Posted on 09/20/2006 9:51:34 AM PDT by SirLinksalot
Which gets us back to Stalin and Hitler and Darwin's REAL influence on them.
Not in science class.
But we were not talking about science class. We are talking about how one approaches life. In that matter, the existence of God is infinitely more important than anything in science class.
The age-old quarrel between religion and science is based on a confusion between connaître and savoir.
"To know God; to make Him known."
"Do you know the generating function for the associated Laguerre polynomials?"
Cheers!
If you have evidence of the type which will be accepted in a scientific forum...you're up for a Nobel.
If one doesn't know the difference between the types of evidence, they haven't been paying attention.
If one confuses the types of evidence, one might be nuts--or one might feel the issue to be resolved is *SO* important that a relaxation of the rules of evidence, in order to get more information on the subject, might be warranted.
And that point is usually where the flamewars and fireworks begin--argument from authority is not *logically* valid; but saying that does not mean it MUST be untrustworthy or MUST be false.
There are degrees of certainty; some warranted and some not.
Cheers!
"It seems likely, then, that RNA guided the primordial synthesis of proteins, perhaps in a clumsy and primitive fashion. In this way, RNA was able to create tools-in the form of proteins-for more efficient biosynthesis, and some of these could have been put to use in the replicaiton of RNA and in the process of tool production itself."
Copyright 1989, that's 17 years ago.
Obligatory flame bait for both sides:
From what I have read of the book so far, that remark seems awfully vague and hand-waving-ish. What is the proposed rate constant for the formation of a typical strand of RNA (suitable for doing a primitive version of amino-acid-encoding) at 25 Co? Is stereoselection necessary at this point? *If* the RNA makes "a protein", what keeps that protein molecule around? What determines that the protein is "useful enough" to be immediately of benefit to the nascent "proto-cell" ?? And if it is not "useful enough", what is the feedback loop to change the RNA so it produces a useful protein...? (I.e. making useless protein not only wastes time and annoys the pig, as the saying goes, it also uses up the presumably limited supply of amino acids in the immediate vicinity.)
I suspect the *stock answer* would be--"but g_w, you don't understand. There isn't just *one* protocell--there are many millions, due to their small size and the available conditions in so many [tidal pools, clay substrates, whatever the current thinking is]. And by a wonderful, elegant, and convenient analogy to larger evolutionary model, by random chance all of the protocells that *did* waste their time in such a fashion just didn't survive; we happen to be the descendants of those that *did*TM yada yada."
Point taken--except that the above merely shows a (in one sense) "plausible mechanism", which might end up being "improbable" (when you consider the *actual odds* (whatever THAT means) of generating successful, 'eating', 'self-replicating' systems from scratch.
Can you flesh out actual rates, rate constants, concentrations of likely reactants? If not, please have the grace to admit that it is not "hard science" based on experiment, empirical results, or what not; but something a couple of steps above science fiction. A hazy model, a hypothesis, a proposed mechanism -- but not yet nailed down.
Obligatory OTHER flame-bait--I'm surprised nobody has yet issued the stern chestnut that "Evolution is NOT concerned with abiogenesis, so kindly STFU." ;-)
Cheers!
Cheers!
If not, please have the grace to admit that it is not "hard science" based on experiment, empirical results, or what not
Please, why the implied slur? I never said that we know down the last detail how things occurred, I said that current thought is that the first self-replicating molecule was RNA. I would strongly encourage all creationists not to become too invested in the absolute statement "It couldn't happen, therefore God did it by miraculous intervention!" If we make progress in the next ten years that shows the RNA world is not only plausible, but likely, the creationists who've jammed God into this gap may have some difficulties with their faith. When I believed in God I had to fight this God of the gaps tendency myself. God doesn't belong in the gaps, but should be an engineer of the processes that we may eventually discover in those gaps.
And abiogenesis doesn't really have too much to do with evolution, but it's an interesting topic. :-D The theory of evolution doesn't require abiogenesis to occur on earth, it just requires an imperfectly duplicating, self-propagating organism (from abiogenesis, extraterrestrial seeding, divine intervention, etc.)
That was my point--I was attempting to *bolster* your point about current thinking. If the RNA encoding was in a book from 17 years ago, that means it isn't even "latest & greatest " anymore. :-)
Please, why the implied slur? I never said that we know down the last detail how things occurred, I said that current thought is that the first self-replicating molecule was RNA.
Not meant as a slur, implied or otherwise. Sorry to have given that impression. The gist of my point is that to hear some of the more fervent pro-evo's on this thread talk, evolution is as firmly nailed down as (say) the r2 dependence of gravitational attraction, to umpteen decimal points. And virtually anyone who dares to point out possible contradictions in the mechanisms proposed (even ones put out merely carelessly as examples on this thread) is immediately lambasted as an ignorant savage. In most other fields of science I have seen, the scientists *welcome* questions, because it either gives them a chance to sharpen their intellectual claws, or because (as both Feynman *and* C.S. Lewis pointed out), if you cannot explain your subject to a layperson using mostly words of one syllable, you don't really *understand* it yourself, all the way down.
BTW, the impatience with any questions about evo on this thread might just be due to the sheer volume of trolls and people who think that Duane Gish = Stephen Jay Gould as a resource ;-0
When I believed in God I had to fight this God of the gaps tendency myself. God doesn't belong in the gaps, but should be an engineer of the processes that we may eventually discover in those gaps.
I'm not *playing* God of the gaps. I'm playing *prick the balloon* of inflated claims by people who are doing one of two things:
1) Confusing a purported mechanism, or "latest thinking" with "absolute truth"
2) Trying to point out (again, and Again, and AGAIN) that many of the cre-trolls have (at best) very little formal science training and simply DON'T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE. And so instead of flaming them, a better approach is to try to educate them.
The banned RightWingProfessor tried, but was often too irascible: and went over their heads.
Ichneumon (haven't heard from him lately) wrote elegant encyclopedias, but they took too long for a casual reader to go through.
The dictionary of scientific / philosophical terms by (I think) Coyoteman and/or CarolinaGuitarman and/or Dimensio and/or Patrick Henry is a great start.
We need more of that kind of thing on these threads.
One of the other posters suggested I start on it. It's on my to-do list and I'm seriously considering a series of bite-size threads on various beginning points.
Full Disclosure: Ironic comment only. It is odd that despite the claims that evolution isn't about disproving God, many (not all) of the most ardent evo's are at best agnostic, at worst militant atheists. As you said, "*when* you believed in God etc. etc." ;-) Cheers!
It's still the best theory going, and given the amount of evidence that RNA is foundational, it's probably going to remain the forerunner. It is possible though that nucleic acids with different sugars came before RNA and then when RNA was made it took over from them and went on to catalyze the appearance of more complicated systems including DNA and protein. It will be interesting to see what comes of this research.
Duane Gish = Stephen Jay Gould
He doesn't?! ;-)
I'm not *playing* God of the gaps.
I misunderstood your post. There are a lot of posters here who seem to want to insert miraculous intervention whenever we have some uncertainty or ignorance about a process. I used to be YE creationist myself. I found to my great discouragement in (Christian, officially YEC) college that many arguments were not arguments for a young earth, but arguments against evolution based upon criticisms of dating methods, stratigraphy, phylogenetics, etc. A lot of them take the form, "Evolutionists do not understand this completely, therefore God did it." Over time I realized that many of those criticisms were invalid and things weren't as murky as others portrayed. I reached the point where I either had to acknowledge that the gaps were getting so small that God was being reduced in significance and might eventually disappear or I had to remove God from the gaps and allow the gaps to be just what they are, gaps which may eventually be filled either with natural mechanisms or supernatural, but either way should be ok with me.
At that point I had already left YEC and the removal of God from these gaps caused me to leave ID. Then I was a theistic evolutionist--God created the universe through natural means but is sovereign over it, not in the sense that he miraculously kicks it along all the time, but in the sense that he has ordained its path. I probably would have remained so indefinitely if my research into Islam had not prompted me to go back and come up with a fully integrated reason why atrocities in the OT were all right (and even laudable) but those committed by Mohommed were evil. Over a year or so I hammered away at this until I came to the conclusion that I would never resolve that without embracing an idea of God that was radically different from the one I had grown up with. I found that untenable, so right now I'm agnostic. You can read about this a bit in the post at the end of my profile. Some people use this as a gotcha--"Ah-hah! You are godless because you are evolutionist!" The reality is that acknowledging evolution occurs preceded my determination that God as I knew him does not exist, and that was based upon my analysis of morality as depicted in the Bible.
Really. Show us some evidence of this pattern - define this pattern or you are just blowing smoke.
The hawk knows nothing about Natural Selection - it eats what it can. The only pattern observed is Hawks eat - I hope you don't think the fact that Hawks eat proves natural selection is not random
Look - if Natural Selection is not random than something most be controlling/setting the pattern - name the something or tap-dance further.
So what is your point? This thread was about a human being able to outrun animals.
You would seem to be confused between the hawk's behavior exhibiting a pattern and the hawk knowing something about natural selection. The hawk can preferentially kill animals which are the most easy to detect without knowing or caring that his behavior matches part of a certain scientific theory widely discussed among humans.
Hoping this straightens things out for you but not feeling too optimistic, etc. etc.
OK, that sums it up :-)
And just how important is the age of the earth?
If you can't get that right--and you do refuse to EVER get that right--with the amount of evidence we have for it, why should we trust you on anything?
Jesus still loves you, Vade.
The problem goes deeper than that. If the prebiotic chemistry was conducive to the synthesis of purines and pyrimidines then it is incompatible with the synthesis of ribose. Tough nut to crack there even with a nutcracker.
Crevo Thread starts in News->Moved to Smokey Backroom->Moved to Chat
Crevo Thread starts in Smokey Backroom->Moved to Chat
Crevo Thread starts in Chat->Stays in Chat
Crevo Thread starts in Religion->Moved to Chat
Crevo Thread starts in Religion->Dies.
We can see the branches find their "thriving" point and where they die off (due to environmental factors).
(remember Dimensio, I am one of the Good Guys -- this was just too good to pass up)
Exactly - no pattern - just random. Natural Selection is not driving the hawk therefore Natural Selection is an observation of many points of data, not a force or structure. Natural Selection only exists in our minds.
This is the core philosophy of Evolution - the something from nothing model - a philosophy that believes extreme complexity, pattern, and design can spring forth from the complete absense of complexity, pattern, or design.
IF you think Natural Selection follows a pattern - state the pattern - although I am not too optimistic you will actually try.
Well that added absolutely nothing to the debate.
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