Intelligent Design???

[shmogie]

This seems to be just flailing about, looking for difficulties. We all know it's difficult: that is why there is no theory of it yet. (As it happens there has in fact been recent interesting research on the ability of the "bases" found in DNA to act as stabilisers of molecules exposed to UV. There is also a hypothesis that dissipation of UV into heat by these bases may have even been the driving force behind the development of life - that UV was thus necessary, rather than an obstacle.)

But all this misses the basic point: originally there was no life and now there is, so it happened somehow, and the task of science is to look for natural , not supernatural, explanations. That is what it will continue to do, like it or not. It is futile to argue that it was somehow "impossible", because it has happened. Science will never have recourse to a supernatural miracle as an explanation, because that would ipso facto not be a scientific explanation.

So we have an impasse: on the one hand, science, doggedly trying to disentangle the biochemical steps by which life could have arisen by means of the laws of nature, and on the other the creationists, driven by a particular reading of the bible that is not shared by most mainstream Christian denominations, claiming that it was impossible without a supernatural miracle.

The thread is on intelligent design. So, your position is it happened, though no one can demonstrate how, and in fact science itself in a large number of ways says it could not have happened. No matter, it happened, end of discussion. Close the damn thread, I don´t want to hear anything else.

My advice to you is to stop posting and ignore the thread.

Truth is truth, whether it is scientific or not. Your response is a familiar one. I have herd it many times before. Don´t confuse me with facts, I know what I know, and thatś it. Strong faith, indeed

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Watch this thread.

I am on the edge of my seat. I will make the popcorn.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

There is little evidence that the precursor first reproducing, functioning organism existed, there is significant evidence that it could not, thus, the claims that it did lacks support by evidence

It does not matter whether life arose by abiogenesis or divine creation, one of those happened and life began evolving soon after. I know of no evidence that precludes the possibility of abiogenesis. I am still waiting for you to provide it.

 

[shunyadragon]

Polymerization of amino acids does happen, though, in the repeated drying and re-hydration that happens in tidal ponds. The current thought is that the initial polymerizations happened there.

Once again, we do not, at this point, have anywhere close to a complete description of what it takes for life to initially form. We do not know the conditions under which it happened. We do not know the conditions that existed on the early Earth. That is, partly, what current research in abiogenesis is attempting to figure out.

I'd point out that at one point it was though that the formation of monomers would be hard. That turned out not to be the case, if the proper conditions hold.

Correction: We do know that the rocks that formed in thermal hot spring rocks did exist, mid ocean ridge spreading zones with thermal vents, and tidal zones of oceans were intermittent drying and wetting occurred at the time is is believed the first life arose. Continental Drift and Oceans existed just prior to the emergence of life.

The oldest rocks that contain the simple life forms are in rocks that form in these environments shortly after oceans formed and continental drift began from mid ocean ridges.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Do the laws of chemistry and physics determine the environment, atmosphere, temperatures, proportions and mixtures of chemicals to support life ?

Yes.

The answer is yes, so your statement is irrelevant, the laws of the universe determines that things happen, blindly. The laws of the universe ensure that many things happen by chance.

No.

The laws of nature set the stage and chance events occur upon that stage.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Lets begin doing that right now.

We have made a valiant effort to determine what would constitute evidence regarding scientific theories, lets see how it goes re abiogenesis.

I am not concerned at this point regarding the evolution of living organisms.

The issue is the living, functioning, reproducing first organism that existed as a result of some combination of non living chemicals and/or matter.

You use the term, ¨ suitable environment¨. Could or did that suitable environment exist for the alleged process of abiogenesis to take place ?

The common belief by most who ascribe to abiogenesis is that it began in a sea containing simple organic molecules.

From the molecules, polymers were created. These would by necessity have had to include amino acids, proteins or perhaps RNA.

¨ Two amino acids do not spontaneously join in water. Rather, the opposite reaction is thermodynamically favored ¨ National Academy of Science, the limits of organic life in planetary systems, p. 60, 2007

Put simply, water destroys the required chains of chemical components for life

Dr, Miller, one half of the Miller-Urey experiments on abiogenesis of the 1950ś, which have been pretty much abandoned on experimental environment grounds, said this in an interview.

¨ The first step, making the monomers, thatś easy. We understand it pretty well. But then you have to make the first self replicating polymers. Thatś easy, just like itś easy to make money in the stock market, just buy low and sell high.¨ Miller laughs, ¨nobody knows how it is done¨. Discover magazine, quoted by Peter Radzky, How Did Life Start ?

¨ The origin of life. This problem is one of the big ones in science. Most chemists believe, as do I, that life emerged spontaneously from mixtures of molecules in the prebiotic earth, How ? I have no idea. George M. Whitesides, Chemical and Engineering news March, 2007.

Next installment, the deal breaker, information

A hurdle is not a barrier. But let us look at what you have provided here by way of evidence.

You have established what we already know. We do not know. That is a hurdle to be sure, but it is not evidence barring abiogenesis from having occurred.

Will there be dinosaurs on your dinosaur tour?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Of course I haven yet adressed the additional environmental factors of UV light and ozone and oxygen.

Let me guess. You found a lot of quotes indicating we do not know something about them too.

 

[shunyadragon]

The thread is on intelligent design. So, your position is it happened, though no one can demonstrate how, and in fact science itself in a large number of ways says it could not have happened. No matter, it happened, end of discussion. Close the damn thread, I don´t want to hear anything else.

My advice to you is to stop posting and ignore the thread.

Truth is truth, whether it is scientific or not. Your response is a familiar one. I have herd it many times before. Don´t confuse me with facts, I know what I know, and thatś it. Strong faith, indeed

Caution, 'arguing from ignorance' without considering the evidence is a fallacy. The science of abiogenesis is young, Do not expect science to have all the answers at present. They do know that the earliest simple life forms appeared in the ancient rocks shortly after Oceans form and Continental Drift began.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Hurdles are for Track Sports. You have not provided any coherent responses concerning reasons abiogenesis and evolution cannot take place caused by the laws of nature in a suitable environment.

He has applied creationist logic which seems to state that if someone does not know, then the answer is it did not happen. Or something like that. Using that logic, nothing happened to Jimmy Hoffa, because we do not know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.

 

[Ellen Brown]

Correction: We do know that the rocks that formed in thermal hot spring rocks did exist, mid ocean ridge spreading zones with thermal vents, and tidal zones of oceans were intermittent drying and wetting occurred at the time is is believed the first life arose. Continental Drift and Oceans existed just prior to the emergence of life.

The oldest rocks that contain the simple life forms are in rocks that form in these environments shortly after oceans formed and continental drift began from mid ocean ridges.

Apparently Tardigrades were discovered by Astronauts in space. Don't know where this is going.

 

[Polymath257]

Of course I haven yet adressed the additional environmental factors of UV light and ozone and oxygen.

Well, UV is useful for the production of the amino acids in the first place. Oxygen and ozone occur in such small quantities on the early Earth that they would not stop the needed reactions.

 

[Polymath257]

Correction: We do know that the rocks that formed in thermal hot spring rocks did exist, mid ocean ridge spreading zones with thermal vents, and tidal zones of oceans were intermittent drying and wetting occurred at the time is is believed the first life arose. Continental Drift and Oceans existed just prior to the emergence of life.

The oldest rocks that contain the simple life forms are in rocks that form in these environments shortly after oceans formed and continental drift began from mid ocean ridges.

Good point. I agree.

 

[Polymath257]

The thread is on intelligent design. So, your position is it happened, though no one can demonstrate how, and in fact science itself in a large number of ways says it could not have happened. No matter, it happened, end of discussion. Close the damn thread, I don´t want to hear anything else.

My advice to you is to stop posting and ignore the thread.

Truth is truth, whether it is scientific or not. Your response is a familiar one. I have herd it many times before. Don´t confuse me with facts, I know what I know, and thatś it. Strong faith, indeed

The point is that we don't fully understand the conditions and possibilities for the development of life. So it is *way* too soon to claim that intelligence is required.

Now, if, some years in the future, we know of several (say, 20 or so) different ways to form life from non-life, and *if* none of those shows any possibility of happening in the conditions of the early Earth spontaneously, then, we might be able to say an intelligence was involved.

But, before an intelligent agent can proposed, we have to *fully* understand how the natural systems can and cannot produce the effects we see.

At this point, even *if* the ultimate conclusion is that there was an intelligence, it is *still* crucial to conduct research in abiogenesis in order to demonstrate that. But, the difficulties you have presented have been dealt with by those in the field. So the likelihood that the 'intelligent agent' fall-back position will be invoked is quite small.

 

[shmogie]

The point is that we don't fully understand the conditions and possibilities for the development of life. So it is *way* too soon to claim that intelligence is required.

Now, if, some years in the future, we know of several (say, 20 or so) different ways to form life from non-life, and *if* none of those shows any possibility of happening in the conditions of the early Earth spontaneously, then, we might be able to say an intelligence was involved.

But, before an intelligent agent can proposed, we have to *fully* understand how the natural systems can and cannot produce the effects we see.

At this point, even *if* the ultimate conclusion is that there was an intelligence, it is *still* crucial to conduct research in abiogenesis in order to demonstrate that. But, the difficulties you have presented have been dealt with by those in the field. So the likelihood that the 'intelligent agent' fall-back position will be invoked is quite small.

Have been dealt with by those in the field. Really, I try and keep up, but maybe I missed this. Who, and how did they deal with these issues ?

The truth of the matter is that there will never be a point where ¨ ongoing scientific research ¨ will end, and for many this is the holy grail itself, ongoing research= a possibility= never conceding that science has failed= never having to consider an alternative.

 

[shmogie]

Well, UV is useful for the production of the amino acids in the first place. Oxygen and ozone occur in such small quantities on the early Earth that they would not stop the needed reactions.

How do you know this ?

 

[shunyadragon]

How do you know this ?

The rocks tell us this. The oxidation of minerals did not take place in the oldest rock formations. After cyanobacteria dominated the world, the oxygen levels rose and oxidized iron began to appear in the sediments. Actually the oxygenated atmosphere made it difficult for cyanobacteria to survive and it was predominately replaced by Algae and othe oxygen loving life forms.

From: The Origin of Oxygen in Earth's Atmosphere

The Origin of Oxygen in Earth's Atmosphere

"It's hard to keep oxygen molecules around, despite the fact that it's the third-most abundant element in the universe, forged in the superhot, superdense core of stars. That's because oxygen wants to react; it can form compounds with nearly every other element on the periodic table. So how did Earth end up with an atmosphere made up of roughly 21 percent of the stuff?

The answer is tiny organisms known as cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae. These microbes conduct photosynthesis: using sunshine, water and carbon dioxide to produce carbohydrates and, yes, oxygen. In fact, all the plants on Earth incorporate symbiotic cyanobacteria (known as chloroplasts) to do their photosynthesis for them down to this day. Algae and other life forms that thrived in an oxygen rich atmosphere soon dominated.

For some untold eons prior to the evolution of these cyanobacteria, during the Archean eon, more primitive microbes lived the real old-fashioned way: anaerobically. These ancient organisms—and their "extremophile" descendants today—thrived in the absence of oxygen, relying on sulfate for their energy needs.

But roughly 2.45 billion years ago, the isotopic ratio of sulfur transformed, indicating that for the first time oxygen was becoming a significant component of Earth's atmosphere, according to a 2000 paper in Science. At roughly the same time (and for eons thereafter), oxidized iron began to appear in ancient soils and bands of iron were deposited on the seafloor, a product of reactions with oxygen in the seawater."

"What it looks like is that oxygen was first produced somewhere around 2.7 billion to 2.8 billon years ago. It took up residence in atmosphere around 2.45 billion years ago," says geochemist Dick Holland, a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. "It looks as if there's a significant time interval between the appearance of oxygen-producing organisms and the actual oxygenation of the atmosphere."

 

[shmogie]

Caution, 'arguing from ignorance' without considering the evidence is a fallacy. The science of abiogenesis is young, Do not expect science to have all the answers at present. They do know that the earliest simple life forms appeared in the ancient rocks shortly after Oceans form and Continental Drift began.

Ah, so I am ignorant. Classic response. Simple life forms aren´t the issue, how the came into being from nonliving substances is. You asked for evidence, I provided it. I will provide much more that shows the virtual impossibility of abiogenesis.

You did not address the evidence, you chose to diminish the messenger, once again, a common response when one chooses not to try and refute the data.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Ah, so I am ignorant. Classic response. Simple life forms aren´t the issue, how the came into being from nonliving substances is. You asked for evidence, I provided it. I will provide much more that shows the virtual impossibility of abiogenesis.

You did not address the evidence, you chose to diminish the messenger, once again, a common response when one chooses not to try and refute the data.

You have not provided any evidence. That is the classic creationist cliche. You post a few quotes that really only say "we do not know" and claim they are evidence that it could not happen. You addressed one hypothesis directly in talking about amino acid polymerization in sea water. I suppose you wish that everyone now conclude that all hypotheses can be rejected or that even that one hypothesis is really dead.

Popcorn's done. Where is the evidence.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Watch this thread.

I am still watching. Do you plan to have evidence on your evidence tour?

 

[shunyadragon]

Ah, so I am ignorant. Classic response. Simple life forms aren´t the issue, how the came into being from nonliving substances is. You asked for evidence, I provided it.

You have not provided any evidence. Making 'arguments for ignorance' of what you claim as unknowns is not evidence.

How about some research papers from peer reviewed scientific journals that present the evidence you claim exists.

The ancient simplist first forms of life are found in the environments considered suitable for abiogenesis. The current research supports polymerization of amino acids in these environments.