Darwin's Illusion

[gnostic]

No, I’m not thinking of life in the terms of modern life, I’m only identifying the essential characteristics of the first living organism that must exist before any alleged evolutionary process of any kind may take place.

Abiogenesis is not a scientific theory for a reason, and it doesn’t explain the necessary first life that must exist before any evolutionary process would be possible.

LIIA, you don’t even understand how Evolution works, and it seems absurd that you are tackling another subject (Abiogenesis) that you don’t understand.

The questions are about Evolution, because the facts are that organisms changed whether because of -

• the change in frequency of the alleles (gene variants) in population (thus Genetic Drift),
• or the mutations of genes resulting in slight change to the physical traits (Mutations),
• or the populations of two original species or subspecies intermixing to produce population of hybrid species (thus Gene Flow),
• or the change in the environment require descendants to inherit traits that are better adapted to the environment (Natural Selection).

In each of the above case, it required population to be able to reproduce successfully for the traits to be passed on.

Each of the above mechanisms are tested, so evolutionary biology are factual explanations for biodiversity of life.

You don’t need to study what was the origin of the very first life to understand the theory of Evolution.

Most biology students and biologists are not paleontology students or not paleontologists, because paleontology are not required study for majority of biology courses.

Most universities only offered courses and subjects that only would require studying modern species, and Evolution can be understood just by comparison of the nuclear DNA, and in the case of animals, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comparison, or plastid DNA comparison in the case of plant life.

So the majority of biologists only require comparing and testing DNA to find out how closely of one species to another, without ever needing to examine fossils.

Plus, @Subduction Zone is right, there are no such thing as life or organisms being perfection or perfect for evolution to occur.

What is sad, is when you tried to explain what you mean by perfection, thereby changing the definition of the words you used.

How about using the correct words without using superfluous and nonsensical superlative descriptors.

Have you ever read or study actual biology?

They never used words like perfect, perfection or best, because unnecessary cause confusion.

 

[LIIA]

Nope. The error is yours.

One more time. Even the "simplest of life" that we see today has a 3 billion year evolutionary history. Why would you expect it to be simple.

You assume that the alleged evolutionary history is true and use this assumption, as your proof that the unevidenced/imaginary first live was very simple compared to simplest form of life today.

You fail to understand that the characteristics that constitute or define life can neither be simple nor can be reduced. There is no evidence of any kind that your imaginary simple life form is possible, on the other hand all evidence confirm the fact that live in any shape or form can never be simple.

As discussed before, your imagined first simple self-replicating strand of RNA is not a living organism; there is no process in nature to create nucleic acids. Neither the RNA molecules nor nucleotides can be simply found floating around freely outside a living cell.

If RNA molecules appear in nature through some unknown means, then its unprotected structure would very easily and very quickly get disrupted.

If RNA molecules miraculously emerge from non-living matter and miraculously manage to keep its structure intact, then it's still not possible to self-replicate because it wouldn’t get any access to required nucleotides that constitutes the essential building blocks for the replication process.

The virus is the closest example in nature to your scenario of a non-living genetic material/system. (The genetic material of a virus can be either DNA or RNA).

A virion may have a single-stranded RNA per your scenario, but the main difference is that genetic material of a virus is always protected by an outer shell of a surrounding protein membrane, regardless of the protection, but typically the structure of a virus gets very easily disrupted in nature, any slight disruption renders the virus incapable of invading the host cell. That is why viruses stay infectious only for several hours to days and without the host cell, the virus can never self-replicate.

The alleged first non-living strand of RNA is not possible to emerge in nature from non-living matter, not possible to keep its structure intact (especially without a protecting membrane), not possible to self-replicate without any access to required nucleotides, not possible to acquire metabolic functions. It’s multiple layers of impossibilities; only one of them would render the assumption false but the combination of all of them render the assumption ridiculous.

You are looking at the simplest of life today and making the mistake of assuming that is the simplest that life can be.

The simplest of life today still has to cope with countless other forms of life. If it was as simple as the first life it would have been consumed and gone extinct a long time ago.

You are making mistakes that you should have quit making in middle school at best.

False, I’m not looking at the simplest of life today. I’m talking about essential characteristics of the simplest life system possible that must exist as a prerequisite to evolution. You’re making the mistake of imagining oversimplified form of life that is neither possible nor there is any evidence for it.

What of the following essential characteristics can you exclude from the first living system:

- Being already alive

- Has the ability to persist/continue to be alive

- Has the ability to obtain energy through nutrients to survive and grow

- Has the ability to reproduce and pass gradual slow changes to offspring

- Has the ability to successfully persist through reproduction for many generations to allow for slow accumulation of gradual changes in the subsequent future generation.

The first organism must have all the essential characteristics as identified above and in my post # 2463 before any evolutionary process may be possible.

The required characteristics itself entail a very complex organism. Any life form of any kind that has these essential characteristics must be very complex. The claims about the simple first live are nothing but illogical imagination without any supporting evidence.

 

[LIIA]

Don't be silly. You have already been proven wrong. You either did not understand or ignored the refutations.

I am willing to help you with the basics so that you can be a better debater. But every time that you bring up an old post of yours you are just admitting that you are wrong all over again.

Pathetic escape as usual, go back to #2465 and demonstrate the reasons of your disagreement, if you have any.

 

[LIIA]

No one said that Abiogenesis is a scientific theory.

even if they didn’t say it but many proponents of evolution act as if Abiogenesis is an already established scientific theory.

Abiogenesis is still a hypothesis, but it is a working hypothesis, because there have been a number of experiments and numbers of evidence that support different models of Abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis is the idea that life arose from nonlife more than 3.5 billion years ago. The idea was taken as an axiom and it was the subject of scientific research for more than 100 years trying to find explanations, mechanisms and evidence, yet the chemistry of abiotic nucleotide synthesis of RNA and DNA in the context of their prebiotic origins on early earth proved to be a continuing challenge.

All attempts to recapitulate the biological pathways for nucleotide synthesis (or other chemistries) have at best produced dubious results. None of the of the attempts led to any remotely possible self-sustainable chemistries and pathways that are capable of chemical evolution.

These are not my words/claims, the article below by ACS Publications dated January 9, 2020, provided a background and up-to-date status to allow the reader to judge where the field stands currently.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00546

There needs to be more testings to decide which of these models is the most likely one to happen on Earth.

This is not the case. It’s not about which model is the most likely one. It’s about solving the problem of chemistry of prebiotic nucleotide synthesis. The problem was not solved, as the article clearly said, “there are—and will continue to be—many more questions than answers from the synthetic, mechanistic, and analytical perspectives”.

In addition to the fact that the chemistry of prebiotic nucleotide synthesis was not resolved but also one of the typical concerns about Abiogenesis studies is the use of starting materials that were not available in nature under prebiotic conditions and the controlled lab environments which call the relevance of the results into question.

Abiogenesis, was never established as a scientific theory simply because evidence in that field of study was never sufficient, satisfactory or conclusive to support the idea that life emerged from nonliving matter. The claim that evidence would emerge in the future is a meaningless wishful thinking. We discussed that before. See #1945

Read the article below, it should give you a good understanding of where the field stands.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.9b00546

 

[Subduction Zone]

You assume that the alleged evolutionary history is true and use this assumption, as your proof that the unevidenced/imaginary first live was very simple compared to simplest form of life today.

No, I don't. That is what you do. The evolutionary history is very well supported by scientific evidence, a concept that you do not seem to understand. I will gladly go over it with you.

You fail to understand that the characteristics that constitute or define life can neither be simple nor can be reduced.

Why not? You just made a positive affirmation. That puts the burden of proof upon you. Too bad that you do not understand the concept of evidence.

There is no evidence of any kind that your imaginary simple life form is possible

, on the other hand all evidence confirm the fact that live in any shape or form can never be simple.

Really? How are you going to prove that? You keep making claims that puts the burden of proof upon you.

As discussed before, your imagined first simple self-replicating strand of RNA is not a living organism; there is no process in nature to create nucleic acids. Neither the RNA molecules nor nucleotides can be simply found floating around freely outside a living cell.

If RNA molecules appear in nature through some unknown means, then its unprotected structure would very easily and very quickly get disrupted.

If RNA molecules miraculously emerge from non-living matter and miraculously manage to keep its structure intact, then it's still not possible to self-replicate because it wouldn’t get any access to required nucleotides that constitutes the essential building blocks for the replication process.

The virus is the closest example in nature to your scenario of a non-living genetic material/system. (The genetic material of a virus can be either DNA or RNA).

A virion may have a single-stranded RNA per your scenario, but the main difference is that genetic material of a virus is always protected by an outer shell of a surrounding protein membrane, regardless of the protection, but typically the structure of a virus gets very easily disrupted in nature, any slight disruption renders the virus incapable of invading the host cell. That is why viruses stay infectious only for several hours to days and without the host cell, the virus can never self-replicate.

The alleged first non-living strand of RNA is not possible to emerge in nature from non-living matter, not possible to keep its structure intact (especially without a protecting membrane), not possible to self-replicate without any access to required nucleotides, not possible to acquire metabolic functions. It’s multiple layers of impossibilities; only one of them would render the assumption false but the combination of all of them render the assumption ridiculous.



False, I’m not looking at the simplest of life today. I’m talking about essential characteristics of the simplest life system possible that must exist as a prerequisite to evolution. You’re making the mistake of imagining oversimplified form of life that is neither possible nor there is any evidence for it.

What of the following essential characteristics can you exclude from the first living system:

- Being already alive

- Has the ability to persist/continue to be alive

- Has the ability to obtain energy through nutrients to survive and grow

- Has the ability to reproduce and pass gradual slow changes to offspring

- Has the ability to successfully persist through reproduction for many generations to allow for slow accumulation of gradual changes in the subsequent future generation.

The first organism must have all the essential characteristics as identified above and in my post # 2463 before any evolutionary process may be possible.

The required characteristics itself entail a very complex organism. Any life form of any kind that has these essential characteristics must be very complex. The claims about the simple first live are nothing but illogical imagination without any supporting evidence.

And I am done. All that you can post are incorrect claims and amazing ignorance where you run away from the burden of proof.

Once again, one ignorant claim at a time please.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Pathetic escape as usual, go back to #2465 and demonstrate the reasons of your disagreement, if you have any.

It is not an excuse. It is a fact, but I am still willing to help you.

You could show that I am wrong. Demonstrate that you understand the concept of evidence. Just stating that you do will not do. I can show you that I understand the concept.

 

[LIIA]

You don’t need to study what was the origin of the very first life to understand the theory of Evolution.

Evolution is neither concerned nor can explain the first life but, and it’s a big but, if the first life is not possible, no evolution is possible.

The mechanisms of the modern synthesis have been disproved; this is not a matter for argument. I discussed the exact same with you before. See #1949
Darwin's Illusion | Page 98 | Religious Forums

See #2229
Darwin's Illusion | Page 112 | Religious Forums

Plus, @Subduction Zone is right, there are no such thing as life or organisms being perfection or perfect for evolution to occur.

What is sad, is when you tried to explain what you mean by perfection, thereby changing the definition of the words you used.

How about using the correct words without using superfluous and nonsensical superlative descriptors.

Have you ever read or study actual biology?

They never used words like perfect, perfection or best, because unnecessary cause confusion.[/QUOTE

You don’t get it (you never did). Biology textbooks don’t use the word perfect or perfection. Not at all. It’s actually quite the opposite.

What I’m saying is that “Perfection” of system is a measure of its success in achieving its goal, if the first life had the vital systems/life processes necessary to enables the system to be alive, stay alive, grow, reproduce and persist through successful reproduction for many generations within its environment. Then this level of success in achieving the goal is perfection.

If not the level of adequacy/success of a system in achieving a goal, how else would you measure/define perfection of a system?

I’m the one who is using the word “perfection" not biology textbooks simply because it truly describes the organism that possesses these defining characteristics as previously clarified.

I never claimed that perfection is a claim made by biology textbooks. I never changed the definition that I made or intended, not before, not now. Any organism of any kind that has required functions/systems that allow it to be alive/stay alive, grow, reproduce and survive for many generations in its environment through successful reproduction is necessarily a “perfect" organism. No exception.

This kind of “perfect" organism is necessarily required as a prerequisite before any evolutionary process of any kind would be possible. Unless the first organism is capable of successful reproduction for numerous generations to give a chance to a random change to emerge and slowly accumulate, no evolutionary process of any kind is possible.

Any evolutionary process of any kind necessarily depends on the ability of a system to persist, time is an essential factor to allow slow gradual accumulation of change. If the system cannot persist, there cannot be any accumulation of change. Any nonliving organic molecules of any kind will not survive the test of time. It will absolutely decompose/disintegrate before it gets any chance of further development. Organic molecules neither pass changes to offspring nor can stay intact for a long time; it will only and very quickly disintegrate. Without life there is no “survival of the fittest”, there is only “the decay of the dead organic molecules”. Without the persistence of a system, no evolutionary process of any kind is possible. Do you understand?

 

[LIIA]

Plus, @Subduction Zone is right, there are no such thing as life or organisms being perfection or perfect for evolution to occur.

What is sad, is when you tried to explain what you mean by perfection, thereby changing the definition of the words you used.

How about using the correct words without using superfluous and nonsensical superlative descriptors.

Have you ever read or study actual biology?

They never used words like perfect, perfection or best, because unnecessary cause confusion.

You don’t get it (you never did). Biology textbooks don’t use the word perfect or perfection. Not at all. It’s actually quite the opposite.

What I’m saying is that “Perfection” of system is a measure of its success in achieving its goal, if the first life had the vital systems/life processes necessary to enables the system to be alive, stay alive, grow, reproduce and persist through successful reproduction for many generations within its environment. Then this level of success in achieving the goal is perfection.

If not the level of adequacy/success of a system in achieving a goal, how else would you measure/define perfection of a system?

I’m the one who is using the word “perfection" not biology textbooks simply because it truly describes the organism that possesses these defining characteristics as previously clarified.

I never claimed that perfection is a claim made by biology textbooks. I never changed the definition that I made or intended, not before, not now. Any organism of any kind that has required functions/systems that allow it to be alive/stay alive, grow, reproduce and survive for many generations in its environment through successful reproduction is necessarily a “perfect" organism. No exception.

This kind of “perfect" organism is necessarily required as a prerequisite before any evolutionary process of any kind would be possible. Unless the first organism is capable of successful reproduction for numerous generations to give a chance to a random change to emerge and slowly accumulate, no evolutionary process of any kind is possible.

Any evolutionary process of any kind necessarily depends on the ability of a system to persist, time is an essential factor to allow slow gradual accumulation of change. If the system cannot persist, there cannot be any accumulation of change. Any nonliving organic molecules of any kind will not survive the test of time. It will absolutely decompose/disintegrate before it gets any chance of further development. Organic molecules neither pass changes to offspring nor can stay intact for a long time; it will only and very quickly disintegrate. Without life there is no “survival of the fittest”, there is only “the decay of the dead organic molecules”. Without the persistence of a system, no evolutionary process of any kind is possible. Do you understand?

 

[LIIA]

No, I don't. That is what you do. The evolutionary history is very well supported by scientific evidence, a concept that you do not seem to understand. I will gladly go over it with you.



Why not? You just made a positive affirmation. That puts the burden of proof upon you. Too bad that you do not understand the concept of evidence.




Really? How are you going to prove that? You keep making claims that puts the burden of proof upon you.




And I am done. All that you can post are incorrect claims and amazing ignorance where you run away from the burden of proof.

Once again, one ignorant claim at a time please.

Pathetic escape tactic as usual, I don’t expect anything else from you.

I would elaborate further for those who genuinely didn’t get the idea, but your pathetic tricks evidently show that you already got it. That said, if you want to be in denial, it’s your call.

if you can come with anything of value or rational question/argument, I'll attend to it.

 

[LIIA]

It is not an excuse.

It is, go back to #2465 and demonstrate the reasons of your disagreement.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Pathetic escape tactic as usual, I don’t expect anything else from you.

I would elaborate further for those who genuinely didn’t get the idea, but your pathetic tricks evidently show that you already got it. That said, if you want to be in denial, it’s your call.

if you can come with anything of value or rational question/argument, I'll attend to it.

Sorry, but they are not tricks. Everyone can see you running away.

Why are you so afraid?

 

[Subduction Zone]

It is, go back to #2465 and demonstrate the reasons of your disagreement.

Nope. Sorry, I do not revisit your past defeats/. If you did not learn the first time you probably will not learn the second.

Can you try to ask proper questions? You will get answers.

 

[LIIA]

Sorry, but they are not tricks.

You already stated that the SIMPLEST living system known to science today is exceedingly complex in comparison to your imaginary first living system (that allegedly started 3 billion years ago), yet you did not demonstrate how such evidenced complexity of life (even in its simplest forms/single-celled organisms) could be reduced much further to a simpler living system, what kind of a living system is that? Which one of the essential characteristics as clarified below can be excluded from that simple living system? What is your evidence that such simpler living system existed or even possible to exist?

Essential characteristics of the first living system necessary before any evolutionary process of any kind would be possible:

- Must be already alive.

- Must have the ability (life functions/processes) to persist/continue to be alive.

- Must have the ability to obtain energy through nutrients to survive and grow.

- Must have the ability to reproduce and pass gradual slow changes to offspring.

- Must have the ability to persist for many generations through successful reproduction to allow for slow accumulation of gradual changes in the subsequent future generation.

 

[LIIA]

Nope. Sorry, I do not revisit your past defeats/. If you did not learn the first time you probably will not learn the second.

Can you try to ask proper questions? You will get answers.

your tricks are more pathetic than your attempts of debate. My post #2465 is not even an old post so others may get confused what actually happened with it, it’s a very recent post that you repeatedly tried every pathetic excuse/trick to avoid responding to it, yet you have the audacity to claim your own failure to respond/address my argument to be a “past defeat” of mine!! How ridiculous?

You’re afraid that your response would expose/prove the weaknesses of your stance and fail to understand that your pathetic escape attempt is a stronger proof. You’re pathetic.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You already stated that the SIMPLEST living system known to science today is exceedingly complex in comparison to your imaginary first living system (that allegedly started 3 billion years ago), yet you did not demonstrate how such evidenced complexity of life (even in its simplest forms/single-celled organisms) could be reduced much further to a simpler living system, what kind of a living system is that? Which one of the essential characteristics as clarified below can be excluded from that simple living system? What is your evidence that such simpler living system existed or even possible to exist?

Essential characteristics of the first living system necessary before any evolutionary process of any kind would be possible:

- Must be already alive.

- Must have the ability (life functions/processes) to persist/continue to be alive.

- Must have the ability to obtain energy through nutrients to survive and grow.

- Must have the ability to reproduce and pass gradual slow changes to offspring.

- Must have the ability to persist for many generations through successful reproduction to allow for slow accumulation of gradual changes in the subsequent future generation.

Abiogenesis is a similar but separate process than evolution. Evolution does not rely on abiogenesis, it is merely the most likely source of first life.

Do you understand this? Your argument has no legs.


And don't complain about me using an "imaginary first living system'. Your argument is infinitely worse. You have to rely on a imaginary magic invisible friend. When you try to make fun of abiogenesis and have an even weaker belief that is called hypocrisy.

 

[Subduction Zone]

your tricks are more pathetic than your attempts of debate. My post #2465 is not even an old post so others may get confused what actually happened with it, it’s a very recent post that you repeatedly tried every pathetic excuse/trick to avoid responding to it, yet you have the audacity to claim your own failure to respond/address my argument to be a “past defeat” of mine!! How ridiculous?

You’re afraid that your response would expose/prove the weaknesses of your stance and fail to understand that your pathetic escape attempt is a stronger proof. You’re pathetic.

It is old enough. You could have always have quoted the pertinent parts, but even you were too embarrassed to do that.

I won't do your homework for you. If you want to make a claim present it. If you just post numbers of the post I will take that as an admission that it was wrong.

 

[LIIA]

Abiogenesis is a similar but separate process than evolution. Evolution does not rely on abiogenesis, it is merely the most likely source of first life.

Nonsense, what other source of life do you suggest? Do you mean aliens from outer space? Dawkins claimed the same.

And don't complain about me using an "imaginary first living system'. Your argument is infinitely worse. You have to rely on a imaginary magic invisible friend. When you try to make fun of abiogenesis and have an even weaker belief that is called hypocrisy.

It’s again your irrelevant pathetic fourth grader argument “I did bad, but you did worth”, my belief or any other belief has nothing to do with the subject matter being discussed that the ToE/ Abiogenesis being false.

 

[LIIA]

It is old enough. You could have always have quoted the pertinent parts, but even you were too embarrassed to do that.

I won't do your homework for you. If you want to make a claim present it. If you just post numbers of the post I will take that as an admission that it was wrong.

Do you mean old enough so you would still have a shot at a pathetic attempt to confuse others about what actually happened? **mod edit**

 

[Subduction Zone]

Nonsense, what other source of life do you suggest? Do you mean aliens from outer space? Dawkins claimed the same.

Actually no. Not really. You are trusting some known liars. One can do a lot with creative editing. He was asked for another possibility and he came up with a very remote one.

The most likely source for life on our planet appears to be abiogenesis. After that one is getting into extremely unlikely sources. Aliens would probably be next. But I would give that less than 1%, that is just a grabbing a figure. Even more likely an magical invisible friend could have poofed the first life into existence.

It’s again your irrelevant pathetic fourth grader argument “I did bad, but you did worth”, my belief or any other belief has nothing to do with the subject matter being discussed that the ToE/ Abiogenesis being false.

No, I did not do bad. You just screwed up. Please stop accusing others of what you are doing. There is nothing wrong with positing a first life form that was very simple since it is well supported by evidence. You on the other hand have no reliable evidence at all for your beliefs.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Do you mean old enough so you would still have a shot at a pathetic attempt to confuse others about what actually happened? You’re pathetic.

No, I am just requiring you to do your homework. You don't see anyone else digging and saying "This was refuted in post #02340823" Only you do that. And you were always wrong so there is no point in going back to one of your old posts.


By the way, if you want to learn the basics of science so that you keep making such 8th grade level (and that is being kind) errors, I will be glad to help you.