Saturday, January 09, 2010

Natrualistic Origin of Life Scenario Shot Down

The view that man is simply the result of chance evolutionary events gives government moral permission to attempt to mold and shape its' citizens to some desired outcome of those in authority. Other views of man, such as the classical position that he is a created being in the image of God with certain Creator-granted rights, set limits on the amount of meddling the state can do to the human psyche. Those in power might find this view inconvenient to their goals, thus it is not surprising that the bias of government sponsored "science" is to discuss the evidence favoring macro-evolution, but not that opposing it.

In the same way that evolution can give those in power a justification to concoct grand designs to shape their neighbor's form and mind, global warming can give them a justification for grand designs for their neighbor's property, industry, and habits. So it is once again not surprising that a balanced view of the evidence must come from outside the central authorities. 

Nevertheless, we can still get hints of the truth when government-funded researchers attempt to discover exactly how nature originated life or obtained the new genetic information needed for an organism to develop a simultaneous series of changes needed in order for a complex new structure to emerge and enhance fitness.

In the origin of life scenario for example, the idea of unaided emergence of life is so improbable that there are only two ideas with any support. One is that DNA and RNA emerged first and later developed a way to metabolize, the other is that the metabolism came first and DNA and RNA came along to support it. Those who hold to the view that metabolism came first base their view on the demonstrated impossibility of DNA and RNA emerging from a pre-biotic soup.

Those who hold to the RNA world hypothesis have now retaliated. They conducted an experiment on the ability of chemicals to evolve a metabolism without DNA and RNA there to help. The result was that they discovered a strict limit to the "evolution" of the system. That is, some early chemical reactions similar to some steps in the process occur, but after that the reactions start degrading and going opposite to the desired direction.

It seems the proponents of each of the two schools of thought have invalidated the hypothesis of the other through experiment. What is left is the theory of intelligent design. That is to say, life did not originate by chance, but rather through the work of a Creator.

If the world goes on long enough, I am persuaded that macro-evolution will one day be proven to be just as phony as man-made global warming is being shown to be right now. Both false ideas are being pushed with piles of taxpayer dollars by the supporters of our out-of-control central governments. These people have hijacked pure science and turned it into a political tool to justify their rapacious desire to accumulate more and more control and power.

10 Comments:

Blogger Human Ape said...

What is left is the theory of intelligent design. That is to say, life did not originate by chance, but rather through the work of a Creator.

'Intelligent Design' are code words that mean 'supernatural magic'. Magic is not a scientific theory.

The diversity of life did not originate by chance, so you are correct to say that. But what you obviously don't realize is Natural Selection (the most important mechanism of evolution) is not chance.

http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/

4:58 PM, January 09, 2010  
Blogger Human Ape said...

If the world goes on long enough, I am persuaded that macro-evolution will one day be proven to be just as phony as man-made global warming is being shown to be right now.

I'm not that worried about global warming. I like to swim outside so for me the hotter the better.

But I am very interested in evolutionary biology. I have been studying it for several years. I have been learning about how evolution works, and most interesting of all is the evidence for it, which has become many times more powerful than I ever imagined possible. For example, when I read what Ken Miller said at the 2005 Dover trial about Human Chromosome Two I was shocked. I thought "Wow. This is nothing less than a smoking gun. Now it's going to be impossible for an evolution-denier to continue denying the established truth of evolution."

Of course I was wrong about the evolution-deniers. I forgot about the power of faith, which is the power to cement minds permanently shut.

http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/

5:07 PM, January 09, 2010  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

HAPE,

Welcome aboard. It has been awhile since a dissenting view appeared, and I believe this will be a better blog because of it.

Perhaps we should start by defining terms. It saves a lot of talking past one another and speeds things up toward finding the real root disagreement.

For example, you seem to think that the Intelligent Design theory is not a scientific theory at all. Could you give a definition of a scientific theory in order to show why you feel that ID does not qualify?

5:46 PM, January 09, 2010  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

PS on the prior post, what besides chance drives the mutations that are the raw material that evolution has to work with? What I mean is that you say MEvo does not happen by chance, but by natural selection. Yet natural selection would have nothing to work on without mutations. If those are not caused by chance, then praytell what produces them (besides scientists in a lab and that is ID)?

Natural selection is not chance, but it ultimately depends on chance (under naturalistic assumptions) to operate. It can't go beyond the opportunities that chance provides. Your argument is analogous to saying that "I don't win the lottery by chance, I won it by the process of buying a ticket."

6:09 PM, January 09, 2010  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

The article is about origin of life which some evolutionists attempt to exclude from the debate because of the difficulty of their case. I can understand why you want to bend the conversation around to defend the "easy" macroevolutionary idea of humans and apes evolving from a common ancestor X million years ago (please provide the quantity for X) then I can't blame you.

The evidence you describe is powerful support for the idea that something much like a chromosome fusion event occurred, but the idea that it happened by naturalistic means rather than via a deliberate act of an intelligent designer is an assumption.

I used to be a programmer. I cut and pasted code from one program to create another all the time. That does not mean that such code could develop itself without my help given enough time. The idea that we can find evidence that code from one organism was pasted into another is not proof that naturalistic means produced the outcome.

The much more likely outcome of such a fusion event is infertility or reduced viability, just as happens with chromosomal diseases like Downs. And how would such an unusual hominid find another individual with the same mutation to mate with? You may reply that even if the odds are slim, it obviously happened. I would answer that you are begging the question of how it happened.

6:18 PM, January 09, 2010  
Blogger Human Ape said...

I used to be a programmer. I cut and pasted code from one program to create another all the time.

Me too! I used to be a consultant. I used the now very obsolete Cobol programming language. To save time I frequently copied what I needed from other people's programs, because time is money.

I thought I was a pretty darn good computer programmer (back when my skills were not yet obsolete) but I never pretended to know more about biology than all the world's biologists, which is what I think you are doing.

I'm not interested in debating evolution-deniers. What I'm trying to do on my blog, and when I visit other websites, is try to convince creationists they are making fools of themselves when they deny what every molecular biologist can see with their own eyes when they compare DNA sequences of different species to determine evolutionary relationships. Denying evolution in the 21st century is equivalent to a belief in a flat earth. That's how nuts it is to deny what every serious biologist agrees is an established truth.

And to deny all these scientific facts for religious reasons is disgraceful. What religion can expect to survive if it insists on being forever stuck in the Dark Ages?

I've been encouraging evolution-deniers to educate themselves, and to avoid the professional liars they usually depend on. How can they expect to learn anything from people who are laughed at by real scientists?

I encourage creationists (and believers in intelligent design are creationists no matter how much they dishonestly deny it) to read what I think is the best book about evolution for the non-scientist. That book is 'Why Evolution is True' by Jerry Coyne, published in 2009. The book talks about countless pieces of evidence for evolution. Any reasonable creationist could not possibly read this book and still be a creationist. Unfortunately 'reasonable' creationists are extremely rare. Of course if they had any common sense, they would have throw out magical creation (also known as intelligent design creationism) a long time ago.

ID = magic. If you think magic is a valid scientific theory, then perhaps I'm just wasting my time here.

If you want to deny ID = magic, then I'm still wasting my time because you would be lying to yourself if you think invoking ID is anything more than invoking a god fairy with a magic wand.

Mutations ARE random. The natural selection of favorable mutations is NOT random. That should be obvious to anyone with any common sense. Rather than insulting you by explaining it further, which would be implying you can't understand anything, I'm going to let you think it out and figure out why, on your own, why the slow accumulation of favorable mutations is not random.

The Human Chromosome Two thing is solid evidence for evolution, and I refuse to discuss it because any 5 year old could use google to find countless websites that explain it in extreme detail. Creationists need to do their own homework. I'm not here to hold anyone's hand because they're too lazy to do their own research and too lazy to think, and perhaps too religious to understand anything.

http://darwin-killed-god.blogspot.com/

One thing I like about evolutionary biology, besides how incredibly interesting the history of life is, is this branch of science really kills the god hypothesis. Darwin really did kill the god idea, and I say good riddance to the biggest mistake in human history.

7:10 PM, January 09, 2010  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ha ha!

You get on here spouting foolish arguments, you get your lunch handed to you by the moderator, then you tuck tail and run-- deferring to the all-knowing scientific community whose logic we mere mortals dare not contest.

Yes, you truly do waste your time trying to convince creationists of the merits of evolution.

7:50 PM, January 09, 2010  
Blogger Jesse Evans said...

Mark,

Great post. I haven't commented on here until now and wanted to let you know I really enjoy your blog. I find state related information through you that I don't find elsewhere. Keep up the good work.

Human Ape,

You remind me of a Western Civ prof I had in college. You think insulting others makes you seem superior, somehow more intelligent. It's not working for you.

If you want to try and convert people you should stick with information instead of constantly insulting and demeaning your audience. "Please visit my site and see how you are wrong, but you won't because you're a superstitious fairy god worshiper and incapable of logic or reasoned thought" is a piss-poor pitch line. Take a marketing class.

Mark tried to engage you in a discussion and what do you do? You refuse to debate him because you don't want to debate "evolution-deniers".

So, you don't want to debate those that don't agree with your philosophy. You allegedly want to educate them. Your three posts here seem to indicate you only really desire to insult, demean, mock, humiliate, and offend them.

I congratulate you on reading some books. Good show. Now if you can develop your people skills and maybe a little critical thinking, I think you may be well on your way to correcting and informing us ignorant little flat earthers.

God Bless You.

http://jesseleephotography.blogspot.com/

9:26 AM, January 11, 2010  
Blogger Rev. Raggsdale said...

Personally, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I am neither Atheits or ID/Creationist. I let science figure out scientific stuff and let religion figure out spiritual stuff. I personally believe that the creation stories are allegories and not factual, and yet I believe in God. There will always be a disconnect between what is spiritual/mystical and what is factual/logical.

10:16 AM, January 11, 2010  
Blogger Mark Moore (Moderator) said...

Jesse,

Thank you for your kind words. I enjoyed looking at the photos on your blog. Very artfully done.

AH,

Remember that you are operating on different premises than the rest of us. We are striving for an integrated world view, where as you are comfortable with compartmentalization.

Our belief is that there is no separate box in reality called "spiritual truth" that is mutually exclusive from "scientific truth". There is just truth and its connected at the edges in every sphere of existence. Under this view, any apparent conflict in the two is due to either our not interpreting the scripture correctly or not interpreting the evidence from the natural universe correctly. They both have the same ultimate Author!

Remember the conclusion of our last discussion? We look at the scriptures as binding, you look at them more like the Pirate Code.

Try to look at it from our view, and you will begin to understand what all the fuss is about.

7:44 PM, January 11, 2010  

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