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Quotes critical of evolution

athon said:
They can't grasp the gradient of non-life to life because they can't grasp how something apparently complicated can form from simpler interactions...
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I think they'd be willing to grasp that if there was actual detail. Got any?

But they can grasp the spontaneous (or eternal) existance of a super intelligence?
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I think they understand that based on evidence, information and complexity arise from intelligence, so they answer the question of "is there design" by "yes".
 
it seems that chaotic systems demonstrate how stability can occur periodically in random situations.
 
athon said:
Why is god free from having science applied to it?

Athon
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Which another way to ask why most naive people believe dualism is a logical worldview. It isn't.

Science attempts to provide a map; the territory will remain forever uneffected and unaffected.
 
Rodney said:
How about this one?

"To their chagrin [scientists] have no clear-cut answer, because chemists have never succeeded in reproducing nature's experiments on the creation of life out of nonliving matter. Scientists do not know how that happened . . Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of creation." —*Robert Jastrow, The Enchanted Loom: Mind in
the Universe (1981), p. 19./
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So what? How about changing that a little:

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of Thor."

The grammar is correct, scientifically true, but bankrupt of logic.
 
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Questioninggeller said:
So what? How about changing that a little:

"Scientists have no proof that life was not the result of an act of Thor."

The grammar is correct, scientifically true, but bankrupt of logic.
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The problem you are evading is that, 54 years ago, scientists appeared to have made a major breakthrough regarding the origins of life. Now, despite enormous scientific progress in other areas, they're back to Square One on this fundamental issue.
 
Rodney said:
I think the smart ones with a sense of humility have already figured it out
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I like how right off the bat you imply that those who support your position are smart, and thereby also imply that those who differ from your position are not smart.

-- it's too improbable to have happened by chance.
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First of all, one would need to know exactly what would have needed to happen to make a statement about it's probability. So if biochemists were really "at square one" as you assert then there would be no basis for you introducing a probability assessment. So just how improbable is it, exactly? That's not a rhetorical question, I'd really like you to answer it if you would be so kind. Even if we assume an average of only two planets per galaxy (remember some elliptical galaxies contain trillions of stars so that's a very conservative value for n) being suitable for the development of life that still gives us at least a couple of hundreds of billions of chances for abiogenesis to occur. Add to this a time span of billions of years and we can see that even if abiogenesis is extremal improbable then it is not too improbable for it to have happened at least once in the universe.


When the results of the Urey/Miller experiment were published 54 years ago, the thinking was much different. That experiment was thought at the time to have been one of the most important in scientific history, but it's led nowhere.
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Didn't we cover this before? Perhaps it wasn't you who was involved. Maybe someone else remembers where this was mentioned on the forum fairly recently. At any rate, evidence was provided that showed the biological community had not made the huge deal out of this experiment that you are claiming. Plus it's worth noting that many very important discoveries have had to wait decades and even centuries for someone else to come along and find a new connection based on the older discovery that leads to greater understanding. Though it is remarkable that the Urey/Miller experiment produced the chemical building blocks of life, yes? Out of all the results that could have occurred, for a simple model of the Earth's most likely early atmosphere to produce organic compounds is encouraging, even if biologists don't attribute to the experiment the Earth shattering import that you claim they did.

Exact details? Try Square One.
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That's funny. I was under the impression that some of the greatest minds in biochemistry were currently working on the abiogenesis problem. Cairns-Smith's hypothesis seems a little more advanced than "square one".
 
T'ai Chi said:
I think they'd be willing to grasp that if there was actual detail. Got any?
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T'ai Chi seems to be laboring under the delusion that there is such a thing as gravity. But as science has not yet revealed any detailed mechanism for the workings of this "gravity" phenomenon we should surely conclude that the Earth just sucks.

I think they understand that based on evidence, information and complexity arise from intelligence, so they answer the question of "is there design" by "yes".
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Too bad intelligence is such a complex thing. We'll just have to conclude that complexity arises from complexity. And 'round and 'round we go.
 
wahrheit said:
Uncapitalised, "it" -- I like that.
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I often prefer to do that too. As gender is a function of sexual reproduction, and we're told that there is only one God (definitely no Mrs. God) even if such a god existed it would be more proper to call this being "it". If it reproduced by making more little gods asexually we might call it "she" but again, one god = "it".
 
T'ai Chi said:
I think they'd be willing to grasp that if there was actual detail. Got any?
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There've been plenty of threads in the past that have discussed this, with plenty of goal-post shifting and fingers in ears by those who don't like the idea of abiogenesis. Dredge one of those up if you have something to say on the topic. Fundamentals in science are obviously not your strong point so discussion would be kind of futile.

I think they understand that based on evidence, information and complexity arise from intelligence, so they answer the question of "is there design" by "yes".
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Personally, I find it kind of sad and pathetic that you honestly don't see how ridiculous this statement is. See my previous comment; you truly don't grasp the fundamentals in science.

I'll give you this one for free; just because complexity can arise from intelligence, does not mean all complexity arises from it.

Secondly, how can you dismiss on grounds of 'nil evidence' the idea of abiogenesis (that life is a spectrum of complicated, selected chemical reactions) while happily accept that an eternal intelligence which decided to create life exists? I say 'eternal' just to save yourself the embarrassment of even suggesting turtle theory.

hammegk said:
Which another way to ask why most naive people believe dualism is a logical worldview. It isn't.

Science attempts to provide a map; the territory will remain forever uneffected and unaffected.
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The Hammy Program: Failing the Turing test since 1979.

Rodney said:
The problem you are evading is that, 54 years ago, scientists appeared to have made a major breakthrough regarding the origins of life. Now, despite enormous scientific progress in other areas, they're back to Square One on this fundamental issue.
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Fifty four years ago, scientists did indeed make a breakthrough. Since then we've continued to add more and more information to this, understanding more about the conditions of the early Earth, the presence of various biochemicals, how simple oligonucleotides can form, how polymerisation could occur...

The problem, of course, is any time we demonstrate that it is plausible that a similar reaction could have occured, the ID mob claim it was only demonstrated possible on account of human intervention (scientists setting up the test). It's a no win; the only evidence acceptable by the ID'ers is a tank of ocean water brought back from 3 billion B.C. which is allowed to sit until life is produced.

And if that's the only evidence they'll accept, fine by me. Just so long as they don't pretend that they understand how science operates.

Athon
 
wahrheit said:
Uncapitalised, "it" -- I like that.
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I'm not doing it to be disrespectful; if anything I'm giving a benefit of doubt. 'god' in this case is as undefined as you get; I can't assume gender of this 'intelligence', or any other personality traits. That would be way too presumptive.

That's up to the IDiots to do.

Athon
 
pgwenthold said:
This is the same old crap. Creationists still think that if they can discredit Darwin then they will have achieved some sort of victory. I can tell you, it would be about as relevant to the field of evolution as a chemist showing that Pauling's "Nature of the Chemical Bond" is mistaken would hurt the field of chemistry.

Of course, Pauling's book IS mistaken in many ways. Doesn't matter. Modern chemistry doesn't depend on what Pauling said. Nor does modern evolution depend on what Darwin said, nor even what was said 40 years ago.
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To paraphrase a famous quote: the reason we see so far is that we stand on the shoulders of giants.

Many people feel a smug satisfaction of knowing more than our antecedents, almost as if we, the present generation, are somehow superior in our faculties. Not so. We build on what our precursors proudly handed us. If they were wrong, then they were wrong but, at the very least, they gave us something to work on. Perhaps history will not judge us so harshly, either.
 
T'ai Chi said:
That would be focusing on the person, not the idea. Of cousre you're welcome to continue doing that. Not sure what you're able to get out of that as far as real skeptical inquiry goes.
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You are half right there.

The ideas proffered by all that nonsense you posted, and by you, are not worth my time. I do find it worthwhile though to point out that there is a pervasive effort by fantacists such as yourself to deny empirical reality so that you can take comfort in your ever-loving gods. But when you lie (and I do mean you, but furthering the "interesting" ideas such as seen here), I want to see it noted when and how that's happening. What's interesting is how your sources intentionally misstate what has happened in these conferences, doing so by not providing any primary information or links to such. No names, no data. It's worth educating people that your methods are corrupt.

Where you're wrong is to say that this is about attacking you. Yes, I may be attacking you, but that's only incidental. I'm attacking your tactics - they matter.

Another thing, when you criticize my skepticism, that's kind of like George Bush criticizing my intelligence. It's meaningless gibberish.
 
hammegk said:
Science attempts to provide a map; the territory will remain forever uneffected and unaffected.
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Well, the map is not the same as the territory… but how do we know that the territory will remain forever unaffected by the process of mapping it?
 
Wacko Creationist Indoctrination Footage:

http://www.badscience.net/?p=367

I actually prefer

Unintelligent Design

Why would anyone "design" an appendix, or the human birth canal? etc...

Of course if these structures evolved/atrophied from previous examples, then it makes sense.

So Darwin's "warm pool" doesn't now look like the candidate for the start of life? So what, it was a passing hypothesis, and not a bad one either. The chemistry might have been a little different, but warmth, water, and organic compounds must have been involved. I also can't see how an the failure to create life in an experiment in a small flask for a few weeks can be taken as evidence for the impossibility of this happening over huindreds of millions of years in a volume the size of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Highly infrequent events become certainties over long enough timescales.

The fact that even in the short timescales of the ofiginal experiment that any complex molecules formed shows how easy it is for the precursors of life to form.

I *would* argue that evolutionary forces would act on the chemicals before "life" "occured", in fact as soon as any replication would happen.

I would say that the BSE prion is subject to evolutionary pressures, but is not alive.

Yes, by my definition, there would be a blurred line between life and non-life.

Jim
 
What is the difference between opening this thread and what a religious fundamentalist is doing?

  • Both rely on a supernatural explanation of the universe.

  • Both rely on declarations, as if that in itself is the truth.

  • Both rely on sound bytes.

  • Both use words they don't understand the meaning of - or deliberately obfuscate.

  • Both misunderstand - deliberately or not - the texts they themselves use.

  • Both refuse to explain anything.

  • Both insist that others prove them wrong.

  • Both insist that their dogma is at least as valid as the scientific explanation.

  • Both make the same basic mistakes about science.

  • Both ignore evidence and pertinent points that prove them wrong.

  • Both scorn critics, but think that criticism is OK, as long as their opponents are criticised.

  • Both play the victim, when there is criticism of their own stance.

If it looks like a duck...
 
jimbob said:
Why would anyone "design" an appendix, or the human birth canal? etc...

Of course if these structures evolved/atrophied from previous examples, then it makes sense.
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Are you claiming that the appendix serves no function whatsoever?

It is kinda like saying 'Bones break!!! Why do we even have em?'

Of course, there could have been design and evolving. They aren't mutually exclusive.
 
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