On Evolution & Creation

[metis]

You bring up (to me) an interesting subject. Are Viruses Alive?
I read that "Viruses are microorganisms of genetic material that are dependent on living organisms as hosts. Once they infect, or take over, a host, they hijack the host cell to reproduce. Viruses have some of the features of a living entity in that they can reproduce and mutate. However, they can’t move on their own or survive outside of a host body." I go no further than to say that is fascinating.

And us human cannot survive without eating. Viruses very much are alive.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

You bring up (to me) an interesting subject. Are Viruses Alive?
I read that "Viruses are microorganisms of genetic material that are dependent on living organisms as hosts. Once they infect, or take over, a host, they hijack the host cell to reproduce. Viruses have some of the features of a living entity in that they can reproduce and mutate. However, they can’t move on their own or survive outside of a host body." I go no further than to say that is fascinating.

It is an interesting discussion. Your source is correct that viruses mutate, but they have little else in common with even bacteria. They have an exterior surface and contents, and they are reproduced by infected host cells but can't reproduce without the unwitting help of susceptible living organisms.

How many of these qualities of living organism do you suppose apply to a virus? I'd say just [7] and [12], [9] with help, and maybe [13]:

[1] active movement (may be subcellular only)
[2] obtain nutrients
[3] metabolize / channel and store energy / generate heat
[4] eliminate waste
[5] complex organization (organelles, organ systems)
[6] cellular
[7] organic
[8] growth / development
[9] reproduction / replication
[10] homeostasis / repair
[11] sensitive / responsive
[12] adapt / evolve / mutate
[13] similar composition (proteins, ATP, DNA, etc.)

 

[John53]

I still don't know what space time is as no one has ever been articulate it enough to explain it and most have never tried.

I still don't know what "kinds" is because no one will define it.

 

[YoursTrue]

Not exactly. Erosion destroys some rocks and transports the eroded material to a different place, where it is deposited to form new sedimentary rocks. These new sedimentary rocks may be be a different type from the original rocks that were eroded, particularly if these were igneous or metamorphic rocks.

None of the primordial rocks that were formed by the accretion of the Earth are still in existence. They have all been recycled many times and transformed into different types of rock (igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary) that did not exist on the primitive Earth.

So some rocks are transported and deposited to become new sedimentary rocks, is that correct?

 

[YoursTrue]

And us human cannot survive without eating. Viruses very much are alive.

But...viruses remain viruses, don't they? Anything to show viruses mutate to something other than viruses? Humans need to eat so is food the host? Now I'm beginning to think you are subterfuging. Have a good day...take care, metis.

 

[YoursTrue]

It is an interesting discussion. Your source is correct that viruses mutate, but they have little else in common with even bacteria. They have an exterior surface and contents, and they are reproduced by infected host cells but can't reproduce without the unwitting help of susceptible living organisms.

How many of these qualities of living organism do you suppose apply to a virus? I'd say just [7] and [12], [9] with help, and maybe [13]:

[1] active movement (may be subcellular only)
[2] obtain nutrients
[3] metabolize / channel and store energy / generate heat
[4] eliminate waste
[5] complex organization (organelles, organ systems)
[6] cellular
[7] organic
[8] growth / development
[9] reproduction / replication
[10] homeostasis / repair
[11] sensitive / responsive
[12] adapt / evolve / mutate
[13] similar composition (proteins, ATP, DNA, etc.)

Somehow the idea that viruses are similar to humans because humans can't live without food makes me wonder about the parallel.

 

[John53]

Now I'm beginning to think you are subterfuging.

Oh, the irony.

 

[wellwisher]

Listen, thanks for that. As I see it, it (the need for water of DNA) almost shows me that it is unreasonable to think it all came about without a divine maker. Obviously some will argue that no Divine Authority is necessary for these functions. I no longer accept that as a theory, since I believe now it is too fantastic for these things like DNA to 'happen.'

If there was ever, a perfectly designed molecule, needed for physical and biological evolution, that is water. Water is the second most common molecule in the universe, behind only the original hydrogen; H2, of the early universe 180 million years after the BB. The formation of oxygen in stars is a nuclear sweet spot and the oxygen results in water, using some of extra hydrogen.

Water is the most studied substance in all of science with over 70 anomalies. where water bucks the property trends common to most other materials. Water and hydrogen is the energy bandwidth of life, with only a few bacteria able to make H2. Life is about reduced hydrogen and carbon and hydrogen hydrogen bonded hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen. It quite amazing the two most abundant are used. Carbon and Carbon monoxide are up there is the top 4-5. Nature's used its natural abundance or life.

Water is also the most abundant solid material in the universe. This is because the small and light water molecule is able to freeze at a much higher temperate than hydrogen; 0C versus -259C. Because water will appear as solid earliest it becomes the material of choice used to make star and planets. Water also contains hydrogen for fusion and a water dominant forming star can trigger fusion.

Another key anomaly for lighting stars, is when water freezes it expands. This is why icebergs float. So when gravity collects a large ball of ice and dust and starts to pressurize, and ice starts to melt in the center of gravity, the expanded ice collapses, as it form liquid water. This causes a cascade pressure drop in the center of gravity; outer materials will collapse toward the core, as more and more ice melts. It would like the earth suddenly, having a 10% loss of material, in the middle. The entire earth would starts to collapse to fill the gap. adding work and heat. I like to call this star light effect fusion hammer.

The expansion of water, when it freezes also has an important advantages for sustaining life on earth. If water contracted when it frozen like all other common solvents and materials; besides antimony, the ice would sink, snow and seal the bottom of the oceans and lakes and life would freeze and disappear. But since ice floats, it insulates and keep the cold in the surface, so the earth's deeper water stays warmer to help life. No other solvent could have sustained life on earth, since ice ages would become permanent.

It is not coincide that water is part of the DNA and is essential to its operation. Water also fold and packs all the protein of life. No other solvent can fold protein quite the same way. Water controls natural selection, at the molecular and nanoscale. DNA only works in water since water selected it and led to its symbiotic design.

The main reason water still does not get its just deserves, and why science is still erroneously too organic centric, is organic experiments are easier to do than are water based ones. With organics DNA and protein are all connected with stronger covalent bonds. They are not very delicate. Water does its magic with weaker secondary bonding, which makes life experiments harder to do in situ. The average water molecule on liquid water only retain its origins hydrogen for less than a millisecond. Water's jobs can be deduced and inferred with logic.

 

[icant]

The professor probably did not say that it was insufficient, he would have said that it is incomplete. The theory does not answer all of the questions that scientists have. But of course that does not mean that it is wrong. All of the evidence indicates that it is correct even if there are unanswered questions.

To the best of my recollection this was 11 years ago and he said it needed to be replaced with a Quantum theory of everything.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Here's the same schema absent the dates in text form:

Superfamily HOMINOIDEA ("hominoids") the apes -> lesser apes (Family HYLOBATIDAE) Gibbons Genus Hylobates
↓
Family HOMINIDAE ("hominids") great apes -> (Subfamily PONGINAE) Orangutans
↓
Subfamily HOMININAE ("hominines") Gorilla, Pan and Homo -> Tribe GORILLINI
↓
Tribe HOMININI ("hominans?") Pan (chimps, bonobos) and Homo -> Subtribe PANINA
↓
Subtribe HOMININA ("hominins") Homo and Australopithecoids -> Australopithecoids (Australopithecus, Ardipithicus, Paranthropus)
↓
Genus Homo

Wouldn't the first human need to be Instantly complete, to survive out the first day? How could the first of any life, live to see the next day If something vital was missing?

There was no first human. That's an idea creationists routinely fail to understand. There was nothing ever born to any mother that could be called human that didn't have human parents, and nothing that could be said to not be human ever had a child that could be called human.

I don't know when or why the great ape's ceased to exist

They didn't. One is responding to you right now, and you are another.

As I see it, it (the need for water of DNA) almost shows me that it is unreasonable to think it all came about without a divine maker.

It's unreasonable to think that a creator existed without evolving in a godless space and time. You consider the reality you see too unlikely to exist uncreated, but then invoke an even less likely entity to explain it and offer no explanation for how it could exist unevolved or uncreated- a fallacy called special pleading, or unjustified double standard.

some will argue that no Divine Authority is necessary for these functions.

None are apparent, nor are they needed in any scientific theory.

From what I see here on these forums, few if any here who embrace the theory of evolution can answer questions from those who do not believe it

From what I see, few creationists can understand much of what they are told about science. Your inability to make progress does not reflect on others or their explanations.

 

[icant]

Evolution required life already existing. Evolution is about changes, the biodiversity of the species. It required ancestors to passed on physical or genetic traits from generation to generation, to descendants,

I know what evolution is. You are right about that.as

Being raised on a farm I have delt with evolution many times. Selective breeding is what I found the best way to go. Whether it was hogs, cows, chickens or dogs. I was able to get some tobacco plants in 1960 on a test basis because of my position in the FFA. I was not aware that the plants was some of the testing for future gmo products. Most growers around me had yields of 1500 lbs. per acre to1800 lbs. I averaged a little over 3300 lbs. per acre. The quality was not quite as good but I only averaged .10 cents a lb. less at market. So, yes I am a little familiar with evolution.

But I was taught that evolution started when there was no life on earth. Somehow in a pool of something that had to be just right for live to produce life a single cell life form appeared and from that simple life-form over billions of years I am here. And all the time I thought my daddy and Mother was the way I got here

But you are telling me that evolution can only happen to living things. I always thought that could happen. The part of evolution I don't understand is how that little pool of something caused something in it to come to life.

It seems that no scientist can understand it either because they kicked that part out of the equation and gave it another name. Yet they try to tell us we all came from that wee little something that no one knows how or why it got there in the first place.

 

[icant]

None are apparent, nor are they needed in any scientific theory.

You sound like the guy with all the answers

I just celebrated my 85th birthday September 26.
I have two questions that I have been searching for the answers too for 70 years, maybe you have the answers to those questions

The Big Bang Theory posits something about the size of a pin point began to expand one billionth of a second after time did not exist and our entire universe what we can see and what we cannot see was that pinpoint.

# 1 My question is where did that pinpoint size universe come from?

It is said that life began to exist when no living thing existed.

We know for a fact that life produces life, we can see it happen everyday.
Non-life can not produce life, No experiment tried ever produced life.

# 2 Where did life on earth come from?

Enjoy,

 

[Valjean]

Not referring to spacetime but thinking Darwin knew there are eyes but didn't know how they worked.

He did not know how they evolved; but that was nearly 150 years ago. There were a lot of things we didn't know back then, which we know now.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

# 1 My question is where did that pinpoint size universe come from? # 2 Where did life on earth come from?

We don't know.

Some people guess at answers, believe their guesses, and call them facts, but guesses aren't knowledge. Some people speculate, meaning that they understand that their ideas are hypotheses and so don't call them correct - just possible, like the multiverse hypothesis and abiogenesis. I would add gods to that list. We can't call them impossible or rule them out, but the idea adds no explanatory or predictive power.

Your comment had nothing to do with mine that appeared in the quote section above your words to me, which were "None [no gods] are apparent, nor are they needed in any scientific theory." Did you want to discuss that?

As I alluded, we have scientific hypotheses regarding the origin of the cosmic seed and life that don't include gods just as none of our scientific theories have gods or benefit by inserting one. Science won't place conscious agents in any scientific narrative until there is direct evidence that a god exists, meaning uncovering a finding that can only be explained or is best explained (explanatory power) by positing an intelligence to account for it.

Famously, upon hearing his latest ideas, Napoleon asked Laplace where God fit into his work. Laplace answered, "I had no need of that hypothesis." That remains true today.

 

[Valjean]

And us human cannot survive without eating. Viruses very much are alive.

I disagree. They don't grow or reproduce on their own. They don't eat; or grow. They have no metabolism.
If viruses are alive, so is a line of computer code with instructions to: Print this code.

 

[Valjean]

I still don't know what "kinds" is because no one will define it.

Seems to be any recognizably distinct category of living thing. Sometimes species, sometimes genera, sometimes whole orders or classes.

 

[gnostic]

Sorry, @icant

Below, is the last paragraph:

Evolution can have no ancestors.

It should actually be read as -

Evolution cannot have no ancestors.​

I didn't notice the typo, last night, when I posted it. I didn't notice until I read my post in the morning.

Stupid iPad auto-correct is making my life miserable.

 

[John53]

Seems to be any recognizably distinct category of living thing. Sometimes species, sometimes genera, sometimes whole orders or classes.

Seems to mean whatever they want as long as they don't have to define it.

 

[Audie]

I know what evolution is. You are right about that.as

Being raised on a farm I have delt with evolution many times. Selective breeding is what I found the best way to go. Whether it was hogs, cows, chickens or dogs. I was able to get some tobacco plants in 1960 on a test basis because of my position in the FFA. I was not aware that the plants was some of the testing for future gmo products. Most growers around me had yields of 1500 lbs. per acre to1800 lbs. I averaged a little over 3300 lbs. per acre. The quality was not quite as good but I only averaged .10 cents a lb. less at market. So, yes I am a little familiar with evolution.

But I was taught that evolution started when there was no life on earth. Somehow in a pool of something that had to be just right for live to produce life a single cell life form appeared and from that simple life-form over billions of years I am here. And all the time I thought my daddy and Mother was the way I got here

But you are telling me that evolution can only happen to living things. I always thought that could happen. The part of evolution I don't understand is how that little pool of something caused something in it to come to life.

It seems that no scientist can understand it either because they kicked that part out of the equation and gave it another name. Yet they try to tell us we all came from that wee little something that no one knows how or why it got there in the first place.

You had really stupid teachers.

 

[Valjean]

You both seem to understand that you are unlikely to teach science to creationists, and that there has to be other reasons to participate in these discussions. For me, I enjoy and benefit reading the posts of critical thinkers with some level of expertise somewhere, from researching and writing posts myself, and from observing the faith-based thinker's habits and patterns of thought. I liken it to a university course complete with lecture, homework, and lab respectively.

And she is a rare example of a creationist who seems sincerely interested in learning.

You, too.

Not to dishearten you, but in my experience, your chance of learning this material starting from ground zero well along in years is very low however sincere you are. Would that it were otherwise, but after years of message boarding, I just don't see creationists learning anything. As TagliatelliMonster noted, the same ones are still making the same errors.

There's more to know than just facts, and a good understanding of any science begins with the fundamentals and builds on that, which occurs over years in minds that know how to study and learn - another acquired skill, as is critical thinking.

You really need it all to become knowledgeable in any academic discipline. What you'll find is that as you read facts about evolution or any other academic subject is that the ideas won't accumulate or form an intellectual edifice as they would if you had a framework or scaffolding of basic understanding to hang them on.

And that's fine. The knowledge wouldn't be useful to you. You've gotten this far not having it. Have fun trying, and maybe you can do better than what I described, but you shouldn't be surprised to find that what you read here doesn't really change your understanding of anything as seems to be the case with most RFers asking about basic scientific information.

Agreed, but what's your purpose for saying so? Science still has much to learn, and some questions likely will never be answered definitively.

The usual reason we see comments like that is to make an implied ignorantiam argument, that is, if science can't answer the question, there must be a god.

Sure you do. If you can believe any particular idea by faith, you can believe any other idea by faith as well. Faith requires no effort. It is unexamined belief, which is so easy that children with rudimentary language and intellectual skills can do it. In fact, it requires education and training to learn to avoid it.

What you're doing is trying to attach a word from your world to mine. Others like to refer to science or humanism as religions, or respect for them as worship.

There you go. See how easy it was for you to say that. All one need do to believe by faith is choose to do so.

It's not an issue of others not being articulate. These people are all pretty articulate. If you want to learn material like this, as I told anther poster above, you'll need to make a concerted effort over years. You can start by reading a few of these books. Remember, your education is YOUR responsibility, not that of the teachers.

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You probably don't know the theory. If you did, you would know why the theory hasn't been jettisoned.

What I've observed is that many science skeptics have never learned the basics of science, or the basics of the disciplines in question, or even what science is. Maybe they were homeschooled or educated in a religious school that didn't teach science or critical thinking.
In any case their posts indicate they're unequipped to discuss the subjects in question. They don't know either what is known, how it's known, or how it's been validated. It leads to all kinds of misunderstanding as well as the egregious personal incredulity frequently expressed.

Advanced mathematics is baffling if you've never learned basic arithmetic.