A Revolution in Evolution Is Underway

Thomas More Lawcenter ^ | Tue, Jan 18, 2005

[DannyTN]

Prove I'm wrong.

[Doctor Stochastic]

There is a very sharp dividing line, or difference, between the presence or absense of life. There is no in-between state. A thing is either alive, or it is not.

You continue to assert this but give no was of telling if it is true or false. How does one determine if something is living or dead? Asking Justice Potter Stewart doesn't seem to be a good method (even ie he did know it when he saw it.)

Can a living entity have dead parts? Can a dead entitiy have living parts?

[metacognative]

You mean you really can't comprehend that water changing states is not even in the same category as "using" energy to assemble proteins, digest substance intakes, reproduce abd a overall EFFORT to not change states?

[Dataman]

Er, if I might ask, how can you not see that there is a sharp dividing line between life and non-life? If that makes it tough to defend abiogenesis, well that’s too bad.

Exactly so, which explains the continuing absurd struggle to separate abiogenesis from evolution.

[atlaw]

You mean you really can't comprehend that water changing states is not even in the same category as "using" energy to assemble proteins, digest substance intakes, reproduce abd a overall EFFORT to not change states?

So your point is, current biological organisms exist in pure defiance of the second law. Correct?

[Doctor Stochastic]

No different than separation of chemistry from physics.

[metacognative]

Pure defiance? Maybe impure. Life certainly obeys the law, but is the only phenomena to circumvent entropy.

[atlaw]

Life certainly obeys the law, but is the only phenomena to circumvent entropy.

A bold statement. I think you might find that there is some disagreement, though.

[js1138]

Evaporation moves energy uphill. What's your point?

[js1138]

Are you saying life violates the 2nd law? If not, what is your point?

[metacognative]

I told you...it seems you are unable to grasp physochemical causation [ie thermodynamic stasis]
from "Elan Vital".

[Doctor Stochastic]

...[life]... is the only phenomena to circumvent entropy.

Of course it doesn't. No living creature draws its energy purely by cooling its surroundings (contrary to General Sternwood's suggestion re spiders.) Neither do living things utilize all the energy in their food.

[js1138]

So are you saying vitalism is real? I can't tell what you are saying.

[Purple GOPer]

As described in most of the 400 messages here on this thread evolution describes the theory that life on Earth has evolved, how the theory correlates with known information and what other theories can be postulated and tested.

What scientific evidence does Intelligent Design base itself on? Other than "we can't explain it" yet?

What other sciences can be expanded by the knowledge of Intelligent Design?

How can Intelligent Design be tested?

I believe that every high school class should start, "It is a lot more complicated than this, but here are the basics . . ." Yes, every one, including Home Eco and Phys Ed.

[metacognative]

I'm intersted in your reply. Can you explain it?

In the meantime to use this space:


Is the opposite true?


Let's see if I have this straight: A great many people insist that the world was not created through intelligent design. Then the opposite must be true -- they believe that this highly complex world was created through unintelligent design. The quality of their thinking seems to prove their point.


DAVID A. TOMKO
Butler

---

Evidence against


In a Jan. 6 letter, "Hidden Agendas," Ted Massalski asks what is the scientific evidence against Darwin's theory of evolution.

Darwin called his theory "descent with modification." He believed that all living things are descendants of common ancestors, modified primarily by natural selection acting on random variations. Evidence that is inconsistent with either universal common descent or this mechanism of modification is presumptive evidence against Darwin's theory.

Everyone knows that common descent is true within a single species, but are all living things related by it?

The evidence has convinced some experts that we do not share a common ancestor with bacteria. And although common descent implies that the major anatomical differences between worms, clams, crabs and fish should have evolved gradually in a branching-tree pattern, the fossil record is inconsistent with this pattern. Instead, those differences appeared at about the same time in what some scientists call "biology's big bang."

Similarly, everyone knows that variation and selection can produce minor changes within existing species. But no one has ever observed the origin of new species -- much less new anatomical features such as limbs and eyes -- by Darwin's mechanism of modification. The evidence points to limits for variation and selection, not to the vast creative power Darwin attributed to them.

A good science education should teach students not only Darwin's theory, but also the most important evidence against it, and why it provokes scientific controversy.


JONATHAN WELLS
Senior Fellow

[metacognative]

I suspect there may be something to vitalism. See:
David Berlinski, "What brings a world into being?"
You see, I'm not a "True Believer" darwinite.

[js1138]

A history of science class would be a good place to address how science is done.

[js1138]

I thought you were trying to peddle vitalism, but wasn't sure. Good luck.

[laredo44]

Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!

There's one thing to be thankful for: Christians aren't like you.

[BedRock]

... the mistaken impression that Evolution and Abiogenesis are the same thing.

Correct. This is all that Darwin ever had to say on the subject of life's origin:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Just what was Mr. Darwin trying to say in this part of the paragraph?

Perhaps that "life" itself was breathed into whatever form or forms was/were placed here on earth to begin with? And if so, is he not tying Abiogenesis and Evolution together with this statement along with the equation of the theory of Intelligent Design??