Posted on 05/12/2006 12:13:47 PM PDT by PatrickHenry
In his op-ed "Evolution's bottom line," published in The New York Times (May 12, 2006), Holden Thorp emphasizes the practical applications of evolution, writing, "creationism has no commercial application. Evolution does," and citing several specific examples.
In places where evolution education is undermined, he argues, it isn't only students who will be the poorer for it: "Will Mom or Dad Scientist want to live somewhere where their children are less likely to learn evolution?" He concludes, "Where science gets done is where wealth gets created, so places that decide to put stickers on their textbooks or change the definition of science have decided, perhaps unknowingly, not to go to the innovation party of the future. Maybe that's fine for the grownups who'd rather stay home, but it seems like a raw deal for the 14-year-old girl in Topeka who might have gone on to find a cure for resistant infections if only she had been taught evolution in high school."
Thorp is chairman of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina.
I'm not making a hypothesis, but there is evidence against the "germs in space" version.
Collecting samples of interplanetary and interstellar dust and never ever once finding a microorganism tends to cast doubt. Also, there was nothing remotely organic found in the Lunar dust.
If the hypothesized designer is powerful enough, it is impossible to make any prediction based on the design hypothesis - anything goes.
For example, say that a genetic marker is found in both domestic dogs and domestic cats. The ToE allows the prediction that the same marker will be present in all species of dog, all species of cat, all species of bear. A designer could have put the marker anywhere.
The point is, the ToE puts severe constraints on what can be expected to be found. Unless some limits are put on the hypothetical designer's powers, there are no limits on what can be expected.
This problem doesn't arise in archeology, since we know, broadly speaking, what people can and can't do. In SETI searches, they're looking for a narrow-band carrier wave, since again, broadly speaking, we know that natural processes can't produce them.
But until someone actually shows that evolution is incapable of producing some structure (the flavor du jour is "irreducibly complex") there is no basis for assuming that it can't, and that some unspecified "intelligence" must have been involved.
Good points. I expect that Hoyle would say that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence and that we have yet to examine enough of the universe to test panspermia.
ccp_hater made the point earlier in the thread that
"We have very very little available data regarding life on other planets. We do not even have access to a near complete data set on the items within our solar system let alone galaxy (billions of solar systems) or our universe (multiple billion galaxies). I would say we do not have the information available to us to say life elsewhere is unlikely. In fact it is highly likely just given the numbers we are dealing with but really, at this time we just can't know."
I responded that, given points like you make, it seemed to me that if one accepted the Copernican Principle in even a weak form, one must then also expect that life is extremely rare or perhaps even nonexstent everywhere else.
What do you think? Is other life in the universe unlikely or just the odds that it would find its vay here via panspermia?
But organic molecules abound out there. Meteorites discovered to carry interstellar carbon. Maybe we'll get around to having another thread on that topic.
If "works" is irrelevant to salvation, what then is the distinction, useful or otherwise, between good and evil.
I stand by that statement. It is logically correct. The explicit criteria established by Religion is "I believe." Since belief is the basis for all these theologies, they are equivilant. I was comparing it with science, which requires a strict and rigorous methodology.
The best you could do was that quote? It is quite benign. Just because you reel back and say, Kerry-like, "How DARE You," it doesn't change the logic of my position. Nor is it an attack on Christianity. You need to get some comprehension lessions.
You're a troll here to perpetuate the myth that conservatives are a demented bunch of ignorant anti-science psychopaths
Again, how does this attack Christianity and/or Catholicism? In fact, since Catholic Docrtine is that TToE is valid, this is the OPPOSITE.
You really, really, really need help with reading and comprehension.
Having failed your task of supporting your assertion, do you want ME to go and get quotes where CRIDers have attacked Evos, using Guilt by Association, calling us Athiests and anti-Christians? I can start with your post that began this discussion.
You still don't understand the point behind the FSM, do you? It ain't sacrilege.
I think life is extremely likely elsewhere. Unfortunately, at the present time, we only have a sample of one, but we can still draw a few tentative conclusions.
Life appears in the fossil record very early on (~4 billion tears ago (bya), within half a billion after the Earth formed). It remained strictly prokaryotic about 2.8 billion years (BY), and mixed prokaryotic and euckaryotic for 1.2 BY. The Cambrian "explosion", is about -.5 bya, dinosaurs and mammals maybe 0.3 bya, and flowering plants about 0.1 bya.
So if the Earth is typical, one would expect life in many places, but only at the level of bacteria. Once a "hump" (probably sexual reproduction, which makes evolution more efficient) is passed, it seems to very quickly gain in complexity.
No, not even then.
And then it becomes, somehow, a "non-scientific" position. And therein lies the complaint: that the unarguable validity of the hypothesis is dismissed out of hand.
Wrong, it already is an unscientific position but for completely different reasons which have been presented to you on numerous occasions.
Verification of the hypothesis is, of course, another matter. However, the "anti- ID claim" is that, essentially, it would be impossible to detect design. Perhaps -- or perhaps not -- but the claim itself is completely unscientific: is it really impossible to detect it, or merely rhetorically convenient to make the claim?
You cannot determine if a pattern was designed only from the information that is intrinsic to that pattern itself. What you need is additional information i.e. a model of the designer.
The ID "model" of the alleged designer is one with infinite degrees of freedom which makes it compatible with just about any observation. In other words, from a scientific point of view it is worthless because it doesn't provide any additional information.
The fact, however, is that design is a perfectly valid hypothesis, precisely because it has been demonstrated.
Not if the alleged designer is some unknown entity with unknown abilities and limitations, who uses unknown methods and for inscrutable reasons.
Evolution is silent on biogenesis, but biologist aren't. There are many biologists studying biogenesis.
"abound" is a little overstated, isn't it?
Biogenesis states that life arises from preexisting life. I think you understand the argument, but you chose an ineffective term.
Seeing how you've taken the up the mantle for VA, then propose an argument that can support the notion that life is probably typical throughout the universe, without referencing evolution in any way whatsoever.
That wasn't my intention. I think that a natural cause is by far the most likely, but the ToE is independent of the origin of life.
That said, from whence does such induction originate within your deliberations?
If I understand you correctly, you're asking why I think that natural abiogenesis is the most likely scenario. There are a couple of reasons.
First off, life seems to have appeared rather quickly after the Earth was cool enough. (No more than 0.5 billion years, perhaps much sooner than that)
Secondly, I've been studying Kauffman's The Origins of Order : Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. He makes a fairly strong case that complex chains and cycles of metabolism and copying can be expected in a sufficiently complex chemical medium, and that life would "condense" from such systems. The weak point is the development of these complex chemical systems, but given millions of years and the complex chemistry around undersea vents, it doesn't seem unlikely to me at all.
The third reason is simply that science has a remarkable track record in searching out natural explanations of complex phenomena, and there is no a priori reason to think it will fail in abiogensis.
I will agree that your response is emotional and doesn't address the point. As for your point regarding faith, I would counter that everyone has faith in something. Everyone. It isn't having faith alone that counts. It is what you're putting your faith in that counts. And putting your faith in fraud will reap you a crop of fraud. Cause and effect. If you're putting your money into a con-man's pockets thinking you're buying a house only to find out that there is no home..
Yeah, you had faith. What was your reward.
The begging off that people can't maintain that a group is a cult is ludicrous. This is like saying that one can't maintain over time that a union is a union or that a Mob family is a criminal enterprise.
Groups are cults whether one has the will to face the facts or not. The brainwashing and indoctrination that goes along with the cults along with the controlling natures often leave their members confused, angry and disillusioned. They keep their members in line in a lot of thuggish ways that aren't necessarily always obvious. They stand to lose everything - family, friends, associations, even their liveliehoods if they leave the cult. There are a lot of ex-Catholics that can vouch for this just as there are many ex-Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses that can say the same.
But there is no mob in America.. lol.
Works do not earn you salvation. They are irrelevant to salvation. They are not irrelevant as a sign of who you are. Let's examine two things from Christ:
Matthew 12:34 O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
Luke 6:45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
It isn't just what a man says; but, what he does that reveals the abundance in his heart. If a man is full of evil, his heart will move him to do what is evil. On the other hand, even mobsters have a conscience.. something in them that makes them want in some way to make up for some of what they know they've done wrong. That is the strength of Good over evil. It only takes a little and people can do something good against their own tide of evil. At the same time, great guilt and conviction can cause rage from those that get even a whif of truth from someone.
Good and evil bear their own fruit. Evil largely breeds a path of distruction and leaves a trail of weeds and poison. That's why Christians Build Hospitals and learning institutions While radical islamists build suicide bombers and live in refuse spouting racism, fear and generating terror. Christians will invest in aid to foreign countries, poverty relief, and helping people help themselves. Bin Ladin's people - well, they felt it useful to raise and sell hemp while keeping their people living in a backward society and without hope.
The differences between Good and evil are pretty transparent. But that doesn't mean one has to work for salvation. Has nothing to do with it. Christ and the Apostles stated clearly and in no uncertain terms that Salvation is the GIFT of God. You don't work for a gift. You either accept it or refuse it. You do not work for it.
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