The Big Bang Theory is dead.

[Polymath257]

In this case of my post @Polymath257 is correct

Again . . . science does not prove anything.

Science does not, and cannot, prove things with no doubt whatsoever. It doesn’t deal with possibilities that are logical possibilities but that are incredibly unlikely to hold ( like Last Thursdayism).

That said, the confidence levels in science are usually far, far above the legal standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’.

 

[YoursTrue]

We don't know if they first occurred in little ponds that went through cycles of drying and wetting or whether they first occurred in deep sea vents. Either way, there was a mix of chemicals relevant for life.

So no "Higher Power" needed, is that what you believe? In other words, scientifically speaking, it more or less just happened circumstantially, but no one can determine at this point exactly how or where, is that right?

 

[YoursTrue]

Science does not, and cannot, prove things with no doubt whatsoever. It doesn’t deal with possibilities that are logical possibilities but that are incredibly unlikely to hold ( like Last Thursdayism).

That said, the confidence levels in science are usually far, far above the legal standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’.

I'd kind of have to agree with that., (thank you) although I wouldn't say far, far above the legal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt. That is why some juries (not all) do not go by evidence that does not prove beyond a shadow of a doubt as to guilt.

 

[blü 2]

Can you prove all that crazy speculation?
No

As for proving crazy speculation, you haven't addressed even one of the points I raised with you in my post #2525.

I don't mind if you take them one at a time, but I'd appreciate it if you avoid giving the impression that you're stalling.

Remember, first demonstrate (not merely assert) that my claim is wrong, THEN state your own position, THEN demonstrate that your own position is correct.

Item by item.

I'll look forward to it.

 

[Polymath257]

So no "Higher Power" needed, is that what you believe? In other words, scientifically speaking, it more or less just happened circumstantially, but no one can determine at this point exactly how or where, is that right?

No consciousness needs to be involved. Given the large number of planets and the wide distribution of the basic chemicals, the bet is that bacterial life is pretty common in the universe. The earth is just one of the places where life went beyond that. I’m not sure to what extent that makes it circumstantial.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

So no "Higher Power" needed, is that what you believe?

What the critical thinker is saying is that there is no evidence or sound argument that demonstrates that life was intelligently designed, meaning that if one believes that, he does so by faith.

The arguments creationists offer for an intelligent designer are fallacious and include comments like "All life comes from previous life" (circular argument), "Nobody's ever seen life come from nonlife" (fallacy of irrelevance), and "Life is too complex to not require an intelligent designer" (incredulity fallacy and special pleading fallacy).

Another argument offered is simply an incorrect understanding and misapplication of the results of an experiment: "Pasteur showed that spontaneous generation of life doesn't occur."

 

[YoursTrue]

No consciousness needs to be involved. Given the large number of planets and the wide distribution of the basic chemicals, the bet is that bacterial life is pretty common in the universe. The earth is just one of the places where life went beyond that. I’m not sure to what extent that makes it circumstantial.

I can't say yes or no. But I figure that it is highly unlikely that evolution happened to produce humans on other planets stemming from minerals or whatever started the supposed process somewhere else in the vast expanding universe.

 

[YoursTrue]

No consciousness needs to be involved. Given the large number of planets and the wide distribution of the basic chemicals, the bet is that bacterial life is pretty common in the universe. The earth is just one of the places where life went beyond that. I’m not sure to what extent that makes it circumstantial.

That may be your opinion. And that of others. It is not mine. There is no way that I can be convinced at this point that it happened without a conscious force. But anyway...I bid you a good day, thank you really for your respectful and kind posts.

 

[Polymath257]

I can't say yes or no. But I figure that it is highly unlikely that evolution happened to produce humans on other planets stemming from minerals or whatever started the supposed process somewhere else in the vast expanding universe.

Who said anything about humans?

The human form is very specific. There may be other intelligent life in the universe, but I would be shocked if they look like us.

 

[Polymath257]

That may be your opinion. And that of others. It is not mine. There is no way that I can be convinced at this point that it happened without a conscious force. But anyway...I bid you a good day, thank you really for your respectful and kind posts.

I’m wondering why you would think a consciousness needs to be involved. It isn’t necessary for most things in this universe. Only the action of physical laws is required.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I am envisioning one cell multiplying from another, perhaps exactly alike or maybe slightly different. But the question is how would a person really know how the first cell came about and what it was. Also, if I understand you correctly, let me ask you this: are you saying you believe many cells were initially formed at the same or similar time? It doesn't make sense to me, since so many organisms came about that are different, i.e., plants and animals. But back to the first cell. Does anyone know what it was and how it certainly came about?

We cannot know exactly how. We can only show that it is possible and highly likely.

In fact it is highly likely that we will never know the exact path to life. There are several problems that had to be overcome for abiogenesis to occur. For example amino acids have "handedness". There are right handed amino acids and left handed amino acids. All modern life has only left handed amino acids. If you want an explanation of what handedness is I can give it to you, but if you look at your hands you can see that it is easy to tell the right from the left even though they are made of the same parts. They are merely attached to each other in an exact mirror of the other. We can seen that with complex molecules too. If one had an itsy bitsy mirror one could see that the reflection of a right hand amino acid was its left handed version.

Okay back to why we may never know the exact path. Many of the "problems" of abiogenesis. Problems that seemed to be insurmountable initially, have been found to have solutions. In fact there are more than one solution for several of the big problems. The problem with amino acids is that when amino acids are made with natural processes one has a racemic solution. That is a roughly 50/50 mixture of right handed and left handed amino acids. How did they all become left handed. And there are processes that make a solution less and less racemic as it goes on so the change could have happened before life began, and there are ways that it could have happened after life began. Did it happen some way? That appears to be the case. Do we know which way that it happened, no, but there is definitely more than one candidate.

 

[YoursTrue]

Science does not, and cannot, prove things with no doubt whatsoever. It doesn’t deal with possibilities that are logical possibilities but that are incredibly unlikely to hold ( like Last Thursdayism).

That said, the confidence levels in science are usually far, far above the legal standard of ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’.

I hope you don't think this is off the subject, but my mind goes to the fact that in the Mosaic Law Code is a section about inadvertent killing, meaning if an ax handle flies off the handle and kills someone without premeditation. Yet it allows for an avenger of blood and the opportunity for the one who inadvertently killed the other to flee to the "city of refuge." These were, as you may know, special cities put aside to protect manslayers who made a mistake and did not mean to kill someone. They were protected from families who may want vengeance. (Life for life, etc.) Why does this seem to be close to the possibility of maybe evolution didn't happen as an unforeseen or preconceived action? In other words, for some, maybe there is a conscious factor in making life, or -- for some -- maybe there is not.
Once again, I appreciate your kind responses, and I know I can't tell God what to do as I believe He reads minds and hearts, but I really appreciate your kind responses. Thank you.
If you care to read about that section in the Bible, it is at Numbers chapter 35. Not real long...

 

[YoursTrue]

I’m wondering why you would think a consciousness needs to be involved. It isn’t necessary for most things in this universe. Only the action of physical laws is required.

(It's hard for me to believe that...although I do believe in the power of physical laws, certainly.) Yes, I thought about it hard and long. And it is very hard if not impossible for some to consider that God was always there. So I thought about Dr. Hawking's posit that something (the universe perhaps?) came from nothing. Now I certainly can't consider what is nothing but possibly other minds can imagine what nothing is. I do not know. I haven't looked that up yet. But considering that the idea came forth from Dr. Hawking that the universe came from nothing, it made me realize that God could certainly have always been there.

 

[YoursTrue]

Who said anything about humans?

The human form is very specific. There may be other intelligent life in the universe, but I would be shocked if they look like us.

I said something about humans. We can probably agree that it would be highly unlikely to the point of near impossible perhaps that the human form would evolve by -- lack of conscious design somehow somewhere however the genetics work -- . on another planet somewhere. I believe that God created angels. And that they have free will. However, they are different from humans. And life on earth.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I said something about humans. We can probably agree that it would be highly unlikely to the point of near impossible perhaps that the human form would evolve by -- lack of conscious design somehow somewhere however the genetics work -- . on another planet somewhere. I believe that God created angels. And that they have free will. However, they are different from humans. And life on earth.

And that would be true if you were assuming that the human form was a goal. Creationists cannot seem to understand that the human form was not a goal of evolution. It is a result.

Let's say that some unknown man, Charles Doofus, bought the Powerball or the other big lottery. The odds of him winning it was several hundred million to one. I had to look it up. The odds against that are 1 in 292.2 million times. The odds of him winning without knowledge or design (ergo the surname Doofus) are almost 300 million to one against. That seems awfully daunting. But do you know what the odds are of at least one person wining it someday (and then starting all over again)? They are practically one.

So getting back to humans, the odds against us evolving are beyond staggering. But the odds of something evolving somewhere is going to be 1. That means that it is going to happen.

 

[SavedByTheLord]

And that would be true if you were assuming that the human form was a goal. Creationists cannot seem to understand that the human form was not a goal of evolution. It is a result.

Let's say that some unknown man, Charles Doofus, bought the Powerball or the other big lottery. The odds of him winning it was several hundred million to one. I had to look it up. The odds against that are 1 in 292.2 million times. The odds of him winning without knowledge or design (ergo the surname Doofus) are almost 300 million to one against. That seems awfully daunting. But do you know what the odds are of at least one person wining it someday (and then starting all over again)? They are practically one.

So getting back to humans, the odds against us evolving are beyond staggering. But the odds of something evolving somewhere is going to be 1. That means that it is going to happen.

You have a fundamental error in your reasoning.
the odds against even just the first living thing coming into being is way greater than 10^1 million to 1.
At best all the chances to make that happen are 10^250.
so the odds of It happening are 0.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

the odds against even just the first living thing coming into being is way greater than 10^1 million to 1.

That's the exponent and the base of the odds of a tri-omni god existing by the same argument. Forget about arranging amino acids and nucleotides. Those are the odds that all of the pixels arranged in an omniscient mind just happened to arrange themselves exactly as needed to generate omniscience.

That means that the odds of naturalistic abiogeneis, the only alternative to the first life having been naturally designed, approaches 1 (100%).

 

[Polymath257]

You have a fundamental error in your reasoning.
the odds against even just the first living thing coming into being is way greater than 10^1 million to 1.
At best all the chances to make that happen are 10^250.
so the odds of It happening are 0.

Only if you do the computations incorrectly. If you assume independent probabilities when they are not independent, you can get results that are way too small.

 

[Subduction Zone]

You have a fundamental error in your reasoning.
the odds against even just the first living thing coming into being is way greater than 10^1 million to 1.
At best all the chances to make that happen are 10^250.
so the odds of It happening are 0.

No, that is just an empty claim on your part. When you tried to claim it you used all sorts of unjustified assumptions. Don't you hate assumptions?

As usual, the fundamental error was yours.

 

[John53]

You have a fundamental error in your reasoning.
the odds against even just the first living thing coming into being is way greater than 10^1 million to 1.
At best all the chances to make that happen are 10^250.
so the odds of It happening are 0.

Look around, there is life. So it happened despite your incomprehensible maths.