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The question even Darwin avoided
The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 12/22/05 | Paul Davies

Posted on 12/22/2005 7:15:18 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo

WHEN Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species in 1859, he gave a convincing account of how life has evolved over billions of years from simple microbes to the complexity of the Earth's biosphere to the present. But he pointedly left out how life got started.

One might as well speculate about the origin of matter, he quipped. Today scientists have a good idea of how matter originated in the Big Bang, but the origin of life remains shrouded in mystery.

Although Darwin refused to be drawn on how life began, he conjectured in a letter to a friend about "a warm little pond" in which various substances would accumulate.

Driven by the energy of sunlight, these chemicals might become increasingly complex, until a living cell formed spontaneously. Darwin's idle speculation became the basis of the "primordial soup" theory of biogenesis, and was adopted by researchers eager to re-create the crucial steps in the laboratory. But this approach hasn't got very far.

The problem is that even the simplest known organism is incredibly complex. Textbooks vaguely describe the pathway from non-living chemicals to primitive life in terms of some unspecified "molecular self-assembly".

The problem lies with 19th-century thinking, when life was regarded as some sort of magic matter, fostering the belief that it could be cooked up in a test tube if only one knew the recipe.

Today many scientists view the living cell as a type of supercomputer - an information-processing and replicating system of extraordinary fidelity. DNA is a database, and a complex encrypted algorithm converts its instructions into molecular products.

(Excerpt) Read more at smh.com.au ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: crevo; crevolist; darwin; intelligentdesign
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Students and teachers will never be able to discuss the possibility of an Intelligent Designer creating Life, because Judge Jones and the ACLU have said that unguided evolution is the only possibility and competing theories can't be discussed in science class. Sad, really.

Bolding is mine.

1 posted on 12/22/2005 7:15:20 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
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To: wallcrawlr; DaveLoneRanger

Ping


2 posted on 12/22/2005 7:16:10 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo (The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory. Lots of links on my homepage...)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

What went "Bang"?


3 posted on 12/22/2005 7:19:05 AM PST by Sybeck1 (Dr. Adrian Rogers, September 12, 1931 - November 15, 2005)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
""""Judge Jones and the ACLU have said that unguided evolution is the only possibility and competing theories can't be discussed in science class. Sad, really""""


And here we thought the Inquisition died in Spain ages ago.

I guess, though, that all religions have their equivalent of the Inquisition. (Even the Secular Humanists)
4 posted on 12/22/2005 7:19:47 AM PST by MCCRon58 (Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who do neither, complain!)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

> The problem is that even the simplest known organism is incredibly complex

Not really. Some virii are quite simple. And simpler-still free-floating RNA chains could be definable as organisms.


5 posted on 12/22/2005 7:19:57 AM PST by orionblamblam (A furore Normannorum libra nos, Domine)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

I'm sorry, but questioning the religion of evolution is not allowed. To do so makes you a big, dumb, stupid poo-poo head.


6 posted on 12/22/2005 7:20:22 AM PST by Shadowfax
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7 posted on 12/22/2005 7:20:59 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo (The best theory is not ipso facto a good theory. Lots of links on my homepage...)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

Faith and evolution coexist. Just remove the word "unguided" from your post.


8 posted on 12/22/2005 7:21:17 AM PST by Buck W. (Yesterday's Intelligentsia are today's Irrelevantsia.)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

There are many missing pieces even if we conveniently skip over how life started. But the judge ruled and he's the king.


9 posted on 12/22/2005 7:22:03 AM PST by Mulch (tm)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

>>>Judge Jones and the ACLU have said that unguided evolution is the only possibility and competing theories can't be discussed in science class

Competing theories are welcome in the science classroom, but Intelligent Design is not science. It generates no testable hypotheses and otherwise does not conform with the scientific method. This does not mean ID is not true. It simply means that the existence of an intelligent designer is not a question that science can address.
If they can come up with testable hypotheses, ID will be welcomed. If the creationists can come forward with scientific evidence of life coming forth on this planet over a period of 6 days about 6,000 years ago. I'm sure it will be given consideration in the classroom.


10 posted on 12/22/2005 7:25:24 AM PST by NC28203
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Intelligent design has nothing to do with evolution or creationism.
11 posted on 12/22/2005 7:26:55 AM PST by Mike Darancette (Mesocons for Rice '08)
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To: PatrickHenry

PING


12 posted on 12/22/2005 7:28:15 AM PST by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" R. A. Heinlein)
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To: The Ghost of FReepers Past; ohioWfan; Tribune7; Tolkien; GrandEagle; Right in Wisconsin; Dataman; ..
If life is formed by trial and error, speed is the key.


Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info

13 posted on 12/22/2005 7:29:54 AM PST by wallcrawlr (Pray for the troops [all the troops here and abroad]: Success....and nothing less!!)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
But he pointedly left out how life got started.

This statement insinuates deceit and is BS. He left it out because he didn't know the answer, he didn't "pointedly" omit it.

It drives me crazy when people write crap like this.
14 posted on 12/22/2005 7:29:58 AM PST by HEY4QDEMS (Iraqis thank our troops more often than Democrats.)
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To: NC28203
If the creationists can come forward with scientific evidence of life coming forth on this planet over a period of 6 days about 6,000 years ago. I'm sure it will be given consideration in the classroom.

What's your relativistic inertial reference frame? A perpetual calendar travelling at 99.99999999999% of the speed of light would mark out 6,000 years while 13.4 billion years elapsed here on Earth.


15 posted on 12/22/2005 7:31:30 AM PST by mvpel (Michael Pelletier)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Textbooks vaguely describe the pathway from non-living chemicals to primitive life in terms of some unspecified "molecular self-assembly".

The hand-waving would be funny if it wasn't textbook orthodoxy.

16 posted on 12/22/2005 7:32:26 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

Sad truth is that Mr. Darwin NOW knows the truth. Don't you know he wishes he could set it straight.


17 posted on 12/22/2005 7:34:10 AM PST by trillabodilla (Jesus Saves)
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To: NC28203
Competing theories are welcome in the science classroom, but Intelligent Design is not science.

I don't want to lay a bum trip on you, but neither is "evolution."

Either they both are, or neither is.

18 posted on 12/22/2005 7:34:24 AM PST by Aquinasfan (Isaiah 22:22, Rev 3:7, Mat 16:19)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

Attempting to use science to validate faith is a fools errand. Faith in G-d allows the mystery of his methods to not line up directly with the observable world. It is mankind's hubris to try to tie down G-d with man-made science (Darwinian or Intelligent Design).

Similiarly, scientists can't (and probably shouldn't try to) use theological argument to disprove G-d.

Let's believe, and let our good works and results speak to the unbelievers. Science and belief can stand apart and salute one another from a respectful distance.


19 posted on 12/22/2005 7:35:14 AM PST by Uncle Miltie (Surrender! - Vote Democrat.)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo
Students and teachers will never be able to discuss the possibility of an Intelligent Designer creating Life, because Judge Jones and the ACLU have said that unguided evolution is the only possibility and competing theories can't be discussed in science class. Sad, really.

I discuss it in my science class. I discuss why it may be true, but it isn't science.

Science doesn't deal with right vs. wrong or good vs. bad, either. That doesn't mean those concepts don't exist; it just means they aren't part of science.

I didn't learn much, if anything, about "least common denominator" in English class, but that didn't make it a less valid topic in math class.

20 posted on 12/22/2005 7:35:19 AM PST by Amelia (Education exists to overcome ignorance, not validate it.)
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