Life

[Alceste]

But, that is where it gets very shady to me...
the evidence to me shows very distinctly a designer.

Have you heard of the scrabble game example? If you were to come upon a scrabble game that someone had dropped on the floor with letters everywhere...and in the middle of the letters was a sentence that read "I love to play scrabble"...would you see it as random chance, or as designed?

Have you heard of the logical fallacy called hasty generalization? It occurs when a sample that is too small to be representative of the whole is used to conclude that since the sample has certain properties, the entire group must share them.

An example would be the claim that since we assume graffiti is painted by humans, we should conclude all the colors of the earth are hand-painted.

All the creationist arguments I've heard are illogical. It's OK to be illogical though - I only think creationists would be more effective communicators if they stuck to expressing themselves emotionally / intuitively and did not try to present their beliefs as logical propositions. Either that or study logic to understand why ID is not convincing so they can construct better arguments.

So far, it seems ID is a balloon, and logic is a pin.

 

[4troof]

I don't think that's a good analogy. Here's a better one: if you and a billion of your friends each dropped your bags of scrabble letters on the floor repeatedly for a billion years and the phrase "I love to play scrabble" came up a few times in all of those tries, would you see it as random chance, or as designed?

Ok, but are you serious about billions of friends and chances to drop the letters?
For there to be that much time to drop the letters, then energy would have had to of been around for that length of time to drop them.
I believe the 2nd law of Thermodynamics would show that as energy is used it becomes less and less. Energy itself would not has lasted over "billions" of spillings of the scrabble game itself. No?

 

[4troof]

Have you heard of the logical fallacy called hasty generalization? It occurs when a sample that is too small to be representative of the whole is used to conclude that since the sample has certain properties, the entire group must share them.

An example would be the claim that since we assume graffiti is painted by humans, we should conclude all the colors of the earth are hand-painted.

All the creationist arguments I've heard are illogical. It's OK to be illogical though - I only think creationists would be more effective communicators if they stuck to expressing themselves emotionally / intuitively and did not try to present their beliefs as logical propositions. Either that or study logic to understand why ID is not convincing so they can construct better arguments.

So far, it seems ID is a balloon, and logic is a pin.

I would conclude that all graffiti is painted by humans.
It seems to me that non-creationists are the ones that do not use logic in their explanations of things.

 

[Magic Man]

Does it take more faith to believe that life comes from non-life than it does to believe in an intelligent designer of life?

If you believe in ID, you still believe that life came from non-life. Where did God come from? The difference is that an IDer believes God came from nothing, while an atheist believes the universe came from nothing. Either way, something still came from nothing, it's just a different something.

Now, with that said, you could also believe that something is eternal. It's still no different, though. It's just as easy to believe that the universe is eternal as it is to believe that God is eternal.

 

[Alceste]

Does it take more faith to believe that life comes from non-life than it does to believe in an intelligent designer of life?

It takes no faith at all to admit we do not yet know how life came to be, to realize we get closer to this understanding with every significant advancement in the study of life, and to admit that evolution is the most obviously accurate theory in the history of biology. It only takes inquisitiveness. All we know about the nature of life is demonstrable, repeatable or observable.

Only belief in things that are not demonstrable, repeatable or observable requires "faith".

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

It seems to me that non-creationists are the ones that do not use logic in their explanations of things.

But, apparently, many strange things seem true to you. Therefore?

 

[4troof]

It takes no faith at all to admit we do not yet know how life came to be, to realize we get closer to this understanding with every significant advancement in the study of life, and to admit that evolution is the most obviously accurate theory in the history of biology. It only takes inquisitiveness. All we know about the nature of life is demonstrable, repeatable or observable.

Only belief in things that are not demonstrable, repeatable or observable requires "faith".

How is life coming from non life demostrable, repeatable or observable??

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

How is life coming from non life demostrable, repeatable or observable??

It's not. You're not very good at this ...

 

[4troof]

It's not. You're not very good at this ...

So, concluding your argument for you, you have faith that we will someday be able to see life be created out of something not living. Right?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Ok, but are you serious about billions of friends and chances to drop the letters?
For there to be that much time to drop the letters, then energy would have had to of been around for that length of time to drop them.
I believe the 2nd law of Thermodynamics would show that as energy is used it becomes less and less. Energy itself would not has lasted over "billions" of spillings of the scrabble game itself. No?

Since the Earth is a closed system, and since it doesn't have some outside source of energy beaming huge amounts of light, heat and EM radiation at us, I suppose you're right... it could never happen on its own.

Oh... wait... I forgot: the Sun.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

So, concluding your argument for you, you have faith that we will someday be able to see life be created out of something not living. Right?

No. As I said, you're not very good at this ...

 

[4troof]

Since the Earth is a closed system, and since it doesn't have some outside source of energy beaming huge amounts of light, heat and EM radiation at us, I suppose you're right... it could never happen on its own.

Oh... wait... I forgot: the Sun.

huh?

Now the sun is an eternal source of energy?

 

[UnTheist]

.....

huh?

Now the sun is an eternal source of energy?

You're not very good at this ...

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

huh?

Now the sun is an eternal source of energy?

Nobody said anything about eternal. It's been a source of energy longer than the Earth has existed.

I made my last answer short for humour's sake. Maybe I should expand. Invoking the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't work here for a number of reasons:

- it applies only to closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system.
- it applies only to the average level of entropy within a closed system. It does not say anything about local variation in entropy in that system.
- apparent order does not always imply a decrease in entropy. In fact, I've read one argument (which I'll have to dig for if you want me to link to it) that the net effect of life is an increase in entropy.

So... hopefully I'm not being too presumptive, but given the fact that you'd even bring up the Second Law of Thermodynamics in this conversation, I feel fairly safe in saying:

- it doesn't work in the situation you're trying to use it.
- it doesn't imply what you think it does.
- even if it did work the way you think it does, it wouldn't necessarily pose any problem for abiogenesis.

 

[4troof]

No. As I said, you're not very good at this ...

I guess if I put my faith in upcoming knowledge I will be better off then. :sad:

 

[painted wolf]

I suggest those with questions on abiogenesis start by watching this...

YouTube - The Origin of Life - Abiogenesis

Then look into the work of Dr. Szostack.
Man-made protocell hosts DNA synthesis

The first life forms weren't spontainiously generated... they weren't nearly as complex as the simplest modern lifeforms.

They were the result of simple chemistry... not dust being magically zapped.

wa:do

 

[Magic Man]

I guess if I put my faith in upcoming knowledge I will be better off then. :sad:

This isn't hard. Either you believe that there is something that is eternal, or you believe that there was a beginning to everything. If you believe in God, then you either believe he is eternal, or he came into being at some point. If you don't believe in God, then you either believe the universe is eternal, or it's not.

If your argument is that God is more plausible because it explains how things came into being, then you're wrong. If you say that there must be a God because "something had to create the universe", you forget to explain what created God, then. The point is that the universe being eternal is just as plausible as God being eternal.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I guess if I put my faith in upcoming knowledge I will be better off then. :sad:

At this point in your dialog almost anything would be an improvement.

 

[4troof]

Nobody said anything about eternal. It's been a source of energy longer than the Earth has existed.

I made my last answer short for humour's sake. Maybe I should expand. Invoking the Second Law of Thermodynamics doesn't work here for a number of reasons:

- it applies only to closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system.
- it applies only to the average level of entropy within a closed system. It does not say anything about local variation in entropy in that system.
- apparent order does not always imply a decrease in entropy. In fact, I've read one argument (which I'll have to dig for if you want me to link to it) that the net effect of life is an increase in entropy.

So... hopefully I'm not being too presumptive, but given the fact that you'd even bring up the Second Law of Thermodynamics in this conversation, I feel fairly safe in saying:

- it doesn't work in the situation you're trying to use it.
- it doesn't imply what you think it does.
- even if it did work the way you think it does, it wouldn't necessarily pose any problem for abiogenesis.

I would agree that entropy increases as life goes on...but I see this as an example of there being, at one time, a starting point of a purely non entopy environment. In other words, absolutely no chaos or disorder at all. I see that as energy is used, that entropy increases.

 

[4troof]

The science of Creation is in complete accordance with the Second Law. Creation science teaches us that Man and God's other creations were all created with informationally dense, uncorrupted DNA. Adam had more genes and more robust genes than you or I have. This is evident in the extreme age that antediluvian men were able to reach which was due to their genes being free of the deleterious mutations that lower life expectancy today. Over the years since Creation, our genes have degraded due to the entropy of randomness and we now suffer the consequences of the curse of entropy