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To: mississippi red-neck

I suspect the Freeper whose screen name is "JS" is a bit surprised at being pinged to this thread.

Abiogenesis is in the hypothesis stage. Whether it happened or not is irrelevant to whether evolution happens.

Science does not speak to miracles because it is impossible to prove that a miracle did not occur.

Suppose people in Washington D.C. wake up one morning to find a 300 foot redwood tree firmly planted in the Mall. A miracle, right? Now suppose you take a core sample of the tree and find it has rings indicating an age of 2000 years. What would this prove or disprove?

My point is that the earth has tree rings, and life has tree rings. Science deals with how things on this earth work; it deals only with the regularities we label natural laws. The evidence that is visible to us indicates an age of the earth in billions of years. The evidence of DNA indicates all life is related by common descent.

The actual history -- whether this history is "real" or whether the miracles are real -- is unimportant to science. But the interpretation of the tree rings is important because it is derived from theories about how things work in the present and how they will work in the future. These theories have consequence in engineering and medicine.

It is irrelevant which interpretation of history is "real", but it is important in our everyday lives to decide which interpretation is based on how ongoing, regular, "natural" processes work.


858 posted on 01/31/2005 9:41:02 AM PST by js1138
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To: js1138

A good understandable honest view of research from the view point of a scientist. Thanks. MRN.


880 posted on 01/31/2005 10:54:46 AM PST by mississippi red-neck
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