Deep Under the Sea, Boiling Founts of Life Itself

The New York Times ^ | September 9, 2003 | WILLIAM J. BROAD

[Junior]

"Jesus loves me, this I know..."

"Because the Bible tells me so."

[PatrickHenry]

In discussions like this, we should be careful about our terminology, so that we're all using words in the same way. I've posted this before, but I think it's useful:

One can "believe" in the existence of the tooth fairy, but one does not -- in the same sense of the word -- "believe" in the existence of his own mother. Belief in the first proposition (tooth fairy) requires faith, which is the belief in something for which there is no evidence or logical proof. The second proposition (mother) is the kind of knowledge which follows from sensory evidence. There is also that kind of knowledge (like the Pythagorean theorem) which follows from logical proof. In either case, that is, belief in things perceived by sensory evidence or demonstrated by logical proof, there is no need for faith.

In between mother and the Pythagorean theorem are those propositions we provisionally accept (or in common usage "believe"), like relativity and evolution, because they are scientific theories -- logical and falsifiable explanations of the available data (which data is knowledge obtained via sensory evidence).

Useful website in this context: Do You Believe in Evolution?.

[Gunslingr3]

Think of the children's song...?Jesus loves me, this I know...? It does not start off, ?Jesus loves me, this they say...? does it?

That's some amazing evidence, sir! Were you born signing it, or did you hear it from the lips of others. Others saying 'I know'... The urge to fit in, to be part of the group, is an old one. We are, afterall, social animals.

[Junior]

I'm thinking we need to post the definition of a scientific theory. It isn't, as Mr. Ro76 implies, a hypothesis.

[metacognative]

Biologist have never discovered a "primitive" organism.
PS: Men do evil mostly for selfish motives, not religious.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the placemarker heads up!

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from September 9, 2003.

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[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from September 9, 2003.

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[SunkenCiv]

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[wendy1946]

That discovery, he and other scientists say, suggests that all life on earth may have originated from a microbe that breathed iron..."

Absolutely no way did our entire biosphere arise from any such. You still have the Haldane dilemma which says that our biosphere would take quadrillions of years to arise via evolution even if that were possible (it isn't), and you have petroglyphs showing known dinosaur types and soft tissue in dinosaur remains indicating that the 65,000,000 years we've had drummed into our heads all our lives are basically whiteman's fairytales.

There isn't time for our biosphere to have evolved from iron eating microbes.