Posted on 10/22/2009 2:44:51 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Was our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock?
--snip--
The picture painted by Russell and Martin is striking indeed. The last common ancestor of all life was not a free-living cell at all, but a porous rock riddled with bubbly iron-sulphur membranes that catalysed primordial biochemical reactions...
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
I highly doubt it!! =)
If you knew the answer, or were able to look it up then why did you ask the question?
“our oldest ancestor a proton-powered rock?”
That’s the one I crawled out from under!!
“However the questions you are asking are things you should have learned in High school biology.”
Do you really think that anyone who views evolution differently from you is stupid? High school biology - well, I think you’ll find a diversity of opinion among high school biology teachers. I really don’t think the case is closed on evoluation as presented any more than it’s closed on global warming per Al Gore.
In any case, evolution is not subject to the rigors of scientific inquiry - controlled experimentation - and I’m sure you know that. You cannot duplicate evolution as you believe it to be within the laboratory setting. Evolution is a theory that is subject to change. In fact, it changes constantly. Have you ever heard of Piltdown Man? The community that champions evolutionary theory can be wrong and has proved this to be the case. Why are evolutionists so defensive when their beliefs are questioned? It makes it seem as though the entire evolutionary belief system is more religious in nature than scientific. Can that be the case?
“However the questions you are asking are things you should have learned in High school biology.”
You are absolutely right about this. There’s been evolutionary activity within species as well. Is there documented verification of interspecies evolution anywhere?
Now, it looks like your argument is still “Give it enough time and anything can happen.” So - if you did see the monkey typing Hamlet, would you be surprised, or would you attribute that to the deep time, deep space, anything can happen philosophy? Isn’t that what we would call a miracle? But evolutionists don’t believe in miracles. Isn’t that one of the tenets of evolutionary thought?
That simply is not true. Natural selection can and has been demonstrated many times. Further, intentional changes to DNA sequences simulating natural genetic variation in rapidly breeding populations like fruit flies happen nearly every day. Modern cattle are an excellent example of manipulated evolution in which those traits most desired by farmers were allowed to live and reproduce and less desirable traits were weeded out. Lastly, seed optimization and plant hybridization is a thriving industry.
I might be wrong here - I’m not a scientist - but I believe that “natural selection” and “interspecies evolution” are not synonomous. I understand that natural selection has been proved many times over in intraspecies breeing. However, I don’t think there’s been any documented evidence of interspecies evolution. Perhaps the aviatrix (?!) thing but I haven’t seen that in documentation recently.
Given the vast time frame needed for life to form or species to evolve, how could lab experiments ever simulate the actual events?
Yes Piltdown man was a hoax that was exposed by the scientific community 56 years ago. Science relies on empirical evidence that can be falsified, as opposed to religion, which takes into account the supernatural and is based on faith.
Here is a link for a testable experiment regarding interspecies evolution.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m39002383313510p/
“Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact” ~ Richard Dawkins
Well, Piltdown man was hailed by the evolutionary community for 46 years before it was proved to be a hoax. My point is that the evolutionary community can be, and often is, wrong.
I don’t think it’s a matter of religion vs. science - this is a false premise. What is true is true - if any religion embraces something proved to be untrue, it should disavow that embrace. “Religion” isn’t based on or exclusive of scientific thought or experimentation. But it doesn’t fly in the face of it either. There aren’t two separate spheres of reality - one for science and one for religion - but they may represent two different ways of looking at reality.
In any case, note what you said about religion being based on faith. Can’t that be said of you, as an evolutionist? You’re accepting on faith the idea that over time the impossible has become possible, without concrete evidence to show that this is so. Does this not involve the supernatural every bit as much as any religion incorporates the idea of God?
Thanks for the link. I will look at it. And I’ll report back.
“Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact” ~ Richard Dawkins
As for the Dawkins quote, really...he’s an evolutionist. Of course he’s going to cheerlead for his own side. :)
But evolution is NOT a fact. It doesn’t meet the standards of “fact.” It’s a theory. :)
Not sure exactly how it works . . . maybe you start with cosmic dust (after the first great whoosh – it never was a BANG according to society’s wisemen), then it becomes a rock somewhere on earth which then again turns into dust and gets all mucked up in a mud puddle and eventually morphs into some guy shielding his head from a rainstorm with a newspaper, while he’s trying to hail a cab somewhere in Manhattan (Kansas).
OH my - missed all that. Am sure you held your own. Good.
That may be, but none of the Darwinian mullahs or imams seem to like my version.
Based on the mountains of evidence the evolutionary theory is the best explanation available. So it is not a matter of “believing” in evolution it is accepting or denying evolution. That is like not believing in gravity. Evolution happened, and continues to happen whether you choose to accept it or not.
As far as religion just how would you prove a religious belief to be untrue?
BTW you might want to research the definition of a scientific theory prior to pulling the “it just a theory” line.
theory - a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena; “theories can incorporate facts and laws and tested hypotheses”; “true in fact and theory”
“A few words need to be said about the “theory of evolution,” which most people take to mean the proposition that organisms have evolved from common ancestors. In everyday speech, “theory” often means a hypothesis or even a mere speculation. But in science, “theory” means “a statement of what are held to be the general laws, principles, or causes of something known or observed.” as the Oxford English Dictionary defines it. The theory of evolution is a body of interconnected statements about natural selection and the other processes that are thought to cause evolution, just as the atomic theory of chemistry and the Newtonian theory of mechanics are bodies of statements that describe causes of chemical and physical phenomena. In contrast, the statement that organisms have descended with modifications from common ancestors—the historical reality of evolution—is not a theory. It is a fact, as fully as the fact of the earth’s revolution about the sun. Like the heliocentric solar system, evolution began as a hypothesis, and achieved “facthood” as the evidence in its favor became so strong that no knowledgeable and unbiased person could deny its reality. No biologist today would think of submitting a paper entitled “New evidence for evolution;” it simply has not been an issue for a century.”
- Douglas J. Futuyma, Evolutionary Biology, 2nd ed., 1986, Sinauer Associates, p. 15
“The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....
So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.”
- H. J. Muller, “One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough” School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-fact.html
“There are no hypotheses, alternative to the principle of evolution with its “tree of life,” that any competent biologist of today takes seriously. Moreover, the principle is so important for an understanding of the world we live in and of ourselves that the public in general, including students taking biology in high school, should be made aware of it, and of the fact that it is firmly established, even as the rotundity of the earth is firmly established. ~ Herman J Muller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_support_for_evolution
It would be a good idea to step outside of your creationist echo chamber and conduct a little independent research on this topic.
LOLOL!!!!!!!!
>>>The atheist’s defense of his/her absurd theories is always: deep time. As in, given enough time, the world would evolve to what we see today. Has order ever evolved from chaos? Can they explain how a functioning organism - not to mention civilizations - can form by virtue of just existing for billions of years? Their arguments are extremely weak, yet anyone who challenges them is considered to be a dufus. Go figure.
You mean deep time similarly to the way God exists, by virtue of always existing. The scientific process with its trial and error, demands of proof, and centuries of scientists of all nationalities and philosophical backgrounds but whose results though incomplete still verifiably line up in the same real world direction would seem to have more rigorous standards of proof then “I am that I am”.
Religion by definition being a matter of faith is a concept that cannot be empirically proven or disproven. Since nothing in science can disprove an ultimate supernatural agency’s credit for setting all this in motion, I don’t really grasp why a clearer understanding of the material processes of HOW is any threat to the honestly religious minded.
It might be more pertinent to the overall question to simply say render unto science what is science’s, and unto philosophy what is philosophy’s. (ie- when you have a 200 million year old fossil, your planet is older then 6000 years). FWIW the Catholic Church seems to see it precisely in this way. You know, the outfit put together by the Disciples of Jesus.
As for dufus’, sometimes the shoe fits. Especially for spammers indiscriminately flooding their blogcrap day after day after day.
“Many details have yet to be filled in, and it may never be possible to prove beyond any doubt that life evolved by this mechanism. The evidence, however, is growing. This scenario matches the known properties of all life on Earth, is energetically plausible - and returns Mitchell's great theory to its rightful place at the very centre of biology.”
But why, pray tell, does the “great theory” have a right to be at very center of biology? Perhaps novelty? Maybe it will after those “many (nonexistent) details” are filled in?
Thanks for the ping!
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