Harvard creates new group to investigate 'origin of life' (Limbaugh heckled scientists today...)

Houston Chronicle ^ | 13 August 05 | Gareth Cook

[gobucks]

Project begins amid arguing over teaching evolution. Harvard University is launching a broad initiative to discover how life began, joining an ambitious scientific assault on age-old questions that are central to the debate over the theory of evolution.

The Harvard project, which is likely to start with about $1 million annually from the university, will bring together scientists from fields as disparate as astronomy and biology, to understand how life emerged from the chemical soup of early Earth, and how this might have happened on distant planets.

Known as the "Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative," the project is still in its early stages, and fundraising has not begun, the scientists said.

But the university has promised the researchers several years of seed money and has asked the team to make much grander plans, including new faculty and a collection of multimillion-dollar facilities.

The initiative begins amid increasing controversy over the teaching of evolution, prompted by proponents of "intelligent design," who argue that even the most modest cell is too complex, too finely tuned, to have come about without unseen intelligence.

President Bush recently said intelligent design should be discussed in schools, along with evolution. Like intelligent design, the Harvard project begins with awe at the nature of life, and with an admission that, almost 150 years after Charles Darwin outlined his theory of evolution in the Origin of Species, scientists cannot explain how the process began.

Now, encouraged by a confluence of scientific advances — such as the discovery of water on Mars and an increased understanding of the chemistry of early Earth — the Harvard scientists hope to help change that.

"We start with a mutual acknowledgment of the profound complexity of living systems," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard. But "my expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention."

The theory of evolution has been both fascinating and religiously charged since its very beginnings, because it speaks directly to the place of people in the natural order. In another era, the idea that humans are the close cousins of apes was seen as preposterous.

Today's research of origins focuses on questions that seem as strange as the study of "ape men" once did: How can life arise from nonlife? How easy is it for this to happen? And does the universe teem with life, or is Earth a solitary island?

At Harvard, the origins of life initiative is part of a dramatic rethinking of how to conduct scientific research.

Many of science's most interesting questions are emerging in the boundaries between traditional disciplines such as physics, chemistry, and biology, yet universities are largely organized by those disciplines. Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers, is a proponent of the view that universities must develop new structures to encourage interdisciplinary science. And new science laboratories based on this are at the center of the plans for a sprawling new campus.

The Harvard origins initiative is on a short list of projects being considered for this campus, along with the widely discussed Harvard Stem Cell Institute, which aspires to bring together biologists, chemists, doctors, and others.

[Elsie]

In other words, if a supernatual explanation leaves an observable footprint, then it can be tested via the scientific method.

Likewise:

In other words, if an EVOLUTIONARY explanation leaves an observable footprint, then it can be tested via the scientific method.

Good luck with step #4!

The best I've seen the 'E' side come up with is something's that they SAY are comparable, somewhat.

[Elsie]

Darwin Ceentral has folks who can read and respond.

LOL!

But they can't speel!

[Elsie]

Great Minds... and all that....

[Elsie]

Moreover, they recognize the difficulty of trying to sell the absurd idea on what evolution REALLY believes, that man ultimately came from rocks.

 

 

Very, VERY small rocks!!

 

(The DUST of the Earth, to be exact!)

[Elsie]

...energy cannot be created.

Well; it CAN, but MASS is destroyed in the process.

[Petrosius]

Moreover, they recognize the difficulty of trying to sell the absurd idea on what evolution REALLY believes, that man ultimately came from rocks.

And to think that some people laughed at my pet rock. Just you wait, and wait, and wait ...

Oh well, at least I do not have to house train the critter.

[bobdsmith]

correction, must be possible

okay - must be possible AND falsifiable, although I have no idea how you determine if something is possible.

[general_re]

I love it when evolutionists always appeal to a scientific fact that is demonstrable, but state that no such demands be made for evolution itself.

I've stated no such thing. It's probably not a good sign when your opening bid is out and out BS. Let's hope things improve from here, eh?

No, because evolution goes against the laws of the Universe.

LOL. Let's see.

Biogenesis, life must come from life.

There is no such "law" in biology, except in the fevered imaginings of creationists. Strike one.

The two laws of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created.

That's one law of thermodynamics, and it only applies to closed systems. The earth is not a closed system - perhaps you've noticed that big, hot ball of flaming gas in the sky? Strike two.

The natural trend is to decay and disorder, not order and growth.

And these are just figments of our imagination, I suppose:

I think that's a whiff. Strike three, you're out.

“Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.” Louis Bounoure. The Advocate, 8 March 1984, p. 17.

Ahem.

Anything else?

[GregoryFul]

God is not an option in a logical construct of cause-effect reasoning. To allow a God to intervene at any point is to invalidate the logical construct. It is like an infinity or singularity in math. It simply makes past and future incalculable. So, if you want to understand a system, it is best to preclude invoking God to explain it until all other avenues are exhausted.

[GregoryFul]

The reason evolution avoids the issue of beginnings is that they know it is impossible for life to come from non-life.

That is silly. Life obviously arises from non-life - animate creatures are composed of atoms of inanimate matter. Matter that was created in stars some billions of years ago, and now long dead, and aggregated by some process into transient, self-reflecting creatures some millions of years ago.

You are going to be in for a shock when computers start acting "intelligent".

[js1138]

You are going to be in for a shock when computers start acting "intelligent".

Aren't we all. I notice that computer worms are starting to duke it out with each other.

[GregoryFul]

The natural trend is to decay and disorder, not order and growth.

The universe began as a singularity of almost infinite potential. After its big bang birth of time and space, the unfolding energy yielded many time dominant eddies of stable organized resonances on its way to doom. Quarks, atoms, molecules, electrically bound objects to gravitationally bound bodies danced in glee. Throughout its lifetime, these organized eddies will exist and even potentially reverse the course of (and maybe played a part in) its entropic destiny before its apparent ultimate collapse into the original and again potentially prolific singularity.

Neat, eh? Scientists have faith in this creation story! Me too.

[GregoryFul]

Ah! Viruses, worms, soon fungi, ferns, frogs and others to follow. We will witness the genesis of virtual life...

[fortheDeclaration]

The universe began as a singularity of almost infinite potential. After its big bang birth of time and space, the unfolding energy yielded many time dominant eddies of stable organized resonances on its way to doom. Quarks, atoms, molecules, electrically bound objects to gravitationally bound bodies danced in glee. Throughout its lifetime, these organized eddies will exist and even potentially reverse the course of (and maybe played a part in) its entropic destiny before its apparent ultimate collapse into the original and again potentially prolific singularity.

I don't know what you said, but it sounded impressive!

LOL!

[fortheDeclaration]

That is silly. Life obviously arises from non-life - animate creatures are composed of atoms of inanimate matter. Matter that was created in stars some billions of years ago, and now long dead, and aggregated by some process into transient, self-reflecting creatures some millions of years ago.

Stop it, you are killing me!

You are going to be in for a shock when computers start acting "intelligent".

And did someone create the computers or did they evolve from inanimate material.

Maybe that is what the 'intelligent' computers will convince themselves happened, they just evolved into computers.

[fortheDeclaration]

I love it when evolutionists always appeal to a scientific fact that is demonstrable, but state that no such demands be made for evolution itself. I've stated no such thing. It's probably not a good sign when your opening bid is out and out BS. Let's hope things improve from here, eh?

And what is the example you gave below?

Let us consider an analogy for a moment. Science would tell us that babies come about when the father fertilizes an egg inside the mother, and the fertilized egg is implanted in the womb, whereupon the fertilized egg develops into an embryo, and eventually into a baby. A simplified version, to be sure, but not the only theory on where babies come from. An alternate theory might be that babies come from storks. Hey, why not? My daughter's current theory about my wife's impending birth is that Santa Claus will be bringing a baby brother or sister for her - it is due around Christmas, after all. Medieval investigators believed that a sperm was a tiny homonculus, a complete human, for which the mother's only contribution was as a vessel for development.

Reproduction facts are not demonstrable, or provable?

Biogenesis, life must come from life. There is no such "law" in biology, except in the fevered imaginings of creationists. Strike one. Really?

So you have some evidence of life coming from non-life?

The two laws of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created. That's one law of thermodynamics, and it only applies to closed systems. The earth is not a closed system - perhaps you've noticed that big, hot ball of flaming gas in the sky? Strike two.

Well, the Universe is a closed system and it is winding down.

Nice try.

The natural trend is to decay and disorder, not order and growth. And these are just figments of our imagination, I suppose:

And dying must be a figment of your imagination, or do you think you are not going to 'age'and 'decay'.

Everything in the Universe that is material will decay and eventually end.

Now tell me you deny that fact.

You know something that exists that will not eventually decay.

I think that's a whiff. Strike three, you're out.

Only in the imagination of evolution.

It must be nice not to have to deal with reality

“Evolutionism is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.” Louis Bounoure. The Advocate, 8 March 1984, p. 17. Ahem. Anything else?

The beginning of the quotation, "Evolution is a fairy tale for adults" is not from Bounoure but from Jean Rostand, a much more famous French biologist (he was a member of the Academy of Sciences of the French Academy). The precise quotation is as follows: "Transformism is a fairy tale for adults." (Age Nouveau, [a French periodical] February 1959, p. 12). But Rostand has also written that "Transformism may be considered as accepted, and no scientist, no philosopher, no longer discusses [questions - ED.] the fact of evolution." (L'Evolution des Especes [i.e., The Evolution of the Species], Hachette, p. 190). Jean Rostand was ... an atheist.

So, evolution is both a fairy tale but is accepted.

So you guys have accepted the fairy tale?

It would seem so from what I read above.

[fortheDeclaration]

okay - must be possible AND falsifiable, although I have no idea how you determine if something is possible.

That is where faith comes in.

Hence, both views, Creation and Evolution are faith based.

[fortheDeclaration]

Evolution thinks it is advanced'.

Saying to a stock, Thou art my father, and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth: (Jer.2:27)

Same old pagan nonsense.

Nothing new under the Sun.

[fortheDeclaration]

...energy cannot be created. Well; it CAN, but MASS is destroyed in the process.

You are using pre-existing energy.

You are just rearranging what is already here, not creating something from nothing.

[fortheDeclaration]

Moreover, they recognize the difficulty of trying to sell the absurd idea on what evolution REALLY believes, that man ultimately came from rocks. Very, VERY small rocks!! (The DUST of the Earth, to be exact!)

Exactly, and then man had to have life breathed into him.