DNA Code...Proof of a Divine Creator?

[Complexity]

Fundies have never contributed anything worth reading to any discussion I've encountered.

Quit proselytizing.

 

[bokonon]

So in an infinite universe, how unlikely is that ?

I don't believe in an infinite universe, or in a multiverse.

One finite life, in one finite universe, should be enough for anyone but a damn fool.

 

[Marduk]

I don't believe in an infinite universe, or in a multiverse.

One finite life, in one finite universe, should be enough for anyone but a damn fool.

ok then, there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and 125 billion galaxies in the universe, (total numerically 12,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 multiplied by number of planets) what numerical value does your "unlikely" represent. 1 in a million/billion/trillion ??

 

[bokonon]

ok then, there are 100 billion stars in our galaxy, and 125 billion galaxies in the universe, (total numerically 12,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 multiplied by number of planets) what numerical value does your "unlikely" represent. 1 in a million/billion/trillion ??

I can't put a number on it, because I don't know what conditions brought it about in the first place.

In the post you were quoting (WAAAAY back on page mumble mumble), I gave my reasons for thinking that life only began one time here on Earth.

If the mechanism for abiogenesis here on Earth turns out to be panspermia, I'd say we're almost certain to find life elsewhere in the universe, because it started somewhere "out there" and found fertile ground here.

If it turns out that life actually began independently here on Earth, but it required a fortuitous combination of more than a million different elements, and furthermore there's only one possible way it could have happened, I'd say the odds are more likely to be one in "12,500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 multiplied by number of planets".

If there are many different ways life can begin, the odds are improved, but again I can't say how much because I don't know what those different ways are, or how often the necessary conditions might occur.

We know the Earth is "life friendly", because even after half a dozen mass extinctions, it manages some pretty impressive diversity. The fact that it only seems to have started here one time, despite our "life friendly" nature, leads me to conclude that it's more likely than not to be rare.

I mean, of all the rocks in all the asteroid belts and Oort clouds and rubble piles in all the galaxies, how many of them look exactly like the Venus de Milo? My guess would be "none." What would your guess be?

 

[Marduk]

I mean, of all the rocks in all the asteroid belts and Oort clouds and rubble piles in all the galaxies, how many of them look exactly like the Venus de Milo? My guess would be "none." What would your guess be?

exactly like, none
similar, thousands

thats the problem though isn't it, without some other frame of reference we don't know what form life will take. we know it doesn't have to be carbon based, that leaves plenty of scope imo

 

[temporalillusion]

I don't believe in an infinite universe, or in a multiverse.

The universe is flat to a few percentage points (degree of error), which would suggest that it is infinite.

One finite life, in one finite universe, should be enough for anyone but a damn fool.

Heh, I don't think the geometry of the universe cares much for human thoughts.

I can't put a number on it, because I don't know what conditions brought it about in the first place.

This is what I was saying before, you don't know how likely/unlikely it is, so the idea that it happened only once is balancing on the edge of a knife; hand picking the probability of life so that it just happens to match the number of trials. It's far more likely to be on either side of the blade rather than balancing on the fine edge.

 

[Belz...]

Belief. Faith.

"If I make it so my opponents' position appears as weak as mine, perhaps my own belief won't seem so ridiculous, even to me. Okay let's try this..."

 

[refamat]

it's amazing how far people will go to find some proof of a god/creator. when will they learn that the evidence they use is simple biology and chemistry, not the signature of some god.
one can make arguments of the way garbage falls to prove there is a god (people did using bones, rocks, intestines, and tea leaves). it's also said in the bible that people will try to prove there isn't a god..this is all just great copy and makes money for those who manipulate things in the marketplace.

 

[marplots]

What bothers me about the whole creation as science movement is not that they aren't willing to look at what mainstream science has to say, for this is where they mine for flaws, but that they seem unwilling to take the next step in their own researches.

I would like to know what Creationists think about how creation might have happened. Say God did it. How did God do it? What were the methods and what might we learn to do ourselves?

I don't get that the whole thing dead-ends with hand waving. I'd even accept God as a placeholder for "we don't know" but it seems like they aren't allowed to even ask the questions in a meaningful way.

For instance, in ID or creation, at what point (or multiple points) would God have had to intervene to give us the world we see now? Would introducing life in a panspermia kind of way suffice? Would it have to have been higher along on the phylogenic track to man?

Is it toxic for believers to consider such questions? From my point of view, it seems disingenuous. How am I to take their belief seriously if they don't?

If you want to play scientist, then play. Fund some research, do some experiments, frame some hypotheses.

 

[dafydd]

Fundies have never contributed anything worth reading to any discussion I've encountered.

Quit proselytizing.

They never do realize that they are preaching to the wrong choir here.They can't help it,they've been programmed to do it.

 

[Robin]

Any Code requires a Code-Maker....a Designer, for it to be able to function, and transfer meaningful information.

I love argument by Capitalisation. Not a "code-maker" or a "designer" but a "Code-Maker" and "Designer".

 

[Robin]

But, Albert Einstein made a point about an apparently 'unbridgeable gulf' between living and non-living systems.....commonly referred to, not-too-surprisingly, as 'Einstein's Gulf'.

And next we have argument by misunderstanding Einstein.

Somehow a logically unbridgeable gulf between "sensory experience" and "concepts and propositions" becomes magically transformed into a gulf between living and non-living systems - like water into wine I suppose.

Link...

http://www.christiscreator.com/evolutionclass101.htm

This is a casebook study in creationist nonsense - note that the "link" is not a link to Einstein, but to a creationist website talking about Einstein, which doesn't even have a cite to the original text.

Here is a link to Einstein's actual words.

And note the cute little cartoon of an Einstein like figure teaching the thing Einstein explicitly disavowed - a personal God.

One interesting side-note about Einstein's idea....is that after doing a Google search for references and explanations of it....I found that almost all of the websites that discuss it are Christian/Creationist websites.

It's hardly ever made reference to by mainstream evolutionists. I wonder why...

I dunno, maybe because Christian/Creationists love to misrepresent Einstein and biologists probably understand that Einstein's remarks on Bertand's Theory of Knowledge - incisive as they are - are not directly relevant to biology.