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Most atheists do not know what science says about our origins

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DOC said:
I've never read or seen anything that proves its a fact. And I have read a portion of Darwin's Origin of Species. But even if it is a fact, that doesn't disprove God.
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Aha! We need to clear up a possible misconception. Do you see, DOC, that there are but two choices here: either evolution or god? In other words, is it your view that if one believes evolution is true that person must reject your god?
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
So, you have no ability to express your beliefs and thus claim that it is complex therefore it is fact?

:confused:
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No, In past debate with you, it was clear that you did not understand biochemistry enough to have the explanation be simple. I just didn't want to put the time it would require to accurately present the points. I'll try to present what I am indeed referring to.

When we say first common anscestor, we mean the first thing that most likely to fit in the cell encapsulated, self-replicating model of life. This common ancestor most likely didn't poof into existence. we have no evidence for anything appearing in such a fashion. Therefore, it is unreasonable to assume that life was magiced together.

So, I am left to conclude that the common ancestor had to arise from more mundane effects. As such, it is unlikely that this entity arose without a series of natural selection type processes. Chemical reactions are a likely start,yet chemical reactions only proceed to equilibirum and have no capacity for natural selection on their own. However, a repetitive series of reactions can. Such a series can occur easily from circadian rhythm, such as tidal waves, hence the concept of tidal pools as the origin of life. These pools are known to have temporally varying composition, volume, temperature... Such a setting is great for producing repetitive highly variable reaction settings. (it may not have been actual tidal pools, but the concept remains the same).

Now, these common anscentors are membrane bound and We know that amphiphilic molecules can form various structures, one of which is of bilayers. These bilayers are capable of forming vesicles and resemble cell membranes. Now these vesicles are highly variable in stablity based upon thier composition. There must be some point when these bilayers encapsulated sections of the tidal water (which contained the self replicating molecules) and formed proto-cells. These proto-cells would have been many and rhad near-identical compositions of the pond-water tidal pool inside them. Now, these proto-cells probably coalesced with each other, burst, reformed.... So, you could consider them as 1 single organism, but not truly a single celled creature.

this is as simplified as I can make the explanation and again I admit it is speculation. it is based upon reasonable assumptions, but it is speculation.
My whole point is to highlight the fact that the common anscetor organism doesn't need to be a single solitary cell, it could be, but that is far from the only model.

NONE of this, HOWEVER, verifies or disproves evolution. only attempts to determine how evolution may have looked in the beginning.
 
DOC said:
So to clarify, do you believe that all plant and animal species visible to the naked eye that exist today came from the same one cell creature?
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I believe, based upon all available evidence, that all plant and animal species visible to the naked eye and visible only by microscopic analysis that exist today and had existed over the past ~3 billion years come from the same common anscetor, a single celled organism.

To clarify, Do you believe you must drink human-god blood to be purified?
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
Now here is a real global game. If one evidences that any particular point concerning TOE does not evidence TOE than the argument is: But, there is so much more evidence!!!
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Once falsified it is falsified. If I drop a ball 99 times and it falls and strikes the ground each and every time but on the 100th time it does not strike the ground then our understanding of gravity is wrong regardles of all of the previous evidence.

My position on gravity is provisional. I think it very unlikely to be falsified. What is your position on gravity?

My position on evolution is provisional. I think it very unlikely to be falsified based on the clear and convincing evidence. Sure it could be wrong but then so could gravity.

How many evidences of TOE would you need that were proven a logically improper extrapolation for you to believe that the TOE is not evidenced?
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I don't base my understanding of evolution on extrapolations.

Scientists have set out to falsify evolution. They have failed to do so.
Scientists have made predictions of what they would find in the fosil record, genetics and other areas and they have been found to be correct time and again. It is this precise ability to make predictions based on evolutionary theory that has led to many scientific advances including the production of medicine.

If you want to be skeptical about evolution then you need to be skeptical about all science. And that's fine. So long as you are consistent. But please don't drive your car, use your computer, drink city water or take medicine. To do so belies your skepticism.
 
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RandFan said:
Once falsified it is falsified. If I drop a ball 99 times and it falls and strikes the ground each and every time but on the 100th time it does not strike the ground then our understanding of gravity is wrong regardles of all of the previous evidence.
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How can TOE be falsified? For a scientific theory to be valued it MUST have the ability to be falsified.
 
RandFan said:
My position on gravity is provisional. I think it very unlikely to be falsified. What is your position on gravity?
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My position on gravity is also provisional. In fact I find that electro magnetism may be the culprit of the phenomenon that we see and define as gravity. Science has disregarded and ignored this line of thought despite reasonable queries into this possibility.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
No, you ignored my pointing out of the illogical extrapolations of your evidences.
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Jerome,

In the interest of full disclosure I was once an avid YEC. I didn't call ID by that moniker at the time but it was just that based on Paley's argument from design.

My favorite rhetorical device was "depends on how you interpret the data" as if scientists were simply erring in their understanding of the evidence.

Sorry, it doesn't wash.

Example, scientists state, up front, that investigation will reveal that we will discover junk DNA shared by primates but not other mammals and that the further down the tree of life one goes one would find fewer and fewer shared junk DNA. Then the researchers actually do the research and they verify the hypothesis. That is not simply a wrong interpretation or extrapolation.

Why don't creation scientists make similar predictions based on the god hypothesis? If it were so easy to extrapolate the data then they could do it, right?

I wanted ID to be correct but there was nothing for me to hold on to. Attacking science is not in and of itself science.
 
DOC said:
The origin of life is a crucial part (if not the most important question) of the Theist/Atheist debate.
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Ridiculous! Why anything at all exists is a better question, to say the least, and one much harder to explain.
Yet I contend that most atheists are not aware that all life (the blue whales, the insects, the elephants, the octopuses, the trees in the redwood forests, the butterflies, the cactus, the humans, all the dinosaurs, and the multi-millions of other plant and animal species) that have ever existed are descended from the "same" one celled organism. (according to modern science)
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Ridiculous, and an inaccurate, insulting claim about modern science.

First, modern science claims nothing of the sort. In fact, the understanding of how the eukaroytic cell (if you wish to remain in this discussion you MUST, absolutely MUST KNOW WHAT THAT IS WITHOUT LOOKING IT UP) occurred when one organism attacked another one, the two kinds having substantially different biochemistry, and the attack turned into a symbiosis.

The chloroplast and the mitochondrion have their own genetic material, which is concrete evidence of this, to modern science, so modern science refutes the preposterious claim you've made.

Second, modern science identifies many branches of life. There are bacteria, with one kind of cell wall. There are plants, with another, there are fungi, with yet another, and there are animals, with yet even another kind of cell wall. These different critters did not all arise from the same prototypical cell.

What's more, things like archeobacteria clearly arose from different conditions and have different structures, right down to the nucleus, so they are yet another completely separate branch of life, give or take a few exchanged genes that can be accounted for via ingestion of one organism by another.

So, you, in fact, have no idea whatsoever, in any way, shape, or form, what modern science says about evolution.
I would estimate that no more than 10 percent of all atheists know that modern science believes that all the millions of "plant and animal" species that have ever existed came from the "same" organism (and that first organism that we all came from was a one celled bacteria).
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You're right, nobody who is informed knows that, because your statement of what modern science contends is completely inaccurate and mistaken.

Finally, evolution says nothing whatsoever about the origins of life, and by suggesting otherwise, you demonstrate that your words are wrong at each and every level.

I would suggest that if you don't want to be treated as ignorant, that you educate yourself before you make more mistakes.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
In fact I find that electro magnetism may be the culprit of the phenomenon that we see and define as gravity.
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Do you have a workable hypothesis?

Science has disregarded and ignored this line of thought despite reasonable queries into this possibility.
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Science works that way. Until you come up with the evidence then you are running head long into science.

In any event, NONE of this has anything to do with my point.
 
RandFan said:
In the interest of full disclosure I was once an avid YEC. I didn't call ID by that moniker at the time but it was just that based on Paley's argument from design.

My favorite rhetorical device was "depends on how you interpret the data" as if scientists were simply erring in their understanding of the evidence.

Sorry, it doesn't wash.
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Yet, that is not the game I am playing. I can honestly state that I am uncertain as to the proper answer the question. I have no dog in the fight. I am only attempting to extract logical arguments from the various sides.
 
Jerome is not into "full disclosure"... but I suspect you've uncovered his leanings. I've had him on ignore for some time.
 
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