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.

[Fester Chugabrew]

. . .the fact that I can't build a virus no more means that a virus needs a god to make it . . .

Who said anything about a "god?" Let's just keep the subject confined to organized matter. You said some cells are "simple." If they're so simple, then it ought to be a simple matter to replicate it, or a snowflake for that matter, without the use of either intelligence or design.

[Casloy]

I have more of a problem with the eyeball. If change in life came about because of genetic mutations how in the world do you come up with an eyeball? How do you go from a sightless creature to one that has some sort of ability to see light. That requires incredibly complex structures both on the outside of the body and within the brain and it defies credibility to believe that happened by chance.

[wallcrawlr]

nice post

[orionblamblam]

> Simple compared to a eurkayrotic cell perhaps

Exactly so.

> virii are irrelevant to evolution, since they cannot reproduce independently; they're parasitic.

They are *now*.

> Spontaneous generation is the perpetual motion machine of biology, only they're still trying to tell you you can build one.

And what will you say when a primitive life form is made by man in a lab?

[ElectricStrawberry]

By what physical characteristic is the shape of the DNA molecule in the heart of a virus dictated?

Molecular bonds. Di-sulphide bonds, hydrogen-bonds, covalent bonds.... These things define the primary, secondary, and terciary structures and shapes of proteins.

[JamesP81]

In short, Darwin's in hell, and those who accept the theory of evolution as the best current explanation for biological development and diversification are also doomed to eternal suffering and damnation -- right?

Doubtful. God states that he rewards men based on their acceptance or non-acceptance of Christ's sacrifice for redemption of sin. As we don't really know where Darwin stood on that issue, then no one really knows. I would suggest that what poster meant, however, is if Darwin is in heaven (and he probably is. From what I've been told he claimed to be a Christian, but as I said, no one can be certain) and if God did create all things according to Genesis, then he knows that he didn't get it right and would probably wish to set things straight.

[orionblamblam]

> By what physical characteristic is the shape of the DNA molecule in the heart of a virus dictated?

Chemistry. The double helix is formed not because it looks cool or is somehow needed for life, but because that's how the amino acids stack up.

[ks_shooter]

Young Earth Creastionism is a straw-man. Many (if not most) believers in Intelligent Design, do not think the universe is 6,000 years old. They accept the apparent age of the universe as fact. What they do not accept is a "self created" universe with the spontaneous generation of energy, matter, life and human self-awareness.

I think this whole issue has been greatly fueled by irresponsible statements by prominent "scientists". When Carl Sagan famously said in the introduction to his "Cosmos" TV show that, "the universe is all there ever was, and all there ever will be" he gave voice to a mindset that is prevalent in academic Science circles. This statement is not "Science". It is philosophy or, at best, meta-pysics.

If these Scientists would stick to the facts, and not try to foist their atheistic philosophical ideas on laypeople under the guise of Science, there would be less arguing and more discovering.

I also have a problem with those that try to define Intelligent Design in a way so that it falls outside of the realm of Science. While certain claims may not be directly testable, they can be deduced from evidence.

Science should be a search for facts and the true nature of reality. If the universe was created, this would be the single most important scientific fact about our reality.

Simple logic demands that every effect must have a cause. The universe is certainly an "effect". Science has conclusively proven that the universe has not, and cannot, exist for ever. The answer to the children's question "if God made the universe, who made God?", is that God is not an effect and does not logically require a cause. That God is eternal is logically invalid or scientifically inconsistent.

God is the logical ingredient required to prevent the logical absurdity of an infinite regression of causes as the explanation for the existence of our universe.

[frgoff]

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.

I can build a snowflake. It's actually quite simple since it is governed by the laws of chemistry (shape of water molecules and hydrogen bonds). The same laws that let me make a snowflake prevent the formation of the chemicals required by a virus. Or, as Scotty would say: "I canna change the laws of Physics!"

[HEY4QDEMS]

From the judges ruling. ..........

Judges also ruled that parents have no right to circumvent public schools

That a fetus is not a life.

That the bible is hate speech

I can't believe that you are siting a Judge's ruling as evidence that ID is not a theory.

[ks_shooter]

should be:

That God is eternal is NOT logically invalid or scientifically inconsistent.

I guess my writing ability hasn't "evolved" enough yet.

[NC28203]

>>>My point is that testable hypotheses is not a requirement for scientific discussion.ID is a thoery, spagettification is a thoery, etc...

Better formatting, sorry.

ID is not a scientific theory.
From the judges ruling.
Since the scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries, science has been limited to the search for natural causes to explain natural phenomena. This revolution entailed the rejection of the appeal to authority, and by extension, revelation, in favor of empirical evidence. Since that time period, science has been a discipline in which testability, rather than any ecclesiastical authority or philosophical coherence, has been the measure of a scientific idea’s worth.

In deliberately omitting theological or “ultimate” explanations for the existence or characteristics of the
natural world, science does not consider issues of “meaning” and “purpose” in the world. While supernatural explanations may be important and have merit, they are not part of science. This self-imposed convention of science, which limits inquiry to testable, natural explanations about the natural world, is referred to by philosophers as “methodological naturalism” and is sometimes known as the scientific method. Methodological naturalism is a “ground rule” of science today which requires scientists to seek explanations in the world around us based upon what we can observe, test, replicate, and verify.

Science is a particular way of knowing about the world. In science, explanations are restricted to those that can be inferred from the confirmable data – the results obtained through observations and experiments that can be substantiated by other scientists. Anything that can be observed or measured is amenable to scientific investigation. Explanations that cannot be based upon empirical evidence are not part of science.

This rigorous attachment to “natural” explanations is an essential attribute to science by definition and by convention. From a practical perspective, attributing unsolved problems about nature to causes and forces that
lie outside the natural world is a “science stopper." Once you attribute a cause to an untestable supernatural force, a proposition that cannot be disproven, there is no reason to continue seeking natural explanations as we have our answer.

ID is predicated on supernatural causation. ID takes a natural phenomenon and, instead of accepting or seeking a natural explanation, argues that the explanation is supernatural. Further support for the conclusion that ID is predicated on supernatural causation is found in the ID reference book to which ninth grade biology students are
directed, Pandas. Pandas states, in pertinent part, as follows: Darwinists object to the view of intelligent design because it does not give a natural cause explanation of how the various forms of life started in the first place.

Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly, through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact – fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, and wings, etc. P-11 at 99-100. Stated another way, ID posits that animals did not evolve naturally through evolutionary means but were created abruptly by a non-natural, or supernatural, designer.

ID aspires to “change the ground rules” of science and lead
defense expert Professor Behe admitted that his broadened definition of science, which encompasses ID, would also embrace astrology. Moreover, defense expert Professor Minnich acknowledged that for ID to be considered science, the ground rules of science have to be broadened to allow consideration of supernatural forces.

[Jim_Curtis]

Competing theories are welcome in the science classroom, but Intelligent Design is not science. It generates no testable hypotheses and otherwise does not conform with the scientific method.

Then there should be no mention of the "big boom" in classrooms?

[orionblamblam]

> You said some cells are "simple." If they're so simple, then it ought to be a simple matter to replicate it

Hogwash. A star is a simple thing compared to, say, a PC. Do you see my inability to create a star to be some sort fo evidence that the supernatural is required?

[mvpel]

Chemistry. The double helix is formed not because it looks cool or is somehow needed for life, but because that's how the amino acids stack up.

And yet while the sequence of GTAC base pairs in a virus is essentially indistinguishable from a random sequence, only the sequence of genes, with few variations, found in the virus will result in an operational virus.

The double helix itself is not the point, the message encoded on that double helix is.

An infinite number of monkeys banging on an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite time producing the complete works of Shakespeare, perhaps?

[mvpel]

Then there should be no mention of the "big boom" in classrooms?

The cosmic background radiation is a testable, and tested, hypothesis of the Big Bang theory. Do a web search for COBE, the satellite that mapped it.

[highball]

It seems far simpler to believe in the Creator

Occam's Razor only applies when all things are equal.

It does not mean "ignore the complicated theory with all the evidence supporting it just because you want a simpler notion to be true".

[orionblamblam]

> If change in life came about because of genetic mutations how in the world do you come up with an eyeball?

http://web.archive.org/web/20040406061907/www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/eye_stages.html

---

---

The Intermediate Stages Of The Fish Eye

---

The page gives a sequence which starts with an eye spot, and ends with a fish eye. There are 8 other kinds of eyes (such as a fly's compound eyes) but this is the sequence leading towards human eyes.

The sequence meets the criteria we have already stated, namely:

• Some of these diagrams show eyes which exist in living creatures.
• Each step can be taken gradually, as the sum of hundreds or thousands of little changes.
• Each little change individually improves the quality of the eye.
• Very few of the changes are mutations. Most are just variations which then became the norm.

---

The diagram below shows a simple eye spot. Let us assume it is in the skin of a multicellular creature. It has a dark backing, because that makes vision a bit more directional.

Next, an inward dimple happens under the eye spot. The eye spot begins to be on the surface of a shallow pit or depression. This increases the visual acuity, and also protects the eye spot from damage.

The dimpling continues until the depth of the pit is about equal to its width. This is now much like the eye of a planarian (flatworm).

Next, the rim of the pit begins to constrict. In camera terms, the eye begins to have an "aperture".

At some point - perhaps now, or perhaps later - the pit fills with a clear jelly. This may be a small mutation, or it could just be that the creature is covered by a slime layer anyway. In either case, the jelly or slime helps to hold the shape of the pit, and helps to protect the light sensitive cells from chemical damage. And, the jelly keeps mud out.

The aperture continues to decrease. Visual acuity increases until the aperture gets so small that it begins to shut out too much light. There will come a point when the aperture is the perfect size. A bigger aperture gives worse eyesight, and a smaller one gives worse eyesight. (The exact size that is "perfect" depends on how bright the lighting is.)

This is now much like the eye of a nautilus.

The eye above is a perfect "pinhole camera". It can only be improved by adding a lens.

To get a lens, one mutation is needed. The pit must be roofed over with a transparent layer. This mutation is not that strange. First, it could have happened at any time before this stage. (The original eye spot might have been covered.) Second, the transparent layer is useful, to keep a lensless eye from damage. And third, transparent materials are not hard to come by. (The human cornea is made from a protein which is also used elsewhere in the human body.)

So, the next step is the transparent layer becoming a little thicker in the center. Suddenly it isn't just a layer. It is a lens.

Now that the eye has a lens, the aperture is in the wrong place. The eye will be more acute if the lens moves inward, towards the center of curvature of the light-sensitive surface.

The lens continues to move inward. As it moves, the laws of optics say that a thicker and thicker lens is valuable.

Also, the refractive index of the center of the lens changes. This is possible because the lens is made from a mixture of proteins. The ratio of the proteins can be different in different places, so the lens material is not optically uniform. It is common for a biological lens to have a higher refractive index at the center than at the edges. This "graded index" is a very valuable property.

And we're done. This is a fish eye, complete with a spherical graded-index lens, placed at the exact center of the light-sensitive layer. The optical quality is excellent, being "aberration-free" over a 180 degree field of view.

---

Reference

These diagrams, and the analysis about them, are taken from

A Pessimistic Estimate Of The Time Required For An Eye To Evolve, D.-E. Nilsson and S. Pelger, Proceedings of the Royal Society London B, 1994, 256, pp. 53-58.

[FairWitness]

I can't stand it when people call Intelligent Design (which I have no problem with y'all believing) a "theory", when it is only an unproven and unprovable HYPOTHESIS, not a theory.

ID can obviously be "falsified" on a case by case basis. Once you prove (not just provide a "just so" explanation) that a particular system is not too complex to be explained by chemical/biochemical processes (by the way, I am a retired biochemist who, while still working, led a group that included gene-splicers/cloners in order to produce human enzymes for pharmaceutical development) it is no longer irreducibly complex. As a biochemist, I believe this is possible. I actually think it would be stimulating for young potential scientist to be stimulated by in-depth discussion of the complexity of the systems which have not yet been "proven". I simply don't believe that a young person who has the ability and inclination to be a scientist will be "ruined" by a discussion of ID.