviations from the original plan account for this kind of complexity and proper function and proper adaptation? But even it can be accounted for by means of the process of natural selection acting on these errors or mutations, then by what mechanism did the original blueprint or plan come together when one considers there was no desire to produce such an outcome in the first place? Or is the development of life like water overflowing from a bath where it finds its own level and have no discernible purpose or function? Life doesn't appear to be like that but if the theory that natural selection acting on random mutations is correct then this is the way life would look like, sloppy, malformed and unadapted.
Do chemicals need to adapt to their environment? Can these chemicals mutate? If chemicals do not need to adapt to their environments in order to survive and if they don't mutate then the principles of Darwinian Biological Evolution do not and cannot apply at this level. So in the absence of a similar mechanism that can be applied to chemicals at this level then chance played more than just a passing role in producing these effects if in fact there was no designing intelligence guiding it.
But ask yourself why scientists are not saying the hardware DOS is run on, let alone DOS itself, could develop by chance. The spontaneous generation of even a simple MOSFET is far too improbable. So instead, we have to look at the differences between the 'hardware' of biology (organic compounds), and the hardware of artificial computers (semiconductor material, plastic, etc.). When we do this, we will understand why natural abiogenesis is plausible for life, but not for standard computers. Organic chemicals are far more versatile when it comes to self-organisation than the materials we use to build things. They can naturally form complex ecosystems of interacting and communicating molecular species.
So before we begin, let's be clear that scientists are proposing that a spontaneous formation was necessary in the beginning, as chemicals per se do not evolve. The question we must therefore ask is what probabilities are associated with this spontaneous formation. If it as improbable as, say, the spontaneous generation of DNA, or MOSFETs for DOS programs, then abiogenesis will be considered implausible. If it is much much more probable, then abiogenesis is plausible.I never suggested that DNA emerged by chance but if the process that started the whole process off was a chance happening of chemicals just coming together in just the right way and number and sequence to form the specific constituents that go up to make DNA (and RNA) then both DNA and RAN are descended from this initial chance happening. So even if we can show how DNA evolved from a simpler form, we still need to explain the mechanism that produced that effect and how DNA can evolve to contain the information that instructs cells what to become and how to function.
There are two issues here. One issue is the development of self-replicating systems with high-fidelity, and the other is the development of the information stored by these systems to produce instruction sets for building cells and eyes and brains. For the time being, let's focus on the former. I.e. How self-replicating systems can form. Afterwards, we can talk about how natural selection can generate an increase in biological information, and thus generate complex lifeforms.I disagree, I think its very relevant. If chance did not play a role or only played a small role, then how did it happen? If by simple natural means then what where they? If Darwinian principles are out then what was he mechanism? If necessity - as Wickinght suggests when he says that the basic laws of chemistry will eventually produce life given enough time - is not the cause, then what other options are left? There is only one other: Intelligent Design. And as we already know from our everyday experience that intelligent agents can bring out such effects then it is the best theory to explain it.
I've been talking about how the first self replicating system could have come about how is that irrelevant to this discussion??
Chance is relevant. I was referring to the calculations of the probabilities of certain nucleotide sequences forming by chance. I.e. No scientists is claiming life is as lucky as a 1 in 10^130 shot. If the spontaneous generation of the first self-replicating system was as probable as, say, 1 in 10^12 (and not 1 in 10^130), would you have the same objection to abiogenesis?Fire away
At this point, as we need to understand the laws of chemistry that determine what the chances of a self-replicating system forming are.
The first principle we must understand is autocatalysis. Autocatalysis occurs when the result (product) of a chemical reaction causes the reaction to speed up. I.e. A reaction increases the rate of itself. Or, in otherwords, a molecule instigates the further production of itself. This is a result of the laws of chemistry, and so is not a chance occurence in any meaningful sense of the word.
Now consider a set of autocatalytic chemicals in the same environment, with limited reactant resources. Some autocatalytic chemicals are better at sparking the production of themselves than others, then those chemicals will grow more numerous, and become more dominant. Autocatalysis will propagate. Autocatalysis on its own is not enough to be considered life, however, as autocatalyric cycles can't recognise information. I.e. They can't pass on information to their 'offspring' and natural selection can't choose which information should propagate and which shouldn't. For that, we need to turn to the non-enzyme self-replicating systems related to autocatalysis, which have been known since 1986 (in the form of a palindromic hexanucleotide sequence). Such systems heavily employ catalytic processes, and would constitute the "chance event" that must ocur for life to begin to emerge. Do you have any objections to this so far?0 -
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