At SciTech Daily: Scientists Solve an Origin of Life Mystery

Hmmm. Apparently not. -Q Querius

Maybe JVL will respond to you about mRNA after he's back from trick-or-treating tonight. (grin) -Q Querius

Kairosfocus @142, I wonder why JVL hasn't responded to your challenge regarding mRNA? -Q Querius

JVL, are you unaware, still, of how mRNA is used in protein synthesis, the presence of codes, start, extend, halt, the onward use of AA chains? KF PS, to cut off lines of fruitless distractive rhetoric, here is Lehninger:

"The information in DNA is encoded in its linear (one-dimensional) sequence of deoxyribonucleotide subunits . . . . A linear sequence of deoxyribonucleotides in DNA codes (through an intermediary, RNA) for the production of a protein with a corresponding linear sequence of amino acids . . . Although the final shape of the folded protein is dictated by its amino acid sequence, the folding of many proteins is aided by “molecular chaperones” . . . The precise three-dimensional structure, or native conformation, of the protein is crucial to its function." [Principles of Biochemistry, 8th Edn, 2021, pp 194 – 5. Now authored by Nelson, Cox et al, Lehninger having passed on in 1986. Attempts to rhetorically pretend on claimed superior knowledge of Biochemistry, that D/RNA does not contain coded information expressing algorithms using string data structures, collapse. We now have to address the implications of language, goal directed stepwise processes and underlying sophisticated polymer chemistry and molecular nanotech in the heart of cellular metabolism and replication.]

See https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/darwinist-debaterhetorical-tactics/protein-synthesis-what-frequent-objector-af-cannot-acknowledge/ kairosfocus

It should also be mentioned that to solve the Origin of Life problem, one also needs to account for some early type of repair mechanism, which needs to be highly conserved or the organism is toast. -Q Querius

Martin_r @138, Thank you for the link to Dr. Tour's video on ribose. He's brilliant! JVL @139,

Because you’re not even trying to figure out what kind of being did the design!

Wrong again. ID takes no position on the source of the design. For all we know, there might have been no designer, BUT ID advocates for treating poorly understood biological structures as if there were an intelligent designer. The result, as I've frequently noted, avoids premature judgments based on ignorance such as "Junk DNA" and "Vestigial" organs.

Well gosh, are you too lazy to look things up? You want me to do some work because you don’t understand common physics terms?

Sorry, I thought you already knew. UV radiation from the sun is lower frequency than the most common type (i.e. gamma) of background radiation from decay of radon gas from the ground, from other natural radioactive elements, and cosmic radiation. Everything on earth is continually being "cooked" by background radiation. Temperature and humidity also can have significant effects on breaking bonds in biomolecules. In the US, the EPA estimates our exposure as 620 mRem per year. Reducing this by 30% for non-natural sources and a bit more for the concentration of Radon in homes, I come up with about 400 mRem or 0.4 Rem/year. The LD 50/30 (Lethal Dose 50% in 30 days) for humans is about 400-450 Rem. Thus, the exposure of biomolecules supposedly a million years old would be about 400,000 Rem total or 1,000 times as much as would typically kill someone. The degradation rate of biomolecules would be expressed in terms of half life. A commonly-accepted figure for the half life of DNA is about 520 years, accounting for cumulative background radiation, temperature, and the presence of water. So, after a million years in the ground only about 0.05% of biomolecules should remain intact--virtually nothing. -Q Querius

Querius: So why did you raise the issue about Intelligent Design taking no position on the identity of the source of the design? Because you're not even trying to figure out what kind of being did the design! Yes, archaeologists rarely expect to pinpoint a particular person but they are VERY interested in the culture and time and etc regarding the creation of the design! So how is UV radiation, which creates free radicals and breaks polymer bonds in plastic fundamentally different than background radiation, which creates free radicals and breaks bonds in biomolecules? Well gosh, are you too lazy to look things up? You want me to do some work because you don't understand common physics terms? From Wikipedia: Background radiation originates from a variety of sources, both natural and artificial. These include both cosmic radiation and environmental radioactivity from naturally occurring radioactive materials (such as radon and radium), as well as man-made medical X-rays, fallout from nuclear weapons testing and nuclear accidents. So NOT ultraviolet! I told you I'd have a think about it. But it's hardly on my priority list. JVL

Hey people... stop fighting... Have some fun with Dr. James Tour: "You don't have ribose!" https://youtu.be/v36_v4hsB-Y?t=4306 martin_r

JVL @133,

No one means ‘who’ as an individual!! That is such a silly thing to say! No one expects a name and address!! Too funny.

Yes, exactly. So why did you raise the issue about Intelligent Design taking no position on the identity of the source of the design? Just as one can study the Antikythera mechanism without knowing the source of the design, one can study it regardless. The same holds true for studying structures in biology that seem designed but without knowing anything about the designer. ID still uses the scientific method.

It breaks down the bonds in the plastic I think, why don’t you look it up and see. Anyway, UV is NOT referred to as background radiation.

I already know. So how is UV radiation, which creates free radicals and breaks polymer bonds in plastic fundamentally different than background radiation, which creates free radicals and breaks bonds in biomolecules?

Querius: Now can you please provide examples of, let’s say, three things in biology that were originally thought to have a purpose but instead turned out to be without any function instead? JVL: Not really my field . . . but I’ll have a think. Most biological structures did have some point at one time or another ’cause they ‘cost’ a lot to manufacture.

No, I’m not asking you whether structures that don’t seem to have a function once did. I’m asking you whether you can name three things in biology that were once thought to have a purpose, but on further study, turned out to have no function after all. Does this make the question any clearer? -Q Querius

Alan Fox @132, Yes, I'm familiar with all that, but you haven't answered my question:

And how are you able to distinguish between “non-functional DNA” and “DNA with unknown function”?

-Q Querius

Kairosfocus: in the known functional DNA there is complex, coded, algorithmic information used in protein synthesis. Please give a specific example of this 'algorithmic information'. JVL

AF, in the known functional DNA there is complex, coded, algorithmic information used in protein synthesis. KF kairosfocus

Querius: But you don’t know WHO the designer was. That was your criticism of Intelligent Design, that it takes no position on WHO the designer was. My point is that one can still study a design without knowing who the designer was. No one means 'who' as an individual!! That is such a silly thing to say! No one expects a name and address!! Too funny. And why does UV radiation degrade plastic? It breaks down the bonds in the plastic I think, why don't you look it up and see. Anyway, UV is NOT referred to as background radiation. AND changing environmental pressure AND an isolated community AND enough of the same novel mutation to become fixed in a population. I left those out, too. But how much impact does selection advantage confer? Cumulative selection is part of the deal! If it were are just random you'd get nothing. This is all very, very clearly explained in many popular books discussing the issues. a) Junk DNA or b) DNA with Unknown Function I think they were both funded. And it was mainstream science that started discovering function where none was seen before. I did ask for specifics and you're just giving me suppositions. a) Vestigial organs or b) Organs with Unknown Function a) Living fossils or b) Species that Defy Evolution or Extinction Again, I think all those issues were studied and researched. Please, don't just fling assumptions, provide real cases and real data. An assumption of junk, an assumption of no function (vestige), or an assumption of no cause does not encourage investigation, study, and scientific research. This slows down science. References please. Now can you please provide examples of, let’s say, three things in biology that were originally thought to have a purpose but instead turned out to be without any function instead? Not really my field . . . but I'll have a think. Most biological structures did have some point at one time or another 'cause they 'cost' a lot to manufacture. JVL

And how are you able to distinguish between “non-functional DNA” and “DNA with unknown function”?

Repeating myself for the lurkers! There is DNA known to be functional, essential to the host organism. There is DNA known to be extraneous, not essential to the host organism. There is DNA that appears on current knowledge not to have an identifiable benefit for the host organism. DNA in the latter provisional category may be reassigned to known functional or known non-functional in the light of future investigation. Science is provisional. Alan Fox

Alan Fox @130,

Non-functional DNA, Querius. Non-functional DNA is DNA for which no function beneficial to the host organism can yet be found or where the non-functionality can be established (for example retrotransposons etc).

And how are you able to distinguish between "non-functional DNA" and "DNA with unknown function"? -Q Querius

* “Junk” DNA (now renamed to “non-coding DNA”)

Yup, he's at it again. Querius, this is disappointing. And you call ID critics trolls. Non-functional DNA, Querius. Non-functional DNA is DNA for which no function beneficial to the host organism can yet be found or where the non-functionality can be established (for example retrotransposons etc). Alan Fox

JVL @102, 122, 127,

Querius: For example, the Antikythera mechanism has still been studied as if it were intelligently designed even though it’s not possible to determine the intelligent designer, right? JVL: It was a human being who lived at roughly a given time who had access to the tools and materials available at that time. It’s not that big of a deal you know.

But you don't know WHO the designer was. That was your criticism of Intelligent Design, that it takes no position on WHO the designer was. My point is that one can still study a design without knowing who the designer was.

That’s because of UV dude.

And why does UV radiation degrade plastic?

AND cumulative selection. You conveniently forget to include that often.

AND changing environmental pressure AND an isolated community AND enough of the same novel mutation to become fixed in a population. I left those out, too. But how much impact does selection advantage confer? J.B.S. Haldane and others have come up with some interesting figures.

How has any of those ‘labels’ slowed down science? Please give particular examples with evidence.

Can I use both sides of the paper, teacher? ;-) Okay. Scientific research is usually funded by grants. Would it be easier to get grant money to study: a) Junk DNA or b) DNA with Unknown Function a) Vestigial organs or b) Organs with Unknown Function a) Living fossils or b) Species that Defy Evolution or Extinction An assumption of junk, an assumption of no function (vestige), or an assumption of no cause does not encourage investigation, study, and scientific research. This slows down science. Now can you please provide examples of, let's say, three things in biology that were originally thought to have a purpose but instead turned out to be without any function instead? -Q Querius

AND cumulative selection. You conveniently forget to include that often.

I've noticed that, too. Too often to be a memory lapse. Alan Fox

Querius: It presupposes that biological organisms and structures were the result of undirected, random chance. AND cumulative selection. You conveniently forget to include that often. This has resulted slowing down science by creating in labels such as How has any of those 'labels' slowed down science? Please give particular examples with evidence. JVL

Sir Giles @114,

A first year marketing student would understand the rationale.

Indeed. And if the brand, Spontaneous Generation(tm), is losing to Biogenesis(tm) due to the work of Louis Pasteur and his predecessors, the marketing wizards create a new brand, Evolution(tm). You create appealing copy and promote band new recipe based on von Helmont's famous one to generate mice: dirty rags, some grains of wheat, and about two weeks. The new recipe requires a dirty earth, some organic molecules from a can of Campbell's Organic Primordial Soup, hot rocks, ice, sunlight, rain and splashing water, lots of lightning, and 100-200 million years. You claim that this "musta," "coulda," or "mighta" happened. But this is supposed to be science, not marketing. Science is supposed to subject hypotheses to experimental, observational, and logical scrutiny. And the proof in this pudding is how well future discoveries are predicted and how fast science advances as a result. Unfortunately, Darwinism/Evolution hasn't done very well. It presupposes that biological organisms and structures were the result of undirected, random chance. This has resulted slowing down science by creating in labels such as * "Junk" DNA (now renamed to "non-coding DNA") * "Vestigial" organs (over 100 at one time, including the thyroid) * "Living fossils" (that magically resisted evolutionary change for millions of years) And so on. -Q Querius

Anyway, you’re free to believe biomolecules can survive millions of years.

Yet I'm not altogether convinced about some claims. A lot depends on conditions. A lot depends on interpretation of evidence. Contamination is a huge issue. What I am convinced about is the geology. Alan Fox

And, by the way, DNA and RNA are considered biomolecules.

For goodness’s sake, Querius. DNA and RNA molecules are all biomolecules. All biomolecules are not DNA and RNA. You'll be arguing about junk vs non-coding DNA next. Alan Fox

Alan Fox @113, Nice try, but no. I did not confuse DNA with biomolecules, I simply gave DNA as one example of the biomolecules found. If you refer to the list you will see that several papers found DNA specifically among the organic molecules (e.g. 72, 113, etc.). I clearly confused you by including both DNA half-life (very short, not expected to exceed 10ky total lifetime) and organic molecules in general (e.g. amino acids, proteins, sugars, not expected to exceed 1my), but the confusion is not on my side. I would refer you, for example, to Dr. Mary Schweitzer's full body of work, both her extensive research on verifying and validating all sorts of ">100myo original organic molecules", as well as her equally extensive research on attempting to explain how that is possible (spoiler alert: it isn't). Anyway, you're free to believe biomolecules can survive millions of years. Just be aware that that is a faith position, not a scientific one, and that those of us who have a grasp on the thermodynamic degradation of organic chemistry aren't the ones who are "confus[ed]" or in "error". Go argue with evolutionists like Dr. Schweitzer if you don't like it, not me. drc466

Querius: Background radiation doesn’t care what it hits. What happens to plastic if you leave it out in the sunlight for 10-20 years? It falls apart. Why? That's because of UV dude. JVL

Alan Fox @112, The link from Drc466 is useful indeed and is apparently maintained! Background radiation doesn’t care what it hits. What happens to plastic if you leave it out in the sunlight for 10-20 years? It falls apart. Why? And, by the way, DNA and RNA are considered biomolecules. https://www.britannica.com/science/biomolecule Reminds me of someone at work who loved buttered popcorn. They would put in a microwave and at first a delicious aroma would fill the floors of the building. Then, the fragrance would become increasingly stern, followed by the odor of dried popcorn on fire. By the time my colleague would remember, the popcorn was pretty much reduced to ash. That’s what also happens with long exposure to background radiation on biomolecules. The rate of disintegration can be tested in the lab. I believe that one can simulate millions of years of background radiation in a shorter amount of time as long as the temperature of the material can be kept low. -Q Querius

Drc466 @109, Very nicely articulated! Continuing with your car analogy, how about this experiment: 1. Take apart a car completely. 2. Put it back together again. 3. Start the engine. It seems to me that the equivalent would fail in a cell because every component depends on the other components being in place. Back to the analogy . . . 2. Put it back together again in 10 minutes. Hmmm. That’s not possible. 2. Put it together from random parts of everything that’s ever been made in 10 minutes without any plans. Try it repeatedly for 100-200 million years. Oh, shoot. Not enough time. Okay, So how about a really simple car that barely works? Build up functionality from there. But a requirement is that this car has to build itself and it has to find its own oil and gasoline and electricity. And, off course, a cell isn’t a car. A cell is incredibly more complex. -Q Querius

Relatd: And since He is God, He creates matter from nothing. How does that work exactly. It would take a lot of energy or something. Where would the energy come from? And what happens to the air and particles that were already in the space where the matter popped into existence? If it's just quickly displaced wouldn't you get something like a sonic boom everything some plant or animal just appeared? The fact that Jesus existed, cleansed the lepers, gave sight to the blind and even raised the dead is either lost on you or you prefer not to bring it up. I don't consider any of those things scientific fact. I am familiar with the stories of course. If you choose to believe them to be fact then I would say that is a matter of faith, which is fine by me. JVL

JVL at 117, The answer is plain but you refuse to see it or pretend not to. God is the designer. And since He is God, He creates matter from nothing. The universe from nothing. The fact that Jesus existed, cleansed the lepers, gave sight to the blind and even raised the dead is either lost on you or you prefer not to bring it up. relatd

Relatd: “In short, make no reference to god, and make every effort to discourage any attempt to examine the nature of the designer and how the designs were realized.” I have said over and over and over again that ID proponents should do more work and research regarding the nature of the designer and how the designs were implemented. But no one picks up the baton. So your criticism is misplaced. Perhaps you should criticise your fellows for not even attempting to do any research. JVL

SG at 114, You have no idea what you're talking about or you're a liar. Part of what I do for a living involves marketing and market research. Your CRAP attempt to present legitimate research as "marketing" is CRAP. Scientific Creationism has yielded results. Intelligent Design has yielded results. Your attempt to cloud the issue fails. HERE IS THE PROBLEM: Living things only look designed, they are not actually designed. Living things are actually designed, which points to a designer. Who the designer is cannot be answered using the scientific method, which makes it necessary to go into proper philosophical study and theology. "In short, make no reference to god, and make every effort to discourage any attempt to examine the nature of the designer and how the designs were realized." A LIE. Here is the answer. • 'The Church “proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things.” • “Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” • "Quoting our late Holy Father John Paul II: “The evolution of living beings, of which science seeks to determine the stages and to discern the mechanism, presents an internal finality which arouses admiration. This finality, which directs beings in a direction for which they are not responsible or in charge, obliges one to suppose a Mind which is its inventor, its creator.” "Christoph Cardinal Schönborn is archbishop of Vienna and general editor of the Catechism of the Catholic Church." relatd

make every effort to discourage any attempt to examine the nature of the designer and how the designs were realized.

No one who supports ID is stopping anyone from anything. That’s the obvious truth about ID. That’s why it is the best science on the planet. ID is     Science+ Aside: it must hurt to admit that ID represents better science. But it is obvious that it is. jerry

CD: First why would these “professors” take no scientific position on the source of the intelligent design?

A first year marketing student would understand the rationale. If you have a brand that has not achieved the uptake by the consumers that you had hoped, let’s use Scientific Creationism was an example, the first thing you do is research why this would be so. Following your polls, market surveys, focus groups, etc, you discover that the vast majority of people believe that Scientific Creationism is just a deceptive attempt to assign some scientific credibility to something that has no scientific basis. So, the marketing wizards decide to rebrand Scientific Creationism with a term that has no reference to god. And the Intelligent Design brand was launched. But, as part of the brand launch, the marketing wizards instructed the operational staff to make every effort to distance the brand from god and religion. In short, make no reference to god, and make every effort to discourage any attempt to examine the nature of the designer and how the designs were realized. Sir Giles

The most conservative estimate given for the lifetime of organic molecules is maximum 1my – and that was extremely generous. So the idea that any of the finds in #1 above are from 50my or greater is simply… unscientific.

Ah, I see your error. You are confusing DNA, specifically, with biomolecules, generally. Alan Fox

1) Soft Tissue: Here’s one list [of] Dinosaur soft tissue research papers.

That's useful, thanks. Though the list is entitled "Biomaterial Fossil Papers" and includes papers discussing traces of biomolecules, not just tissue, which are two very different things. Just take a look at the titles.

The reason it is a problem is that organic molecules break down rapidly at real world temperatures due to background radiation, among other things. DNA half-life is roughly 500years, according to one paper I read

That has already come up in discussions here. The oldest DNA fragments so far date back 1.3m million years and I doubt that record will be surpassed significantly. So much for Jurassic Park. But collagen, under the right conditions, can last as traces much longer. Not seeing what the problem is. The survival of traces of ancient biomolecules is fascinating. Alan Fox

OoL scientists have the perfect job. It is not easy trying to squeeze a camel through a neddle's eye but there is always a hope. whistler

Alan Fox, 1) Soft Tissue: Here's one list Dinosaur soft tissue research papers. Feel free to Google your own, they're not hard to find. 2) The reason it is a problem is that organic molecules break down rapidly at real world temperatures due to background radiation, among other things. DNA half-life is roughly 500years, according to one paper I read - you can Google it easily enough. The most conservative estimate given for the lifetime of organic molecules is maximum 1my - and that was extremely generous. So the idea that any of the finds in #1 above are from 50my or greater is simply... unscientific. Hence all the original claims that they must've been "biofilms", or that soaking them in iron solutions (for millions of years?!?!) would somehow magically extend their resilience a couple orders of magnitude. drc466

Imagine, if you will, a contest. A contest to build a working car. Contestants have two options: 1 - Start with as many parts of the simplest car as they want 2 - Start from scratch The first person or group to build a car that runs wins. Wins fame, fortune. Will be recorded in the history books with the likes of Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, Tesla, Edison and Ford. Just build a car from as many existing parts as they want. Now imagine that, for some inexplicable reason, every contestant, every last one, chooses option 2 instead. "Look, I can make a tire!" "And I can make a gasket!" "Look at my door panel!" Further imagine that all these people insist that making a car is just a few years away. Meanwhile, you're looking at the pile of perfectly good working car parts, wondering "why aren't they just building a car from these?" Sounds ridiculous, right? Yet that is the current state of "OoL Research ", and has been for 70 years. The challenge has been issued repeatedly - poke a hole in one cell life, take all those ready made parts, and put it back together into a one celled life form. They can't. They know they can't. So they build pieces and parts of organic molecules in mixtures and forms completely unusable for making a living cell, and lie to the public about how close they are. Ah, but you say, first life would have looked different! It wasn't made like existing cells, so it wouldn't have had those same parts! Great, says I. Then why are you wasting time trying to build those same parts from scratch? If Car 1 didn't use an engine block, why are you mining ore and casting engine blocks? Use whatever parts you want to, to get self-replication. If you need RNA, start with RNA, if you need amino acids, use amino acids, stop wasting everyone's time trying to show how amino acids formed. It's been 70 years for pete's sake, we'll grant you all the amino acids you want, just start putting parts together to get life already! Look, if making synthetic life is too hard, so you want to get paid to demonstrate an irrelevant process to make inferior and unusable parts, that's fine. But stop lying to the public about how abiogenesis is not only possible, but practically certain and "it'll happen in the next x to y years!" Take all the (non-living) parts you want. Make it live. Put up, or shut up. drc466

Querius again:

– The skeletal remains of extinct animals called dinosaurs supposedly lived roughly 65-250 million years ago were ALL supposedly petrified artifacts without any possibility for organic matter to survive.

Was this ever an issue? When fossils and their stratigraphy first began to be studied systematically (following on from William Smith's seminal work), the seeds of modern palaeontology were sown. This was all based on discovery and observation.

This was PREDICTED by Darwinism.

Really? Two questions? 1. Has any soft tissue, not just remnant biomolecules such as collagen, been unequivocally found? 2. Why would the discovery of such material be an issue for science?

It’s also failed, but Darwinists are grimly hanging on to the unscientific possibility that 100+ million years of background radiation miraculously allowed organic bone, stretchy connective tissue, and even red blood cells to survive (in Chile, a recent find of Ichthyosaurus remains included preserved soft tissue in strata dated to 130-140 million years ago).

I've read a few articles about wonderfully well-preserved ichthyosaur fossils being recovered from high in the Andes in Chile. I didn't come across any reference to soft tissue preservation. Maybe Querius can indicate where he came across the information. Maybe a link to the primary paper(s)? And again, why would finding traces of soft tissue be an issue for "Darwinism"? Alan Fox

Poor wording in 106 Please read as: Non-coding DNA can nevertheless be functional, such as sequences that are copied into transfer-RNA and ribosomal RNA. Alan Fox

– The presumption that 98.8% of our genome is “junk DNA,” now called “non-coding DNA,” as additional examples of vestiges of random, undirected evolution by Susumu Ohno, the originator of the term.

Oh dear. The dialogue of the deaf and disingenuous continues. Non-coding DNA is DNA whose sequences are not translated into amino-acid sequences Non-coding DNA can nevertheless be functional, such as transfer-RNA and ribosomal RNA. Junk DNA is a subset of non-coding DNA that is currently not shown to perform any useful function for the host organism. Perhaps it would be less confusing to refer to such DNA as non-functional DNA. Examples of non-functional DNA are pseudogenes, endogenous retrovirus sequences, and some tandem repeat sequences. So junk DNA nests within non-coding DNA, but non-coding DNA is not all junk DNA. Of course, in the mainstream, researchers still look for functionality in sequences, and will undoubtedly reduce the percentage of DNA that is not known either to have or not to have function. Alan Fox

Martin thanks for the link it was really good. I would say he is pretty pissed off. Vivid vividbleau

Alan Fox: Is there any doubt at all that people constructed the Antikythera mechanism? Parts are covered with inscriptions written in Ancient Greek, after all. None whatsoever. In fact, they may have been able to narrow down its date of calibration considerably.

The instrument is believed to have been designed and constructed by Greek scientists and has been variously dated to about 87 BC, or between 150 and 100 BC, or to 205 BC. In any case, it must have been constructed before the shipwreck, which has been dated by multiple lines of evidence to approximately 70–60 BC. In 2022 researchers proposed that the initial calibration date of the machine (not its actual date of construction) could have been 23 December 178 BC. Other experts propose 204 BC as a more likely calibration date

So, unlike ID 'researchers', mainstream scientists when presented with a mysterious artefact, study it, examine it closely, and come to some solid conclusions about where and when and why it was constructed. Thanks Querius for bringing it up. It points out how completely different regular science is from ID 'science'. When regular science studies patterns or suspected designs they come up with explanations, dates, methods, reasons for construction. There is more scientific information in the Wikipedia article about the Antikythera mechanism than I've seen in any ID publication studying the design behind DNA. Oh, by the way, if you do happen to read the Wikipedia article it is pointed out that the mechanism was not, in fact, very accurate. Some designers . . . they try and don't quite get it right. Sigh. JVL

Martin_r: from a mainstream Darwinian paper What does "a growing number" mean? 3%? 5%? 10%? From further down in the abstract (which is all you will have read no doubt):

Our previous findings, together with evidence of their poor conservation, prompted us to propose that pseudogenes may contribute to primate- or human-specific regulation, especially in hematopoiesis.

Oh dear, the dreaded "may" term. Aren't you always hideously critical of ideas that use "may" too much? I'm pretty sure you are. i give you an advice, for free, – you constantly have to keep in mind, that Darwinists are always wrong … they always re-think what they claimed earlier. So, you (and Whistler) have a problem with people refining their idea and arguments based on new data and results? Is that it? It's too hard for you to keep up with the latest results and ideas so you just say it's all garbage? JVL

Querius: Fossils were all supposed to be minerals that filled in the hollow spaces left by dead organisms buried in silt. Yet, many organisms 100+ million years old are preserved with organic material including red blood cells and “stretchy” tissues despite being cooked by background radiation for 100+ million years. It should be undifferentiated powder and this can be simulated experimentally in a lab using an equivalent amount of radiation while controlling the temperature. Perhaps you'd like to point to particular examples and the reasons given for why the organic material was preserved? And: how much background radiation are you talking about? Yes. This is one of five or six ways that the DNA of an organism can increase in length, becoming incorporated and useful as genes. That's very unguided evolutionary of you! So, you agree, that at first, the pseudogenes have no particular function? For example, the Antikythera mechanism has still been studied as if it were intelligently designed even though it’s not possible to determine the intelligent designer, right? It was a human being who lived at roughly a given time who had access to the tools and materials available at that time. It's not that big of a deal you know. It's frequently brought up as some intense mystery that is baffling scientists and turning our theories on their heads. Which is just not true. Some human being was very clever and came up with the mechanism which, I think, we may have some idea of what it was for. JVL

For example, the Antikythera mechanism has still been studied as if it were intelligently designed even though it’s not possible to determine the intelligent designer, right?

Is there any doubt at all that people constructed the Antikythera mechanism? Parts are covered with inscriptions written in Ancient Greek, after all. Alan Fox

Relatd: The current Marxist-Atheist state within a state wants to control education and the media, and spread its messages. Really? So all the countries of Europe, which teach evolution as part of the basic school curriculum (along with RE - Religious Education) are part of this plot? And yet there is no great hue and cry that kids are being turned away from faith or Christianity. JVL

Darwinists are always wrong … they always re-think what they claimed earlier.

:) Comment of the month. Except they change only their explanations to protect the central religious dogma of Darwin that remain unchanged. whistler

Seversky, JVL, CD and co. below is the latest Dr. Tour's presentation on OoL research. I don't ask you to watch the whole presentation, but i strongly suggest, if you like these debates, that you watch/listen the Q & A part of this presentation. Young students ask some interesting questions, questions you may ask here on UD as well. starts at 55:51, just click the link, it jumps right into Q & A part. https://youtu.be/v36_v4hsB-Y?t=3351 martin_r

JVL @84

Relatd: All Junk DNA will be found to have function. JVL: Even the pseudogenes?

JVL, what are you talking about? from a mainstream Darwinian paper:

Pseudogenes are DNA regions comprising defective copies of functional genes, the majority of which were generated by RNA- or DNA-level duplications. They exist across almost all forms of life and account for about one-quarter of the annotated genes in the human genome. Although these have been considered nonfunctional for decades, a growing number of pseudogenes have been found to be transcribed and to play crucial regulatory roles. Accumulating evidence indicates that they regulate gene expression through molecular interactions at the protein, RNA, and DNA levels. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301472X21002927

PS: JVL, i give you an advice, for free, - you constantly have to keep in mind, that Darwinists are always wrong ... they always re-think what they claimed earlier. martin_r

Chuckdarwin @86,

First why would these “professors” take no scientific position on the source of the intelligent design?

Because there’s no scientific way to determine the source of the intelligent design. In fact, the intelligent design approach is STILL superior to the presumption of undirected random chance even if no intelligent designer was involved. Think about it. JVL @88,

And it’s a ‘better explanation? Really? Why can’t it be addressed through the methods of science? What is it about the designer that cannot be accessed via scientific methods?

For example, the Antikythera mechanism has still been studied as if it were intelligently designed even though it’s not possible to determine the intelligent designer, right? The intelligent designer of the universe and life on earth might actually be our post-human offspring (aka the ancestor simulation theory) according to Oxford philosopher, Nick Bostrom: https://www.thecollector.com/nick-bostrom-simulation-theory/ See whether you can follow his logic. -Q Querius

JVL @84,

Even the pseudogenes?

Yes. This is one of five or six ways that the DNA of an organism can increase in length, becoming incorporated and useful as genes. -Q Querius

JVL @82,

What exactly are you annoyed with: that the prediction that no organic material would survive for so long? And who says it did survive because of background radiation? I find this whole paragraph confusing. Perhaps you’d like to read it over and make it a bit clearer.

No, I’m not annoyed. Fossils were all supposed to be minerals that filled in the hollow spaces left by dead organisms buried in silt. Yet, many organisms 100+ million years old are preserved with organic material including red blood cells and “stretchy” tissues despite being cooked by background radiation for 100+ million years. It should be undifferentiated powder and this can be simulated experimentally in a lab using an equivalent amount of radiation while controlling the temperature. Try reading the paragraph slowly out loud. -Q Querius

JVL at 88, The current Marxist-Atheist state within a state wants to control education and the media, and spread its messages. We, meaning Christians, can ignore those messages, meaning I hear them, I understand them and by understanding them, reject them. So, for kids in school right now, here are the choices: 1) Evolution. Nothing made you. Man, meaning mankind, was an accident. Evolutionary psychology tells you that you are just doing things to survive, that's all. 2) Intelligent Design. Someone, whether you think it's aliens or God, and I do think it's God because there is no evidence for intelligent alien beings similar to ourselves, made you. You were made for a reason. Each life is precious. AND Evolution: Life only looks designed, it is not actually designed. Intelligent Design: Living things are actually designed. They are not the result of random randomness. relatd

Let me see if I can translate 91, "modern science, cosmology, biology, etc.., inescapably, points to God and CD doesn't like it." There, all better. :) Moreover to tweak CD's nose even more, not only does modern science, inescapably, point to God, modern science itself is dependent on presuppositions that can only be reasonably grounded within the Judeo-Christian worldview.

“Science in its modern form arose in the Western civilization alone, among all the cultures of the world”, because only the Christian West possessed the necessary “intellectual presuppositions”. – Ian Barbour Presupposition 1: The contingency of nature “In 1277, the Etienne Tempier, the bishop of Paris, writing with support of Pope John XXI, condemned “necessarian theology” and 219 separate theses influenced by Greek philosophy about what God could and couldn’t do.”,, “The order in nature could have been otherwise (therefore) the job of the natural philosopher, (i.e. scientist), was not to ask what God must have done but (to ask) what God actually did.” Presupposition 2: The intelligibility of nature “Modern science was inspired by the conviction that the universe is the product of a rational mind who designed it to be understood and who (also) designed the human mind to understand it.” (i.e. human exceptionalism), “God created us in his own image so that we could share in his own thoughts” – Johannes Kepler Presupposition 3: Human Fallibility “Humans are vulnerable to self-deception, flights of fancy, and jumping to conclusions.”, (i.e. original sin), Scientists must therefore employ “systematic experimental methods.” (Bacon's inductive methodology) – Stephen Meyer on Intelligent Design and The Return of the God Hypothesis – Hoover Institution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_8PPO-cAlA Physics and the Mind of God: The Templeton Prize Address – by Paul Davies – August 1995 Excerpt: “People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” https://www.firstthings.com/article/1995/08/003-physics-and-the-mind-of-god-the-templeton-prize-address-24 Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.theistic.net/papers/R.Koons/Koons-science.pdf Rob Koons is a professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. With degrees from Michigan State, Oxford, and UCLA, he specializes in metaphysics and philosophical logic, with special interest in philosophical theology and the foundations of both science and ethics.

bornagain77

BA77 You are completely off point. Meyer’s “stunning” conclusion merely drives home my assertion that one cannot be an ID proponent and a non-believer. The way the brain trust at DI constructed ID as being the result of a designer outside space-time, it requires an incorporeal (I.e., non-material, non-physical) designer as a matter of logical coherence. Because of that, any claim that ID stands independent of its immaterial source is indefensible. chuckdarwin

Somebody forgot to tell Dr Stephen Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute, that Intelligent Design is suppose to be limited in its scope.

Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe https://www.amazon.com/Return-God-Hypothesis-Compelling-Scientific/dp/0062071505/ Beginning in the late 19th century, many intellectuals began to insist that scientific knowledge conflicts with traditional theistic belief—that science and belief in God are “at war.” Philosopher of science Stephen Meyer challenges this view by examining three scientific discoveries with decidedly theistic implications. Building on the case for the intelligent design of life that he developed in Signature in the Cell and Darwin’s Doubt, Meyer demonstrates how discoveries in cosmology and physics coupled with those in biology help to establish the identity of the designing intelligence behind life and the universe. Meyer argues that theism—with its affirmation of a transcendent, intelligent and active creator—best explains the evidence we have concerning biological and cosmological origins. Previously Meyer refrained from attempting to answer questions about “who” might have designed life. Now he provides an evidence-based answer to perhaps the ultimate mystery of the universe. In so doing, he reveals a stunning conclusion: the data support not just the existence of an intelligent designer of some kind—but the existence of a personal God. Eric Metaxas and Stephen Meyer Tackle Science and God https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3aoQircZeQ Bestselling authors Eric Metaxas and Stephen Meyer have a free-wheeling discussion of science, faith, and God during a special episode of "Socrates in the City" taped live at the 2022 Westminster Conference on Science and Faith in the greater Philadelphia area in April 2022. Meyer is author of "The Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries that Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe." Eric Metaxas is a radio talk show host and author of "Is Atheism Dead?" Is Atheism Dead? | Featuring Bestselling Author Eric J. Metaxas, Interviewed by Graham H. Walker https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLxdWn7ntBI

bornagain77

Relatd/87 Unmitigated nonsense… chuckdarwin

Relatd: The scientific method and empirical data are presently incapable of helping to understand the identity of the designer. Thus, the scientific theory of intelligent design simply cannot identity the designer because it is not a question which can be addressed through the methods of science. And it's a 'better explanation? Really? Why can't it be addressed through the methods of science? What is it about the designer that cannot be accessed via scientific methods? You guys always reference humans as being intelligent agents capable of design but NO ONE would ever say: we cannot even attempt to identify the (human) designer of this building or car or phone or computer. I mean, just about every other historical scientist on the planet would try their damnedest to figure out who done it. And you guys just bail? Really? However, the fact that the identity of the designer is a religious question does not negate the purely scientific methods through which we can infer merely that an object was indeed designed. It's extremely pertinent because the fact that you assume the existence of some divine creator (which cannot be established via scientific methods) means you naturally default to assuming that complicated things that currently have no unguided, natural explanation are designed!! Because you assume there was a designer around! You cannot change a theological argument into a scientific one. It just doesn't work. Just be honest and straight. Why do you need to put your theology into the science classroom at all? What do you think you'll gain by doing that? I just don't understand why it matters to some of you if we all agree with your theology or not? What is the point? Do you think you're going to get some reward for convincing children that there is a loving caring God and his son (who is not him but is him, sort of) who is your personal saviour? I'm serious: why does all this matter so much to you? No one is stopping you from worshipping as you see fit. No one is marginalising you because of your beliefs. You can still vote and marry and pay taxes and run for public office and get a mortgage and holiday in Bermuda. What is it that you are fighting for? JVL

CD at 86, From another site: "But what happens when questions are posed to the intelligent design theorist such as, "Who is the designer?" This is surely an interesting and important question. But for the scientist, the question must be asked, "What is the explanatory scope of intelligent design theory?" or more specifically, "How much can intelligent design theory explain based upon observations which are possible from the natural world?" Intelligent design bases its inferences on observations finding the type of complexity produced by intelligent agents when they operate. As noted, when it finds this sort of complexity, it cannot infer more than the mere conclusion that life was designed. "Not identifying the nature of the designer or the methods used is not a cop-out nor does it stem from an unwillingness to be honest about motivations. It results solely from the pure empirical limitations of scientific investigation: "[The] only commitment [of intelligent design theory] is that the design in the world be empirically detectable…This is not a matter of being vague but rather of not pretending to [have] knowledge that we don't have. (Dembski, W. A., Eugenie Scott and the NCSE: Darwin's Predictable Defenders.) "The scientific method and empirical data are presently incapable of helping to understand the identity of the designer. Thus, the scientific theory of intelligent design simply cannot identity the designer because it is not a question which can be addressed through the methods of science. At this point, this question can only be answered via faith, or divine revelation, and other religious "ways of knowing." However, the fact that the identity of the designer is a religious question does not negate the purely scientific methods through which we can infer merely that an object was indeed designed. Thus, assessing the identity of the designer is essentially a religious question: "Science says we are designed through the scientific method. Religioun says we are designed because of faith or divine revelation. Both are making a similar claim via different means and methods. "Thus, scientifically, one only can state that life was designed by an unidentified intelligence. Many people may believe that the identity of the designer is the God of the Bible, however these are religious claims, and presently outside the scope of scientific inquiry." relatd

Querius/80

The professors and others who founded ID in a joint conference did so as an alternative to Creationism. They specifically, stated that they took no scientific position on the source of the intelligent design. There are proponents of Intelligent Design of different faiths or no faith.

This is baffling for two reasons. First why would these "professors" take no scientific position on the source of the intelligent design? If, in fact, they have a "scientific position" on the source of design, that is fundamental to the "theory" and should be disclosed. Hiding the ball only foments unnecessary speculation. Second, how can someone of "no faith"--by which I assume you mean religious faith--advocate for a "theory" which explicitly invokes a supernatural or non-physical source? I've seen claims now and again in these comments that there are atheist proponents of intelligent design. But that simply cannot be because the "source" of the intelligent design (i.e., the Intelligent Designer) has to be sourced outside spacetime. chuckdarwin

JVL, I was laughing at the idea, but now I just don't know. You might be right. Here is a video of a meat robot singing to other meat robots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

:) https://www.memecreator.org/static/images/memes/4708647.jpg bornagain77

Relatd: All Junk DNA will be found to have function. Even the pseudogenes? JVL

JVL at 81, All Junk DNA will be found to have function. relatd

Querius: The skeletal remains of extinct animals called dinosaurs supposedly lived roughly 65-250 million years ago were ALL supposedly petrified artifacts without any possibility for organic matter to survive. This was PREDICTED by Darwinism. It’s also failed, but Darwinists are grimly hanging on to the unscientific possibility that 100+ million years of background radiation miraculously allowed organic bone, stretchy connective tissue, and even red blood cells to survive (in Chile, a recent find of Ichthyosaurus remains included preserved soft tissue in strata dated to 130-140 million years ago). What exactly are you annoyed with: that the prediction that no organic material would survive for so long? And who says it did survive because of background radiation? I find this whole paragraph confusing. Perhaps you'd like to read it over and make it a bit clearer. JVL

Relatd: So-called Junk DNA has function, and such function has been found. And more is being found as research continues. How much of what is called 'junk' DNA do you think will be found to have some function? JVL

Seversky @75, Welcome to the UD forum! Someone using your same forum name has posted on this forum for many years. The questions you posted are similar to the ones answered here innumerable times! The professors and others who founded ID in a joint conference did so as an alternative to Creationism. They specifically, stated that they took no scientific position on the source of the intelligent design. There are proponents of Intelligent Design of different faiths or no faith. Regarding Philip Johnson, would you then say that the well-known fact that Karl Marx was openly hostile to the Christian God discredits Marxism? Or how about Charles Darwin's hostility to God because of the loss of his daughter? Would you also say that this discredits Darwinism? As for examples of the pragmatism of ID over random events, you might look up the hundreds of posts to the previous "Seversky" with numerous examples. These examples include the detrimental effects to scientific progress due to the presumption of randomness resulting in - The presumption of over 100 supposedly useless "vestigial" organs such as the thyroid (an other ductless glands): useless vestiges of random, undirected evolution. - The presumption that 98.8% of our genome is "junk DNA," now called "non-coding DNA," as additional examples of vestiges of random, undirected evolution by Susumu Ohno, the originator of the term. - The skeletal remains of extinct animals called dinosaurs supposedly lived roughly 65-250 million years ago were ALL supposedly petrified artifacts without any possibility for organic matter to survive. This was PREDICTED by Darwinism. It’s also failed, but Darwinists are grimly hanging on to the unscientific possibility that 100+ million years of background radiation miraculously allowed organic bone, stretchy connective tissue, and even red blood cells to survive (in Chile, a recent find of Ichthyosaurus remains included preserved soft tissue in strata dated to 130-140 million years ago). These examples were ignored by the previous "Seversky," but I hope that you will remember them. -Q Querius

Querius at 77, Oh yes, on the planet Vega. relatd

Seversky at 75, Oh my DARWIN !!! YOU revealed the Wedge Strategy? (Which anyone can find online.) "Not synonymous but ID has been shown to be a lineal descendent of Creationism via Creation Science." You apparently have no idea. Creationism. Creation science. Intelligent Design. Creationism only requires a literal interpretation of the Bible. Creation science looks for evidence of Biblical claims, and such evidence has been found. Intelligent Design, as science, has clearly identified actual design in living things. It has shown that unguided evolution does not describe reality; it's a worldview. So ID clearly indicates a mind, a Designer, designed life. ID, as science, does not identify the Designer. Here's an example: Secular Scientist: 'Junk DNA is just leftovers from our [allegedly, Ed.] long evolution. It's just useless junk.'' ID: So-called Junk DNA has function, and such function has been found. And more is being found as research continues. relatd

And imagine that as we write, a meatless forum on a galaxy far, far away there are sentient beings arguing about the silly notion of "thinking meat." ;-) -Q Querius

JVL at 71, Good bye. relatd

Querius/73

– ID is not synonymous with Creationism.

Not synonymous but ID has been shown to be a lineal descendent of Creationism via Creation Science.

– ID Takes no position on the source of the intelligent design.

That depends on which ID proponent you consult. For example, one of the founding fathers of the intelligent design movement, Phillip E Johnson , wrote about the "Wedge strategy" for promoting the belief

"We are taking an intuition most people have [the belief in God] and making it a scientific and academic enterprise. We are removing the most important cultural roadblock to accepting the role of God as creator."[51] "Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit, so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools."[44]

As for

– ID recognizes that biological research based on the appearance of design advances scientific progress faster than the presumption of undirected random chance.

Examples? Seversky

Q at 72, Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha :)

“They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?” “Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat.” “I thought you just told me they used radio.” “They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat.” “Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?”

I got a tear in my eye from laughing so hard Q. LOL :) bornagain77

General Note - ID is not synonymous with Creationism. - ID Takes no position on the source of the intelligent design. - ID recognizes that biological research based on the appearance of design advances scientific progress faster than the presumption of undirected random chance. Kairosfocus, any chance of adding this or something similar to the "Put a Sock in It" resource? Or is it there already in some other form? Thanks, -Q Querius

Posted on mit.edu . . .

They're Made out of Meat Terry Bisson, 1991 Someone did a radio play of this... "They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "Meat. They're made out of meat." "Meat?" "There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat." "That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars." "They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines." "So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact." "They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines." "That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat." "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat." "Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage." "Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?" "Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside." "Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through." "No brain?" "Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!" "So... what does the thinking?" "You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat." "Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!" "Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?" "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat." "Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years." "So what does the meat have in mind." "First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual." "We're supposed to talk to meat?" "That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. 'Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing." "They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?" "Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat." "I thought you just told me they used radio." "They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat." "Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?" "Officially or unofficially?" "Both." "Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing." "I was hoping you would say that." "It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?" "I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?" "Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact." "So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe." "That's it." "Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?" "They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them." "A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream." "And we can marked this sector unoccupied." "Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?" "Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotation ago, wants to be friendly again." "They always come around." "And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."

-Q Querius

Relatd: Thanks for that clear statement. The playground bullies have gotten together to make fun of someone. No ‘science’ involved with that. Bornagain77: . . . the meat robots of Dumb and Dumber . . . Bornagain77: . . . who knew meat robots could get so emotionally upset? Bornagain77: . . . you think I should actually care what neuronal illusions think about me and/or my posts? Bornagain77: no need to get upset. You are the one who said you wanted to talk about science. I just wanted to know why you did not want to talk about Darwinism anymore. So, Bornagain77 can make fun of people all he wants but when someone returns the favour they are wrong? You also attempt to trivialize ID for no reason aside from you don’t like it. And you NEVER to that regarding unguided evolutionary theory! Never ever. JVL

Relatd: Thanks for that clear statement. The playground bullies have gotten together to make fun of someone. No ‘science’ involved with that.

It doesn’t always have to be about science. Sometimes it just feels good to speak the truth. Sir Giles

JVL at 67, Thanks for that clear statement. The playground bullies have gotten together to make fun of someone. No 'science' involved with that. relatd

JVL at 51, So, only your version of science counts? I suspect I will no longer comment on any of your 'science' posts. You also attempt to trivialize ID for no reason aside from you don't like it. relatd

Bornagain77: ? So cute, the meat robots of Dumb and Dumber are consoling each other. ? No, we're making fun of you; there's a difference. JVL

:) So cute, the meat robots of Dumb and Dumber are consoling each other. :) https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOTk5ZjYyZTMtYzYwOC00NmJiLTk1OGQtZTMxY2I1YWQ3ZjJmXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzU1NzE3NTg@._V1_QL75_UX500_CR0,47,500,281_.jpg https://media.tenor.com/wBn3ko3lZc8AAAAC/dumb-dumber.gif bornagain77

Sir Giles: Scroll, scroll, scroll. There is a season, scroll, scroll, scroll. JVL

Scroll, scroll, scroll. Sir Giles

Wow, who knew meat robots could get so emotionally upset? :)

“You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” - Jerry Coyne – dogmatic Darwinian atheist No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20

bornagain77

JVL: I was trying to have a conversation with a real person, not a quote-mined database

BA77’s attempt at the Gish-gallop fails completely because it is only effective in its spoken form, where your only option to avoid the nonsense is to turn off the TV. In its written form all that is required is to scroll to the next comment worth reading. Sir Giles

Bornagain77: But alas, If only I had a ‘real person’ to ‘personally’ talk about ‘science’ with JVL. ? Very droll but continuing to put words in other people's mouths is a bit infantile don't you think? JVL

Yet, there is no "I" within Darwinian materialism for anyone to think about me or to think about anybody else. :)

Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism Paul Nelson - September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, "We cannot know that a mind caused x," laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. "That’s crazy," you reply, "I certainly did write my email." Okay, then — to what does the pronoun "I" in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause, however, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set/

bornagain77

I don't really think about you at all, Phil. Alan Fox

Alan Fox, you think I should actually care what neuronal illusions think about me and/or my posts? :) bornagain77

Phil, I generally scroll over comments with your handle in the title. At most, if something else indicates a response to a particularly egregious misrepresentation, I might look at the bit you've written yourself. I never bother with the (largely quotemined) bits in blockquotes. I hope that is helpful feedback. Alan Fox

But alas, If only I had a 'real person' to 'personally' talk about 'science' with JVL. :) bornagain77

Bornagain77: When you, personally, actually want to talk about science in your own words let me know. Otherwise . . . JVL

The neuronal illusion of JVL paraphrases Laplace's quote, "I have no need of that hypothesis", in order to try to defend his atheism. Yet, even according to wikipedia itself, (hardly a friend to ID), Laplace's oft quoted paraphrase is in all likelihood a "garbled version of what had actually happened"

In 1884, however, the astronomer Hervé Faye[76][77] affirmed that this account of Laplace's exchange with Napoleon presented a "strangely transformed" (étrangement transformée) or garbled version of what had actually happened. It was not God that Laplace had treated as a hypothesis, but merely his intervention at a determinate point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Simon_Laplace#Religious_opinions

As the following article and book notes, "it is not clear that Laplace was motivated by atheism to solve this problem, Laplace cites with approval Leibniz's criticism of Newton's invocation of divine intervention to restore order to the Solar System: "This is to have very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God."

d) Finally, and most ironically perhaps, it is not clear that Laplace was motivated by atheism to solve this problem, Laplace cites with approval Leibniz's criticism of Newton's invocation of divine intervention to restore order to the Solar System: "This is to have very narrow ideas about the wisdom and the power of God.", to them, it would count as evidence against intelligent design if God had to intervene to prevent the solar system from collapsing. So intelligent design could just as easily be a motivation to prove the stability of the solar system. (of note: original article modified since originally accessed) https://letterstonature.wordpress.com/2015/11/04/neil-degrasse-tyson-on-newton-part-1/ "Leibniz, in his controversy with Newton on the discovery of infinitesimal calculus, sharply criticized the theory of Divine intervention as a corrective of the disturbances of the solar system. "To suppose anything of the kind", he said, "is to exhibit very narrow ideas of the wisdom and power of God'." - Pierre-Simon Laplace https://books.google.com/books?id=oLtHAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73

Contrary to popular belief, Laplace, like Leibniz, was not championing atheism but instead he was objecting strenuously to the notion that God would be so inept that He would have to step in to 'remedy the defects of His creation' from time to time. Moreover, at the 16:47 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Stephen Meyer reveals that Sir Isaac Newton himself did not actually believe in a 'tinkering God' who had to step in from time to time to 'remedy the defects' of His creation, but instead Newton believed that God was "constantly sustaining the universe by the word of His power".

Stephen Meyer Answers Questions about the Judeo-Christian Origins of Science - video https://youtu.be/YBwRC8qJSoI?t=994

And as to not having to "remedy the defects of His creation", I hold that both Newton and Leibniz, (and even the often misquoted Laplace), would all be very pleased by what modern science has now revealed about the wisdom and power of God in creating this solar system:

“You might also think that these disparate bodies are scattered across the solar system without rhyme or reason. But move any piece of the solar system today, or try to add anything more, and the whole construction would be thrown fatally out of kilter. So how exactly did this delicate architecture come to be?” R. Webb - Unknown solar system 1: How was the solar system built? - New Scientist – 2009 Is the Solar System Stable? By Scott Tremaine - 2011 Excerpt: So what are the results? Most of the calculations agree that eight billion years from now, just before the Sun swallows the inner planets and incinerates the outer ones, all of the planets will still be in orbits very similar to their present ones. In this limited sense, the solar system is stable. However, a closer look at the orbit histories reveals that the story is more nuanced. After a few tens of millions of years, calculations using slightly different parameters (e.g., different planetary masses or initial positions within the small ranges allowed by current observations) or different numerical algorithms begin to diverge at an alarming rate. More precisely, the growth of small differences changes from linear to exponential:,,, As an example, shifting your pencil from one side of your desk to the other today could change the gravitational forces on Jupiter enough to shift its position from one side of the Sun to the other a billion years from now. The unpredictability of the solar system over very long times is of course ironic since this was the prototypical system that inspired Laplacian determinism. Fortunately, most of this unpredictability is in the orbital phases of the planets, not the shapes and sizes of their orbits, so the chaotic nature of the solar system does not normally lead to collisions between planets. However, the presence of chaos implies that we can only study the long-term fate of the solar system in a statistical sense, by launching in our computers an armada of solar systems with slightly different parameters at the present time—typically, each planet is shifted by a random amount of about a millimeter—and following their evolution. When this is done, it turns out that in about 1 percent of these systems, Mercury’s orbit becomes sufficiently eccentric so that it collides with Venus before the death of the Sun. Thus, the answer to the question of the stability of the solar system—more precisely, will all the planets survive until the death of the Sun—is neither “yes” nor “no” but “yes, with 99 percent probability.” https://www.ias.edu/about/publications/ias-letter/articles/2011-summer/solar-system-tremaine Rare Planetary System BY HUGH ROSS - JUNE 12, 2017 Excerpt: Thanks in large part to research on extrasolar planets, astronomers also know that every planet in the solar system fulfills a key role in making advanced life possible on Earth. Two Brazilian astronomers showed that even tiny adjustments in the orbits of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune would prove catastrophic for life in our solar system.5 Regions beyond the precise orbital positions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune abound in destructive mean motion resonances. As it is, Uranus is close to a 7:1 resonance with Jupiter (where Jupiter would make exactly 7 orbits around the Sun for every single orbit of Uranus), a 2:1 resonance with Neptune, and a 3:1 resonance with Saturn. Meanwhile, Jupiter and Saturn are very close to 5:2 resonance. If any of the solar system gas giant planets’ orbital positions were to shift ever so slightly, that shift would destabilize the orbit of one or more of the eight planets in the solar system with catastrophic consequences for a long history of life on Earth. Three Canadian astronomers further demonstrated that the orbital positions of Venus, Earth, and Mars must be fine-tuned so as to break up mean motion resonances that could be damaging for life on Earth. They showed that even the orbital features of the Earth-Moon system must be fine-tuned for this purpose.6 The Earth-Moon system suppresses a resonance in Venus’ orbit that is generated from the orbital patterns of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Unless the Earth-Moon system is configured the way it is, both Venus’ and Mercury’s orbits would destabilize and generate destructive chaos throughout the inner solar system. Every planet in our solar system and Earth’s Moon contribute to making advanced life possible on Earth. The solar system’s array of eight planets must be exactly the way it is. Have you thanked God today for Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune? https://www.reasons.org/explore/blogs/todays-new-reason-to-believe/read/todays-new-reason-to-believe/2017/06/12/rare-planetary-system

bornagain77

Bornagain77: in the atheist’s denial that God exists as a real person, I have never denied the existence of God. I've certainly never met 'him' nor have I seen credible evidence 'he' exists or exerts any kind of influence in the universe. So, when looking for explanations of phenomena I 'have no need of that hypothesis'. You, convinced that God exists and does intervene in the universe, have no trouble ascribing to 'him' various things. Your logic is faulty by the very fact that if your basic assumption (that God exists) is wrong then all your arguments fall to pieces. If you were making real scientific arguments you would have to acknowledge that your basic assumption might be wrong and what would the consequences of that be. This you will never do because, deep down, you are NOT making a scientific argument. You are making a faith-based argument. Which is fine by me but you really should own up to that. All your quote-mining doesn't change that basic, stark fact. Which is why most people on this forum never even read your lengthy screeds of things other people have said, frequently ripped out of context. I really have no trouble with faith as I've mentioned many times. But faith attempting to be something else is false. Perhaps you enjoy 'preaching' at those you disagree with out of some kind of duty or missionary zeal. But when you misrepresent others and their statements you just make yourself look like a fool and a knave. Tell your own story, simply and truthfully. That's the best way to share your faith. JVL

JVL, "I was trying to have a conversation with a real person, not a quote-mined database." But alas, under the reductive materialism of your Darwinian worldview, there are no 'real persons' for you to have conversations with, only 'neuronal illusions', and/or ‘controlled hallucinations’ of a very distinctive kind”

“Our experiences of being and having a body are ‘controlled hallucinations’ of a very distinctive kind.” Anil Seth, "The Real Problem" at Aeon - (Nov. 2, 2016) - per evolution news - Oct. 2022 The Confidence of Jerry Coyne – Ross Douthat – January 6, 2014 Excerpt: But then halfway through this peroration, we have as an aside the confession (by Coyne) that yes, okay, it’s quite possible given materialist premises that “our sense of self is a neuronal illusion.” At which point the entire edifice suddenly looks terribly wobbly — because who, exactly, is doing all of this forging and shaping and purpose-creating if Jerry Coyne, as I understand him (and I assume he understands himself) quite possibly does not actually exist at all? The theme of his argument is the crucial importance of human agency under eliminative materialism, but if under materialist premises the actual agent is quite possibly a fiction, then who exactly is this I who “reads” and “learns” and “teaches,” and why in the universe’s name should my illusory self believe Coyne’s bold proclamation that his illusory self’s purposes are somehow “real” and worthy of devotion and pursuit? (Let alone that they’re morally significant: But more on that below.) Prometheus cannot be at once unbound and unreal; the human will cannot be simultaneously triumphant and imaginary. https://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-confidence-of-jerry-coyne/?mcubz=3 “You are robots made out of meat. Which is what I am going to try to convince you of today” Jerry Coyne – No, You’re Not a Robot Made Out of Meat (Science Uprising 02) – video https://youtu.be/rQo6SWjwQIk?list=PLR8eQzfCOiS1OmYcqv_yQSpje4p7rAE7-&t=20 “(Daniel) Dennett concludes, ‘nobody is conscious … we are all zombies’.” J.W. SCHOOLER & C.A. SCHREIBER – Experience, Meta-consciousness, and the Paradox of Introspection – 2004 The Brain: The Mystery of Consciousness - Monday, Jan. 29, 2007 Part II THE ILLUSION OF CONTROL Another startling conclusion from the science of consciousness is that the intuitive feeling we have that there's an executive "I" that sits in a control room of our brain, scanning the screens of the senses and pushing the buttons of the muscles, is an illusion. Steven Pinker - Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University - per academia Sam Harris: “The self is an illusion.” – Michael Egnor Demolishes the Myth of Materialism (Science Uprising EP1) https://youtu.be/Fv3c7DWuqpM?t=267 "There is no self in, around, or as part of anyone’s body. There can’t be. So there really isn’t any enduring self that ever could wake up morning after morning worrying about why it should bother getting out of bed. The self is just another illusion, like the illusion that thought is about stuff or that we carry around plans and purposes that give meaning to what our body does. Every morning’s introspectively fantasized self is a new one, remarkably similar to the one that consciousness ceased fantasizing when we fell sleep sometime the night before. Whatever purpose yesterday’s self thought it contrived to set the alarm last night, today’s newly fictionalized self is not identical to yesterday’s. It’s on its own, having to deal with the whole problem of why to bother getting out of bed all over again.,,, - Alex Rosenberg - Professor of Philosophy Duke University - The Atheist’s Guide to Reality, ch.10 "The first thing to understand, I believe, is that there is no thing like “the self.” Nobody ever had or was a self. Selves are not part of reality. Selves are not something that endures over time. The first person pronoun “I” doesn’t refer to an object like a football or a bicycle, it just points to the speaker of the current sentence. There is no thing in the brain or outside in the world, which is us. We are processes… the self is not a thing but a process." - Thomas Metzinger is a German philosopher. As of 2011 he holds the position of director of the theoretical philosophy group at the department of philosophy at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz At the 23:33 minute mark of the following video, Richard Dawkins agrees with materialistic philosophers who say that: “consciousness is an illusion” A few minutes later Rowan Williams asks Dawkins ”If consciousness is an illusion…what isn’t?”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWN4cfh1Fac&t=22m57s Atheistic Materialism – Does Richard Dawkins Exist? Dr. Dennis Bonnette – video 37:51 minute mark Quote: “It turns out that if every part of you, down to sub-atomic parts, are still what they were when they weren’t in you, in other words every ion,,, every single atom that was in the universe, that has now become part of your living body, is still what is was originally. It hasn’t undergone what metaphysicians call a ‘substantial change’. So you aren’t Richard Dawkins. You are just carbon and neon and sulfur and oxygen and all these individual atoms still. You can spout a philosophy that says scientific materialism, but there aren’t any scientific materialists to pronounce it.,,, That’s why I think they find it kind of embarrassing to talk that way. Nobody wants to stand up there and say, “You know, I’m not really here”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCnzq2yTCg&t=37m51s

You see JVL, in a shining example of poetic justice, in the atheist's denial that God exists as a real person, the atheist ends up having to deny that he exists as a real person. Without God being a real person, there simply is nothing for the atheist to ground the entire concept of 'personhood' on!

Nothing: God's new Name - Antoine Suarez – video Paraphrased quote: (“it is impossible for us to be 'persons' experiencing 'now' if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as 'persons', we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. i.e. We must refer to God!”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOr9QqyaLlA

And JVL, it is not just our 'sense of self', i.e. our very 'personhood', that Darwinists end up denying the reality of, Darwinists end up, because of their reductive materialistic framework, being forced to deny the reality of many things that everyone, including the vast majority of Darwinists themselves, accept as being undeniably real.

Basically, because of reductive materialism (and/or methodological naturalism), the atheistic materialist (who believes Darwinian evolution to be true) is forced to claim that he is merely a ‘neuronal illusion’ (Coyne, Dennett, etc..), who has the illusion of free will (Harris, Coyne), who has unreliable, (i.e. illusory), beliefs about reality (Plantinga), who has illusory perceptions of reality (Hoffman), who, since he has no real time empirical evidence substantiating his grandiose claims, must make up illusory “just so stories” with the illusory, and impotent, ‘designer substitute’ of natural selection (Behe, Gould, Sternberg), so as to ‘explain away’ the appearance (i.e. the illusion) of design (Crick, Dawkins), and who also must make up illusory meanings and purposes for his life since the hopelessness of the nihilism inherent in his atheistic worldview is simply too much for him to bear (Weikart), and who must also hold morality to be subjective and illusory since he has rejected God (Craig, Kreeft). Who, since beauty cannot be grounded within his materialistic worldview, must also hold beauty itself to be illusory (Darwin). Bottom line, nothing is truly real in the atheist’s worldview, least of all, beauty, morality, meaning and purposes for life.,,, April 18, 2021 - Defense of each claim https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/philosophy/philosopher-mary-midgeley-1919-2018-on-scientism/#comment-728595

Thus JVL, although a Darwinian Atheist and/or Methodological Naturalist, such as yourself, may firmly, and falsely, believe that he is on the terra firma of science (in his appeal, even demand, for naturalistic explanations over and above God as a viable explanation), the fact of the matter is that, when examining the details of your materialistic/naturalistic worldview, it is found that Darwinists/Atheists themselves are adrift in an ocean of fantasy and imagination with no discernible anchor for reality to grab on to. It would be hard to fathom a worldview more antagonistic to modern science, indeed more antagonistic to reality itself, than Atheistic materialism and/or methodological naturalism have turned out to be.

2 Corinthians 10:5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

And to put a cherry on top of all this, and in keeping with the neuronal illusion of JVL wanting to talk about 'science', empirical science has now proven, via the falsification of ‘realism’ by Leggett’s inequality, that material particles themselves, (which Darwinian materialists hold to be the ultimate foundation, and/or definition, for all of reality), are themselves not ‘real’.

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: Many realizations of the thought experiment have indeed verified the violation of Bell’s inequality. These have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell’s inequality does not tell specifically which assumption – realism, locality or both – is discordant with quantum mechanics. Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization. They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 but test all things. Hold fast to what is good.

bornagain77

Bornagain77: So you are not talking about “unguided evolutionary theory”??? I was trying to have a conversation with a real person, not a quote-mined database. JVL

Per Martin at 1, "And now, let’s get serious…. Dr. James Tour’s latest presentation:"

Dr. Tour EXPOSES the False Science Behind Origin of Life Research https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v36_v4hsB-Y

bornagain77

"I am (talking about science)". So you are not talking about “unguided evolutionary theory”???

Sociobiology: The Art of Story Telling – Stephen Jay Gould – 1978 – New Scientist Excerpt: Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers “Just So stories”. When evolutionists study individual adaptations, when they try to explain form and behaviour by reconstructing history and assessing current utility, they also tell just so stories – and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. https://books.google.com/books?id=tRj7EyRFVqYC&pg=PA530 “... another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness... Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling... it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order.…” — Austin L. Hughes, The Folly of Scientism - The New Atlantis, Fall 2012 Atheist and Darwinian Science and Story Telling, part 1 of 9 Excerpt: (Darwinists) must deal with the fact that abiogenesis (abiotic synthesis) is not observed anywhere and is not producible in any experiments (and if it was it would be evidence of intelligent design).,,, What is their answer? They can imagine a time, long, long ago in the Earth’s past, when everything happened just so and abiogenesis was possible. What about filling the various gaps in our knowledge? They can imagine a time in the distant future when their beliefs will be proven true: in other words they think that eventually material causes will be discovered for all material effects including the universe itself.,, Herein lies the fallacies: they merely regress to an unknown past in which they can imagine thing occurring that do not occur today (what happened to uniformitarianism?) and they can project into an equally unknown future at which time we will discover that absolute materialism is true. Atheists of this sort appeal to inaccessible, unobserved, un-experimented upon, ideal and self-service concepts and replace evidence for imagination. As long as they can imagine it, it must be true: this appears to be what Richard Dawkins meant by being an intellectually fulfilled atheist. https://truefreethinker.com/atheist-and-darwinian-science-and-story-telling-part-1-of-9/

bornagain77

Relatd: “unguided evolutionary theory” I have rejected this. Then why are you trying to argue with me? You're not going to change your mind. You're not engaging in a conversation for any real purpose. Why do you keep responding when it's clear there is no point in you doing so? JVL

Bornagain77: But I thought you said that you wanted to talk about science? I am. It's you that keeps dodging the issues with you incessant copy-and-paste style of argumentation. It's almost like you have no real opinion of your own that you can present without copious quote-mined references. Why don't you try, for once, to actually have a real conversation with someone, without all the smoke screen of links. If you really understand the issues then you should be able to make the arguments on your own without so much propping up. JVL

JVL at 44, "unguided evolutionary theory" I have rejected this. relatd

"I’m happy to talk about unguided evolutionary theory" But I thought you said that you wanted to talk about science?

Charles Darwin to Asa Gray – 29 November 1857 My dear Gray, ,,, What you hint at generally is very very true, that my work will be grievously hypothetical & large parts by no means worthy of being called inductive; my commonest error being probably induction from too few facts. https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2176.xml “There are five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Has anyone observed the phenomenon — in this case, Evolution — as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” tests)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no.” – Tom Wolfe – The Kingdom of Speech – page 17

bornagain77

Bornagain77: You are the one who said you wanted to talk about science. I just wanted to know why you did not want to talk about Darwinism anymore. I'm happy to talk about unguided evolutionary theory when someone asked me a direct question and is willing to engage in a real conversation. JVL

Reatld: You apparently missed the “zero mention of God” part. Why bring up God at all? If it's not pertinent then it should never have been introduced. But you did. JVL

JVL, no need to get upset. You are the one who said you wanted to talk about science. I just wanted to know why you did not want to talk about Darwinism anymore.

Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia

bornagain77

JVL at 40, You apparently missed the "zero mention of God" part. relatd

Relatd: Science? What kind of science would that be? Discredited evolution – OR – Origin of Life with zero, I mean zero mention of God? I've never figured out how to test 'God' in a lab. If you have any insight into that issue I'm open to persuasion. JVL

JVL at 38, Science? What kind of science would that be? Discredited evolution - OR - Origin of Life with zero, I mean zero mention of God? relatd

Relatd: Stop it. Just stop it. When you want to talk about science let me know. JVL

JVL at 33, With apologies to Al Jolson. Sung to the tune of Swanee. Si - ence! How I love ya How I love ya My dear old Si - ence! relatd

JVL at 35, Stop it. Just stop it. relatd

Bornagain77: What?, you don’t want to talk about Darwinism anymore? I wasn't talking to you was I? With your history of spamming conversations with tons of quote-mined references one of which I showed was completely opposite of what you claimed it was. Instead of just trying to hijack conversations why don't you actually engage in a particular argument as opposed to just showing off you database of quotes. JVL

"When you want to talk about science let me know." What?, you don't want to talk about Darwinism anymore?

"nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific" - Imre Lakatos - 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture Dubitable Darwin? Why Some Smart, Nonreligious People Doubt the Theory of Evolution - John Horgan - July 6, 2010 Excerpt: Early in his career, the philosopher Karl Popper ,, called evolution via natural selection “almost a tautology” and “not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program.” Attacked for these criticisms, Popper took them back (in approx 1978). But when I interviewed him in 1992, he blurted out that he still found Darwin’s theory dissatisfying. “One ought to look for alternatives!” Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table. http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/dubitable-darwin-why-some-smart-nonreligious-people-doubt-the-theory-of-evolution/ “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.” - Marc Kirschner, founding chair of the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005 “While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” - A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to “Evolutionary Processes” – (2000).

bornagain77

Relatd: The two scientists are gone. God is having a good laugh. When you want to talk about science let me know. JVL

JVL at 31, Let's see: Evolution CAUSES: "Compared to the US it has better heath care, lower rates of violent crimes, better life expectancy, lower infant mortality." "... ongoing research into the area." Research? Imagine the following two panel cartoon in black and white. Two scientists are sitting in a lab discussing the Origin of Life on Earth. In the background, God is standing there. "So, I'm leaning toward aliens." Why is that? "Isn't it obvious? Aliens are more advanced than we are and can do anything." Anything? That's it? What about chemical reactions on Earth? Or any other idea? "Well, chemical reactions was my second choice. I can't think of anything else." PANEL TWO The two scientists are gone. God is having a good laugh. relatd

Relatd: Every time you post, the needle on my Nonsense-O-Meter goes into the red. Obviously we disagree. So? You seem to want an eternal stalemate or eternal vagueness. I don't think it makes sense to call something done and dusted when there is ongoing research into the area. Kids in school need to be told that someone made them – today. Right now. Why is that? Evolution is taught all over Europe and has been done for decades. And Europe is doing just fine. Compared to the US it has better heath care, lower rates of violent crimes, better life expectancy, lower infant mortality. Somehow. Yes, well, not at all… Life had to start somewhere at some time. If you have an explantation which can be tested in a lab and has predictive power and does not make assumptions about causes or agents for which there is no evidence then please present it. JVL

Marfin: So you will never accept any law as there is not one scientific law that has been tested by every single scenario known to man especially scenarios that may be found in the future. No, I didn't say that either. Do you always carry on discussions by widely exaggerating what you think the other person might have meant? The law of life from only preceding life is just that a LAW , it fits the criteria that most if not all scientific laws are judged on, ” something which is a regularity in nature with no known exceptions experimental or observational “. We don't know if it's a law or not. Also, because of the lack of evidence for any other kind of source for life on Earth, our best guess right now is that somehow life arose via basic chemical and physical laws which we do know. That's something you can work with and study and test and experiment with. AND it doesn't include any processes or agents that we don't know about and there is no evidence of them existing at the time. Your argument is a classic argument from ignorance: we've never seen this or that so we conclude it couldn't have happened which is exactly what you are saying by claiming its a scientific law. The second law of thermodynamics IS a law because it has been tested over and over and over again AND it can successfully predict outcomes. Life exclusively comes from life has not been extensively tested yet. It's in the process. AND, if it were true, then how did life on Earth come about? Alien visitation? One of the other commenters said that's a stupid idea. Why do you WANT it to be a law? What is your motivation? Aliens did it does not break this law actually it confirms it , assuming you believe the aliens are alive. I've already addressed this issue. JVL

JVL at 28, The ol' dodge and weave. Your tactics - and that's what they are - need to be pointed out. That's all I'm doing. Every time you post, the needle on my Nonsense-O-Meter goes into the red. You seem to want an eternal stalemate or eternal vagueness. Just like those who write about a fictional idea called evolution. There's no time for such things here and in the real world. Kids in school need to be told that someone made them - today. Right now. Not: "... a first basic replicator. Which came about somehow." Somehow. Yes, well, not at all... relatd

Relatd: So, JVL, you’re here for no particular reason? Did you really not even read my very next sentence? Do I have to repeat it 'cause you chose not to read the entirety of one short paragraph? . . . the foot that trips up others who have good, credible things to say In case you hadn't noticed . . . not only are my opinions in the minority here but I have no control over who posts or what they post. If they find my questions a bit tricky then perhaps they should work on the answers. Let’s look at “Aliens did it.” You are listing some of the reasons I find that explanation exceedingly improbable. So what's your point? I didn't say I was supporting the idea. Except for the evolution part; that I think is probable AFTER there was a first basic replicator. Which came about somehow. JVL

JVL , So you will never accept any law as there is not one scientific law that has been tested by every single scenario known to man especially scenarios that may be found in the future. The law of life from only preceding life is just that a LAW , it fits the criteria that most if not all scientific laws are judged on, " something which is a regularity in nature with no known exceptions experimental or observational ". Aliens did it does not break this law actually it confirms it , assuming you believe the aliens are alive. Marfin

Let's look at "Aliens did it." They were just sitting around one day and someone said, "I know. Let's seed other planets with life". Here's the first, and only problem that matters. You can't send an Earth plant to Mars and expect it to grow there. In order to seed life on an alien planet you have to make sure that it won't die before it takes hold. What stupid, stupid thinking on the part of scientists wedded to the false idea that "evolution" would take over and eventually lead to human beings - for no particular reason. Beyond stupid. relatd

JVL at 24, Now HERE is an unbelievable claim. "You expect to change minds, I don’t." So, JVL, you're here for no particular reason? I think not. You, and a few others here, play a role: the fly in the ointment, the foot that trips up others who have good, credible things to say. Your previous posts are all the evidence anyone needs to reach that conclusion. relatd

Bornagain77: You do realize that ignoring, and/or rationalizing away, any and all empirical evidence that contradicts your atheistic worldview is the polar opposite of ‘keeping an open mind’ do you not? I'm just not giving as much weight to certain arguments as you do. Just like you. You find certain explanations illogical and laughable. But you are convinced you are correct. I admit that I am making judgement calls based on known science and data and explanations that have fewer unknowns and assumptions. Also, it bothers you immensely that anyone can possibly disagree with you whereas I accept that some folks, like yourself, disagree with me. You expect to change minds, I don't. You don't actually like having a conversation about our differences whereas that's the whole reason I'm here. JVL

JVL, "I’m trying to keep my mind open" You do realize that ignoring, and/or rationalizing away, any and all empirical evidence that contradicts your atheistic worldview is the polar opposite of 'keeping an open mind' do you not? bornagain77

Asauber: This Sci-Fi fantasy. For Entertainment Purposes Only. Not For Serious Discussion of Facts. I didn't say we would find such a thing; I just said IF we were to find such a thing. I consider alien visitors at all incredibly improbable. Not impossible but extremely unlikely given our knowledge of the universe and physics. JVL

Bornagain77: JVL at 12 resorts to the ‘aliens did it’ dodge, “if alien visitors seeded life on Earth then there is the intriguing possibility we might, someday, find a cache or marker left by them” I'm not appealing to ETs because I think the possibility they are responsible is very, very low. NOT zero but very low. However, IF we found a record from them of what they did then I would change my mind. I'm merely discussing the possibility NOT saying it's even remotely likely. The trouble with the atheist’s ‘aliens did it’ dodge . . . Which I am NOT saying. I don't think it's the most likely explanation. JVL also asked, “if life only comes from life then where did the first life come from?” This is an old argument. Yes it is. And one we don't have an answer for yet. Unlike you, I'm trying to keep my mind open to the possibilities that have some probability of being right. Some more probable than others. And the ones that have more evidence and explain more are also preferable. As well JVL, in his question of ‘where did the first life come from?’, erroneously presupposed that matter existed for all eternity and discounted life existing for all eternity. I don't know if what we perceive as matter in our universe existed for all eternity. You just love ascribing views to people when they don't hold those views because it serves your own biased and prejudice view. You should try listening to what real people are actually saying instead of just reacting to a few trigger words or phrases. JVL

JVL at 12 resorts to the 'aliens did it' dodge, "if alien visitors seeded life on Earth then there is the intriguing possibility we might, someday, find a cache or marker left by them" Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick, both dogmatic atheists, also both appealed to ETs rather than God to try to explain life. Dawkins put his 'aliens did it' dodge like this,

BEN STEIN: “What do you think is the possibility that Intelligent Design might turn out to be the answer to some issues in genetics or in evolution?” DAWKINS: “Well, it could come about in the following way. It could be that at some earlier time, somewhere in the universe, a civilization evolved, probably by some kind of Darwinian means, probably to a very high level of technology, and designed a form of life that they seeded onto perhaps this planet. Now, um, now that is a possibility, and an intriguing possibility. And I suppose it’s possible that you might find evidence for that if you look at the details of biochemistry, molecular biology, you might find a signature of some sort of designer.” – Ben Stein vs. Richard Dawkins Interview (3:18 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc

Francis Crick was much more explicit than Dawkins was as to why DNA must be designed by aliens, and stated his belief as such in his book “Life Itself”

“Life did not evolve first on Earth; a highly advanced civilization became threatened so they devised a way to pass on their existence. They genetically-modified their DNA and sent it out from their planet on bacteria or meteorites with the hope that it would collide with another planet. It did, and that’s why we’re here. The DNA molecule is the most efficient information storage system in the entire universe. The immensity of complex, coded and precisely sequenced information is absolutely staggering. The DNA evidence speaks of intelligent, information-bearing design. Complex DNA coding would have been necessary for even the hypothetical first so-called’ simple cell(s). Our DNA was encoded with messages from that other civilization. They programmed the molecules so that when we reached a certain level of intelligence, we would be able to access their information, and they could therefore — teach” us about ourselves, and how to progress. For life to form by chance is mathematically virtually impossible.” - Francis Crick – Life Itself – September 1982

Although to be clear, later Crick, although he had explicitly said that ‘DNA evidence speaks of intelligent, information-bearing design’, emphatically stated elsewhere that what we see in biology is not really designed.

“Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case” - Francis Crick – co-discover of the DNA helix - What Mad Pursuit - 1988

In short, Crick was living in denial of the design that he himself honestly admitted was in DNA and that he, self-admittedly, was 'constantly' seeing in DNA.

DNA itself literally screams, “I AM INTELLIGENTLY DESIGNED” from every angle that you look at it. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/movie-night-with-illustra-a-whale-of-a-story-and-18-trillion-feet-of-you/#comment-745611

The trouble with the atheist's 'aliens did it' dodge is that atheists are wedded to the doctrine of methodological naturalism. A doctrine in which it is held that "minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only actor." Which, as Dr. Nelson further explains, entails "You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact."

Do You Like SETI? Fine, Then Let’s Dump Methodological Naturalism – Paul Nelson September 24, 2014 Excerpt: Epistemology — how we know — and ontology — what exists — are both affected by methodological naturalism. If we say, “We cannot know that a mind caused x,” laying down an epistemological boundary defined by MN, then our ontology comprising real causes for x won’t include minds. MN entails an ontology in which minds are the consequence of physics, and thus, can only be placeholders for a more detailed causal account in which physics is the only (ultimate) actor. You didn’t write your email to me. Physics did, and informed you of that event after the fact. “That’s crazy,” you reply, “I certainly did write my email.” Okay, then — to what does the pronoun “I” in that sentence refer? Your personal agency; your mind. Are you supernatural?,,, You are certainly an intelligent cause,, and your intelligence does not collapse into physics. (If it does collapse — i.e., can be reduced without explanatory loss — we haven’t the faintest idea how, which amounts to the same thing.) To explain the effects you bring about in the world — such as your email, a real pattern — we must refer to you as a unique agent.,,, ,,, some feature of "intelligence" must be irreducible to physics, because otherwise we’re back to physics versus physics, and there’s nothing for SETI to look for. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/09/do_you_like_set090071.html?

Intelligent agency of any sort, (whether it be God's, alien's, or your agency), and especially with their denial of free will, simply does not exist within the methodological naturalism of atheists. As George Ellis explained, "if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options."

Physicist George Ellis on the importance of philosophy and free will - July 27, 2014 Excerpt: And free will?: Horgan: Einstein, in the following quote, seemed to doubt free will: “If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the Earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was traveling its way of its own accord…. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will.” Do you believe in free will? Ellis: Yes. Einstein is perpetuating the belief that all causation is bottom up. This simply is not the case, as I can demonstrate with many examples from sociology, neuroscience, physiology, epigenetics, engineering, and physics. Furthermore if Einstein did not have free will in some meaningful sense, then he could not have been responsible for the theory of relativity – it would have been a product of lower level processes but not of an intelligent mind choosing between possible options. I find it very hard to believe this to be the case – indeed it does not seem to make any sense. Physicists should pay attention to Aristotle’s four forms of causation – if they have the free will to decide what they are doing. If they don’t, then why waste time talking to them? They are then not responsible for what they say. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/physicist-george-ellis-on-the-importance-of-philosophy-and-free-will/

Thus for JVL, Dawkins, and Crick, to appeal to the 'aliens did it' dodge in order for them to try to explain life is for them to inadvertently concede that physics alone is not sufficient to explain life and that therefore Intelligent agency of some sort is required to explain life. JVL also asked, "if life only comes from life then where did the first life come from?" This is an old argument. In fact, Pasteur himself addressed that argument when he stated, "You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter?

Louis Pasteur on life, matter, and spontaneous generation - June 21, 2015 "Science brings men nearer to God.,, Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory.,, “I have been looking for spontaneous generation (of life) for twenty years without discovering it. No, I do not judge it impossible. But what allows you to make it the origin of life? You place matter before life and you decide that matter has existed for all eternity. How do you know that the incessant progress of science will not compel scientists to consider that life has existed during eternity, and not matter? You pass from matter to life because your intelligence of today cannot conceive things otherwise. How do you know that in ten thousand years, one will not consider it more likely that matter has emerged from life? You move from matter to life because your current intelligence, so limited compared to what will be the future intelligence of the naturalist, tells you that things cannot be understand otherwise. If you want to be among the scientific minds, what only counts is that you will have to get rid of a priori reasoning and ideas, and you will have to do necessary deductions not giving more confidence than we should to deductions from wild speculation." - Louis Pasteur - [en francais, Pasteur et la philosophie, Patrice Pinet, Editions L’Harmattan, p. 63.] https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/louis-pasteur-on-life-matter-and-spontaneous-generation/

And indeed, advances in science, (in Big Bang cosmology), have now shown that, contrary to what atheistic materialists believe, matter has not existed for all eternity.

Big Bang Theory - An Overview of the main evidence Excerpt: Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy."3 Steven W. Hawking, George F.R. Ellis, "The Cosmic Black-Body Radiation and the Existence of Singularities in our Universe," Astrophysical Journal, 152, (1968) pp. 25-36. Steven W. Hawking, Roger Penrose, "The Singularities of Gravitational Collapse and Cosmology," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, series A, 314 (1970) pp. 529-548. http://www.big-bang-theory.com/

Shoot, according to advances in quantum mechanics, matter did not even exist 10^-43 seconds ago,

Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables – Scott Aaronson Excerpt: “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec11.html New Mind-blowing Experiment Confirms That Reality Doesn’t Exist If You Are Not Looking at It – June 3, 2015 Excerpt: The results of the Australian scientists’ experiment, which were published in the journal Nature Physics, show that this choice is determined by the way the object is measured, which is in accordance with what quantum theory predicts. “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrew Truscott in a press release.,,, “The atoms did not travel from A to B. It was only when they were measured at the end of the journey that their wave-like or particle-like behavior was brought into existence,” he said. Thus, this experiment adds to the validity of the quantum theory and provides new evidence to the idea that reality doesn’t exist without an observer. http://themindunleashed.org/2015/06/new-mind-blowing-experiment-confirms-that-reality-doesnt-exist-if-you-are-not-looking-at-it.html

Thus in conclusion, JVL, in his appeal to 'aliens did it' in order to try to explain life, inadvertently admitted that his atheistic naturalism is coming up short in explaining life and that intelligence of some sort is necessary to explain life. As well JVL, in his question of 'where did the first life come from?', erroneously presupposed that matter existed for all eternity and discounted life existing for all eternity. Yet his 'hidden assumption' that matter has existed for all eternity is now known, via advances in empirical science, to be a false assumption on his part. And thus, by my reckoning, that leaves life existing for all eternity.

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

bornagain77

Marfin: If Aliens seeded life here then the law that life always come from life is not broken, so are you accepting this law. Nope because that just pushes the question of where life first originated anyway back away from Earth. You say we should check out every possibility , we one we have checked out very rigorously is life from non life and we have found it does not happen so do you believe it does and if so why. I believe not all the possible work has been done yet. Not even close. I also believe that just because you want to give up on some line of research doesn't mean it won't turn out to be productive. I also believe you have reasons for wanting to believe the work will eventually fail. That's called motivated reasoning. That means you're biased. JVL

"a cache or marker left by them explaining when and how and why" JVL, This Sci-Fi fantasy. For Entertainment Purposes Only. Not For Serious Discussion of Facts. Andrew asauber

Asauber: igh. It would would not solve The Problem. It would just punt the ball towards “alien visitors”. It would solve the problem of how life on Earth started but, obviously, as has been noted many times before, it just kicks the can of how life first got started down the road. JVL

Tammy Lee Haynes: You said, “Life comes only from life” is NOT a law. Thats false, It IS a law, when properly stated in the Creationist Law of Biogenesis, to account for the self-evident fact that life originally did not come from life. Here it is: “Absent Divine intervention, life comes only from life.” Like I said, not a scientific law. NO law references something that is "self-evident". “Energy can never be created nor destroyed,” The law was first stated in the early 1850’s and has been confirmed coutless times since. Yup, we have found no exceptions. Even though people have tried. AND there are ancillary laws which have also been established. Note that the Creationist Law is similar. It is always observed. Kind of like the law that there are no black swans. Until some were spotted. When do you accept that the Creationists got it right? When they can explain at least when and how things were created. Where did the energy come from? If you were there at the time did this or that animal or plant just pop into existence? How many had to be created to give a sustainable population? What about their food sources? What was the sequence of plant and animal creations to ensure that each created type had a food source? You know, you have to actually explain how it all worked. Just look at this phosphorous nonsense. It’s been going on for almost 2 centuries. So, you 'cut bait' after 200 years? You just say: this is too difficult so we should quit. Lovely. It's amazing humans ever developed mobile phones if that's being scientific. JVL

JVL If Aliens seeded life here then the law that life always come from life is not broken, so are you accepting this law. You say we should check out every possibility , we one we have checked out very rigorously is life from non life and we have found it does not happen so do you believe it does and if so why. You see its either life from non life or life from life no matter where you go in the universe. Marfin

"For example: if alien visitors seeded life on Earth then there is the intriguing possibility we might, someday, find a cache or marker left by them explaining when and how and why they did that. Something like that could solve the whole problem!!" JVL, Sigh. It would would not solve The Problem. It would just punt the ball towards "alien visitors". Andrew asauber

Dear JVL Most respectfully, youre 100% wrong. You said, "Life comes only from life" is NOT a law. Thats false, It IS a law, when properly stated in the Creationist Law of Biogenesis, to account for the self-evident fact that life originally did not come from life. Here it is: "Absent Divine intervention, life comes only from life." First the accepted definiton of a Scientiific law has 3 elements : A Scientific law is.............1) a statement, 2) of a regularity that is always observed in nature, 3) that can be shown to be false, if indeed it is false. Note that a Scientific Law can never be proven, but it can be disproven (falsified) if it is untrue. As an example, take the Law of Conservation of Energy. "Energy can never be created nor destroyed," The law was first stated in the early 1850's and has been confirmed coutless times since. It has never been falsified, but it could be (if it were indeed false) by making energy from nothing in a perpetual motion machine. Note that the Creationist Law is similar. It is always observed. It could be falsified, if it indeed it is false, by making a living organism out of non living matter. Of course, Scientists have been trying since 1859 to falsify it. And their results? We all know. A total 100% flopperroo. Anyhow, us Creationists, we got a question for our Atheist friends. When do you cut bait? When do you accept that the Creationists got it right? I mean you keep saying that Scientists are making progress, when they arent. Just look at this phosphorous nonsense. It's been going on for almost 2 centuries. How long are they going to keep this BS up? Another ten years? 100 yeas? a million? Let me guess. For as long as Scientists can get their snouts in the Origin of Life trough. TAMMIE LEE HAYNES

Marfin: Whether by observation , experimentation , or any other research we have found this law to be absolute and life only and always comes from preceding life , so why do you guys believe that this is not the case ? I don't know how life got started on Earth, no one does. I think it's good to explore all the possibilities. Some you can test in a lab, some you need to get lucky by finding a 'smoking gun'. For example: if alien visitors seeded life on Earth then there is the intriguing possibility we might, someday, find a cache or marker left by them explaining when and how and why they did that. Something like that could solve the whole problem!! Why do you guys believe that at some time in the past that this law was broken. It's not a law. It's an observation which may or may not be correct. The problem is: if life only comes from life then where did the first life come from? You're welcome to answer that with data and observations. If we don`t get a response to this question, I think all here can assume you don`t want to open up your religious beliefs to scrutiny. It's not theistic to say: let's check on this or that idea however we can. JVL

and, Sir Giles ... let's don't forget, there is still the $10,000,000 OoL-price. You can win it, any scientist on this planet can win this prize Here you can apply: https://evo2.org/ PS: this prize has been offered for years, and according to the sponsor, nobody came even close to win the price, which only confirms my claims above. Moreover, i can assure you, if someone creates a simple life from scratch, in addition, that person wins additional $1,000,000 - Nobel price. So there is a lot of motivation :)))))))) So, Sir Giles, you have to ask yourself, where is the problem :)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))) PS: as to OoL-price, this is beautiful, from the OoL-Prize website: A question to the sponsor: "Do you believe it’s possible to win the Evolution 2.0 Prize?" https://evo2.org/win-ev2-prize/ martin_r

So a question for SEV, JVL et al, you guys follow the science , so science up to this point has shown that life only ever comes from preceding life . Whether by observation , experimentation , or any other research we have found this law to be absolute and life only and always comes from preceding life , so why do you guys believe that this is not the case ? Why do you guys believe that at some time in the past that this law was broken. If we don`t get a response to this question, I think all here can assume you don`t want to open up your religious beliefs to scrutiny. Marfin

Sir Giles @8

On one hand, IDists argue for ID by stating that scientists have not been able to creat life in the lab by manipulation environmental conditions.

Listen, Sir Giles, ... of course, the UD editor is right ... you Darwinists have to demonstrate (so we stupid creationists finally shut up), that SIMPLE life can emerge just-so, without any intervention from intelligent entity. Now focus: The fact is, that scientists ARE NOWHERE CLOSE to create life in lab ... they don't even started. This whole OoL-research is a fiasco. DO YOU GET THAT ? IF YOU THINK OTHERWISE, YOU WERE MISLED (by scientists) SCIENTISTS CAN MANIPULATE WHATEVER THEY WANT ... IT DOESN'T MATTER .... These things are so complex, that i personally doubt, that these can be done using common chemistry (you know, heating up, cooling down some chemicals in some flask ). The whole human approach is just wrong, that is for sure. martin_r

For example, “chemists can synthesize crucial biomolecules…” – but how much intelligent intervention is required by the trained chemists to reach their desired goal?

On one hand, IDists argue for ID by stating that scientists have not been able to creat life in the lab by manipulation environmental conditions. And on the other hand, they argue that any progress they make towards doing so is the result of intelligent intervention. An excellent example of having your cake and eating it too.

Also, “the early Earth’s atmosphere was oxygen-poor and iron would have been widespread.” – Does this make any sense at all?

Yes it does. Iron is good at removing phosphate from solution. In fact, ferric and ferrous iron are used in sewage treatment to reduce the phosphate levels in the effluent. But to make this happen they also have to pump huge quantities of air (oxygen) into the tanks. The pumping of this air is one of the major power consumers in the treatment process. The early oceans had plenty of iron but was not effective at sequestering phosphate because of the low oxygen. Sir Giles

Querius at 6, A rather extreme visual there. Darwinism has not resulted in the advance of the Biological sciences. Now that ID has developed a new worldview for scientists that is productive, I suspect evolution supporters here will still hang on, promoting a failed idea, until ID becomes popular. Then they will disappear like ghosts. Their words buried under clear evidence for design in living things. relatd

Martin_r @1, You're forgetting that the skeptics here are not interested in expert information from a renowned synthetic chemist. So their opinions trump actual data. Darwinism is a failed 19th century rationalization for racism and colonialism. It's a science fantasy based on ideology and cherry-picked evidence. My hope is that some day, Charles Darwin's cold, dead hands will be pried off the throat of biology just as eventually were Aristotle's. -Q Querius

This is not science, it's wishful thinking. relatd

BobRyan: One of the laws that would have to be violated to get life from no life is energy. It cannot be created. Dead has no energy to convert into anything. So, the Sun radiates immense amounts of energy how exactly? It's not alive is it? JVL

One of the laws that would have to be violated to get life from no life is energy. It cannot be created. Dead has no energy to convert into anything. BobRyan

i found the following comment below Dr. Tour's latest presentation:

Given the high complexity of chemistry I find it so amazing how biological organisms can function so well for so long.

Exactly !!!!!!! Most people don't realize, that this is an engineering SCI-FI. According to Darwinists, first bacteria evolved 3.5 billions years ago, and it is still here, after 3.5 billions of years, the initial information despite it has been copied like trillions of times (so far) it is still intact and working. And Darwinian biologists DARE TO SAY, that no design is required to keep the information intact for 3.5 billions of years ? What is wrong with Darwinists ? Darwinism is a fake news. martin_r

:))))))))))))) And now, let’s get serious…. Dr. James Tour’s latest presentation: https://youtu.be/v36_v4hsB-Y martin_r