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 ...
Carbon dating?
How, then, did life arise? We can gain a clue from modern computers. Quantum systems may be fast, but they are very fragile. Computers routinely transfer important data for safekeeping from speedy yet vulnerable microchips to slow and bulky hard disks or CDs.Perhaps quantum life began using large organic molecules for more stable data storage. At some stage these complex molecules took on a life of their own, trading speed for robustness and versatility. The way then lay open for hardy chemical life to go forth and inherit the Earth.
Paul Davies is a physicist at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology and the author of The Origin of Life (Simon & Schuster).
It's one thing to excerpt an article to shorten it, and quite another to cherry-pick portions to mislead others.
Well, the anti-IDers say the bacterial flagellum evolved. What is the test for this?
Science will always assume that an answer can be found
If you can measure something or observe it under consistent conditions then we can say the event is natural. But if an event can't be measured, why is it good science to say one day we will be able to measure it?
Suppose the answer really is that God did it?
Based on a judge's decision upon reading an ill-written text book?
I think not.
That's all? And here I thought it was complicated.
More fables from the intelligentsia. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
I posted as much as I could, per FR's guidelines.
Next time I post an article, maybe I'll snip the conclusion and paste it in there. Good suggestion.
Hey it's a start, and is what might be called "proof of concept."
I just had a discussion with someone on another thread a day or two ago, about this supposed recant that Darwin made...
Its a fairy tale...the story comes from a Lady Hope, who claims she visited Charles Darwin on his deathbed, and it was then that he recanted...however Darwins daughter was present with Darwin the whole time, and she has always said, that there was never this Lady Hope at Charles Darwins deathbed, and that in fact, she was not sure that Lady Hope had ever visited Darwin at all...
A 20yr biographer of Darwin, a Dr. James Moore(lecturer in history of science and technology), states that, altho it is for quite sure that Lady Hope never visited Darwin on his death bed, its possible that she visited Darwin 6 months earlier, when the daughter was not in the household...however, Emma, Darwins wife was present..and since Emma often worried that Darwins theory was perceived as being anti-religious, it would have been to her advantage to reinforce the idea that Darwin recanted...which Emma never did, because she knew it was not true...
The best that can be said of Lady Hope and her story of Darwins recant of evolution, and his conversions, is that Lady Hope 'may', have visited Charles Darwin 6 months before he was on his deathbed...
Lady Hope was a well known tent evangelist of her time, and was also known for telling some very flowery stories of her work in the evangelizing field...
Since none of us were there, I do rely on this Darwin biographer of 20yrs, who has tried to track this story down and find the truth of it...
The specific history of any feature may never be known. What ID claims is that the flagellum could not have evolved. More specifically, ID claims that component parts of the flagellum genome cannot have any function. This has already been disproved, and should offer some clue as to how this will turn out.
An actual scientist, faced with the problem of the flagellum, would attempt to break the problem down into component problems. Perhaps gene knockouts could demonstrate that simpler versions of the flagellum can work, or that component parts can have useful functions.
This is how science works. Science does not see a problem and throw up its hands.
Though I do not subscribe to Evolutionists point of view, I do believe that species evolve to adapt, but not a species from a species. As in humans, eskimoes to Africans....All had to evolve (adapt) to the environment they are in.
No, according to the leading proponents of ID who acted as defense witnesses in the case, ID is the same as creationism. (Behe, Minnich and Fuller)
Re-reading the judges decision would have enlightened you to this fact.
Just imagine the feather in her cap after causing Darwin to recant his famous theory.
A stronger evangelist would be hard to find, anywhere.
Imagine how large her revivals would be after the word spread.
Imagine how large her collections would be with such large revivals.
Now imagine what Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Jim & Tammy Fay Bakker, Gene Scott, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, etc. would have done in her place.
"Some virii are quite simple."
Compared to what?
I just like to keep this story of Darwins recant and conversion as straight and factual, as I can...it does not have any effect on the theory of evolution....but I have found, during the last few weeks, that it is a very common tactic of some, to 'whack' the theory of evolution, by claiming and claiming 'falsely', I might add, that since Darwin recanted his theory, it just has to be wrong...they cannot argue the merits or demerits of evolution, so instead they spread around this 'fairy tale', and hope that some may be taken in by that...
I respect your beliefs whatever they may be, and you should not really be embarrassed at all..I appreciate that you accept what I have outlined for you, others have not done that...they persist in spreading the lie that Darwin recanted, even in face of the factual evidence...I respect you, that you say you stand corrected...I have to admit that many a time, there no embarrassment in that...the embarassment belongs to those that continue to spread the lie...
Appreciate your comments...
I have to admit that the information I may recieved earlier was given to me by those on the far side of the debate and trying to debunk evolution. I bought into some of it and researched on the other side... Not seeing the probability of it. I do believe in creation. Matter just doesn't come from nowhere and that a designer has to have something to do with it. But in order to progress, that designer also had species develope and change with the constantly changing environment.
Now, tell me that Darwin wasn't a pastor's son... I was told that he was :)
Those are my thoughts exactly about Lady Hope...what better witness could there be for any evangelizer, than to claim that 'she', got that bad old Charles Darwin to recant, and 'she' got him back to religion...
Her crowds would increase, and the collection plate would be full...she may have believed in her cause, and willing to embellish the truth for it...we will never know the exact circumstances of why she said what she said, but the fact that she apparently did make these claims, knowing them to be false, makes me think very little of her..
As far Darwin being a Pastors son, I have seen debate about that on these threads...tho I cannot remember exactly what was said...I am sure that someone better knowledge about this particular subject will be able to let you know...
I myself believe that God is the Creator, ,and that evolution is the means that He used...I have been told, I cannot believe in the Bible, and believe in evolution, that its impossible...well, that is someone elses opinion, not mine..
Too often those who do not believe in the theory of evolution, try to claim that everyone who believes in evolution is an atheist...they are clearly mistaken..there are millions of people who believe in evolution, believe in the Bible, and believe in God...and see no conflict...
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