Say, I'd enjoy hearing a little about what you do and your background. As I mentioned before, I grew up on a small family farm. Between my sparse schooling and chores I did different scientific experiments with stuff I scavenged. I spent wonderful days playing with the conduction of electricity through gases - using an old pneumatic screendoor closer which I had modified as a vacuum pump. As a teenager I read J.J. Thompson's book about the conduction of electricity through gases and performed some of their simpler experiments. Eventually somebody gave me a computer (Texas Instruments TS1000, 2K of memory, 8K rom BASIC, connected to the TV) and I was hooked on programming. I also tinkered extensively with electronics. Now I work designing electronic circuit boards, writing firmware for microcntrollers and scripts for webserver stuff. I still have a great fascination with physical sciences, but alas do not get a lot of time to spend playing anymore.
By the way, with your background in microbiology, I'm surprised that you referred, even in quotations, to a virus as a form of life. Would you consider an effective chain letter also a form of life?
This something from nothing concept seems to be a major problem for you.
Yeah, and for the laws of thermodynamics..! It is simply scientifically irresponsible to teach as fact that all came from nothing when such violates so many known laws of physics and since it has never been demonstrated.
What if I told you that everything is made up of waves of nothing.
I think I'd have to question your sincerity or knowledge. That and I'd ask you to show me one :-)
Now if you said that everything were made up of waves of energy then I'd just want to discuss it more. This is possible anyway, although I as of yet have not been convinced that all matter is waves. I am convinced that light are waves, however.
That matter is simply an emergent property of those waves of nothing. What if I also told you that the theories that those observations are based on are the most precise and accurate theories that we have. They are much more precise than any of Newtons Theories by an order of magnitude, even if they are probabilistic.
This idea of waves of nothing seems a little far out. Please explain these waves of nothing to me. As I said, I'm nowheres near the brightest kid on the block, nor the most educated. But waves of nothing sounds like fairy tails. Perhaps if you clarify or rephrase that one then I'll be able to answer it - at present it's not even a coherent question.
And to answer your next question I have done the Stern-Gerlach and double slit experiment myself, many times actually. So I am not taking that on faith.
I still don't see how Stern-Gerlach or the double-slit proves that matter is waves or that vacuum can fluctuate or that all could have come from nothing. Are we just doing a bit of single-point extrapolation, here? :-)
I don't think that it confirms or denies ASBE. If anything though it confirms it. The fact that in many ways we seem to be poorly designed lends credence to the theory.
But the reason it appears to you (and all who share your dogma) to lend credence to the theory is because it has to in order to fit with the theory. In reality, selective pressure would not so well work to protect the eye, brain, spinal chord, lungs, heart, and so on and then leave a few extremely vital items hanging right out in harms way.
I'm pretty sure that there could be no specimen so unlikely that ASBE (All Species By Evolution) supporters would admit "Yeah, this doesn't make sense." It doesn't matter how illogical it is that ASBE brought about any unlikely creature -- the ASBE supporters will simply say "Well it must have been somehow fittest that way because it evolved that way." The problem is that some of the evidence appears to some to support the theory of ASBE, and some of the evidence appears to contradict it. So the evidence that appears to support it is used to support the theory, then the theory is used to explain away the evidence that contradicts it. This is at least semi-circular reasoning.
See look I can do the same thing, from the other side :-) Some things look like they were designed by in intelligent designer. So there must be an intelligent designer. So the reason some things have poor body design is because God created them that way. [ultra wide grin] Think my side is the only one that does that? :-)
Poor body design (hips, knees, etc.) give credence to the idea that God made mankind in the beginning but over the hundreds of generations, they have devolved. [grin] It happened to German Shepards. (that is to say that they devolved and many of them now have bad hips. But that's not the way they always were.)
We also seem to have a lot of extraneous features, like a tail bone, appendix, and sinus cavities. Then there are the poor and vulnerable structural designs, from a structural engineering view point our knees are a nightmare, the same as our hips and spinal connection.
I thought you were going to mention tonsils there for a minute [grin]!
Great point - is the selective pressure aimed at making better knees so weak that it can just barely keep them usable? Have knees always been a problem? I'm betting that in the beginning they were made good and were entirely adequate!
As to vestigial limbs/organs/glands, first of all, we don't know that they don't serve a purpose. Second, what are you saying? Is that how we got everything - by slowly losing it? :-)
Here is something for you to think about. Your parents each contributed a living cell from themselves to create you. 'Soon' we will be able to trace your genetic lineage back as far as we want, differentiating the sources. Your DNA does a remarkably good job preserving the data. At some point we will be able to compare anyone's or any species genetic data and show when they had a single common ancestor. Right now, we are just doing crude comparison matches, very soon though, in the next 10 to 20 years they will be able to take any two samples and be able to determine how many generations back they had the same parents.
Exactly as I described before!
Let me quote myself:
To us, it looks like the evolutionist believes with all his heart that all came from nothing and that one day the evidence will all come in, but in the mean time they just pretend that it's already in. Faith is the hope in things not yet seen.Exactly what I said! "One day we will have the evidence. I just know we will." Doesn't sound all that scientific to me.
Thanks,
-Jesse
I fully understand that a virus doesn't have the ability to replicate on its own. It seems to be more of a way of passing information from one cell to another than anything else. Much of the DNA in your cells came straight from viruses. There is a theory though that encapsulated RNA (viruses) in the primordial soup are the very earliest form of life and that life evolved from that very primitive and simple exchange of information. Obviously viruses aren't alive in the conventional sense.
Yeah, and for the laws of thermodynamics..! It is simply scientifically irresponsible to teach as fact that all came from nothing when such violates so many known laws of physics and since it has never been demonstrated.
Actually stuff comes from nothing all of the time. Pair anti pair creation and destruction is constantly occurring.
Now if you said that everything were made up of waves of energy then I'd just want to discuss it more. This is possible anyway, although I as of yet have not been convinced that all matter is waves. I am convinced that light are waves, however.
You need to read up on the double slit experiment. It clearly demonstrates that light is both waves and/or particles. The same with atoms and even molecules as big as bucky balls. This may not make intuitive sense at first, but it helped me to understand that matter is an emergent property, just like the transition states between water vapour, water and ice.
This idea of waves of nothing seems a little far out. Please explain these waves of nothing to me. As I said, I'm nowheres near the brightest kid on the block, nor the most educated. But waves of nothing sounds like fairy tails. Perhaps if you clarify or rephrase that one then I'll be able to answer it - at present it's not even a coherent question.
Hmm, maybe a divergence will help explain it. The Michelson- Morley experiments proved that there is no ether. Einsteins theory demonstrated that light is a particle (that is what he got the Nobel for) waves have to travel in a medium, there is no medium for them to travel in. Einsteins Theory of relativity put it back in as Space-Time. Waves of nothing is Space-time. Good luck with that explanation :)
I still don't see how Stern-Gerlach or the double-slit proves that matter is waves or that vacuum can fluctuate or that all could have come from nothing. Are we just doing a bit of single-point extrapolation, here? :-)
Read up on the double slit experiment and its variations. This is basic fundamental science, the farthest thing from single-point extrapolation. It is the basis for almost all of our scientific research today, in physics anyway.
Poor body design (hips, knees, etc.) give credence to the idea that God made mankind in the beginning but over the hundreds of generations, they have devolved. [grin] It happened to German Shepards. (that is to say that they devolved and many of them now have bad hips. But that's not the way they always were.)
Devolution is an integral part of the theory of evolution, it is just that variations that don't help die and don't perpetuate as fast as good variations. Could your dogs survive without your assistance?
Do you have any evidence that in the beginning Man was perfect and has devolved over time?
Exactly what I said! "One day we will have the evidence. I just know we will." Doesn't sound all that scientific to me.
You seemed to overlook this statement. " Right now, we are just doing crude comparison matches, very soon though, in the next 10 to 20 years they will be able to take any two samples and be able to determine how many generations back they had the same parents."
We already have the evidence now of common ancestry. It is just that in the future we will be able to say with certainty exactly when and how it happened. Let me give you another analogy, right now we are at the musket stage in the arms race, in a few years we will have 50 caliber sniper rifles. It is the same basic technology (theory) just refined and improved. For the victim it doesn't really matter whether it is a ball that hits him or a high velocity bullet, the results are the same.