The RNA world hypothesis, to be true, has to overcome major hurdles:
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2024-the-rna-world-and-the-origins-of-life#3414
1. Life uses only right-handed RNA and DNA. The homochirality problem is unsolved. This is an “intractable problem” for chemical evolution
2. RNA has been called a “prebiotic chemist’s nightmare” because of its combination of large size, carbohydrate building blocks, bonds that are thermodynamically unstable in water, and overall intrinsic instability. Many bonds in RNA are thermodynamically unstable with respect to hydrolysis in water, creating a “water problem”. Finally, some bonds in RNA appear to be “impossible” to form under any conditions considered plausible for early Earth. In chemistry, when free energy is applied to organic matter without Darwinian evolution, the matter devolves to become more and more “asphaltic”, as the atoms in the mixture are rearranged to give ever more molecular species. In the resulting “asphaltization”, what was life comes to display fewer and fewer characteristics of life.
3. Systems of interconnected software and hardware like in the cell are irreducibly complex and interdependent. There is no reason for information processing machinery to exist without the software and vice versa.
4. A certain minimum level of complexity is required to make self-replication possible at all; high-fidelity replication requires additional functionalities that need even more information to be encoded
5. RNA catalysts would have had to copy multiple sets of RNA blueprints nearly as accurately as do modern-day enzymes
6. In order a molecule to be a self-replicator, it has to be a homopolymer, of which the backbone must have the same repetitive units; they must be identical. In the prebiotic world, the generation of a homopolymer was however impossible.
7. Not one self-replicating RNA has emerged to date from quadrillions (10^24) of artificially synthesized, random RNA sequences.
8. Over time, organic molecules break apart as fast as they form
9. How could and would random events attach a phosphate group to the right position of a ribose molecule to provide the necessary chemical activity? And how would non-guided random events be able to attach the nucleic bases to the ribose? The coupling of ribose with a nucleotide is the first step to form RNA, and even those engrossed in prebiotic research have difficulty envisioning that process, especially for purines and pyrimidines.”
10. L. E. Orgel: The myth of a self-replicating RNA molecule that arose de novo from a soup of random polynucleotides. Not only is such a notion unrealistic in light of our current understanding of prebiotic chemistry, but it should strain the credulity of even an optimist’s view of RNA’s catalytic potential.
11. Macromolecules do not spontaneously combine to form macromolecules
125. The transition from RNA to DNA is an unsolved problem.
13. To go from a self-replicating RNA molecule to a self-replicating cell is like to go from a house building block to a fully built house.
14. Arguably one of the most outstanding problems in understanding the progress of early life is the transition from the RNA world to the modern protein-based world. 31
15. It is thought that the boron minerals needed to form RNA from pre-biotic soups were not available on early Earth in sufficient quantity, and the molybdenum minerals were not available in the correct chemical form. 33
16. Given the apparent limitation of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) genomes to about 30 kb, together with the complexity of DNA synthesis, it appears dif¢cult for a dsRNA genome to encode all the information required before the transition from an RNA to a DNA genome. Ribonucleotide reductase itself, which synthesizes deoxyribonucleotides from ribonucleotides, requires complex protein radical chemistry, and RNA world genomes may have reached their limits of coding capacity well before such complex enzymes had evolved.
In 2017, Berkeley, in its Origin of Life page, waxed confidently about the RNA world providing a bridge to life from rocks; the article was replaced in 2022 and the RNA world was simply let fall without explanation. It is passé, but then it always was a mirage.
There is zero record of an RNA organism having appeared anywhere and, today, the RNA World is like King Solomon’s Mines.
Meanwhile, the visualised “protocell” stands at the head of the unicorn, the mermaid, and the werewolf as the most mythical creature of all.
In short, no bridge, no link, no path, no tie, no half-way house, between a rock and a living organism has ever been observed in the fossil record, nor made in a laboratory.
Semi off topic: Uploaded last night
Previous episodes
BA77,
this series is simply amazing. Not only is Dr. Tour a top scientist (in 2020 he became a member of Royal Society – the oldest scientific organization in the world) but he is also an excellent presenter. I especially like his sarcasm.
Most people don’t appreciate what he is doing for us.
In the most recent video, he is addressing OoL-researcher Steve Benner … This Benner, such an arrogant person … and a liar …
What is shocking, all these OoL-researchers making an impression that they are close to creating life in lab … the fact is, they haven’t made any progress at all … in their whole career !!!! … they virtually have NOTHING … they only wasted other people money … but their self-confidence is really shocking … it is unbelievable … I really don’t understand how can anyone still fund these people … they are totally useless …
Of course, one reason why they are useless is the fact, that they think that life emerged in some chemical pond. This is the main reason for their failure. Another reason is the self-deception …
It is really shocking, that these well educated people seriously think, that they can create the most advanced self-replicating technology on earth by heating/cooling/shaking flasks … it is like in some mental hospital … they seriously seem to believe in 19th century spontaneous generation theory.
(or, they just trying to trick investors to get more funding … this is easy money … I think I will become a OoL-research too … )
Martin_r,
Moreover, these, (ahem, less than forthright), OoL-researchers act as if invoking Intelligence, and especially invoking God, is somehow antithetical to science itself. In other words, they presuppose atheistic (methodological) naturalism to be true and act as if God is somehow contrary to the practice of modern science.
Yet, you can’t even do science in the first place without presupposing some basic Judeo-Christian presuppositions to be true. Mainly, that the universe is intelligible and orderly. As Paul Davies noted, “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.”
And as Stephen Meyer has pointed out in his book “Return of the God Hypothesis”, Modern science was born out of, and is STILL very much dependent on basic Judeo-Christian presuppositions.
In short, not only does science NOT preclude God from being a valid explanation in science, but science itself would not even be possible in the first place unless God was first presupposed as being the true explanation for the universe and for our life, especially for our ability to comprehend the universe.
Thus, atheistic scientists may mock and ridicule belief in God as being ‘silly’, but they themselves, in the very act of them practicing science, are crucially dependent on that ‘silly’ belief that God created an rational universe and gave us the capacity to understand that rationality. You simply can’t do science otherwise.
Verse:
Martin_r @3
Astrobiologist: “Here, hold my beer. We don’t even need RNA…just water.”
Latermarch,
Like I said, these well educated people, scientists, believe in 19th century sponaneus generation of life theory.
Look at this guy…..MIT physicist Jeremy England, quote:
So when you see something like that, what then to expect from lay people …. e.g from Seversky ? …. But Seversky is the lucky one, because he visits this blog…. he got schooled…. So hopefully he no longer believes this nonsense….. or am I naive ? :)))))
PS: Actually, your astrobiologist is right … you can’t have a RNA molecule in water…. water degrades RNA molecules …. Let’s hope he is aware of this fact ….
Correction
The Jeremy England link above is wrong, this is the correct one
https://www.yalescientific.org/2014/07/origins-of-life-a-means-to-a-thermodynamically-favorable-end/
BA and MR re: Tour:
Just watched the latest episode. I am enjoying these immensely. Too bad that the truth has 50k subscribers, while the real liar has more than 2M. Tour and his producers are having to do a lot of work to point out the truth, while Dave can just spew lies to his disciples and has a lot more views. But, Dave is inadvertently giving Tour much more exposure by ridiculing him, which I suppose is a good thing.
Frustrating that Benner uses the word miracle instead of intelligent agency, which is what they cannot and dare not posit. I suppose that’s intentional. It’s so obvious that a superintellect is behind life, yet they’re committed to never, ever admitting that, even if that alone doesn’t get you to the Christian God. Lewontin et al.
One question is why some people believe Tour without question but dismiss three other equally if not more competent authorities who disagree with him?
The second question is if Tour believes he has genuine scientific objections to current OOL research why is he publishing it on YouTube rather than scientific journals? That’s not where you do science.
The third question is that if OOL research is such a bust does Tour have a better alternative explanation of how this designer/superintellect/God did it? There are some inquiring minds here who would like to know.
Seversky apparently you are not even watching the videos. The “three other equally if not more competent authorities” agree with Dr. Tour, not Dave, on the chemistry.
Seversky
as BA77 pointed out, you obviously don’t watch Dr. Tour’s videos. If you would, you would learn, that those 3 experts agreed with Tour and “professor” Farina looks like a silly 5 years old child …
Not to mention, that the 2nd expert (Bruce Lipshutz) did not even know that he was brought into this discussion :)))))
Small correction, for the accuracy, so far only first two experts agreed, let’s see what will the 3rd expert (Benner) say, because the part 01 with Benner was released just yesterday. So far, Benner just attacked Tour (God of the gaps argument), no science presented so far. So let’s see what Benner has to say :))))) But what could he possibly say ? :)))) The whole OoL-research is a fraud. That is clear from very first lectures …
PS: We can’t expect that people like Seversky, CD, JVL and Co. would listen to Dr. Tour. That is alright. We have to wait another 200 years, and Darwinists will be exactly where they are today with the research. That’s for sure … perhaps then the mainstream journals will admit that the OoL-research is a huge fiasco …(it is already).
Seversky,
just for you, it is very short …
A proof that first two Farina’s experts agreed with Tour:
Bruce Lipshutz ( from an email communication with Tour)
https://youtu.be/t5PfBzQUjW8?t=1149
Lee Cronin ( a chunk from an older online debate)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/J0mhyqjpQWg
and actually, the 3rd one, Steve Benner agreed with Tour as well
https://youtu.be/ZtitTE2BavU?t=1314
Seversky
Who decides who is more competent ? You ?
Fortunately, this OoL-chemistry seem to be so straight forward, that you don’t have to be a big expert to see OoL-research fraud …. unlike Darwinian theory of evolution … there I see way more space where you can cheat ….
Seversky, Tour is widely published in the field. Your willful ignorance is showing. He is on YouTube to more likely reach dolts like you. Oh wait, you don’t even watch YouTube. You just show up here and talk out of your rear end.
Animated Dust
Yes, I think this is one of the reasons why Tour shot 10+ hours of lectures. And the 3-experts rebuttal. Because of Farina’s 2M you tube followers. It was a good move. I am very happy that there is Dave Farina. Not every youtuber interested in OoL-research has 2M followers. So we should be thankful for “professor” Farina.
Of course, Tour won’t convince any of Farina’s followers, but that is alright.
Also, Tour’s videos look very professional, creative, funny …. must be very expensive to produce it this way … My guess is, that to produce a 20 mins video takes about week …
Also, it is a good thing that Tour keeps it only 20 minutes per video. You have to keep people focused.
AnimatedDust
In part 05 there was a very funny moment.
“Professor” Farina accused Tour that he (Tour) never heard of Ball Milling … (Some geological process)
It turned out, that Tour published 8 papers in 2022 alone mentioning Ball Milling :)))))))
Here is the moment:
https://youtu.be/t5PfBzQUjW8?t=991
AnimatedDust
Yes, through the years, I debated lots of atheists, and it seems to be some kind of tactic. To make you look more stupid or something. In fact, Darwinists believe in miracles :)))))))
But I agree with you. It is frustrating that a scientist like Benner (from Harvard) uses these words… I would expect it from Seversky, but not from a Harvard professor … it is a shame …
Of course, no miracles are needed. Only very advanced engineering.
It is like saying, that a DNA printer is some miraculous alien machine :))))
AnimatedDust
HOUSTON – (June 24, 2020) – Rice University chemist James Tour has won a Royal Society of Chemistry Centenary Prize.
The award, given annually to up to three scientists from outside Great Britain, recognizes researchers for their contributions to the chemical sciences industry or education and for successful collaborations. Tour was named for innovations in materials chemistry with applications in medicine and nanotechnology.
https://www.tmc.edu/news/2020/06/rice-university-chemist-james-tour-scores-prestigious-centenary-prize/
Royal Society (wiki)
Didn’t know that my video was about J.Tour…..
Martin_r @3,
Excellent points all! Here are some comments regarding your observations . . .
Dr. Tour is brilliant. I think his presentations are improving. The big challenge is how not to be too incisive when confronted by complete baloney! Self-proclaimed “professor,” Dave Farina, is actually impressively adept at rhetoric—as skilled as any trial lawyer trying to sway a jury when the facts of the case are against him, or as persuasive as a used-car salesman selling a piece of junk to a customer. They are very, very good at what they do!
Agreed! Did you see the techniques “Professor Dave” is employing? They include
• Appealing to authority
• Appealing to consensus
• Manufacturing non-stop ad hominem attacks in his word choices, including accusing Dr. Tour of scientific fraud!
• Projecting false motives onto Dr. Tour
• Employing strawman arguments by putting words into Dr. Tour’s mouth—things he never said.
• Spouting an unrelenting stream of mockery and hyper-skepticism along with eye-rolls and other body language.
If you analyze what “Professor Dave” is actually saying, you’ll also appreciate his skill at avoiding anything scientifically substantive. He even claims that autocatalysis is a sort of chemical perpetual motion machine in its ability to manufacture chemically pure, homochiral, etc. reagents.
Wow!
“Professor Dave” falsely accuses Dr. Tour of employing a “God of the gaps” argument when he himself resorts to TWO gods of the gaps who are named MUSTA and MIGHTA. These two gods are frequently invoked for the purposes of bridging chasms of scientific ignorance in both Origin of Life and Darwinism.
Dr. Benner looked very uncomfortable during the segments displayed in Dr. Tour’s presentation. I’d say he’s the one who’s ideologically poisoned along with “Professor Dave” rather than Dr. Tour, who maintains a separation between his scientific and academic work with his deep love and faith in God.
Here’s some more about Dr. Brenner and how he sells Origin-of-Life jewelry (!) to help fund his research along with the Templeton prize and NASA grants:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/steve-benner-origins-of-life-funds-origins-of-life_b_5a53ea6ce4b0ee59d41c0d47
Of course they make such claims! This is exactly what the alchemists of old did, claiming they were ever-so-close to creating gold from lead!
Here’s an amazing modern-day version of what alchemists were trying to do:
Turning lead into gold (lead iodide) ~2 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4COWrI0WsQ
Some of them sacrifice their scientific integrity with science-fantasy claims for the purpose of acquiring millions in additional funding and achieving celebrity status. Who would fund anyone on Origin-of-Life research if they start out by admitting that “we’re totally clueless”?
But it’s just GOTTA work because it MUSTA happened!
Sure, but let me caution you that there’s FAR too much competition for the money to chase after it. If you’re willing to sell your soul, don’t do it just for a bowl of lentil stew, a toaster oven, or even a $5 million dollar grant! 😉
-Q
MR re Ball Milling: Priceless moment. Bet he would love to have that one back. 🙂
Otangelo, I apologize … You are right …. This post wasn’t about Tour ….
Querius,
Considering OoL-research, there is one very important difference … these OoL-researchers are perfectly aware of what they have to replicate … Alchemists of gold were just very naive guys with very limited/close to zero knowledge.
Querius,
the fake gold (lead iodide) video…
OoL-researchers wish they could produce such a fake life :))))
AnimatedDust
another priceless moment:
“Professor” Farina claims, that Dr. Tour is not qualified enough to talk about OoL-research, because he is ONLY a synthetic chemist ..
And then Farina calls in those 3 experts … all synthetic chemists :)))))))
https://youtu.be/ZtitTE2BavU?t=1
Qeurius,
I looked at the huffpost link, …
$5,000,000 OoL grant for Benner.
That explains a lot …
At present, there is no answer to the origin of life from scientists but the idea that life could “arise” – somehow – is heavily promoted. Why? It is about establishing a firm atheist worldview among scientists and the public. It is about turning man into an object of worship. That way, the masses will think that nothing made them. That humans are the result of a long process that just happened – by accident – to make them. And that human beings are the greatest. That we can come up with all kinds of ideas to keep the masses confused.
What is your identity? Where did you come from? A prebiotic soup? And why do you believe that?
Instead, let’s look at Intelligent Design. An Intelligence made you, not nothing. Your identity is tied to this Intelligence. From the Christian perspective, this Intelligence is God. Your identity is a creation of God. Not nothing.
At present, all science has is that life poofed into existence.
With God, His work is seen all around us. We don’t have to be Christians to see that. Those plants and animals are designed. The fiction is they only look designed. They are not really designed.
Critics say Intelligent Design is a science stopper. On the contrary, as more evidence of design is found in living things, man’s knowledge increases. Unguided evolution is not the correct answer. But if the masses pick God as the designer then the spread of atheism is in trouble. THAT is the primary issue here. THAT will remain the primary issue here. With atheism, man chooses himself while rejecting God. Man takes the place of God.
Before Darwin’s book, great scientists openly acknowledge God while doing their work. And God will lead us into all truth.
John 16:13
“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”
Martin
.”So hopefully he no longer believes this nonsense….. or am I naive ? :)))))”
Is this a rhetorical question?
All Seversky does is come on this forum, takes a (oops I mean)defecates, then when pressed to answer tough questions wipes himself , throws the toilet paper in the room, then leaves and defecates on another thread.
Check out the Rufo thread and the back and forth regarding BLM at 150
Vivid
Martin
Correction, the back and forth ending at 150
Vivid
Q, in part the issue is, what do you mean by “gold”? Redefine appropriately and voila by agreed convention the alchemists did make gold. But that is the point, power games with words do not change underlying realities, though they may make us act in ill advised ways. Of course, I here allude to distinct identity, duty to truth, right reason and prudence including warrant. Resemblance to various situations, agit prop pushes and issues today is not coincidental. There is in the attempt to smear Dr Tour a bit of no true scientist can be a Christian (= “liar for Jesus”) fallacy-making. The gold in this case is scientist is implicitly redefined to mean atheism advocate, but once that is explicit, it collapses. So, it has to be hidden under doublethink and doubletalk. Hence, yet another case of projection to the despised other as defence from cognitive dissonance. KF
Just to be clear . . . The Royal Society of Chemistry was founded in 1980 (after some older organisations amalgamated) but it’s a different organisation than the Royal Society. Not saying it’s not prestigious just that’s it not the same organisation that Newton and Darwin belonged to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Society_of_Chemistry
Kairosfocus: There is in the attempt to smear Dr Tour a bit of no true scientist can be a Christian (= “liar for Jesus”) fallacy-making.
Actually, Dr Tour identifies as a Messianic Jew.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour
Interestingly enough the state of Israel considers Messianic Judaism to be a part of evangelical Christianity! I bet that’s generated some heated arguments.
JVL
You are right. My bad.
Thanks for the clarification …
“Not saying it’s not prestigious just that’s it not the same organisation that Newton and Darwin belonged to.”
Certainly very many respectable scientist belong, and have belonged, to the Royal society, but the inclusion of Charles Darwin into that society certainly takes away from the claim that it is a “prestigious’ scientific society that is beyond any reproach.
But then again, there was that Royal Society meeting in 2016 that openly questioned Darwinism as an adequate account of life on earth.
But I hold that 2016 meeting at the Royal Society questioning Darwin’s theory was about 150 years, and over one hundred million lives, too late.
On the side issue of prestigious institutions, Harvard Medical School is now offering a course about providing LGBT healthcare to infants. The course is titled “Caring for Patients with Diverse Sexual Orientations, Gender Identities, and Sex Development.” The course description states, “clinical exposure and education will focus on serving gender and sexual minority people across the lifespan, from infants to older adults.”
Bornagain77: Certainly very many respectable scientist belong, and have belonged, to the Royal society, but the inclusion of Charles Darwin into that society certainly takes away from the claim that it is a “prestigious’ scientific society that is beyond any reproach.
I didn’t say the The Royal Society was prestigious; I was talking about The Royal Society of Chemistry AND I was saying just because it’s NOT The Royal Society doesn’t mean it’s not prestigious. But you saw the name Darwin and just had to go off on a tangent with another copy-and-paste diatribe which had nothing to do with Dr James Tour which was who was being discussed.
“providing LGBT healthcare to infants”
If they can make it out alive first, they get a living hell.
Andrew
Whatever JVL. please don’t sully Dr. Tour’s good scientific name by associating it with that scientific fraud named Charles Darwin whose pseudo-scientific theory has done so much harm to human societies.
Off topic, but let me share this beautiful thought:
Now, biologists have to demonstrate, that the above claim is not true …
Biologists are free to use shining light, lightnings, x-rays, hot vents, rotten meat, purchased chemical kits, spectrometers, thermometers, scales, microscopes, freezers, computers, robots, they can use whatever they want to use :)))))))))))))))))
Martin_r at 39,
You do realize that astronomers are stilling looking for planets in “habitable zones.” Translation: These planets are the right distance from their sun and could have liquid water.
Kairosfocus @30,
Excellent point! Let me elaborate:
This reminds of when I was actually able to duplicate what was likely the FIRST proto-cellular life on earth in test tubes in my lab in Junior High School!
I’m aware that life needs to exhibit the following characteristics. The earliest life of course will exhibit only minimal signs of these four characteristics, which includes the following:
1. Some form of semipermeable cell membrane separating internal from external. In my experiments, the protocell membranes were nearly spherical as expected. The presence of prebiotic organic molecules in the aqueous solution dramatically enhances membrane longevity. The membrane is semipermeable as evidenced by the natural diffusion of gases between the aqueous environment and the internal air sac of the protocells.
2. Metabolism. When two protocells come into contact, typically the larger one engages in phagocytosis, quickly consuming the smaller one, and becomes engorged in the process.
3. Reproduction. When sufficiently engorged, the protocells reproduce via simple fission into two or more protocells, often promoted by mechanical agitation.
4. Response to environmental stimuli. The protocells were observed to migrate to the surface of the aqueous solution, travel outward along the meniscus, and adhere to the sides of the test tubes due to capillary action, where they often form multicellular colonies.
Formation. To form these protocells, the procedure was surprisingly simple and could form spontaneously from two independent methods: (1) By vigorous mechanical agitation, and (2) by heating the aqueous solution.
While I chose to shake the test tubes manually, it is fairly obvious that wind, tidal, and wave action against geologic features in the early earth were the original means. Also, the action of the sun on small bodies of water would heat them, also forming these protocells spontaneously.
From there, the aggregation and concentration of prebiotic organic molecules on the protocell membranes together with environmental action such as solar radiation, electrical discharges, ionizing terrestrial and extraterrestrial radiation, early-earth chemistry in all four phases together with non-directed, incremental evolutionary changes over millions of years was then initiated, resulting in the vast diversity and complexity of life on earth!
I called them “bubbles.”
-Q
Here’s a photo of a can of Prebiotic Soup.
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/the-origin-of-life
Bornagain77: Whatever JVL. please don’t sully Dr. Tour’s good scientific name by associating it with that scientific fraud named Charles Darwin whose pseudo-scientific theory has done so much harm to human societies.
When did I even begin to associate them? What is the matter with you?
And, let’s be clear: Darwin changed the scientific landscape. Dr Tour hasn’t come close to that.
If you’re going to just keep knee-jerk reacting to a word or phrase instead of taking the time to read and understand an actual argument then people really are going to stop taking you seriously. Not saying that anyone takes you seriously now to be honest. In fact, I am quite sure that a majority of people reading this blog do not even attempt to parse most of your posts. And, since I’ve found times when your links are broken and sometimes they don’t even link to what you think they link to . . . why should anyone take you seriously?
It’s not just about looking like you’re doing something for what you perceive is good; you actually have to be making good arguments and substantiated claims. Just having a library of quotes and references (which you don’t seem to update often enough) just doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t keep you up-to-date. It doesn’t account for the latest data. It makes you look like a quote miner.
AND, let’s remember, the conversation was about Dr James Tour. You attempted to hijack the thread. And then you had to back down. That’s the truth isn’t it?
“And, let’s be clear: Darwin changed the scientific landscape. Dr Tour hasn’t come close to that.”
Yes please, indeed, let’s be abundantly clear, Darwin’s theory is not now, nor has it ever been, a testable scientific theory, but has always been a pseudo-scientific theory that is almost wholly, if not wholly, reliant on the unrestrained imagination of ‘just-so story telling’ .
And in so far as Darwin ‘changed the scientific landscape’. let’s also be abundantly clear that Charles Darwin dragged science from the Christian pedestal from which it was born into the sewer of atheistic materialism.
Science owes nothing to Charles Darwin but the utmost contempt for his pseudo-scientific theory that has wrought so much death and destruction on human societies.
Ba77,
The clear connection between what Darwin wrote and the Nazi state and Communism shows that this atheist idea served the thinking of certain men as they used it to organize their countries. Like it or not, the common people were taught to believe it. Ideas like racial purity and ways of organizing society were then adopted as reasons for killing certain people.
Fast forward to today, and read what the National Academy of Science has to say. Again, we see another example of people promoting Darwin’s ideas and facing some resistance.
https://www.nationalacademies.org/evolution/science-and-religion
This has propaganda value for the ongoing promotion of atheism. After all, human beings are just evolutionary accidents. So we see in the present, an ongoing attempt to devalue human beings. To distort our true identity to the idea that nothing made us. Therefore, there is no higher being involved. No God. The leaders of the former Soviet Union would be proud.
Let’s look at the practical results of such an idea being heavily promoted in the West, including here. You are just another organism who can be manipulated by men. The focus is what man can write in books, or who appear on TV or who head certain secular organizations. You are trained to not look beyond them. Man defines man and uses men for profit and other reasons.
Yet there is a higher power. He has an identity. He made us. Science can’t acknowledge Him and neither should you. You need to worship MAN. He will guide you and mislead you, use you for good or abuse you for gain. Fallible man is the golden calf. MAN, with all his faults, is incapable of the perfect good that is God, though we should strive for holiness.
So God and religion are mocked. If you are religious, make sure to keep your beliefs to yourself or in your Church. Don’t talk about God. Worship science or politics or people on TV. Put your trust in fallible man. Not God. Who is perfect.
THIS is the primary issue here. A conflict between atheists and Judeo-Christians. That needs to be understood.
Bornagain77: Yes please, indeed, let’s be abundantly clear, Darwin’s theory is not now, nor has it ever been, a testable scientific theory, but has always been a pseudo-scientific theory that is almost wholly, if not wholly, reliant on the unrestrained imagination of ‘just-so story telling’ .
Oh dear. Considering you own personal beliefs are completely untestable don’t you think you should refrain from pointing fingers, especially when you don’t understand the mathematics and the science?
And in so far as Darwin ‘changed the scientific landscape’. let’s also be abundantly clear that Charles Darwin dragged science from the Christian pedestal from which it was born into the sewer of atheistic materialism.
hahahahahah. You do realise that some of the people on your list are listed twice? And calling Da Vinci a scientists is really going a bit far don’t you think? And Euler? A scientist? And Gauss? Seriously? Too funny.
Science owes nothing to Charles Darwin but the utmost contempt for his pseudo-scientific theory that has wrought so much death and destruction on human societies.
Uh huh. And Christianity has a clean slate in that regard? It has never, ever incited people to kill or conquer in its name. Seriously?
Over the last 2000 years which belief paradigm has been responsible for more times that one group of people has thought it fair game to oppress and marginalise another group? Not the number of people, the number of times it has happened. Which belief paradigm would that be . . .
Relatd: The clear connection between what Darwin wrote and the Nazi state and Communism shows that this atheist idea served the thinking of certain men as they used it to organize their countries. Like it or not, the common people were taught to believe it. Ideas like racial purity and ways of organizing society were then adopted as reasons for killing certain people.
And that never, ever happened when Christianity was the dominate paradigm? Really? So the pogroms against the Jews in Europe don’t count? So the Crusades against the Muslims don’t count? So the Waldensian and Albigensian crusades don’t count? So the fact that good, God-fearing Christians supported slavery for centuries doesn’t count? And woman were not allowed to vote or hold property or participate in most athletics events by good Christians doesn’t count?
Look at history. Really look at history. For the first 1900 years of the existence of Christianity there were few to no atheistic states. But there was lots and lots of oppression and marginalisation of people thought to be unworthy or less than human. By good Christians. For hundreds and hundreds of years.
And some Christians are still trying to stop some people whose life-style or ethos they disagree with from having a say or sharing the same rights that they enjoy. Not atheists, Christians are the ones who are saying homosexuals can’t get married, shouldn’t have equal protection under the law, etc.
Look at history. The vast majority of the times that someone or a group of people have been treated badly was by people of faith. Over hundreds and hundreds of years. Some of you are better now. But not all of you. Kairosfocus won’t even discuss homosexuality. He calls it a perversion. And that’s being enlightened? That’s being compassionate? That’s being progressive? Will any of you say he’s not a good Christian because he refuses to condone or accept homosexuals? No, you won’t. Because you can’t call each other out. Because you can’t agree on what Christianity actually says about homosexuals. Which means it can’t be trusted to be in charge in a modern world. It doesn’t know what it really says.
Here’s a challenge: what would Jesus say about homosexuals? Can Christians agree about that?
“Oh dear. Considering you own personal beliefs are completely untestable don’t you think you should refrain from pointing fingers, especially when you don’t understand the mathematics and the science?”
You are, as usual, completely wrong again. Unlike Darwinism for which there is no rigid falsification criteria, there is a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can falsify ID by showing that unguided material processes are capable of creating a code.
As to: “hahahahahah. You do realise that some of the people on your list are listed twice? And calling Da Vinci a scientists is really going a bit far don’t you think? And Euler? A scientist? And Gauss? Seriously? Too funny.”
In laughing off the list of Christian founders of modern science it seems that JVL forgot to notice that there is not one single atheist on that entire list of founders of all the major branches of science. If JVL had a speck of honesty within himself, he would rightly ask himself “why are no atheists are on that list?” But alas, honesty is not to be found in JVL’s reasoning.
Then JVL resorts to the “well Christianity, over its entire history, is ALMOST as bad as atheism has been in its 100 years of dominance” line of reasoning. That I would even have to point out the fallacious logic behind that entire line of reasoning is a sad testimony to just how biased JVL is against Christianity.
Bornagain77: Unlike Darwinism for which there is no rigid falsification criteria, there is a 10 million dollar prize being offered for the first person who can falsify ID by showing that unguided material processes are capable of creating a code.
I wasn’t talking about ID, I was talking about Christianity. Which is based on personally held beliefs and convictions but no scientific evidence.
In laughing off the list of Christian founders of modern science it seems that you forgot to notice that there is not one single atheist on that entire list of founders of all the major branches of science. If you had a speck of honesty within yourself, you would rightly ask yourself “why are no atheists are on that list?” But alas, honesty is not to be found in JVL’s reasoning.
There are duplicates on the list. That is true. And who’s to say if some of those people might not have been atheists if they had lived during a time when it was acceptable. When people were persecuted and, sometimes, put to death for disagreeing with the church who can blame them for toeing the party line?
Then JVL resorts to the “well Christianity, over its entire history, is ALMOST as bad as atheism has been in its 100 years of dominance” line of reasoning. That I would even have to point out the fallacious logic behind that entire line of reasoning is a sad testimony to just how biased JVL is against Christianity.
Let me get this straight . . . are you denying the fact that over hundreds and hundreds of years Christian leaders and countries persecuted non-believers? That’s not a bias, that’s just a fact. And if you can’t acknowledge that fact then you are delusional.
The very least you can do is to acknowledge the hideous acts carried out in the name of God in the past. The pages of history are full of them; to refuse to acknowledge them is not only ignorant, it’s lying. It’s intentionally perpetrating a falsehood. Is that what you want to do?
Let’s take a particular example . . . do you think the streets of Jerusalem were running with blood from the people the Crusaders killed according to contemporary reports? Did that happen?
JVL,
Okay. First, we start with “who has the highest body count”? Atheist Russia? Atheist China? How about Pol Pot in Cambodia? Let’s start at the Year Zero?
And then we go to “progressive” which translates as “Only what Leftists and Atheists want.”
“Enlightened” has the same definition.
And NO ONE is enlightened or compassionate if he does not accept homosexuals? And then you have the nerve to make fictional accusations/assumptions? Is that rational?
“Will any of you say he’s not a good Christian because he refuses to condone or accept homosexuals? No, you won’t. Because you can’t call each other out. Because you can’t agree on what Christianity actually says about homosexuals. Which means it can’t be trusted to be in charge in a modern world. It doesn’t know what it really says.”
You have just failed Christianity 101. YOU, yes you, have joined the ranks of the Official Accusers whose job it is to accuse everybody. Is that your purpose? Your mission here?
ARE YOU PERFECT? WITHOUT FAULT? It seems to me that all Official Accusers are self-appointed and hold the belief that they are More Perfect/Better than Others. Is that you?
And then you offer The Official Accuser Challenge. Among many more to come.
What would Jesus say about homosexuals? He would say what He said about all men.
Matthew 13:15
“For this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them.’
“heal them” from what? Sin.
Romans 3:10
“as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;’
“Which means it can’t be trusted to be in charge in a modern world. It doesn’t know what it really says.”
Here is the plan as I see it and it is documented. Infiltrate the media and all places of power. Infiltrate churches as much as possible and convince them of certain things at odds with Biblical truths.
So you, and other fallible men, because of your self-perceived special status, can be trusted? You decide what is good and right. You decide the ways you can phrase things so as to confuse and convince the people. Then, when the numbers go up, you can claim victory for those on your list of
Preferred Peoples.
I hope you don’t think people are ignoring the falsehoods and distortions.
“modern world”? You mean – Not two months ago? It is clear to me that the definition of “modern world” among Official Accusers is a statement that reads: “We’re going to change everything to what we want and like whether people want it or not.”
So, the Official Accusers are the New Oppressors who only want power so as to get their way.
Jesus wanted everyone to come to Him. To learn from Him and to be healed from sin.
Whatever JVL, I’ve got better things to do. I’m satisfied to let my answers stand as stated. I am sure unbiased readers can judge for themselves.
JVL @46,
Let’s put these horrors into perspective, but I’ll leave the counting and addition up to you:
Political Genocides (approximate)
Mao Zedong: 70,000,000
Joseph Stalin: 20,000,000
Adolph Hitler: 17,000,000
Chinese Nationalists: 9,000,000
Imperial Japan: 9,000,000
Leopold II Belgium: 9,000,000 (Congolese)
Ranavalona I: 2,500,000 (Madagascar)
Khmer Rouge: 2,000,000
Ottomans: 2,000,000 (Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians)
North Korea: 2,000,000
Hutu in Rwanda: 600,000 (Tutsi and moderates)
Indigenous people (thought to be subhuman for some reason): Unknown millions of people from tribes and people groups in Canada, United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, Australia, western China, Africa, etc. Eugenicists believed they needed to be humanely eliminated.
“Christian” Religious Genocides
Louis XIV: 5,000-30,000 (French Huguenots)
Henry VIII, Elizabeth I: 20,000 (Catholics)
Spanish Inquisition: 5,000 (latest estimates)
Accused witches in the American colonies: 24
I’d say that the most murderous belief paradigm responsible was the large number of Communist revolutions and the purges that followed.
-Q
Q
Don’t forget the 100s of millions. Now this , so sick
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-vote-against-bill-requiring-medical-care-babies-born-alive-abortion-attempt
Vivid
Querius @20
Nicely put
A timely upload from Kirk Durston
@52
For the first few hundred years of colonialism, the argument given by European theologians was that those people deserved what they got because they rejected Christ. A priest would read out the Gospel (in Latin, of course) and demand those present to be converted or die (in Latin).
This is not the whole story about how Europeans justified colonialism. John Locke gave wholly secular arguments for legitimizing slavery and genocide.
I would also say that any numbers about comparing genocides should also take into account total and local populations at the time, as well as levels of technology — it’s much easier to kill lots of people with machine guns than with swords. But technology is not the only issue — I believe the Rwanda genocide was mostly carried out with machetes.
“the argument given by European theologians was that those people deserved what they got because they rejected Christ.”
But is subjugation of un-Christian cultures what Jesus actually taught?, or is it directly at odds with what Jesus taught?
Without even quoting scripture, I hold that it is common knowledge that Christ instructs Christians to endure persecution, and Christ definitely does not instruct his followers to inflict persecution on those who are not Christian.
@57
Oh, I completely agree.
Then again, I had been arguing that the state terrorism by self-described “Communist” states was directly at odds with what Marx and Engels said. Those arguments were routinely mocked, especially with the phrase “ideas have consequences”.
If “ideas have consequences” traces a direct link from Marx to Stalinism regardless of the fact that Stalin’s actions directly oppose Marx’s theories, then why doesn’t “ideas have consequences” trace a direct link from Jesus to the conquistadors regardless of the fact that the conquistadors’ actions directly oppose Jesus’s teachings?
To be clear, I don’t think that either attempt to trace a link is successful, and I also think (much more generally) “ideas have consequences” was always a terrible idea.
“ideas have consequences” is true because a lot of times good ideas enable bad actors. So the Great Idea is only as good as the person who acts on it. People will ALWAYS attempt to exploit circumstances to one degree or another for selfish purposes.
The “correct” interpretation of Marxism is kind of irrelevant to this more important point.
Andrew
@59
If bad people will always exploit an idea to rationalize their bad choices, then it’s hard to see how the content of that idea makes any difference.
And if that’s right, then “ideas have consequences” is false — by your own admission.
“it’s hard to see how the content of that idea makes any difference”
Maybe the content makes their exploitation easier. For example: “Gee Whiz, it would be nice to centralize, so it’s more efficient”… Great idea! wink wink
Andrew
@61
By the same token, the good thought “all humans are one in Christ” easily lends itself to the bad thought “anyone who rejects Christ is not really human”.
(Regardless of the fact that centralized planning is not really all that important to what Marx talked about. In fact he was very clear that describing what would replace capitalism was not something he was interested in.)
“he good thought “all humans are one in Christ” easily lends itself to the bad thought “anyone who rejects Christ is not really human”.
PM1,
I don’t know that it easily does. Your suggested interpretation is a pretty far stretch. Centralization is not quite as poetic. Centralization can include more specific mental suggestions about control.
Andrew
And we see the list of the Preferred Peoples emerge.
Marxists
Homosexuals
Indigenous people
To all reading, there are truths worth knowing.
PyrrhoManiac1/56
I would say that comparing casualty rates is a distraction from the real issue, which is that Christians, who claim to hold themselves to much higher moral standards, should not be killing other people at all let alone in large numbers.
Relatd/64
Not “Preferred” but not marginalized and oppressed either.
Such as? Please enlighten us.
Seversky at 66,
We – The Left – are the self-appointed and self-proclaimed heroes of the marginalized. We will tell you what to believe, what to focus on and what to ignore. We are the new dictatorship. Say a word against us and our goals and we will look through all your Twitter posts for evidence of “crimes” against us and CENSOR you. But since we are also also champions of Free Speech, we can’t use the word censor. We picked CANCEL to confuse everyone.
Open up your Bible for truths worth knowing. Drop ALL the beloved, script-reading actors on TV posing as ‘real commentators.’
Seversky at 65,
Anyone among your relatives that served in the military? Charged with crimes? Not just against ‘preferred’ persons. Lately, if black people, for example, kill black people that’s not as bad as white man kills black man.
Or did you grow up among ‘perfect people’ who cannot be accused of anything?
PyrrhoManiac1 @62,
Your point is taken.
First of all, it’s important to understand your paraphrase in context. So, let me offer you the OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLAIN the actual quote by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Messianic believers in Galatia (now a part of modern-day Turkey):
Note that the cultures and classes within the cultures at that time were profoundly polarized and misogyny was pervasive and rampant in Jewish, Greek, and Roman societies.
-Q
PyrrhoManiac1 @60,
I agree with you that regardless of Marx or Jesus. The institutionalization of their teachings often bear little or no resemblance to their teachings.
The institutionalization of Marx’s ideas resulted in the deaths of at least 150,000,000 humans.
The institutionalization of Christianity produced results OPPOSITE of what Jesus taught. This led to Frederick Douglass writing the following:
But Yeshua ha Mashiach foresaw what would happen, and here’s how he warned his followers:
What does this tell you about institutionalization in general?
What does it tell you about the concentration of POWER: political, economic, social, religious, academic, artistic, news media, medical, agricultural, pharmaceutical, and so on?
Let me suggest that in human society, POWER always tends to concentrate and there’s very little that redistributes POWER. Even the violent overthrow of oppressive forces or economic collapse of a wildly top-heavy and corrupt ruling class as we see in most countries and all empires, the United States more and more obviously included, merely sets oppression back a few years as a new crop of rulers and warlords happily take over.
-Q
PMI
“And if that’s right, then “ideas have consequences” is false — by your own admission.”
Are you saying ALL ideas do not have consequences or that some do and some don’t?
Vivid
F/N, I think this text, quoted from Paul at Mars Hill, is quite relevant:
KF
PM1, I have really enjoyed your comments on this and other threads. You have a knack for being able to cut through ideological rhetoric and put things in perspective. Marx and Darwin’s ideas are no more responsible for Stalin’s and Mao’s acts, eugenics and racism, than Jesus’s ideas were responsible for the crusades, witch trials, indigenous genocides or other atrocities of colonialism. Anyone who makes such claims is either ignorant or disingenuous. Or both.
I wrote,
And, as proof, I give you Bornagain77@74.
Obviously, PM1 does think that ideas have consequences, or he wouldn’t be here promoting the idea of a Pristine Marxism 1. PM1, Thats what his initials represent. 😉
Andrew
Ford Prefect claims that anyone who disagrees with PM1 and him, about the moral and social consequences of Darwin’s theory, is “either ignorant or disingenuous. Or both.”
That sounds very similar to Dawkin’s attempt to cut off any debate on Darwinian evolution by claiming that anyone who disagrees with him on evolution is “ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).”
But just as, when faced with the actual facts and evidence, Richard Dawkin’s ‘argument from authority’ fails spectacularly, so to does Ford Prefect’s current ‘argument from authority’ fail spectacularly when confronted with actual facts and evidence.
For instance, in Ford Prefect trying to claim that “Marx and Darwin’s ideas are no more responsible for Stalin’s and Mao’s acts, eugenics and racism, than Jesus’s ideas were responsible for the crusades, witch trials, indigenous genocides or other atrocities of colonialism”, it is VERY important to note that when people have committed atrocities in the ‘name of Christianity’ that they were acting in direct contradiction to the teachings of Christ, whereas, when people were killing millions of their ‘weaker’ citizens they were being faithful to the “let the strongest live and the weakest die” and ‘death as the creator’ teachings of Darwin,
As should be needless to say, the ANTI-morality inherent in “Death as the Creator”, and in “let the strongest live and the weakest die”, is directly opposed to the primary Christian ethic of the strong looking after the weak. i.e. altruism
As Sir Arthur Keith noted shortly after WWII, “the (moral) law of Christ is incompatible with the (moral) law of evolution as far as the law of evolution has worked hitherto. Nay, the two laws are at war with each other; the law of Christ can never prevail until the law of evolution is destroyed.”
Thus Ford Prefect can try to cut off debate all he wants, by saying anyone who disagrees with him and PM! is ignorant, but the souls of well over 100 million cry out to God for justice from Darwin’s “let the strongest live and the weakest die” and ‘death as the creator’ theory.
Darwin’s theory is worse than useless as a scientific theory, and in so far as it has influenced global politics it has been nothing less than disastrous for mankind.
Quote and Verse
The communists killed about 5% of the human race in a 50 year period.
There were others before them that equaled that amount. Timur did about the same, 5% of the human race. There were other mass murders throughout history. It was not uncommon.
Hopefully, we are beyond that now but people will probably always kill to satisfy their power needs. Religion is actually a controlling force but as we have seen, frequently violated but not nearly to the same extent as power or ideological based killing.
To equate the two is just another bit of nonsense that a couple of commenters have put forth.
Aside: from Wikipedia
Sounds like Marx wanted violence to achieve a specific end. An end which could not possibly work because it violated nearly every aspect of human nature. That’s why so many died.
Remember, our self appointed expert on Marx and communism didn’t know what the difference between left and right was.
Ba 77,
Some arguments here against God portray Him as a bad man. Or the man who did something wrong as if He should have known better. This is what was created standing in judgment of the Creator, as if greater knowledge and better decision-making powers are possessed by men.
Romans 1:21
“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
And where can this lead?
Romans 9:20
‘But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”
Men who reject God can only turn to other men for direction. Whether it’s Marx or Darwin. Whoever it is becomes exalted and chosen by them. A favored man has spoken wise words, or so they believe, and they follow his ideas and use them.
2 Timothy 4:3
“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,”
The quote from 2 Timothy is not meant as an accusation but as something to reflect on. I was on a message board based around a major city. A certain subject was brought up and I objected. One response was “you people don’t have the influence you once had.” And then I knew that ‘people like me’ had to be pushed aside so that some people could get what they wanted.
So here, sometimes with elaborate words, some will post what is in contradiction to the facts. To history itself.
Dear Jerry @78
5% of the human race iks small potatoes, murder-wise. Here in the good ole USA, our doctors have killed, for money, 20% of our population since 1973. 65 million innocent and defenseless children killed before they could even breathe.
Worldwide, its worse. They kill 1/3rd of all babies before they even breathe.
Anyhow, aren’t you a bit suprised that our Atheist and Anti Creationist friends dont seem to care about the topic here. You would think they would be very upset that RNA World has tanked. RNA World was their last hope.
I mean, how can a sane person be Anti-Creationism when its known that there is no alternative to Creationism? Or how can a sane person be an Atheist, when its known that the first life was made by God?
TLH 80
“Or how can a sane person be an Atheist, when its known that the first life was made by God?”
It’s not complicated
Romans 1:18–32 (LEB):For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all impiety and unrighteousness of people, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19 because what can be known about God is evident among them, for God made it clear to them. 20 For from the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, both his eternal power and deity, are discerned clearly, being understood in the things created, so that they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their reasoning, and their senseless hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God with the likeness of an image of mortal human beings and birds and quadrupeds and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the desires of their hearts to immorality, that their bodies would be dishonored among themselves, 25 who exchanged the truth of God with a lie, and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed for eternity. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to degrading passions, for their females exchanged the natural relations for those contrary to nature, 27 and likewise also the males, abandoning the natural relations with the female, were inflamed in their desire toward one another, males with males committing the shameless deed, and receiving in themselves the penalty that was necessary for their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit ?to recognize God?, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do the things that are not proper, 29 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greediness, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malevolence. They are gossipers, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boasters, contrivers of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 senseless, faithless, unfeeling, unmerciful, 32 who, although they?* know the requirements of God, that those who do such things are worthy of death, not only do they do the same things, but also they approve of those who do them”
Vivid
Bornagain77 writes:
No. But feel free to continue to misrepresent what people say.
“There is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.” — Karl Marx (1848)
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.” –Jesus
So. Ford Prefect, do you still insist that the statements made by both Marx about violent revolution are no more likely to inspire violence than the statements of Christ about not resisting a person’s enemies?
Ford Prefect claims that I misrepresented what he said. Yet, though I may, for the sake of brevity, have shortened what he claimed, I certainly did not misrepresent what he said.
Here is Ford Prefect’s entire comment,
And here is what I said,
I’ll let unbiased readers judge for themselves, but I certainly did not twist what he said out of context. Shoot, I even referenced the first part of Ford Prefect’s quote in my comment at 77.
But anyways, to go further in tying Stalin and Mao to Darwin and Marx.
First, Marx Himself stated that “This (Origin) is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view.”
And Stalin himself, while at ecclesiastical school no less, was also directly influenced by Darwin’s book,
Likewise Mao himself, (as James Pusey, professor of Chinese studies at Bucknell University, points out), was also heavily, if not directly, influenced by Darwin and Marx.
Thus, directly contrary to Ford Prefect’s claim, Stalin was directly influenced by Darwin, whereas Mao was heavily, if not directly, influenced by Darwin.
And to chap Ford Prefect’s atheistic hide even further, the former Soviet Union experienced a dramatic ‘revival’ in Christianity after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whereas China is currently experiencing an explosive growth in Christianity after the death of Mao.
Thus although atheistic tyrants, such as Stalin and Mao, have tried their damnedest to totally eradicate religion from their countries and to make their countries ‘atheistic utopias’, it has all been to no avail. Christianity continued to flourish and grow in the face of such brutal persecution at the hands of such atheistic tyrants. Which should not be surprising. Atheists, in their attempts to eradicate Christianity from their societies, are basically fighting against God himself. As Jesus Himself stated, “the gates of hell shall not prevail” against the church,
Verses:
BA #2
I watched those as soon as they became available. It is a treat.
PM1, as we know, Marx said in effect that the philosophers analysed the world, the point is to change it. He was an intentional activist and saw revolution, socialist revolution as key means of change. In that context he weaponised the labour theory of value which in effect accused entrepreneurs and investors of grand, global theft. This set up the sort of hostility that has had horrific consequences across C20; pointing fingers elsewhere does not change that. At the same time Marx was part of the radical skepticism, secularisation and atheism that undermined moral government. The net result is, revolutionary movements which followed his teachings and what flowed from them, opened the door to lawlessness that by objecting to property undermined a directly connected principle — rights [rights are a type of property we inherently have i/l/o our dignity as an order of creature], and more broadly it undermined moral government. This is the precise opposite to what Jesus taught, the two cannot be responsibly compared as thinkers and teachers. Jesus came to fulfill, not abolish, law. The key problem of government is, its natural state is lawless oligarchy, concentration of power in unjust hands. The issue is to entrench and buttress lawfulness, which requires establishing moral government. Next to it, we must recognise the breakthrough of 1776 and its antecedents. Lawful, constitutional, democratic self government is the key to a sound future. Marx and his heirs down to the neo-marxists and critical theorists are part of the problem not the solution. That solution requires sound reformation founded in lawfulness. Where, as a matter of now basic economics, the LTV is inherently flawed, value creation comes from many factors and is best expressed through competitive or at least contestable markets. KF
PS, the focus for the OP is the breakdown of the RNA world hypothesis. That, too, needs to be addressed. The core of the problem, from the OP:
Ford Prefect @
How am I to read this? Are you making the general claim that in principle there is no connection between an ideology and the actions of its practitioners?
Suppose an ideology that states “… kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, capture them and besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush …” and suppose some practitioners of that ideology follow up on that command, would you then go on to argue that there is no connection?
So, in PM1, we have a persistent and verbose advocate of Emergentism + Marxism. What is that supposed to add up to? Graphic Design? Geologist? Sous Chef?
Andrew
With regard to a few issues that have been raised in the past few days:
1. One cannot understand what Marx meant by his praise of Darwin without understanding both Darwin and Marx. One would also need to consider Marx’s quite substantial criticisms of Darwin. (On the whole, my view is that Engels was more deeply impressed by Darwin than Marx was.)
2. One cannot understand Marx at all if not is not able to at least imagine the possibility of a society without money. This is not, as far as Marx is concerned, a return to pre-monetary barter or pre-civilization hunting and gathering but a future state of social development in which everything is so abundant for everyone that it simply does not make sense to make anyone pay for anything. (Think of Star Trek as an example, perhaps.)
3. One can be skeptical about the feasibility of a post-monetary society (I certainly am) but one cannot understand what Marx intended by “communism” without appreciating that Marx was, just like many other late 19th century Victorians, a wild-eyed optimist about what technology could do. (One also needs to appreciate the success and failure of the Paris Commune as a model for what Marx thought a socialist revolution would need in order to be successful.)
4. One can find many faults with Marx and with Darwin — they were wrong about a lot of things. But those criticisms should be informed by actual understanding, which requires time, effort, and self-discipline.
5. A common theme on this blog, it seems to me, is the idea that there’s some culture war between Atheism and Christianity (sometimes “Judeo-Christianity”, in what strikes me as a backhanded compliment to Jews). I shall be perfectly blunt: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe there’s any such “culture war”, and the idea that there is such a “culture war” is just a distraction from what’s really going on in the world.
@88
Spinozism.
Or more precisely, my commitment to emergentism with regard to the metaphysics of nature and my commitment to Marxism with regard to political theory are both grounded in my commitment to Spinozism: we can establish with absolute certainty through reason alone that only God exists and that nothing can exist that is not a part of God.
PM1,
Thank you for that qualification @ 90. I like the encapsulation. I don’t like what’s in it, though. 😉
Andrew
Dear KarioFocus@86
Thank you very much for getting back to the topic of the original post:
The Death Knell of RNA World
Seventy years of the Leading Peer Reviewed Carnival Barkers, and their millions of wanabee flunkies, touting the Miller Urey fraud, (and its copycats), and it’s finally coming crashing down. .
A better title might have been:
The Triumph of Creationism.
Isnt it kind of a howl to read all the smokescreens about Marx and Darwin?
I mean, when Science has shown Creationism to be correct, we see how our AntiCreationist friends have nothing left but to 1) deny reality and 2) quickly change the subject.
Stalin was studying to be a priest, read Darwin and became an atheist. We now know the real utility of Darwin’s book. This also explains the disappearance of various people, including high-ranking party members, who were judged to be disloyal.
Andrew at 88,
I’ll vote for Sous Chef.
PM1 at 89,
You’ve hit upon the reason for the ongoing collapse in the cryptocurreny industry. “The Future of Money” has become another victim of human greed. FTX, hackers stealing billions. It’s as if such a system can be stolen from at will.
And the fake terminology. Like “Over-leveraged.” Translation: For every dollar we actually own, we owe 20. See the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, 2008.
And “exposure.” As in, “We didn’t realize we were so exposed.” Kind of like a certain gentleman who is scheduled to appear in court later this year. “Exposure” translates as: “Yeah, we bought a lot of their fake money which is now worthless, and/or we can’t get back.” See Credit Default Swaps.
Human beings aren’t perfect alright.
PM1 at 89,
PM1 has just performed a magic trick. He has made the ‘culture war’ go away by claiming HE doesn’t believe it exists. Just google ‘culture war’ to find out how wrong he is.
“5. A common theme on this blog, it seems to me, is the idea that there’s some culture war between Atheism and Christianity (sometimes “Judeo-Christianity”, in what strikes me as a backhanded compliment to Jews). I shall be perfectly blunt: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe there’s any such “culture war”, and the idea that there is such a “culture war” is just a distraction from what’s really going on in the world.”
So, tell us. What is really going on in the world? A list with bullet points will suffice.
TLH at 92,
Don’t you get it? If you don’t worship God you find men to worship. Marx, Darwin, and others. Men who were great – according to some. I think it can be said that they were just men who thought they could invent ideas that would… uh… change things. Darwin = Death. Communism = Death. The strongest and most ruthless survive. The weak end up dead or in labor camps.
“He has made the ‘culture war’ go away by claiming HE doesn’t believe it exists.”
Typical Marxist. No war but he’s right here on the front lines battling a non-existent enemy.
Andrew
TAMMY LEE HAYNES @92,
Agreed and seconded!
What the conversation winding up at Marx, Darwin, and Jesus, should demonstrate is that worldviews and POWER are at the bottom of the anthropogenic abuses in political, scientific (science fantasy in this case), and religion.
RNA evolving into DNA is a foregone conclusion simply because is MUSTA happened from an ideological rather than a scientific standpoint.
Considering entropy, isn’t it more likely that RNA devolved from DNA rather than the reverse?
https://www.thermofisher.com/us/en/home/life-science/cloning/cloning-learning-center/invitrogen-school-of-molecular-biology/rt-education/reverse-transcription-basics.html
What SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE supports either one over the other???
-Q
@96
I feel I’ve been enough of an imposition as it is. I’m an interloper here, an uninvited guest, and I’ve made enough of a nuisance of myself as it is.
@97
So you don’t think it’s possible for someone to simply not worship anything at all? If so, that’s really interesting.
@98
I’m not sure what “front lines” you refer to here, but if you mean my participation at Uncommon Descent: I don’t think my participation at UD has any significance or importance at all. It’s just a pleasant intellectual diversion.
PyrrhoManiac1,
Any response to my questions/challenges @70?
-Q
PM1/90
PM1, do you make any distinction between between “Spinoza’s God” and pantheism? I know that Spinoza has, at various times, been labeled a pantheist. If (an this is a big if), the Big Bang establishes an absolute beginning of the universe, how do you deal with the origins problem, i.e. that in order to create the universe, God has to exist external to the universe—beyond space and time?
I’d be interested in your thoughts.
PM1 (& others):
I remain, for cause, on the points raised in 86:
The point is, the intellectual leadership of our civilisation, for centuries, have lost their way, ending up in now undeniable incoherence and irrationality. This led to the shaping of radical secularist worldviews and cultural agendas that have shaped policy and history. Too often, in horrific, disastrous, tyrannical, bloody ways. A good test, is attitude to the breakthrough of July 4, 1776, and to the lawful, God-fearing, constitutional democratic, reformation minded [rather than radically, lawlessly revolutionary] order it fostered.
Marxism is part of the radical, jacobin movement, and over the past 100+ years, its single most destructive aspect. That is documented history. We need to learn and decisively turn from such.
100+ million dead are more than enough reason.
Marxism and all its tendrils must go, period.
Beyond, we must have a fresh start that builds on that consignment to the ash heap of history.
Going back to core issues, a big part of what has happened is dressed in the lab coat, leading to the dominance of evolutionary materialistic scientism. However, as the information rich nature of life was elucidated and as the fine tuning of the cosmos was recognised, that dominance is under challenge. As a further aspect, such radical naturalistic thought is irretrievably self referentially incoherent.
But, again, we are challenging an entrenched establishment.
Accordingly, I again highlight from the OP:
Then, let us watch, whether there is a genuine, serious, substantial engagement. That is a diagnostic test as to what we are dealing with:
Now, let us rebalance and move forward.
KF
@101 (and @70)
I do not regard “state socialism” (as it is usually called) as an implementation of Marx’s ideas, for reasons I’ve already given in this thread and others. I take the position that the Soviet Union and Maoist China were forms of state capitalism that merely used Marxism as their legitimizing ideology. (One might think that something similar applies to how Douglass saw the role of Christianity in the antebellum South.)
Well, I can’t disagree that this describes the historical record, especially recently. I would say that this is what happened in Russia subsequent to the 1917 revolution — the Bolsheviks ended up just replacing the oppression and terror of the old Tsarist regime while forcibly transforming Russia from a feudal-agrarian society into a capitalist-industrial society.
@102
I’ve tried giving this some serious thought, but I don’t know cosmology and philosophy of physics well enough. My best response (given how little I know) is that the Big Bang should be understood as a conjecture based on how we extrapolate from general relativity. It says that there is a “time” past which we cannot know anything — about 13.5 billion years ago, if I recall. So it is more an expression of our ignorance than of our knowledge.
Regardless of cosmology, Spinoza’s arguments entail that if there is anything that satisfies the criteria of being a substance, and if we define God as a being of absolutely unlimited power, then only God could exist and nothing could exist which is not part of God.
If cosmology were to say that this universe is a contingent being, or that there are more than one actual universe, then perhaps a Spinozist need only say that Spinoza was wrong to identify “God, that is, to say, Nature” which this universe. Perhaps a contemporary Spinozist should say that God is the Multiverse. I don’t know enough cosmology to have a better answer than that.
PM1, sadly, predictable. There is no doubt that the mainstream of “scientific socialism” built on dialectic materialism and historical materialism, both deriving from the Marx-Engels collaboration and laid out a dynamic of economic production modes and relations with class conflict based thesis-antithesis, then a next stage. The epochs envisioned were: primitive communalism > ancient slave state > feudal state > capitalist state > socialist state > [stateless] communist golden age. The USSR consciously modelled a transition beyond capitalism and it failed, having already discredited itself as utterly lawless, murderous and destructive. You and a circle or two of academics may wish to argue that no, that was not a correct implementation, the same for Mao, Pol Pot, Tito, Castro etc. We, looking on see the consistent power seizing lawlessness and unaccountable ideological oligarchies and for cause view this as reversion beyond the BATNA of lawfulness. There is a better path, to re-establish lawfulness, first built in law, the lawful state, responsible reformation, constitutional, lawful state democratic self government following the stream laid down on July 4, 1776. Ask the Poles etc on that. KF
@103
There is a lot going on there (and with @86) so it’s hard for me to identify a place where I can leverage a response. So instead, I’ll just make a few generic points.
1. I agree with Marx that a socialist revolution would be a good thing under certain conditions, but I don’t think those conditions currently obtain — at least not in the countries of the Global North. So I am not advocating socialist revolution at this time.
2. My ethical theory, somewhat influenced by Marx but not primarily, allows for individual human rights but not a right to property. I think that a right to property is an intellectual swindle, because such a right does not protect the development of capabilities necessary for human flourishing.
3. It also worth noting that in the history of liberal capitalism, the right to property has been used to justify some atrocities. The political theorists of the Confederacy observed correctly that Locke’s theory of property justified chattel slavery of enslaved Africans and the extermination of the First Nations of the Americas. (Locke himself wrote slavery into the constitution of the Carolinas.) So the right to property cannot be absolute, even if it were granted at all.
4. I would be happier if we took the moral principle that no person can be treated as property and extended that to land. That is, we should abolish land ownership. (I think that’s a natural consequence of what Aldo Leopold calls “the land ethic“.)
5. In what follows, I shall use the word “communism” to mean, as Marx himself used it, a post-scarcity society: a society in which there is no need for work or for money, and hence guided by the principle “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”. (The contemporary version of this ideal is sometimes called “fully automated luxury communism“. We’re a very long way from there, if it’s attainable at all.)
6. For at least any society prior to communism, that society is governed by a just state if the principles that guide the basic institutions can be rationally accepted by all precisely because they are coercively binding on all.
7. For this reason, the principles cannot play favorites with regard to any comprehensive theory of the good, the true, and the beautiful. A state that took Christianity as the basis for its principles could not be a just state, because citizens who did not accept Christianity would feel that the principles of society were something alien imposed on them, rather than something that they could rationally accept.
8. In other words, a just state must be a secular state. This is not the same as advocating a secular society. I have no problems with public expressions of religious identity, as long as the state is neutral with regard to all comprehensive theories of the good, the true, and the beautiful.
9. By this standard, the totalitarian regimes of Stalin and Mao were not secular states precisely because a perverted distortion of Marxism was the state religion; Stalinist “DiaMat” and “HistMat” were its catechism, and also because people who did not accept this state religion were subjected to extraordinary persecution.
10. In order to avoid playing favorites, a just state must articulate a theory of human rights that could be rationally accepted by everyone who is subject to state power. No theological doctrine, regardless of how widely shared, could satisfy this criterion, and any attempt to do so would result in a theocracy.
11. Instead, a secular state must look to grounding human rights in a non-theological approach. I tend to think that universal human rights can be grounded in the capabilities approach developed by Sen and Nussbaum, where rights are understood as claims made about the limits of domination in order to safeguard the development of human (and indeed non-human) capabilities.
12. For reasons articulated by Rawls (and many others), I do not think that any capitalist society could be a just society. This is primarily because under capitalism, the interest of capital are fused with the power of the state, such that the few have the right to dominate the many, and the command of the instruments of violence (police, private security, national guard) necessary to protect that right.
13. I do not know what capitalism should be replaced with, and I cannot say that I know that it is replaceable. All I can say is that capitalism will be the doom of human civilization, and if we can’t muster the creativity, intelligence, wisdom, and courage to replace it with something else, then we will deserve our extinction.
PM1/104
Thanks. Very helpful, especially your description of how developments in cosmology would inform Spinoza’s view of God. Also helps explain the uptick in interest in Spinoza, in particular, Einstein’s sympathies with Spinoza……
Dear Pyromaniac@103
With the greatest respect, let me say that I understand how difficult it must be, to be an Anti-Creationist at a time when Creationism is triumphant. The Scientific triumph of Creationism is, of course, the very subject of this very thread.
And, let me thank you for the laughs we get, seeing our Anti-Creationists friends bobbing, weaving, and changing the subject, by writing irrelevant silliness on religion and marxism. In that regard, your stuff is among the best of the lot. 100% top-shelf. A total howl.
Being that it is a cold and bleak time of year, we could all use a another laugh. I remember your writing that there are several non-Creationist plausible chemical scenarios of how the first life could have orignated without God’s imntervention, So, please let me call your bluff. Please describe those allegedly plausible chemical scenarios, and for a special laugh, how they overcome the issue of Chriality?
Once again, us Creationists, we thank you for your posts. Please keep them coming
Tammy, imagine PM1’s frustration when the Truth appears to him after he takes his last breath, with a replay of every effort he made throughout his life to suppress the truth. Probably a level of frustration that rises to wailing and gnashing of teeth, once his folly is laid bare.
The Creator, he is very patient.
Spinoza posits some impersonal force that he calls “god”.
1.) If only an impersonal force exists, then this impersonal force controls everything.
2.) Some impersonal force controls my thoughts …
3.) I do not control an impersonal force that controls everything.
4.) I am not in control of my thoughts.
Therefore,
5.) I am not rational.
6.) Therefore I cannot “establish with absolute certainty through reason alone that only God exists and that nothing can exist that is not a part of God”
Nice try Spinoza, but I think you can do better.
TLH writes:
I have not read this yet, but it might be a good start.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2857173/
@109
Suppose you are right, and there will be some sort of posthumous judgment. How do you know that God wouldn’t say to me, “in your life, you did everything you could to be a good person — to treat others with dignity and respect, to take responsibility for your actions, to make amends when you did wrong, the world is better because you were a part of it, and therefore you really did believe in Me in the ways that actually matter, despite the fact that you claimed not to.”
Isn’t it always said that only God knows what in a person’s heart? Perhaps for all you know — and for all I know — I really do believe in God in the ways that He actually wants us to.
But if God were to say “in your your life, you did everything you could to be a good person — to treat others with dignity and respect, to take responsibility for your actions, to make amends when you did wrong, and the world is better because you were a part of it — and yet you are condemned to Hell, because for all that, you refused to believe in Me.”
In that case, if God would condemn me to hell for not believing in Him regardless of my moral conduct — then I would only say that I would welcome it, because any God who would act in such a way is unworthy of praise by a rational, moral being. If God is like that, then Lucifer was right to rebel against Him.
(Personally I would not mind spending eternity with the virtuous pagans in Limbo as Dante imagines it — forever denied eternal beatitude, but what splendid company to be in!)
Dear Mr. Pyromaniac@112
Thanks for the latest smokescreen. Schtick-wise, it’s getting a bit old, but it still makes us Creationists laugh. And I suppose when you got no cards, you fly with B.S.
So, for one more laugh, let’s call your bluff again.
You claimed, a number of times, that there are several non-Creationist plausible chemical scenarios of how the first life could have orignated without God’s imntervention. But you never say what those scenarios are. So once again, please describe those allegedly plausible chemical scenarios, at least one of them, and for a special laugh, how it overcomes the issue of Chriality?
In advance of your showing us your cards, us Creationists we thank you.
PS
Most repectfully, instead of trying to sound like a doofus wannabee, why dont you use your real name? How does your little Missus put up with it? I mean, if my hubby ever used a childish fake name like Pyromaniac, I’d blow my top.
PyrrhoManiac1 @106,
Thanks for taking the time to express your opinions and worldview honestly. As Tammy Lee Haynes indicated, there’s far too much “bobbing and weaving” going on here without addressing the issues directly.
In some cases, honesty requires an “I don’t know” response. In other cases an adamant “I don’t know and I don’t think anyone knows” response such as James Tour advocates is the most scientifically honest and productive approach.
I’m convinced that studying nature with the scientific method from an assumption that everything in nature is random junk, some of which turns out to be useful has a poor track record and has hindered scientific progress. “Junk” DNA and “vestigial” organs are two infamous examples.
As an alternative, investigating nature from a view that nature is Intelligently Designed WITHOUT TAKING ANY POSITION ON THE IDENTITY OF THE DESIGNER is far more productive in revealing how things work by means of the scientific method.
Creationism is a position that YHWH is the source of all design information. Not Zeus. Not Baal. Not space aliens using the earth as a class project. Not some unknown spontaneous generation that “MUSTA” occurred but hidden by vastly different but unknown conditions and separated from us by 4.3 billion years according to current theory. However, the identity of YHWH is not subject to the scientific method and is usually accessible only by spiritual experience, taking it out of the domain of the scientific method. Even philosophers such as Spinoza, are limited by logical inference, their binary assertions, and a temporal outlook, not to mention the IQ needed to comprehend truth.
As to how humans can organize themselves into a sustainable and just system is highly doubtful to anyone who studies history. Why? Because, while some people are intelligent, honorable, and hard working, other people are evil, dishonest, and lazy, and most of us are somewhere in between. Even John Dewey recognized the need to use the education system for purposes of creating “the new socialist person.” He didn’t succeed, so we looked to B.F. Skinner to use behaviorism to “program” us meat robots into anything we want or need. How did that work out?
And finally, we seem to be reverting once again to naked force and propaganda–but for a good cause and all the best of intentions. Any bets on that outcome?
-Q
@113
I have my reasons for preserving my anonymity, just like many other people here. If you respect the anonymity of Querius and Origines, then please respect mine as well. The name is a portmanteau of “pyromaniac” and “Pyrrho”, the ancient Greek skeptic. My wife doesn’t know about my posting at UD and wouldn’t care — I don’t hassle her about her hobbies, she doesn’t hassle me about mine. That’s part of how our partnership works.
@114
I would probably put the emphasis more on habits than on character-traits, but otherwise, yes, I quite agree.
The hard question is how to institutionalize social practices that would proscribe and inhibit selfishness and bullying and incentivize generosity and fellow-feeling.
Funny you should mention Dewey, since he’s by far my favorite philosopher — far more than Marx, though I do wish Dewey had read Marx better than he did.
Dewey was a socialist, but what was really central to his project was democracy: why democracy was valuable, how to improve it, and what kind of education was needed in order for democracy to work. His 1916 Democracy and Education contains very nearly the whole of his entire philosophical project.
Now, with respect to the history of education in the United States, one thing above all is crucial to remember: in the words of education researcher Ellen Lagemann, “One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that Edward L. Thorndike won and John Dewey lost”.
Edward Thorndike is not a household name these days, but it is he, and not Dewey, who actually designed the public K-12 system as it exists, with the emphasis on passive, bored students, rote memorization, and multiple-choice tests. If you want to appreciate the massive difference between Dewey and Thorndike, consider the difference between an education focused on rote memorization and a Montessori education.
Whatever one thinks of Montessori schools, that is Dewey’s ideal — and that is the ideal that he thought needed to be implemented for everyone if democracy was to flourish.
“Montessori schools”? Really? Some studies show students with better outcomes, some do not. My personal experience was a Catholic school with the addition of informed parents who extended my education. I remember my first trip to the local library. My parents had a 6th and 7th grade education respectively. I grew up with very good role models who were not family members.
PMI
“Suppose you are right, and there will be some sort of posthumous judgment. How do you know that God wouldn’t say to me, “in your life, you did everything you could to be a good person — to treat others with dignity and respect, to take responsibility for your actions, to make amends when you did wrong, the world is better because you were a part of it, and therefore you really did believe in Me in the ways that actually matter, despite the fact that you claimed not to.”
You are right if you do that perfectly and you are a morally perfect human being God will welcome you. Jesus did not come for the healthy he came for the sick, He came for people like me.
On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: `I desire mercy, not sacrifice. ‘ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
“In that case, if God would condemn me to hell for not believing in Him regardless of my moral conduct — then I would only say that I would welcome it, because any God who would act in such a way is unworthy of praise by a rational, moral being. If God is like that, then Lucifer was right to rebel against Him.”
Agreed
Vivid
PM1@
“There are, however, two conditions for your admittance:”, God went on to say. “To join, you must agree that, in order to be rational, you have to be in control of your thoughts, and, even more importantly, you must agree to never speak of *poof* emergentism again.”
Ford Prefect at 111, the last sentence of your cited reference reads as such
Needless to say, that hardly inspires confidence in abiogenesis.
They might as well have just stated that, “we have no earthly clue how homochirality developed, but we fervently hope that someday we might have an earthly clue” 🙂 In other words, It is all a pipe dream on their part.
Of related note, Dr. Tour’s take on the ‘problem’ of homochirality is far more chemically realistic, i.e. far more scientific, than their forlorn hope in abiogenesis is.
Quote and Verse:
Related note,
Also of related note: In the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” it was found that “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,
To drive this point home, this follow up 2018 article stated that “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”
Of important note: The link between quantum criticality and quantum entanglement has now been observed.
What is so devastating to Darwinian presuppositions with the (empirical) finding of pervasive quantum criticality and/or quantum entanglement within molecular biology, is that quantum criticality and/or quantum entanglement is a non-local, beyond space and time, effect that requires a beyond space and time cause in order to explain its existence. As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
As Anton Zeilinger stated at his Nobel Prize lecture, “That tells you something about the role of space and time (in quantum mechanics). There’s no role at all.”,,,
Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, and especially with the falsification of ‘hidden variables’, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain the non-local, i.e. beyond space and time, quantum criticality and/or quantum entanglement that is now found to be ubiquitous within biology.
Whereas on the other hand, the Christian Theist readily does have a beyond space and time cause that he can appeal to so as to explain quantum entanglement. And Christians have been postulating just such a beyond space and time cause for a few thousand years now. As Colossians 1:17 states, “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”
Bornagain77 writes:
Followed by several hundred irrelevant words and quotes. What is missing is any cogent evidence based argument against any of the models presented in the paper.
I have no idea how homo chirality originated, but there are people doing research on it. I haven’t seen any research on how it arose through intelligent means.
PyrrhoManiac1 @115,
Likewise. It’s not that I’m worried about the paparazzi—they seem to be staying away in droves thankfully, but I’d like my words rather than my person be judged. “Querius” is a portmanteau of curious query. And my wife and I have profoundly diverse hobbies and interests, but we try to accommodate, facilitate, and definitely appreciate them in each other.
I’m familiar with a number of the pioneering luminaries in the field of education. Before choosing home-based education for our five children, my wife and I both did a lot of research on learning theory and practice.
We both had suffered through the soul-crushing experience of American public education, which was based on an industrial revolution model—mass production and a classroom arrangement mimicking that in 19th century white-collar firms and government offices.
Instead, we wanted to provide our children with more freedom to be able to explore, to question, and to create. In the end, they all graduated with academic and athletic honors from secular universities, and pursued careers in vastly different fields—two of them started their own businesses.
Regarding Christianity, it’s truly a pity that so few people know what John the Baptist, Jesus, and his disciples actually taught, and how the earliest Christian communities lived. Instead, they imagine it’s all about traditions, entertainment culture, and obscenely wealthy television frauds.
Here are the teachings of John the Baptist, the prophet and emissary of Jesus. He described himself like this: “As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”
Which of these of John’s teachings do you agree with:
To the Common People: “The one who has two tunics is to share with the one who has none; and the one who has food is to do likewise.”
To the Tax Collectors: “Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.”
To the Soldiers: “Do not extort money from anyone, nor harass anyone, and be content with your wages.”
To the Religious Leaders: “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Therefore, bear fruit in keeping with repentance . . .”
Have you ever heard any of this?
-Q
Ford Prefect @121,
Neither does anyone else outside of science fantasy. Here’s an introduction on the subject of homochirality:
Episode 4/13: Homochirality // A Course on Abiogenesis by Dr. James Tour
https://youtu.be/tqbpd3CmBgE?list=PLILWudw_84t2THBvJZFyuLA0qvxwrIBDr&t=182
-Q
Q
.
“Regarding Christianity, it’s truly a pity that so few people know what John the Baptist, Jesus, and his disciples actually taught, “
Yes it is a pity, more damaging are the things people think what Christians believe and I will address that in a moment but first I think it would be instructive do delve into the question of what exactly is a Christian. This would seem to be on the face of it a simple exercise but the term Christian has been so bastardized that in todays world it has no meaning at all. It has become a catch all term that has been neutered and gutted and in this age means all kinds of things.and has lost its delineating power. Perhaps it would be easier to attack this question by pointing out what a Christian is NOT.
Before I do I think I should give some insight into my Christian theological outlook which I am sure is not shared by many professing Christian that frequent this forum.
I drink deeply from the springs of Augustine and the Reformers, Hus, Wycliffe, Tyndale,Luther, Calvin, Edwards ,you can theologically label me as Reformed. Justification by faith alone, by grace alone, by Scripture alone. With that out of the way from a reformed perspective a Christian is not necessarily one who goes to church. Going to church doesn’t make one a Christian any more than going to a concert makes one musician. A Christian is not one who, for the lack of a. better term , is a “cultural Christian.” Nor is a Christian one who accepts certain creeds and in some cases professes their belief in Christ, after all Satan believes in Christ. A Christian is not one who has head knowledge but not heart knowledge. What a Christian is is one that totally commits themselves to trusting wholly in the finished work of Christ, totally make’s Christ their Lord by their submission to Him evidenced by their obedience to Him in their daily life. Faith withou works is dead, it is no faith at all
With that preamble let me piggyback on your post 122
One of the most common misconceptions about Christian’s held by non believers is that Christians think they are good and morally better than non Christians. This is false in fact it is not the Christian that thinks they are morally better than non believers it is the nonbeliever who thinks they are better. I know that. may bother the non believers but it is true.
Case in point. I would direct you to PMI post 112 and mine in 117.
PMI in 112 declares in so many words that he is righteous. Jesus did not come for the righteous, indeed the righteous have no need for Christ, He came for the unrighteous. If you think you are righteous you have no need for Christ and if you are indeed righteous I agree with PMI he will have no problem when judgement day comes.
Contrast that to the Christian. Every true believer in Christ knows that they are unrighteous.. So who actually are the ones who think they are morally better?. The ones that see themselves as unrighteous and morally bankrupt or the ones that see themselves as righteous?
Vivid
Vivid @
“Believe what I say, or face eternal damnation.” Is that Christianity?
To me, several things in the Bible make perfect sense, but others do not. For one thing, the concept of original sin does not resonate with me at all. The concept is foundational to Christianity, so, I cannot call myself Christian.
However, perhaps I should ignore the fact that it doesn’t make sense to me and accept original sin as true anyway because Vivid here tells me that unless I behave perfectly (which cannot be done), the punishment for not being a follower of Christ is eternal suffering in hell.
at 121 Ford Prefect states: “I have no idea how homo chirality originated, but there are people doing research on it. I haven’t seen any research on how it arose through intelligent means.”
That’s a funny claim for Ford Prefect to make. The very first thing I cited was this video from Dr. Tour.
In the summary of that video, Dr. Tour reveals that the only way that chemists are able to produce homochiral mixtures is by “massive human involvement”
So despite Ford Prefect’s claim that “I haven’t seen any research on how it, (i.e. homochirality), arose through intelligent means”, the fact of the matter is ALL research to date shows that the only way to get homochirality is by ‘intelligent means”, i.e. by “massive human involvement”.
In short, Ford Prefect’s claim is the exact opposite of what the research is actually showing. Only intelligence is shown to have the capacity to drive a chemical mixture in a thermodynamically ‘life friendly’ direction. (See Brian Miller)
Ford Prefect also hand waved off all my other references as being irrelevant. Yet if Ford Prefect would have tried to actually understand what I was getting at in post 120, instead of just handwaving it off, he would have understood that homochirality ties into quantum biology, and that quantum biology, via quantum non-locality, is simply completely devastating to the reductive materialistic foundation upon which Darwinian evolution is based. i.e. In short, you need a ‘beyond space and time’ cause in order to explain ‘non-local’ quantum entanglement within molecular biology.
I have a ‘beyond space and time’ cause to appeal to, Darwinian atheists do not.
O
“
“Believe what I say, or face eternal damnation.” Is that Christianity?
What? I never once said” believe what I say or face damnation” ever!. Coming from you who are one of my fave’s surprises me. I have participated on this forum literally since it’s inception and it’s not like I have hid my belief in Christ, I have been very outspoken about my belief does this come as a surprise to you? This is not like you so what prompted this reaction?
Vivid
Vivid @127
In #117 you told PM1
What I read into this is that an unbeliever faces eternal damnation unless he behaves perfectly and is morally perfect. Was I mistaken?
O
“What I read into this is that an unbeliever faces eternal damnation unless he behaves perfectly and is morally perfect. Was I mistaken?”
This is basic Biblical Christian doctrine. It is not I saying this it is the Bible that says this. Why in the Biblical Christian worldview do you think there is a need for a Savior?
Vivid
Origenes at 128,
Where did you get this from?
https://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/can-non-christians-be-saved/52886
Vivid @129
Then, indeed, the God of the bible tells me: “Believe what I say, or face eternal damnation.” As I laid out in #125, there are some foundational concepts in Christianity that do not make sense to me.
I would prefer no quarrel with Christianity, and, in fact, I feel a profound connection to it. On most issues, I find myself on the Christian side. However, as I said, there are several fundamental concepts I cannot agree with.
As you have confirmed, the Bible seems to present me with the following choice: pretend these problems do not exist and shut up, or face eternal damnation. My choice has always been not to ignore the problems. I am certain that God exists, but I do hope that He is not the one who tells me: “Believe what I say, whether it makes sense to you or not, or else …”
O
Understood and not unexpected. I am not going to say anything more because then you will really hate me by quoting Scripture as to why it does not make sense to you. Besides this is not a proper forum for this type of discussion.. I was responding to PMI and piggy backed on Q’s comments and was pointing out a common misperception regarding Christians that they think they are morally superior to non Christians. I hope you have a blessed day.
Vivid
Vivid @132
Agreed. I hope you have a blessed day.
O
Love you bro
Vivid
@105
I’m not a huge fan of Marx’s philosophy of history and I definitely think that his claims to have established socialism on a scientific basis are vastly exaggerated.
But I do think Marx helps us appreciate how changes in technology ripple throughout society: how the ability to build higher-temperature furnaces unleashes the power of iron vs bronze, or how the stirrup affects horsemanship. What goes missing in Marx is the way in which culture affects how and why certain technologies get adopted.
For example, many Islamic societies did not print the Koran, even though they knew of printing, because they thought it important that the Koran be written by hand, where the path taken by the hand inscribes the breath that gives live to the text when it is read aloud. That’s an attitude about the nature of writing that Christians did not have, and so they had no objection to printing the Bible.
In any event, I definitely do not think there is anything inevitable about a socialist revolution. And as I’ve said many times, I think it’s very clear that Marx identifies a communist society with a post-scarcity society. It’s a nice question whether there would be any need for a state in a post-scarcity society. There very well might be, but it’s not clear exactly why.
The USSR never succeeded in going beyond capitalism, regardless of what they claimed.
But “lawless”? This puzzles me. There was no absence of laws in the USSR. The problem is that their laws were not just and that there was no constitution that limited state power.
I don’t entirely disagree, but I don’t entirely agree, either. I think it’s absolutely crucial to notice that every revolution is unlawful, including the American Revolution. The Constitution was established in the wake of that revolution, to establish a new law to replace the old law that was violently cast off.
Ultimately, I don’t really care about law and order, in that I don’t think law and order are the highest goods. What matters to me is justice — and there are plenty of unjust laws, past and present. American chattel slavery was unjust but legal, and helping a slave escape was illegal, and yet the right thing to do.
The same point applies to the Constitution itself. What matters to me is not whether a law is constitutional but whether the constitution is morally just. Law and order are not so intrinsically good as to make reform always preferable to revolution.
As Rosa Luxemborg (murdered by reformists on 15 January, 1919) put it:
PM1, if you want a theory of technological evolution, there is one, TRIZ. Developed in Russia in the days of the USSR, through investigating principles of invention expressed in patents. If you need to understand innovation, product markets and product life cycles, you would be better advised to consult that sub discipline of strategic marketing. If you wish to understand economic growth and transformation, the Kondratiev-Schumpeter approach to long waves of transformation may be advisable, I have seen a survey of 19 such waves all the way back to the Song Dynasty in China. KF
That’s interesting! Do you still remember the source? I can probably track it down with some clever Googling if not.
Try here https://uncommondescent.com/geo-strategic-issues/a-note-on-technology-driven-economic-long-waves-aka-the-ghost-of-kondratiev-roars/
Vividbleau @124,
Excellent question and I agree. There are three common types of answers:
a. Someone born into a predominantly “Christian” culture and is not something else.
b. Someone who identifies with and subjects themselves to a set of church teachings and practices. These vary considerably.
c. What Yeshua ha Nazaret actually taught as recorded by his direct disciples. I also researched what early Christians, believed and how they behaved individually and corporately up until around 300 A.D. at the maximum, where Christianity started to change.
It’s c. that interests me personally.
Yes, I heartily agree! An amusing but gross oversimplification was that
• The Greeks turned the teachings of Jesus into a philosophy
• The Romans, into a system
• The Europeans, into a culture
• And the Americans, into a business.
-Q
Vividbleau @132,
I also heartily agree. Nevertheless, the subject emerges surprisingly often, at least to me it does. Typically, people follow some version of this path:
1. Intelligent Design is simply creationism in drag. (I vehemently disagree)
2. Creationism is the unique domain of Christianity. (This is false)
3. Christianity is ideologically repugnant to scientists and anyone else with a logical mind. (This is also false)
4. Christianity is objectionable because
a. I don’t understand why God allows evil in the world.
b. I don’t understand why God sends or predestines innocent people to eternal torture for relatively trivial reasons.
c. I suffered abuse in a church of some kind in the past.
d. I want to live life my way, I’m comfortable, and I don’t want anyone telling me what I should do.
e. “Can God create a rock that he cannot lift?” “If God was the cause of the universe, what was the cause of God?”
I know that each of these objections have excellent answers, and I’d encourage anyone bothered by these to find them on a forum focused on these questions.
In the current topic, what I’d like to do is understand and discuss the perspectives and problems of the RNA World hypothesis. Is that bad?
-Q
Dr. Tour’s new video is up:
Dr. Tour MINES Data on Origin of Life Claims – Steve Benner, Part 02
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL0NIFk1grE
Previous episodes
Episode 1: https://youtu.be/4rwPi1miWu4
Episode 2: https://youtu.be/aUOZh4zmrXo
Episode 3: https://youtu.be/v3A8_ezYlZY
Episode 4: https://youtu.be/N_on6LK6Etc
Episode 5: https://youtu.be/t5PfBzQUjW8
Episode 6: https://youtu.be/ZtitTE2BavU
Episode 8 premieres next Monday, January 23th! SUBSCRIBE so you’ll be notified!
Q
• The Greeks turned the teachings of Jesus into a philosophy
• The Romans, into a system
• The Europeans, into a culture
• And the Americans, into a business.
What a great observation!
Vivid
Vividbleau @142,
It is! And not that surprising.
I have no idea who originally came up with it.
-Q
Q
“I have no idea who originally came up with it.”
Awesome that means I can steal it and claim authorship.
For some reason this brings to mind a funny story. When I was younger I was lucky enough to have earned a football scholarship at a large D1 university. I was not the most talented but I did enjoy a good deal of success as a starter on a very good team When I was a senior a very talented QB enrolled at the school, this QB started every game and went on to the NFL and subsequently the Super Bowl.
One day I got a call .from my Daughter and she asked me “Dad does the name such and such mean anything to you” ? I told her the name was not familiar to me why do you ask. Well she told me that this person died and in his obituary it said that he played at the time I was a player and in it claimed that the talented QB was his back up. I laughed and said honey that’s crazy he never was a back up to anyone but by the time I die I will be in the NFL hall of fame! LOL.
If no one knows anything one can claim anything after their dead!
Vivid
@140
I’d like to get back on topic as well. The more I look into systems theory and biosemiotics, the more it seems to me that the RNA world hypothesis rests on a conceptual error — though a very widespread one!
Good idea, you are out of your depth on economics.
As an Orthodox Jew, I can say it’s far more than that. But when it comes to ID, we’re on the same side.
Cheers
RAM
Querius at 139,
I urge you to present examples and supporting evidence regarding any changes in Christianity. First, from the beginning there were misunderstandings. Some thought that salvation was only for the Jews, no one else.
Acts 28:28
“Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles; they will listen.”
Other disagreements led to other Christian denominations being formed.
Regarding the whole Dr. Tour vs. Professor Dave imbroglio (and tangentially related to the RNA topic at hand), knowing who is right and who is wrong is actually quite simple and requires very little knowledge of synthetic chemistry. It only requires the answer to one question.
To wit: What are OoL scientists currently researching?
If Dr. Tour is correct, they will still be researching prebiotically relevant methods of obtaining the requirements (“building blocks”) for a living cell (amino acids, polypeptides, sugars, carbohydrates, lipids, homochirality, etc.) as (he claims) they have been for the last 50 years. If Professor Dave is correct, they will have moved on past this type of research, and will be working on actually creating living cells from these building blocks of life.
I won’t answer the question for you. Feel free to peruse the current literature and come to your own conclusion. Starting with the research currently being investigated by the Harvard OoL Initiative, and Dr. Benner’s Foundation might be a good jumping off point.
This also applies to the RNA World hypothesis that O references – what is the state of current research? Are they advancing, or repeating the same types of research?
Drc466 at 149,
I’ve read about the attempts to make life from chemicals and about a ‘minimal cell,’ which is the minimum number of components needed to make a working/living cell. And of what little progress that has been made required intelligent agents – the scientists doing the work. And even IF an attempt produces something like a living cell, at least two things need to be pointed out:
1) It is not known if “nature” actually used any method found.
2) The experiments will require intelligent agents.
And there is also the problem of reproduction.
In synthetic biology, successful production of biological components for industry has occurred. This was done by modifying certain organisms to produce these products.
Vividbleau @144,
No, you can’t. It’s actually authored by the amazingly prolific author, anon. 😉
Thanks for the fun story! I was involved in a situation where I received a prestigious award for my work, but later found out that someone not involved claimed ownership all over the internet. I really, honestly don’t care. History is replete with people like him. Maybe he’ll get a dead-end street named after him. LOL
I’m having way too much fun with new ideas and creating things!
-Q
PyrrhoManiac1 @145,
Considering this definition of systems theory . . .
How would you reconcile the presumed emergence of information?
Let me start with something tangible.
Imagine a chessboard with two pieces: a hound and a fox:
– The Hound patrols in a square path (c3 – f3 – f6 – c6) one square at a time.
– The Fox starts in one of the four central squares, let’s say e4 and moves one square in one of four random directions (North, South, East, or West) controlled by the suit of a shuffled deck of cards.
– If the Hound lands on the Fox, the Fox loses and the initial locations of the Hound and Fox are reset to the beginning.
– Any time that the 5th card is played without the Fox being trounced, those 5 cards are saved in a set and the Fox continues. If the Fox is trounced that set is discarded.
– The Fox wins if it goes through the entire deck without being trounced or escapes off the edge of the chessboard.
Question: Does this generate information? (I don’t think it does)
-Q
Jerry @146,
I am as well, and I’ve even studied some basic economics (Samuelson).
-Q
Ram @147,
And so also was Yeshua Ha’Nazeret. 😮
Otherwise, I don’t think he would have said the following:
As an Orthodox Jew, you might be in agreement with the title of the song, “I Knew Jesus Before He Was a Gentile.” (smile)
Yes, indeed! Hashem is absolutely brilliant!
-Q
Relatd @150,
Agreed.
Drc466 @149,
Great point and an excellent summary!
What bothers me is the all-too-common lack of intellectual honesty in overstating some things and understating or ignoring others. Politics is the worst, but I deeply sympathize with Dr. Tour as he tries to untangle the stilted and convoluted language in the papers he reviews! Poor guy!
I once saw a funny rendition of 1+1=2 that was inflated into a monster equation by substitution. The wag who posted it claimed that 1+1=2 was boring, but his result was far more impressive and commanded Massive Respect!
-Q
Just uploaded: Dr. James Tour (& Eric Metaxas): How Did Life Come into Being?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qxoH7u3FXw
A conversation between Dr. James Tour and Socrates in the City host Eric Metaxas on the topic “How Did Life Come into Being?” Dr. Tour is presently the T. T. and W. F. Chao Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Computer Science, and Professor of Materials Science and NanoEngineering at Rice University. He is widely regarded as among the leading nano-scientists in the world.
This event took place at the River Oaks Country Club in Houston, Texas in October 2022. Learn more about Socrates in the City at socratesinthecity.com.
Bornagain77 @157,
Thanks for the link. I felt a little sorry for Dr. Tour as Eric Metaxas tried to be funny and then made Dr. Tour slow down to an excruciatingly slow pace to explain everything to presumably a heterogeneous audience and keeping things to monosyllabic words.
On a few occasions, Dr. Tour was able to mischievously get even with Eric Metaxas, catching him in his own trap. I guess it was okay. The audience seemed to love it, but I wasn’t able to sit through it all.
The problem that Dr. Tour or anyone giving a technical presentation (or teaching) encounters has to do with finding a good abstraction level appropriate for that audience, avoiding complex terminology, jargon, and acronyms.
Story:
Once when I took a cab to the airport for a business trip, the cab driver made the mistake of asking me what I did for a living. In reply, I made a heroic but ugly attempt at explaining the technology at a high-enough level for a cabby to understand. After allowing me to struggle through my description, the wicked young man informed me that this was actually the area he was studying in college and that he was merely driving cab to help pay for his education. You can just imagine what I felt like!
-Q
@152
Oh, I quite agree that the game you described doesn’t involve any new information. Though I do wonder: if one were to film many trials of this game, and then watch the resulting film at 5X or 10X the initial speed, would one perceive patterns that were not intelligible at the outset? Could one then construct a description of those patterns that is shorter than a bit-map of the patterns themselves? If so, would that description appear to be ‘information’ that is not mechanistically derived from the rules of the game itself?
I don’t have answers for these questions — I’m only trying to think about the problem from a systems-theory perspective.
PyrrhoManiac1 @159,
The set of Fox locations traversed, a1-h8, are data. The rules for either storing or recording 5 card sets of successful Hound evasions is the information producing the data from random noise.
What you’re thinking of strongly reminds me of some conversations I once had with mathematician, William Bricken. His closed non-intersecting boundary curves remind me of Fox paths (although these paths often do intersect, which can be avoided by adding an othogonal Time dimension to create x, y, T coordinates).
One of his excursions was into abbreviating the paths into fewer curves, yet maintaining the same general shape. This destructively simplifies and compresses the data into your “pattern.”
If you’re interested, here’s a relevant link:
https://wbricken.com/htmls/01bm/01-math.html
And more broadly . . .
https://iconicmath.com/
-Q
Querius:
Matthew is loaded with problems. But this isn’t a bible study site. Let’s be content to be brothers in ID friendliness. 🙂
RAM
Ram @161,
Cheerfully agreed! 🙂
-Q
And here’s Dr. Tour’s latest video, which destroys a popular conception of how RNA “musta” formed with with the paradoxes in the data already published by Origin of Life researchers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atxmIZw3DdA
What Dr. Tour asserts is that however RNA was formed on the early earth, this is not it!
-Q