[GodGunsGuts]

This paper is absolutely fascinating!

[DManA]

There is something that is motivating the mechanisms of life as we understand them. What says take this blueprint and make a protein now? What tells the what when to do this? Maybe there is a naturalistic explanation for this, maybe not. Maybe it’s like an onion - there’s something behind the something behind, the something behind........

[js1138]

I suppose it depends on how determined you are to remain ignorant.

Not knowing how something works inspires some people to find out. So most of us no longer believe the earth is flat or that the sun revolves around it. Most of us no longer believe arrows in flight need to be pushed along by angels.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

What a load of poop.

No evolutionary biologist has suggested that vacuum cleaners are animals.

[Alter Kaker]

This fellow's argument is certainly obscure, but obscurity does not equal profundity.

There is an unbridgeable abyss below the autopoietic hierarchy, between the dirty, mass-action chemistry of the natural environment and the perfect purity, the single-molecule precision, the structural specificity, and the inversely causal integration, regulation, repair, maintenance and differential reproduction of life.

This argument makes no sense. Cells just seem too clean and orderly to be of naturalistic origin? Guess this can't be natural either:

Basically every creationist argument, no matter how gussied up, seems to come from simple-minded incredulity. "That can't possibly be the case," because, well, "it just can't!"

[Gondring]

If silver were to remelt and resolidify every time it didn’t come out round, and this occurred many trillions of times, do you think you wouldn’t get a round deposit of silver?

Likewise on it being iterative...a round disk might not look like much of a coin, but it could be an intermediate step, even if it doesn’t meet the modern neumistmatist’s needs. So even if an eyespot doesn’t provide true vision, it can be an intermediate step toward an eye.

[PC99]

Is it a valid question to then ask where the hypothetical uber-complex intellegent designer came from, or am I supposed to show reverence and stop there? If the hypothetical complex designer is somehow declared eternal and didn’t require a creator itself, what is the basis for that conclusion, other than pure faith?

[P8riot]

Psalm 139:14 - I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

[Aliska]

Thanks for the interesting article. For all the mysteries that have been unravelled, each answer raises more questions, the pursuit of which must end somewhere, but the onion layers analogy works for me.

In time, more and more mysteries will be solved, especially with the help of more and more sophisticated computers and technology.

Will we ever get to the absolute bottom of it? I'm guessing not, either in this life or the next if there is really one. And even that, if it turns out to be true could potentially have infinite possibilities, which is why I try to keep an open mind to all the possibilities put forth at this point in time and haven't decided it all to satisfy myself one side or another

It just could turn out both sides are right to certain limits, and even other possibilities added to the mix the human mind has yet to conceive and perhaps never will.

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

However, Polanyi argued that the form and function of the various parts of living organisms cannot be reduced to (or explained in terms of) the laws of physics and chemistry, and so life exhibits irreducible structure. He did not speculate on the origin of life, arguing only that scientists should be willing to recognize the impossible when they see it:

‘The recognition of certain basic impossibilities has laid the foundations of some major principles of physics and chemistry; similarly, recognition of the impossibility of understanding living things in terms of physics and chemistry, far from setting limits to our understanding of life, will guide it in the right direction.’7

THE CELL

[metmom]

Col. 1:17 17 And he [Jesus] is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Imagine that. The human body being held together by perfectly proportioned cross shaped structures.

They can run, but they can't hide.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

From Saint Augustine's "The Literal Meaning of Genesis," Chapter 19,

Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although "they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions".

"Securus judicat orbis terrarium."