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Show Me Life Arising From Non Life!

Sledge said:
The OP doesn't mention God.
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Man i swear i leveled up recently i find that creationists have had to resort to things i didn't say in order to reply to me. Check out my original post of this argument for another great example.

I just wonder how they get intellectual satisfaction from making up something i said and then making fun of ( not debunking) it.
 
joobz said:
You are arguing against something that wasn't said.
There are better arguments against the OP.

Why not discuss the likelihood of finding a dime outside of earth? The dime being a designed object wouldn't exist elsewhere in the universe. If life is designed, there is no reason for it to exist elsewhere.

I'll let you consider the flaws in that argument.
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I wouldn't discuss that because it has nothing to do with the analogy. As well as being something we cannot prove either way. I tend to like hypotheticals that actually have some form of provable evidence , versus just navel staring.

If i wished to extend this to universal things i would use an material that is found in nature, but rarely in some places. But then that changes the entire intent of the analogy.
 
sadhatter said:
So a claim i hear quite a bit is " show my life arising from non life." in the sense that this person wants to see a non biological thing turn into something biological. And then they usually extend this by saying if we cannot show this, then obviously this type of thing does not occur.
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If you treat the argument as a serious one and not a rhetorical ploy, you would have to acknowledge their statement. But then you might ask, "Well, that is interesting. Can you show me life being created ex-nihilo?"

An experiment might be to seal and sterilize some container and ask them to create life in it. I suppose it might also be a vacuum, if you are trying to eliminate "non-life". They should be asked to use their intelligence, or prayer, or whatever means they would like to cause life to be created inside.

It seems disingenuous to say, "God did it." and then not ask several follow up questions -- How did God do it? Can we learn to do it too? What was the design, how did it get actualized?

I don't see any reason, if the ID folks wanted to take their subject seriously, that they shouldn't be working night and day to duplicate a creation event. Don't they call it "Creation Science" after all? It would certainly solve many pressing social and economic problems if they could learn the techniques of special creation. I would like to know if a rib is really required or do you have to use mud and spit?

So my answer to the OP is to run with the idea in the Socratic sense and see where it leads.
 
Radrook said:
I just finished watching this video concerning abiogenesis vs an ID and strongly recommend it. It has many compelling arguments for an ID.

Origins
http://www.nwcreation.net/videos/a_question_of_origins.html
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I've just started and will continue as I have time:
quick things to point out:


Gary Parker (6min:42sec)
Claims mutations only result in disease and disaster and not
something new and doesn't create new genes.

This claim is simply false. nylonase enzyme is a perfect example of a new gene arising when it hadn't existed before. Other examples exist as well. research into genetic polymorphisms have found several beneficial mutations.
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoHumBenMutations.html


JOhn morris: (7min)
"we never see one basic type of something change into something else"

This claim is too generic to even argue against.
The advantage of these non-specific broad statements is that they allow for the listener to fill in the details they wish to hear.

bizarreness of on the street testimonials: (~8min)
I found this the most disturbing of the sequences up to now. If others want to watch and comment they can. But I found it to be a rather disgusting use of propaganda.
 
joobz, i was struck by the no benefits claim too. Exactly where then, did the finches get the beaks that were so darn useful? They certainly didn't will themselves the right beaks for the right environment.
 
joobz, i was struck by the no benefits claim too. Exactly where then, did the finches get the beaks that were so darn useful? They certainly didn't will themselves the right beaks for the right environment.
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How do ID-ers explain the differences in skin pigmentation between, say, Europeans and Africans? Or how Icelanders are genetically virtually immune to winter depression?
 
joobz, i was suggesting the video in addition to your analysis, not instead of.
 
Chris L said:
joobz, i was struck by the no benefits claim too. Exactly where then, did the finches get the beaks that were so darn useful? They certainly didn't will themselves the right beaks for the right environment.
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you're totally kidding right, how can you not understand how simple a method natural selection is in the case of the galapagos finches, 5 seconds with google would have saved you from showing your ignorance there
:rolleyes:
 
joobz said:
bizarreness of on the street testimonials: (~8min)
I found this the most disturbing of the sequences up to now. If others want to watch and comment they can. But I found it to be a rather disgusting use of propaganda.
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Watching it again, it bothers me even more.
They show a brown skinned person with a foreign accent reject creationism.(poorly I might add, as he just used an argument from incredulity)
They then show 3 Caucasian college students state to varying degrees that they either doubt evolution or feel they have been brainwashed into believing it.
 
you're totally kidding right
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Actually I understand the process of natural selection quite well. The differences between individual finches partly comes from mutation. If the mutation is beneficial and helps the finch live long enough to make baby finches, that mutation gets passed on to the next generation of finches.
 
joobz said:
Gary Parker (6min:42sec)
Claims mutations only result in disease and disaster and not
something new and doesn't create new genes.
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I've seen these three claims over and over, but I have never seen any justification for them whatsoever. Do they have justifications? Is there some kind of misunderstood experiment or observation that lead creationists to these conclusions, or are they just flat denials of reality?

In the same vein is the claim that evolution cannot result in "new information" being inserted into the genome.
 
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Jonnyclueless said:
I don't think the problem is sample size. What constitutes the beginning of a life? Is it a single cell? Is it 99.9% of a completed cell?
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No.
Life did NOT start with the first CELL.

A cell is quite complex, there were many stages of life BEFORE the cell.

This is a common misconception.


Kap
 
Kapyong, would you consider the first complex organic molecules that made copies of themselves life?
 
Chris L said:
Kapyong, would you consider the first complex organic molecules that made copies of themselves life?
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There was NO definitive "first life form". Life, as we know it emerged, perhaps rather slowly, through various natural processes that we are in the process of working out.

Where one draws the line between life and non-life is arbitrary. We humans can decide where to draw it, based on our needs and interests, etc. Nature does not provide one for us.

It could be the first cell, or it could be the first auto-catalystic molecule, or something in between. It depends on how someone views life, or what their working definitions are in the context of a study.

It is very common for people to assume that there needed to be a distinct "first life form". Or that there even needs to be a clear, natural distinction between "life" and "non-life". This is primarily because there is an innate sense essentialism that has evolved into the human psyche. But, this essentialist model does not necessarily gel well with the natural world, as discovered by empirical investigations into it.

The theory of evolution, and the study of abiogenesis, tend to break down essentialist human ideas, like a "perfect acid" eating away at whatever it touches. And, that is why it is sooo difficult for many people to swallow.

But, what you get, in return, is a far more reliable model of life to work off of, when trying to scientifically resolve its problems.
 
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Radrook said:
I just finished watching this video concerning abiogenesis vs an ID and strongly recommend it. It has many compelling arguments for an ID.
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Its arguments are, indeed, compelling, but only to people who don't need to conduct science.

The moment anyone needs to actually get down to scientific business, the concept of ID goes out the window, as a superfluous entity.

This applies even to the top ID proponents. They don't use ID in the lab. (They don't even have a hypothesis for isolating the Designer.) They turn to what's been discovered by evolutionary biologists and those studying abiogenesis.

Your sense of "compelling" is of limited usage, there.
 
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