Posted on 06/08/2009 9:20:49 AM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Viral Life from Outer Space? Not Likely.
by Brian Thomas, M.S.*
Since a whole, functioning cell could not possibly emerge spontaneously from non-living matter, many evolutionists believe that simpler viruses were the first step towards the development of life. Researchers in Finland conducted a test on the survivability of viruses inside bacterial spores, which some scientists hypothesize may have travelled through space on meteoroids to seed life on earth. What the study discovered, however, is that life springing from space-borne viruses was highly unlikely.
The question of life’s beginnings has been vexing to Darwin’s supporters. After a lifetime of speculating on naturalistic scenarios for the origin of life on earth, famous Russian evolutionist A. I. Oparin...
(Excerpt) Read more at icr.org ...
“Also I’ve heard of no traditional religious response calling them a ‘separate creation’ - my Bible tells me that God created all creatures - great and small, visible and not visible to the naked eye.”
I respect your faith, as I, too, am a Chrtistian. However, using your faith to either make or dispute scientific findings is pointless. Faith and science coexist and are separate.
Oh, sorry I misinterpreted your post. I agree. If there is to be faith and “fundamentalism” in the words in the bible then you have to come to grips in what are seemingly contradictory points.
But I disagree in your description of what evo’s believe. They believe life began accidentally after billions of years of toxic soups mixing with a small barely living life form that just had likely a few lines of RNA. From that simple “life form” more and more advanced creatures came. The problem I have with that isn’t that a very simplistic life form could be accidentally created it’s the replication mechanism that befuddles me. In order to evolve you must be able to replicate.
Well then evolution would not be nearly as debatable if all science would separate their hopefuls ideas from what can actually be proven scientifically. I concur it would be nice to keep them separate, however I was responding to another poster who thought it necessary to mix the two w/ hopes and dreams regarding achaeobacteria.
Personally the best site I’ve encountered for separating the 2 is creationscience.com
How’s the weather down there? I was thinking about a vacation myself - but I can assure you that I won’t be on the internet during. :)
I would direct your attention to spore forming bacilli that can endure hundreds of years at absolute zero (and temperatures of up to 212 degrees) in spore form and be restored to viability once conditions become suitable.
Why does the fact that he wrote an article on abiogenesis show that it’s an important part of evolutionary theory?
Huxley wrote articles on a wide range of subjects, most of which had nothing or little to do with evolution.
In fact, in this article he no where even discusses evolution (he used the term “evolution”, but not in the sense of “the theory of evolution” or Darwinism).
In fact, interestingly, in this, his inaugural address as president of the BAAS, this “Darwin’s Bulldog” never mentions Darwin - but he does repeatedly mention Pasteur and sing his praises (as he does in many other speeches and publications - he could have been called “Pasteur’s Bulldog”).
1. TIME. Not enough of it. Calculate the subliminal speeds those rocks travel, and you'll find they're still far too slow to make it around the galaxy. Additionally, they've had to GET VERY LUCKY and "find" a planet to capture it/crash into. Infintessimally infintessimal odds of that, and, of course, not nearly enough time.
2. Logical fallacy of BEGGING THE QUESTION. Where did the first life come from? It wasn't seeded. Because of (1) and (2), it's far more logical to conclude that life arose here on Earth, by some means, Divine or...?
Science doesn’t prove—it draws logical, rational conclusions from available evidence. Creation rationalization begins with a conclusion and puts forth ridiculous explanations derived from scripture and other anecdotes to support the conclusion. It is directed to buttress the faith of otherwise weak Christian.
creationscience.com is as embarrassing to real Christians as the rest.
Evolution and Christianity coexist beautifully, except for the weak in faith.
“I finished your book yesterday. . . Since I read Von Baer’s Essays nine years ago no work on Natural History Science I have met with has made so great an impression on me & I do most heartily thank you for the great store of new views you have given me. . .
As for your doctrines I am prepared to go to the Stake if requisite. . .
I trust you will not allow yourself to be in any way disgusted or annoyed by the considerable abuse & misrepresentation which unless I greatly mistake is in store for you. . . And as to the curs which will bark and yelp — you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often & justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead —
I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness
Letter of T. H. Huxley to Charles Darwin, November 23, 1859, regarding the Origin of Species”( www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/thuxley.html)
Huxley wrote about a lot things but he is remembered amongst Darwinists for just a few, such as his sea voyage like the one Darwin took and Huxley's well known debate with the Bishop of Oxford on the subject of evolution and his defense of evolution.
1870
“Thomas H. Huxley's Biogenesis and Abiogenesis address is the first clear statement of the basic outlines of modern Darwinian science on the question of the origin of life. The terms “biogenesis” (for life only from pre-existing life) and “abiogenesis” (for life from nonliving materials, what had previously been called spontaneous generation) as used by Huxley in this speech have become the standard terms for discussing the subject of how life originates. The speech offered powerful support for Pasteur's claim to have experimentally disproved spontaneous generation. The speech was also Huxley's attempt to define an orthodox Darwinian position on the question, and attempt to define as “non-Darwinian” all those Darwin supporters who believed that spontaneous generation up to the present day was an essential requirement of evolutionary science. Henry Charlton Bastian was the most prominent leader of that faction of Darwinians, though Huxley was so successful in defining them out of the story that very few people today even realize that there WERE Darwinians who were serious, talented evolutionary scientists, yet also thought abiogenesis was necessary in evolution up to the present day.”
Biogenesis and Abiogenesis
James Strick. 1999.Darwinism and the Origin of Life: the Role of H.C. Bastian in the British Spontaneous Generation Debates, 1868-1873. Journal of the History of Biology, 32:1-42
www.asm.org/membership/index.asp?bid=16731 But I won't do all your research for you.
As far as needing to go all the way around the Galaxy, how about within 30 light years of Earth? Plenty of stuff there eh!
Could be as simple as that. Waiting for laboratory proof. This one is more doable than the others (which haven't worked).
Until the last sentence, I didn’t realize that the post was meant as an argument against what I had said. lol I thought you were simply adding to what I had said.
Yes, I know Huxley was a Darwinist, and defended Darwinism vigorously.
I was simply mentioning that he defended Pasteur similarly. Not just in his address to the BAAS, but in many other speeches and publications.
“Huxley wrote about a lot things but he is remembered amongst Darwinists for just a few, such as his sea voyage like the one Darwin took and Huxley’s well known debate with the Bishop of Oxford on the subject of evolution and his defense of evolution.”
He was also probably the greatest comparative anatomist of the latter half of the 19th century. Don’t forget his famous feud with Owen and the “hippocampus minor”. It was also Huxley that first proposed that birds evolved from dinos.
The entire long BAAS address - which is traditionally supposed to be an overview of what’s going on throughout the science world - is essentially one big long argument against spontaneous generation and defense of Pasteur.
In the entire long address he makes merely one small remark, as an aside, in favor of abiogenesis, which you quoted. He gives no theory as to how it occurred, and even admits there’s no evidence in its favor - he admits it’s just a personal opinion. He obviously didn’t see it as crucial to Darwinism.
If Darwinism was disproven, there’s no reason to believe it would affect his beliefs regarding abiogenesis, and vice versa.
He likely did, however, see spontaneous generation as a competitor of sorts to Darwinism, and so in an oblique sense the address could be viewed as a defense to Darwinism.
On the warm side in the 80s and 90s (although the mornings are OK in the lower 70s) — obviously I just kill a little time when I am relaxing in the room.
This is a total “I ain’t gonna schedule a thing” relaxation trip :)
Enjoy your vacation! I literally have to leave my blackberry in the luggage when I try to go on vacation. Last year I had only 2 days out of two weeks that I did not get multiple work calls.
“1 - Intelligent design can be proved outside of any specific religion.”
Yes, ID just notices that there is information in the biological world and even the physical world. This information is highly complex. No where else do we find highly complex messages/data/information without an intelligent agent generating it. So, the universe and biology must have an origin in some thing like intelligence.
However, that intelligence could be some kind of structure build into the world. It does not have to be a Creator God outside of space and time (and thus not open to experimental analysis). We don’t have to resort to “God of the gaps.” IDers are just looking for the structuring agent that gets information into DNA and Eeinstine’s laws and such.
Still, for anyone with an open mind, belief in a Creator God does answer a lot of questions if it were true: such as why does so much of the world look more like art than survival generate miss mash?
Re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere will easily surpass 212 degrees.
I suspected I’d be wasting my time posting any reply to you. Historically your posts betray any real faith in God’s Word. Scientists have been Bible believers for centuries and have used scripture as inspiration to look for and examine clues, to unlock the mysteries of life and buttress their arguments. I truly don’t understand how someone can call themselves a Christian but is willing to eliminate any/all scripture that they don’t believe or think sounds ridiculous or embarrassing.
Where exactly does the Holy Word begin to apply for you? In the middle of Genesis? Or maybe several books later? Or possibly not until the New Testament? Did Jesus really perform miracles? Or affirm any of the Old Testament? Do certain parts of the Bible embarrass you?
Sure God could have taken millions or billions of years and used a single cell to jump-start the whole evolutionary process except for the fact that all the prophecies that Jesus fulfilled (see Psalm 22 for several written approx 1000 b.c.) are found in the same text indicating about 6,000 years and 6 days of super-natural miraculous creation events!!! Which God is truly more magnificent, trust-worthy, and awe-inspiring?
I’ve most probably wasted my time replying to you, but I do hope and pray that others may see that the mysteries God presents in the Bible and on Earth - these are truly worthy of a closer look.
Somebody’s hypothesis was shown to be incorrect by an experiment. Well that proves it the entire scientific method is flawed!
It is very sad when the opening statement of this article is incorrect.
I do not know which is worse, that the author does not know the difference between Abiogeneis and The Evolutionary Theory, or that he would knowingly create a falsehood.
While the origins of life are a question of interest to evolutionary biologist and frequently studied in conjunction with researchers from other fields such as geochemistry and organic chemistry, the core of evolutionary theory itself does not rest on a foundation that requires any knowledge about the origins of life on earth
Setting up the straw man. The usual creationist tactic of misdirection, next is going to come the name-calling,
So I might as well give you a chance to complete the trifecta by providing a question to avoid.
Name a gene that shows no sign of an evolutionary origin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkED8cWRu4Q&feature=player_embedded
I should have expected a litmus test from you—after all, creation rationalizers can’t come to terms with the fact that the bible is not literally inerrant. On what else can you base your belief?
Yes, God is the prime mover. His method is likely beyond our understanding. However, he gave us the brains to try to figure it out. He’d be disappointed if we didn’t try.
Thank God creation rationalization is not taught as science.
“Where exactly does the Holy Word begin to apply for you?”
And do you faithfully adhere to Deuteronomy 14: 3-9 and Deuteronomy 21:18-21?
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