The question even Darwin avoided

The Sydney Morning Herald ^ | 12/22/05 | Paul Davies

[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.

[mvpel]

Actually, it does. Click on this link for details. When an atom splits, the mass of the two parts is less than the mass of the original atom, and the energy released arises from the conversion of that extra mass into energy in accordance with E=mc².

The radiation emitted from the element radium, arises from the slow conversion of a tiny fraction of its mass in accordance with that equation.

The energy of stars operates on the same equation - two hydrogen atoms smashed together to form helium, and on up the chain of elements, lose some mass in conversion to energy which eventually winds up illuminating our daytime.

And so on...

[steve-b]

DNA is a database, and a complex encrypted algorithm converts its instructions into molecular products.

I see somebody got a computer dictionary for Christmas, and thinks that buzzwords are a sufficient substitute for understanding.

[joe fonebone]

And when it went "BANG" how did the matter (rocks) become living organismn's

[adiaireton8]

Sorry to lay a bum trip on those that believe evolution is not science, but evolution is a provable scientific theory (proven through scientific experiments and through the peer review process).

Are you suggesting that whatever makes it through the peer-review process has been proven to be true? How exactly would you prove that the world wasn't created yesterday?

-A8

[JamesP81]

I see somebody got a computer dictionary for Christmas, and thinks that buzzwords are a sufficient substitute for understanding.

Well, admittedly, the buzzwords being used do show he's not a computer scientist, but as I said in a previous post, characterizing living things as a computer system and thinking of it in those terms is a pretty good way of describing an organism.

[Amelia]

Yet, it is taught in school that life does not arise from non-living matter, or at least it was up until about 6 or 7 years ago.

That's in the "cell theory" I think.

[TChris]

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

Simple, huh? Have you built one yet?

[highball]

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

Nonsense. ID is not a scientific theory. Even the defense's own witnesses in the case admitted that - in order for ID to be a scientific theory, the meaning of the word had to be opened to include such other "sciences" as astrology.

Once a competing theory has been proposed, then it should and will be discussed.

[HEY4QDEMS]

That post is in direct contradiction to #29 that indicate that until presently E=mc² is only thoery.

My point is that testable hypotheses is not a requirement for scientific discussion.

ID is a thoery, spagettification is a thoery, etc...

[Physicist]

Ampere's Law is flatly contradicted by any circuit that includes a capacitor.

"Laws" are not super-theories. "Laws" are relationships that were arrived at empirically, as opposed to conceptually. A law is no more likely to be correct than a theory.

There are now "laws" in science dealing with things that are unknown, unsettled, or have ambiguous data.

Newton's Law of Gravitation comes to mind, as does his Second Law of Motion, as does Bode's Law of planetary orbits. These are only approximations.

[Coyoteman]

Intelligent design has nothing to do with evolution or creationism.

Not factually correct. Didn't you read the court transcript which showed the Panda book originally had "creation" in numerous places, but after the Supreme Court Edwards decision in 1987 a global search and replace was made to insert "intelligence"?

The Dover Judge's decision noted:

...Pandas went through many drafts, several of which were completed prior to and some after the Supreme Court's decision in Edwards, which held that the Constitution forbids teaching creationism as science. By comparing the pre and post Edwards drafts of Pandas, three astonishing points emerge: (1) the definition for creation science in early drafts is identical to the definition of ID; (2) cognates of the word creation (creationism and creationist), which appeared approximately 150 times were deliberately and systematically replaced with the phrase ID; and (3) the changes occurred shortly after the Supreme Court held that creation science is religions and cannot be taught in public school science classes in Edwards [page 32].

I think the plan was all laid out in the Wedge Strategy a decade ago to pretend the current version of ID is a science and see if that worked. Well, it didn't.

[pageonetoo]

What went "Bang"?

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth..."

"If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?"

Do bears live in the woods? Why do they exist? Do sparrows flutter in the bushes? Why are they so noisy, if they are trying to hide? Why do bats live in caves? Where do platypuses (platypusi?) come from?

It seems far simpler to believe in the Creator, than "accidents of nature". I have no need to know when, or how, things were made, but it is clear to me that they are elegant mechanisms.

Evolutionists have their "science" beliefs, that can explain everything, IF YOU ACCEPT THEIR BASIC PREMISES, and ignore a lot of missing links...

I prefer my "scientific" ignorance, thank you...

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Excellent!

[thoughtomator]

I believe the proper term for the "pool of slime" hypothesis as to how life originated is called "spontaneous generation".

[orionblamblam]

>>Some virii are quite simple.

I don't suppose you could build one for us so we can see how simple it really is?

Nope. I could build you a rocket, however. Nevertheless, the fact that I can't build a virus no more means that a virus needs a god to make it than my inability to create a snowflake means that only the direct interventionn of this same hypothetical god is required to shape the snowflake into its intricate pattern.

[Aquinasfan]

Since it is known that life arose from non-life

?

[BillT]

I guess that you never heard of Noah and the flood. This would lay down all of the strata layers and account for the fossils that span more than one layer.

Mt St Helens when it blew up in the 80's, layed down over 200 feet of "strata in a few hours.

The evolution theory of "science" dates fossils by the strata they are found in and they date the strata by the fossils they find there.

Both are dated by the theory of evolution!

Some science!

[ElectricStrawberry]

Are you suggesting that whatever makes it through the peer-review process has been proven to be true?

No....it would be SCIENTIFICALLY true, until someone proves them wrong or shows that there's no evidence to support the theory as presented.

How exactly would you prove that the world wasn't created yesterday?

We scientists don't logically need to prove negatives. You would have to show that the world WAS created yesterday and I, as a scientist, only need to show/prove that you have no evidence that the world was created yesterday.

Welcome to the science world.