Why do educators lie?

[jeremydschram]

I fully accept evolution as absolute fact with one aggravation that has bothered me for 23 years. what bothers me isn't that there isn't an answer but that every educator I have ever met has to LIE about it. There is simply no plausible mechanism for the initial formation of the first life. I’ll round up and say 4 billion years for the first life on earth. Now I don’t disagree that at some point hydrophobic lipids could of made a ring and a speck of dust could of got in there blah,blah,blah, I know you know the rest.

The common story of the pieces coming together bit by bit over billions of years simply does NOT stand up to skepticism. Science is supposed to follow the scientific method and therefore be testable and repeatable. So let’s start with a single cell that is alive. If we kill that cell evolution states that given enough time that cell will eventually evolve alive again because all the pieces have already come together, no primordial soup needed. Obviously an event of this kind had to of taken place to bring the non-living alive. There has to be a repeatable testable mechanism for this occurrence. This could never be tested, of course, so we have to take it on faith, which is not science.

Here is a scientific test of the initial formation of the first life form that CAN be done:

In a self-contained, sterile but life supporting medium, place a freshly killed cell and wait 4 billion years. Unfortunately that is nothing but a thought experiment. To convert this thought experiment to an actual one we have to convert the 4 billion years to 4 billion instances so that we would only have to wait a year. So if we did this experiment with 4 billion cells and waited 1 year do you honestly think one of those cells would come to life?

I have no vested interest and simply do not care what mechanism exists whether it be just browning motion, a Frankenstein force, a higgs life on particle, whatever, but it is a fact that there is nothing in science to explain how this could have ever happen yet day after day in science book after science book they pretend that it does and this is simply wrong. Evolution is real undeniable force but it can only happen after life has started. Evolution does not explain how life started because evolution requires natural/sexual selection which can only happen after there is a self-replicating cycle. Evolution is only half the story and to miss label evolution and use the process to explain what it doesn’t is simply wrong and I believe it qualifies as it’s own pseudoscience. I understand the need to shut up the creationists and the intelligent design folks, but to just say evolution does what it simply can't just plain wrong and I really want someone with an intelligent skeptical mind to acknowledge this.
Who thinks life will "just happen" given enough time/instances?

 

[Twiler]

It would depend on whether there's stuff sliding around and bashing into stuff.

 

[Robrob]

1) You use the word "lie" but provide zero evidence of a lie. Just because you doubt a theory (one that many, many others with much, much more education accept) doesn't mean they are all lying.

2) "In a self-contained, sterile but life supporting medium, place a freshly killed cell and wait 4 billion years." That's not a very well thought out experiment. You would need energy coming into the system (e.g. solar) and a much larger system at that (e.g. a planet). If the medium contains all the building blocks, 'm not sure what the purpose is of a "freshly killed cell."

 

[jeremydschram]

What energy?

What energy would be required? Heat, light, sound? The medium doesn't have the building blocks the dead cell does!

 

[Beelzebuddy]

This should be in the science forum with a title like "so how bout that abiogenesis, huh?" Placed here and phrased like that it just sounds like you're shaking your fist at the existence of poisson distributions.

What energy would be required? Heat, light, sound? The medium doesn't have the building blocks the dead cell does!

Definitely science forum. If you think you can get primordial soup by pokin' cells and dumpin' em in a bucket, you've got a lot of learning yet to do.

 

[This is The End]

repeatable testable mechanism

Do you have a billion years to run the test?

This thread has been brought up before.

You need to have some concept of (incredibly long amounts of) time.

Imagine a pile of primordial sludge sitting around not just for a time you are used to, like your whole life-span of 80 years, but for millions of your lifetimes.

Just let that sink in for a bit. That's plenty of time for something that's almost impossible to happen.

 

[supaluminal]

While to date there has been no experiment that has gone from a set of conditions mimicing that of the early earth to something that we would call life, there have certainly been a number of experiments that have shown individual steps are conceivable.

The Miller-Urey experiment showed that amino acids can form by natural chemical reactions in conditions conceivably similar to that on the early earth. While this doesn't necessarily indicate the way it occurred on the early earth, it suggests that complex organic molecules can form with relative ease (you do it every time you cook food and turn it brown).

From there, we need these molecules to become self organising, and self replicating. the point at which organic molecules become life is in itself unclear.

 

[Richard Masters]

I fully accept evolution as absolute fact with one aggravation that has bothered me for 23 years. what bothers me isn't that there isn't an answer but that every educator I have ever met has to LIE about it. There is simply no plausible mechanism for the initial formation of the first life. I’ll round up and say 4 billion years for the first life on earth. Now I don’t disagree that at some point hydrophobic lipids could of made a ring and a speck of dust could of got in there blah,blah,blah, I know you know the rest.

The common story of the pieces coming together bit by bit over billions of years simply does NOT stand up to skepticism. Science is supposed to follow the scientific method and therefore be testable and repeatable. So let’s start with a single cell that is alive. If we kill that cell evolution states that given enough time that cell will eventually evolve alive again because all the pieces have already come together, no primordial soup needed. Obviously an event of this kind had to of taken place to bring the non-living alive. There has to be a repeatable testable mechanism for this occurrence. This could never be tested, of course, so we have to take it on faith, which is not science.

Here is a scientific test of the initial formation of the first life form that CAN be done:

In a self-contained, sterile but life supporting medium, place a freshly killed cell and wait 4 billion years. Unfortunately that is nothing but a thought experiment. To convert this thought experiment to an actual one we have to convert the 4 billion years to 4 billion instances so that we would only have to wait a year. So if we did this experiment with 4 billion cells and waited 1 year do you honestly think one of those cells would come to life?

I have no vested interest and simply do not care what mechanism exists whether it be just browning motion, a Frankenstein force, a higgs life on particle, whatever, but it is a fact that there is nothing in science to explain how this could have ever happen yet day after day in science book after science book they pretend that it does and this is simply wrong. Evolution is real undeniable force but it can only happen after life has started. Evolution does not explain how life started because evolution requires natural/sexual selection which can only happen after there is a self-replicating cycle. Evolution is only half the story and to miss label evolution and use the process to explain what it doesn’t is simply wrong and I believe it qualifies as it’s own pseudoscience. I understand the need to shut up the creationists and the intelligent design folks, but to just say evolution does what it simply can't just plain wrong and I really want someone with an intelligent skeptical mind to acknowledge this.
Who thinks life will "just happen" given enough time/instances?

With a stupid design like that you'd have to wait 4 billion years.

Instead you do those experiments in parallel and you are set.

 

[Donn]

.. every educator I have ever met has to LIE about it.

You have met bad educators. Try some Dawkins for size.

There is simply no plausible mechanism for the initial formation of the first life.

Abiogenesis (is the topic) has many hypothesis. I don't think there's been a Eureka! just yet, but it's a work in progress.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

So let’s start with a single cell that is alive. If we kill that cell evolution states that given enough time that cell will eventually evolve alive again because all the pieces have already come together, no primordial soup needed.

Simplistic, but that's kind of the idea behind the chemistry of abiogenesis. Put the right atoms together in the right situation and you should get a replicator.

yet day after day in science book after science book they pretend that it does and this is simply wrong.

Been a long time since I read a biology text book, any quotes/sources of your ire?

 

[Richard Masters]

I didn't like any of the options in the poll, so I selected "creationist".

 

[Richard Masters]

I should have been more careful in my post. Of course Jeremy suggested that given 4 billion experiments in parallel should yield results. What I meant is that we don't need to test all of evolution again. We only need to test abiogenesis. There is some very exciting research in the works.

 

[jeremydschram]

abiogenesis

ok, so nasa's astrobiology think tank now says life came here probably on a meteorite so much, much, much older than 4 billion years. Talk about moving the goal posts! Oh well it still doesn't answer anything no matter how much time you give it there still has to be an INSTANT when what you say isn't alive becomes alive and all this stemmed from my sons elementary text book that does not contain the word abiogenesis ANYWHERE. Prob cause it contains the word genesis and this is indiana LOL

 

[bjornart]

How old is your son? Abiogenesis is perhaps not a word his age group needs to learn. The same goes for the details of abiogenetic hypotheses of which you seem to have a tenous grasp.

Life is not thought to have arisen in an environment where the building blocks for a single cell were the only blocks of their kind and then randomly got together, that would be pretty unlikely. It's thought to have arisen in an environment with lots of every building block, and with blocks with a chemical affinity for each other.

 

[supaluminal]

ok, so nasa's astrobiology think tank now says life came here probably on a meteorite so much, much, much older than 4 billion years. Talk about moving the goal posts! Oh well it still doesn't answer anything no matter how much time you give it there still has to be an INSTANT when what you say isn't alive becomes alive and all this stemmed from my sons elementary text book that does not contain the word abiogenesis ANYWHERE. Prob cause it contains the word genesis and this is indiana LOL

This is at least partially related to the sorites paradox (when does a heap of sand become not a heap as grains are removed). It's pretty easy to argue about what is alive and what isn't, and this more accurately reflects the human tendency to want labels and neat categories, which the universe is always so reluctant to provide.

 

[Someclevernick]

Evolution is real undeniable force but it can only happen after life has started.

And your problem is?

If you believe that evolution is true then i think it's logical for you to believe that life has started for some reason, am i right?

I haven't seen any claims about complete theory of abiogenesis, so who is lying?

 

[jeremydschram]

my son is 10 4th grade They have a real good chapter on the scientific method in his book though and I don't think any of it applies to Abiogenesis. Could you please demonstrate an experiment that I can replicate that it does please.

 

[Donn]

ok, so nasa's astrobiology think tank now says life came here probably on a meteorite ..

I detect sarcasm. Do I err?

Talk about moving the goal posts!

Who's talking and what goalposts?

Oh well it still doesn't answer anything no matter how much time you give it there still has to be an INSTANT when what you say isn't alive becomes alive

Sure. So?

.. and all this stemmed from my sons elementary text book that does not contain the word abiogenesis ANYWHERE. Prob cause it contains the word genesis and this is indiana LOL

Well there you go, answered.

What's your actual point/question? Your OP is iffy.

 

[Krikkiter]

I fully accept evolution as absolute fact with one aggravation that has bothered me for 23 years. what bothers me isn't that there isn't an answer but that every educator I have ever met has to LIE about it. There is simply no plausible mechanism for the initial formation of the first life. I’ll round up and say 4 billion years for the first life on earth. Now I don’t disagree that at some point hydrophobic lipids could of made a ring and a speck of dust could of got in there blah,blah,blah, I know you know the rest.

Stop looking for answers everyone.

The common story of the pieces coming together bit by bit over billions of years simply does NOT stand up to skepticism. Science is supposed to follow the scientific method and therefore be testable and repeatable. So let’s start with a single cell that is alive. If we kill that cell evolution states that given enough time that cell will eventually evolve alive again because all the pieces have already come together, no primordial soup needed. Obviously an event of this kind had to of taken place to bring the non-living alive. There has to be a repeatable testable mechanism for this occurrence. This could never be tested, of course, so we have to take it on faith, which is not science.

Is this about evolution or abiogenesis?

Here is a scientific test of the initial formation of the first life form that CAN be done:

In a self-contained, sterile but life supporting medium, place a freshly killed cell and wait 4 billion years. Unfortunately that is nothing but a thought experiment. To convert this thought experiment to an actual one we have to convert the 4 billion years to 4 billion instances so that we would only have to wait a year. So if we did this experiment with 4 billion cells and waited 1 year do you honestly think one of those cells would come to life?

Asked and answered by others.

I have no vested interest and simply do not care what mechanism exists whether it be just browning motion, a Frankenstein force, a higgs life on particle, whatever, but it is a fact that there is nothing in science to explain how this could have ever happen yet day after day in science book after science book they pretend that it does and this is simply wrong. Evolution is real undeniable force but it can only happen after life has started. Evolution does not explain how life started because evolution requires natural/sexual selection which can only happen after there is a self-replicating cycle.

Very true because evolution and abiogenesis are ummm... not the same thing?

Evolution is only half the story and to miss label evolution and use the process to explain what it doesn’t is simply wrong and I believe it qualifies as it’s own pseudoscience. I understand the need to shut up the creationists and the intelligent design folks, but to just say evolution does what it simply can't just plain wrong and I really want someone with an intelligent skeptical mind to acknowledge this.Who thinks life will "just happen" given enough time/instances?

Evolution doesn't do what you think it does.

Happy to be corrected.

 

[jeremydschram]

Exactly

Stop looking for answers everyone.
Evolution doesn't do what you think it does.

That was my point EXACTLY!!

 

[Richard Masters]

That was my point EXACTLY!!

You are confusing evolution with abiogenesis.