Shocking claim to Macro-evolution!

[exchemist]

My response was based on what exchemist said. I did not add, nor take away.
It would be quite easy to point that out, if that were the case.

Look, the guy has no science to offer. He has made no observations of nature about this and has no testable theory or hypothesis.

All he does is state he thinks that for human beings to synthesise life (implicitly using human methods and on a human timescale) is unimaginably difficult. So he is, for this reason, personally incredulous that life can have arisen naturally. This is the Argument from Personal Incredulity. It is not a scientific argument. Basically it amounts to this "I think it is all too difficult, therefore God did it." What kind of an argument is that? It's the same argument as mediaeval people used to explain things like thunder, or disease. "We don't understand it so it must be an act of God."

The way science approaches the origin of life is like this. We know once there was no life and now there is. So it arose, by some process. Now, the scientific method employs methodological naturalism. In other words, what science does is to seek explanations of nature in terms of nature. So science sets about considering what sorts of natural processes might have been able to give rise to the various molecules, chemical reaction schemes and structures that we find in living things.

And it is a hard problem, one of the hardest and most interesting in the whole of modern science. But we do have some testable hypotheses for bits and pieces of this gigantic jigsaw puzzle and we get more every year.

What science will never do, and I mean never, is to throw its hands up and say we can't solve this, ergo it must be a miracle worked by God. That is just not scientific.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You just asked me if I know how they test Abiogenesis.
That's not something I need help with. I read it before. It's not something I store in my head though, so I will have to look at it again.
Are you looking for an answer, or were you being rhetorical?

I was curious if you understood that why they do is not assumption. Your claim indicated that you thought that it was.

By the way, you should realize that arguing about abiogenesis is in essence conceding the evolution debate. Evolution does not rely on a specific first source of life. That means that moving the goal posts to a something that does not matter to the evolution debate is in effect acknowledging that it is a fact.

Evolution occurred once life was here. It does not matter whether life was the product of abiogenesis, aliens seeding the Earth, or even a God making the first cell. For some odd reason many creationist think that abiogenesis is a weak point of evolution when it has no bearing on the problem at all.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Thanks, I did answer this for you to, but let me try to so again with a little more depth.

Quite an interesting.post.
We can't do it, in a million years, but we assume it can happen in billions of years.
We have no way of testing something we assume can happen, given billions of years, but we assume it's not impossible.
But for one to say it is not possible, they have "an axe to grind".
We can't test the supernatural, but one who says there is evidence, and the supernatural is both probable, and possible, is irrational, to some (not referring to you), and one who dogmatically dismisses the supernatural as imaginary, has no axe to grind - they are rational (again, not referring to you).
Quite interesting.

But as I pointed out if you want to claim that there were assumptions the burden of proof is upon you. Assumptions of that sort simply are not allowed in the sciences. In fact when scientists say "assuming that . . . " they are referring to an idea that has already been well established. One of the rules of the sciences is that one does not have to reinvent the wheel in every argument.

Also if you want to claim that something is not possible you once again put the burden of proof upon yourself. You would have to prove that abiogensis is not possible and no scientist appears to even have any scientific evidence for that claim.

As to the supernatural there is no reliable evidence for it either. Unanswered questions are never evidence for the supernatural. In fact the supernatural is poorly defined so that it is all but untestable.

As I pointed out earlier you may be accusing others of your wrong doings. I see assumptions by you, statements made that you cannot support. I do not see assumptions made by scientists.

 

[nPeace]

Look, the guy has no science to offer. He has made no observations of nature about this and has no testable theory or hypothesis.

All he does is state he thinks that for human beings to synthesise life (implicitly using human methods and on a human timescale) is unimaginably difficult. So he is, for this reason, personally incredulous that life can have arisen naturally. This is the Argument from Personal Incredulity. It is not a scientific argument. Basically it amounts to this "I think it is all too difficult, therefore God did it." What kind of an argument is that? It's the same argument as mediaeval people used to explain things like thunder, or disease. "We don't understand it so it must be an act of God."

The way science approaches the origin of life is like this. We know once there was no life and now there is. So it arose, by some process. Now, the scientific method employs methodological naturalism. In other words, what science does is to seek explanations of nature in terms of nature. So science sets about considering what sorts of natural processes might have been able to give rise to the various molecules, chemical reaction schemes and structures that we find in living things.

And it is a hard problem, one of the hardest and most interesting in the whole of modern science. But we do have some testable hypotheses for bits and pieces of this gigantic jigsaw puzzle and we get more every year.

What science will never do, and I mean never, is to throw its hands up and say we can't solve this, ergo it must be a miracle worked by God. That is just not scientific.

How is it that you guys seem to get that from Tour, and I don't?
Could it be you don't really listen to him?
All the lectures I listened to from Tour, were clearly explained, and they were nowhere near how you described.
They were more like this... "You don't understand head nor tail how your teory works, nor how it's supposed to work. You can't even explain it without sweeping all the problems under the rug. After you do that, it's even more of a problem explaining it."

 

[nPeace]

Thanks, I did answer this for you to, but let me try to so again with a little more depth.


But as I pointed out if you want to claim that there were assumptions the burden of proof is upon you. Assumptions of that sort simply are not allowed in the sciences. In fact when scientists say "assuming that . . . " they are referring to an idea that has already been well established. One of the rules of the sciences is that one does not have to reinvent the wheel in every argument.

Also if you want to claim that something is not possible you once again put the burden of proof upon yourself. You would have to prove that abiogensis is not possible and no scientist appears to even have any scientific evidence for that claim.

As to the supernatural there is no reliable evidence for it either. Unanswered questions are never evidence for the supernatural. In fact the supernatural is poorly defined so that it is all but untestable.

As I pointed out earlier you may be accusing others of your wrong doings. I see assumptions by you, statements made that you cannot support. I do not see assumptions made by scientists.

Haven't I already been through this?

[GALLERY=media, 8725]Macroequation by nPeace posted Nov 16, 2018 at 6:22 PM[/GALLERY]

It is assumed that this will happen, or has happened. Is it not?
No, the fossil record, and DNA evidence is just interpreted to support the presumption.

 

[nPeace]

I was curious if you understood that why they do is not assumption. Your claim indicated that you thought that it was.

By the way, you should realize that arguing about abiogenesis is in essence conceding the evolution debate. Evolution does not rely on a specific first source of life. That means that moving the goal posts to a something that does not matter to the evolution debate is in effect acknowledging that it is a fact.

Evolution occurred once life was here. It does not matter whether life was the product of abiogenesis, aliens seeding the Earth, or even a God making the first cell. For some odd reason many creationist think that abiogenesis is a weak point of evolution when it has no bearing on the problem at all.

You don't need to remind me. I already have mentioned your rootless propped up tree.
Sorry. Got to go.

 

[Brickjectivity]

Lol. Think again.

That kind of responses from evolutionists....is what makes evolutionists look so pathetic!

You can't come up with any rational argument, can you?

Your only real argument is paranoid insistence that scientists are puppets. We've already said, repeatedly, evolution stands on its own and was not and never has been founded on abiogenesis. Its based on facts and cannot speak to abiogenesis, which is how I can see this chemists statements don't apply as they have been put forward in the OP.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Haven't I already been through this?

[GALLERY=media, 8725]Macroequation by nPeace posted Nov 16, 2018 at 6:22 PM[/GALLERY]

It is assumed that this will happen, or has happened. Is it not?
No, the fossil record, and DNA evidence is just interpreted to support the presumption.

Um, no. The fossil record and DNA literally make absolutely no sense without the explanatory framework of common descent. The facts provide the basis for the model, not the other way around. The fact that the idea was intuited beforehand did not bias the facts - they came up in favour of that particular idea. Without common descent, the fossil record and DNA would be utterly inexplicable.

 

[Subduction Zone]

How is it that you guys seem to get that from Tour, and I don't?
Could it be you don't really listen to him?
All the lectures I listened to from Tour, were clearly explained, and they were nowhere near how you described.
They were more like this... "You don't understand head nor tail how your teory works, nor how it's supposed to work. You can't even explain it without sweeping all the problems under the rug. After you do that, it's even more of a problem explaining it."

Because he openly lies in his presentation. If you watch the video that I linked it becomes clear.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You don't need to remind me. I already have mentioned your rootless propped up tree.
Sorry. Got to go.

Please, this is not a proper response. It is far from honest since you cannot support any of your claims. You are trying to push a dishonest argument when you move the goalposts. I will continue to remind you that you have already tacitly agreed that evolution is a fact.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Haven't I already been through this?

[GALLERY=media, 8725]Macroequation by nPeace posted Nov 16, 2018 at 6:22 PM[/GALLERY]

It is assumed that this will happen, or has happened. Is it not?
No, the fossil record, and DNA evidence is just interpreted to support the presumption.

Your link does not work nor can you demonstrate any assumptions. You do need to start your other thread since it appears That you do not understand the scientific method.

 

[John53]

Love how they won't believe the vast majority of scientists but if they find one they claim agrees with them then they think his/her word becomes gospel.

 

[blü 2]

Excerpts from a very long, eye-opener of an article by James Tour.

Forgive me if I misunderstand your purpose in posting this, but it seems to be a criticism of the theory of evolution because it's not perfectly understood.

If that's wrong I'd be grateful for your correction.

If it's right, then please understand that there are no absolutes in science. Nothing is perfectly understood in science ─ or as Brian Cox remarked, a rule of physics is an informed statement about physics that hasn't been disproven.

The whole adventure of science is addressing what we don't know, trying this, as well as re-trying that, checking that what we thought we knew is indeed the case (as far as we can tell).

So Mr Tour's remarks are hardly Shock Horror! headlines ─ rather, steps in the education of Mr Tour.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

You gotta have an origin for the rest of the chain!

Sure, there is a beginning of the chain of some sorts.

However, not knowing what the first piece of the chain looks like, doesn't stop your from studying the chain.
It doesn't matter what the first piece is. The chain remains the same, wheter the first piece is a golden plate or crude rock.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

how could there be any evolution without the origin?

Evolution happens due to how life works, not due to how life originated.

How it originated might provide explanation for why it works the way it does though.
But NO MATTER how it originated, it still works the way it does.

Finding out that it originated in way X instead of way Y, will not change the nature of life as we observe it nore how it works.

Evolution happens, wheter life was created by your god of choice, planted here by alien engineers or orginated as a result of some natural chemical reaction.

 

[exchemist]

How is it that you guys seem to get that from Tour, and I don't?
Could it be you don't really listen to him?
All the lectures I listened to from Tour, were clearly explained, and they were nowhere near how you described.
They were more like this... "You don't understand head nor tail how your teory works, nor how it's supposed to work. You can't even explain it without sweeping all the problems under the rug. After you do that, it's even more of a problem explaining it."

But what is this "theory" that he claims science doesn't understand the workings of? Does he mean evolution, or abiogenesis?

If he means abiogenesis, then he is wrong to suggest there even is a theory of that. There isn't.

If he means evolution then he is wrong to suggest you need to understand any of the chemistry in order for the theory to be valid.

If you can clarify which of the two he means, we can take the discussion further.

 

[tosca1]

How to state the blindingly obvious and hide it behind mystic. I wonder if he is in the process of publishing a book are am i being cynical?.

He has already published several books!

What I find "mystical" about his claim is that......the science community seems to be very, very silent about this!

Like I've given above, he also wrote an open letter to his colleagues, basically challenging them to refute him!

 

[tosca1]

Nope. What you've posted in one scientists personal opinion.


But you don't need to know the origin in order to understand how something that is living diversifies over time. Abiogenesis and evolution are not necessarily connected - they are entirely distinct fields of study of very different processes.

This is like arguing that geology is dependent on big bang cosmology, because in order to understand geological formations you need to first understand the origin of all organic matter. It's nonsense.

That's your opinion.....and, it's irrelevant!

Tour is challenging his colleagues to refute his claim.
He's taking on the science community!
That's the point!

 

[Subduction Zone]

That's your opinion.....and, it's irrelevant!

Tour is challenging his colleagues to refute his claim.
That's the point!

Did you watch the video that I linked? It not only refutes him, it shows how he lied about the work of another scientist.

 

[tosca1]

He does not understand it? So what? Plenty of scientists don't understand fields of science in which they don't have expertise on. That is why its called expertise.

You should read the first two or three posts I gave above.