Posted on 11/07/2004 12:50:19 PM PST by bondserv
Origin-of-Life Expert Jokes about Becoming a Creationist 11/05/2004
Exclusive At the Jet Propulsion Laboratory Nov. 5, a world-renowned origin-of-life researcher spoke to a packed auditorium on the status of his field, chemical evolution and the origin of life. (His name will be withheld for this report, but suffice it to say he trains graduate students in the subject, knows all the big names in the field personally, and has published and worked on this subject for over 20 years). His outline dealt with 4 approaches to probing the black box of lifes origin: (1) working forward in time from stars and planets, (2) working backward in time from existing life to its ancestors, (3) experimenting with synthetic life, and (4) searching suitable habitats in space.
More interesting, though, were his candid admissions about the problems facing anyone in this field, and his joking references a couple of times that if these problems remain unsolveable, he might have to be come a creationist. He didnt mean it, of course. These were chuckle-garnering hyperboles to express the frustration he has felt for decades over problems that are still far from a solution. For instance:
Besides the problems, another thing stood out from his presentation: the exquisite perfection of DNA, RNA and ribose for the jobs they have to do. Maybe this would be a good time to follow the path of former chemical evolution researcher, Dean Kenyon: become a creationist.
Several important and valuable lessons came out of this interchange. One was the observation that in a packed room of intelligent people, I was the only one to ask really challenging questions. The others, many of them college graduates with advanced degrees, seemed to just accept what was being said, and appeared hopeful that science was making real progress in finding out how life evolved. Few, if any, seemed to notice that most of what he discussed was either irrelevant to the question, or too speculative to be considered scientific.Consider his four approaches: (1) Working forward in time from the earliest stars and planets to the origin of life. This assumes evolution without offering a shred of evidence. Irrelevant. (2) Working backward in time from existing life to ancestral life. This assumes evolution with only circumstantial evidence from comparative genomics, but has the additional problem that no evidence for life earlier than 2.5 billion years has been found (assuming evolutionary dating). Speculation without evidence. (3) Synthetic biology: tweaking proteins and DNA to explore the limits of life. This is intelligent design. Irrelevant. (4) Exploring new habitats in space on other planets. This is banking on hope, and even if life were found, it would not prove it evolved. Irrelevant.He provided no evidence to demonstrate chemical evolution is a viable scientific theory. He shared some interesting organic chemistry, which is fine, but none of it was applicable to explaining the origin of life by natural means. He himself once wrote, It is difficult to believe that larger pools of random RNA emerged spontaneously without the gentle coaxing of a graduate student desiring a completed dissertation. Thats intelligent design, not evolution.
Few in the audience, also, seemed to care that the problems he described were so serious as to falsify chemical evolution. Each problem was a show stopper, yet his show went on. Then there were the problems he didnt even talk about. Everything in evolution he accepted as true has problems of its own: common ancestry of all life, the RNA World hypothesis (see 07/11/2002 headline), Darwinian natural selection, the long ages of the geologists and the phylogenetic tree-building methods of the biologists. Each of these things he merely assumed were true, but each has monstrous problems of its own. Yet in spite of his faith in the cause to which he has devoted his professional life, he intimated a shrinking feeling that maybe the creationists might be right.
This episode underscores the fact that, on this subject, creationists have the Darwinists in a hammerlock with their faces to the floor wincing in pain. Darwinism has fouled out on the origin of life, and one cannot continue competing if he has fouled out in the first round. If a designing intelligence is needed to get life going, then all the questions and answers change. The fluff about finch beaks and peppered moths and Lucy is irrelevant, because a totally new approach to looking at the world is needed: an approach that recognizes that information from an intelligent cause is a fundamental property of life. If that happens to have profound religious or metaphysical implications, so be it. Meanwhile, keep the hammerlock on until they repent of their storytelling and cry UNCLE: Uniformitarian Naturalism Cannot Life Explain.
This is nonsense. You replace a H on DNA with an OH, you don't change the charge. Either the seminar-giver, or the reporter, doesn't know what he's talking about. I strongly suspect it's the latter.
I did a search at the JPL website for a seminar held on Novmber 5 2004 that fits this description. I couldn't find one. Perhaps someone else might have better luck?
Polar Protic Solvents
Let's start with the meaning of the adjective protic. In the context used here, protic refers to a hydrogen atom attached to an electronegative atom. For our purposes that electronegative atom is almost exclusively oxygen. In other words, polar protic solvents are compounds that can be represented by the general formula ROH. The polarity of the polar protic solvents stems from the bond dipole of the O-H bond. The large difference in electronegativities of the oxygen and the hydrogen atom, combined with the small size of the hydrogen atom, warrant separating molecules that contain an OH group from those polar compounds that do not. Examples of polar protic solvents are water (HOH), methanol (CH3OH), and acetic acid (CH3CO2H).
"If evolution took place, should we not expect in the fossil record to see hundreds of thousands of well defined transiant forms?
This post (#65), by a freeper named VadeRetro, gives you what you're looking for:"
Thanks. But I was not seeking the answer. I was presenting a very abreviated statment for others to consider.
As I write this I peer up and one of my libary shelves that contain many books on creation verse evolution etc., biology, chemistry, books etc..
I have written hundreds of thousands of lines of well thought out arguments to many folks over the years, based on the extremely complexities of living organisms, the many well exhusted early earth models, which each expert tears apart the others theory, with scientific facts, on and on.
It is clear in my mind as to the possiblities of living things ever had somehow come from raw materials. And what I don't want to get into, but let readers that are interested seek the knowledge, things like large areas of mountain tops that could never had just somehow been inverted etc., by various geoforces, to contain Cambrian fossile beds that sit on top of "much latter" beds that contain fossils of Cenozoic Era, etc.. In other words, how can miles and miles of mountain tops have much earlier simple forms sitting on top of much more modern forms.
The lists go on and on. Two much would be required to
even start addressing the huge holes in all levels of evolutionary thought. Not to mention the cosmological models etc.. Where where the thirty or more feet of moon dust (particles over billions of years landing on the moon surface), that all the scientist where so worried about when our first moon vehicle landed on the moon. Neal sure did not sink into what was advertised by all to be a problem. The lists of things one can question just go on and on. Super suspect radiological dating systems. Measure one sample from a site to be lets say 500,000 years old, move five feet to same site, sample another identical piece of some mineral and find it to be perhaps a thousand years old. BUT still make it clear to the folks that watch Nova, whatever, that some "early representative" of man, lived at that spots some 500,000 years ago.
The information is out there, for those that seek it. One only listen to like level geologist, bio-chemist etc., and see how much that is touted as fact is not fact at all.
But do be carefull. There are bad guys on both sides of the isle. And yes some things that sound real good for the creationist can be proven to be a bunch of baloney. It is a two edged sword. That is why I threw out the original things about all the missing fossils intermediatory forms.
It is too hard for any evolultionist to make their case, based on the non-existence of those transitory forms.
But thanks for your feedback.
Me either. Must be my close-mindedness. Better than being so "open-minded" as to accept something merely because it reinforces one's previous beliefs, I suppose....
I'm wondering if it was of those 'gedanken seminars'.
placemarker
Maybe this article is kind of like those old Emergency Broadcast System tests - "If this had been an actual seminar...."
This seminar occurred. The institution, date, and subject matter of the seminar have been changed to further protect the identity of the speaker.
This is overly vague. To the extent that it is a spectacular claim, it is false. To the extent that it describes prosaic inversions and/or the known persistence of ancient and simple life forms into modern times, it is unspectacular.
"This is overly vague. To the extent that it is a spectacular claim, it is false. To the extent that it describes prosaic inversions and/or the known persistence of ancient and simple life forms into modern times, it is unspectacular."
Believe whatever you choose to believe. I never should have started in on this.
Thanks for the ping!
read later
Je suis la, voila!
He has created an awesome universe in which we can satiate our curiosity.
I agree. It is good to know there are good scientists still searching.
Great place to work. :-)
I have to remind myself: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors workplace.
How have you been neighbor? :^)
Thanks for your input. This scientist sounds like he is fairly reasonable. I am impressed with his attitude toward the questions. Often times these experts try to slip the questions by conveying the idea that without "proper schooling" you wouldn't understand.
I will only believe a person that understands their subject enough to be able to convey it to the non-expert. One who can overcome the "without ten years of specialized schooling you are incapable of staying with me". It reminds me of Muslims always saying, "If Arabic is not your first language, you cannot understand the Koran".
Excellent analogy!
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