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Harvard to Prove Life Began Without 'Major Grant'
ScrappleFace ^ | 8/15/2005 | Scott Ott

Posted on 08/15/2005 4:55:58 PM PDT by kpp_kpp

(2005-08-15) -- A new multi-million dollar Harvard University effort to study the origins of life in the universe seeks to prove that life did not begin with "a major grant" from an intelligent source, but rather sprang up spontaneously and entirely without purpose.

The university will fund the research with $1 million per year in a number of multi-million dollar facilities, employing some of the best minds in science to establish that the complexity of life started with no plan, no design, no forethought and no intelligent creative agent.

"Harvard University has proven over the years that the more complex something is, the less likely you are to find any intelligence behind it," said an unnamed university spokesman. "In fact, this 'origins of life' project started out as an accidental ink spill on paper, and it just developed from there."

The university said the study should take several million years to complete and is unlikely to produce any meaningful result.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Political Humor/Cartoons; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: grants; harvard; humor; origins; satire; scrappleface
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...not trying to rile anyone up, just a bit of humor.
1 posted on 08/15/2005 4:55:58 PM PDT by kpp_kpp
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To: kpp_kpp

Outstanding piece of satire! Salute!


2 posted on 08/15/2005 4:58:49 PM PDT by Enterprise ("Islam is not a religion, but rather a means of world conquest" - ALAN BURKHART.COM)
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To: Enterprise

Satire, maybe - but wouldn't surprise me a bit if it were true!


3 posted on 08/15/2005 5:00:50 PM PDT by mlc9852
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To: kpp_kpp

They can have the final report typed up by an infinite number of monkeys.


4 posted on 08/15/2005 5:09:09 PM PDT by atomicpossum (Replies should be as pedantic as possible. I love that so much.)
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To: kpp_kpp
This, from the Boston Globe:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. --Harvard University is joining the long-running debate over the theory of evolution by launching a research project to study how life began.

The team of researchers will receive $1 million in funding annually from Harvard over the next few years. The project begins with an admission that some mysteries about life's origins cannot be explained.

"My expectation is that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of logical events that could have taken place with no divine intervention," said David R. Liu, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Harvard.

If Professor Liu is in charge of the study, I suggest that Harvard save their millions and just tell Liu to write his final report.

5 posted on 08/15/2005 5:13:08 PM PDT by jackbill
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To: mlc9852
Satire, maybe - but wouldn't surprise me a bit if it were true!

Actually it is true, at least as far as the study goes. Check my #5.

The Globe article is at:

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/08/15/harvard_to_investigate_origins_of_life?mode=PF

6 posted on 08/15/2005 5:16:01 PM PDT by jackbill
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To: kpp_kpp
but rather sprang up spontaneously and entirely without purpose.

In a related story, theologians at Oral Robert's Univeristy have begun work to understand how God sprang up spontaneously and entirely without purpose.

7 posted on 08/15/2005 5:18:57 PM PDT by mc6809e
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To: mc6809e

after the origin of life is determined i'm looking forward to the explanation of the origin of time, space, and matter.

the origin of life (dna programmed proteins and chemicals) should be relatively simple.


8 posted on 08/15/2005 5:28:18 PM PDT by kpp_kpp
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To: kpp_kpp

Nothing is easier to demonstrate - just look at the US tax code as a good example of a thing which has acquired a life of its own (and is therefore a form of life - metalife, even) and whatever could be found behind it is not intelligence - just malice and stupidity. Q.E.D.


9 posted on 08/15/2005 5:30:58 PM PDT by GSlob
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To: All
"Harvard University has proven over the years that the more complex something is, the less likely you are to find any intelligence behind it,"

This must refer to their graduates.....nuanced complexity without intelligence....

10 posted on 08/15/2005 5:31:36 PM PDT by Alright_on_the_LeftCoast
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To: jackbill

Man cannot prove or disprove the existence of ---.
Being all-powerful, --- can be nonexistant or powerless.
--- can create a stone so large that --- cannot lift it and then lift it.


11 posted on 08/15/2005 5:36:09 PM PDT by TSchmereL (words)
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To: GSlob

Hey. Who is this Q.E.D. fella I read folks quoting so often?


12 posted on 08/15/2005 5:38:25 PM PDT by TSchmereL (words)
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To: TSchmereL

Q. E. D. = Quod Erat Demonstrandum = What was required to demonstrate. Standard phrase in scholastic Latin used in the ages past at the end of logical proofs and demonstrations.


13 posted on 08/15/2005 5:44:31 PM PDT by GSlob
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To: kpp_kpp

I'm not sure! Harvard must know that, from the very outset, minorities were unfairly treated!


14 posted on 08/15/2005 6:03:34 PM PDT by Tacis ("Democrats - The Party of Traitors, Treachery and Treason!")
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Comment #15 Removed by Moderator

To: head_spaz
I'm simply conservative, not particularly well educated. Say, 125 yrs ago the most thick-skulled pupil in any American Junior high school would know what Q.E.D. meant by heart, and would be able to explain it if woken up at 2.30am. And being a conservative, I'm all for the return to the good old golden days and standards. More, I'd expect the same, or similar, attitude from other conservatives.
16 posted on 08/15/2005 6:27:55 PM PDT by GSlob
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To: jackbill
The team of researchers will receive $1 million in funding annually from Harvard over the next few years. The project begins with an admission that some mysteries about life's origins cannot be explained.

Well they've already proved something.

To waste a million dollars a year to prove something they have already admitted they can't, proves there is no intelligent design or the life from which it emanates, present in the faculty or administrators at Harvard U.

17 posted on 08/15/2005 6:40:35 PM PDT by mississippi red-neck (You will never win the war on terrorism by fighting it in Iraq and funding it in the West Bank.)
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To: jackbill

I see it is true now - and I'm not surprised.


18 posted on 08/15/2005 7:11:07 PM PDT by mlc9852
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Comment #19 Removed by Moderator

To: kpp_kpp

YEC SPOTREP


20 posted on 08/15/2005 9:43:34 PM PDT by LiteKeeper (The radical secularization of America is happening)
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