06 Oct 07
Originally posted by AThousandYoung"Not by scientists in relevant fields"
Highly contested? Not by scientists in relevant fields.
Which opinion of mine did you want a source for? You referred to fossil evidence and what it implies. I want to know what your logic is so I can either 1) challenge it or 2) accept it. As it is now you're just ranting and spewing unsubstantiated scientific claims.
Assertion? Dismissive technique that by ridicule you hope to prove anything you like?
I think I have given enough of my logic on the subject of evolutionary theory for anyone to discern my opinion on it.
06 Oct 07
Originally posted by kmax87Have you ever studied genetics? You don't need DNA, any self replicating molecule will do. RNA is seen as the likely precursor to DNA. All it needs to do is replicate itself. After that, minor tweaks here and there that don't kill it go unnoticed until you get a helpful protein so on so forth, tiny little steps. While you may think it's just a handy cover all, it really does just take time... take this for example...
However you try and arrange your argument you are still constructing a room with 50 monkeys randomly punching typewriter keys and ending up with Shakespearian sonnets.
Simply calling some stripped back cellular organism simple does not make it so. You expect a suspension of disbelief that somehow not only do our amino acids have to be assembled together i ...[text shortened]... actual superiority I will always remain a skeptic of the theoretical claims of evolutionists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
The most stripped down version of life, making up only 580kb pairs. with an alphabet of 36 amino acids, that means a 1 in 20,880,000 chance that such a genome can randomly generate itself. Lets assume that only one reaction takes place per second (though in the human body it's closer to 80,000, but we'll just divide the concentration by 80,000 for arguments sake) it would take only about 7.8 months (taking a month as 31 days) for this genome to build itself. Randomly.
Now add in the complexities of first figuring out how to make a functioning cell membrane and ribosomes along with signalling proteins in the cell membrane, which are only a few genes of a few hundred base pairs each, not thousands... which is all you need for a functioning cell (in the article I post, they hijack the machinery of another cell) then do you really think that 3 billion years is asking too much?
06 Oct 07
Originally posted by agrysonnice argument, but you forget earth is only 6k yrs old
Have you ever studied genetics? You don't need DNA, any self replicating molecule will do. RNA is seen as the likely precursor to DNA. All it needs to do is replicate itself. After that, minor tweaks here and there that don't kill it go unnoticed until you get a helpful protein so on so forth, tiny little steps. While you may think it's just a handy cover al ...[text shortened]... achinery of another cell) then do you really think that 3 billion years is asking too much?
06 Oct 07
Originally posted by kmax87Sorry, just saw this, the techniques actually favoured in the field are geological and paleontological records, along with analogous references from physical chemistry. Throw in a bit of genetic sequencing and measurement of speciation trees from such genomic methods (much more reliable than paleontological methods). The dismissive vibe your getting is possibly due to the lack of a credible alternative. I tend to be dismissive of most things which make no sense. But if you have an alternative to evolution that you'd like to posit, go ahead. Until then, evolution should stay on the schoolbooks.
Dismissive technique that by ridicule you hope to prove anything you like?
06 Oct 07
Originally posted by epic0002Of course, it is just a theory, along with gravity, newtonian physics, relativity, basic orbital mechanics, atomic theory... look, this list could go on, look up what theory means to a scientist and get back to me. I think the condascending term you were actually looking for was hypothesis, which doesn't apply to evolution or any of the fields I've listed above.
I think the only thing that need to be taught about evolution is that theory should always be adjoining it.
06 Oct 07
When I was in Secondary / High School, I was taught Sciences, Maths History, English, etc, and, separately, we had a lesson called RE (Religious Education).
I was pleased to note that this same format exists today after 30 years as my eldest started at Secondary this year.
Evolution is as established and proven as a science as is chemistry, physics and biology, and should continue to be taught as such.
The religious perspective should be both respected and continue to be presented, of course, and I am a firm believer in the benefits of cross-faith education.
"Forcing children" in this context is a misused phrase.
Are they "forced" to learn maths & geography too?
The science of evolution is part of the curriculum, and if parents removes the child from the curriculum, then the parents are responsible.
The child will lose the benefit of an important part of education and the parents are responsible for that too.
The child will lose the benefit of the opportunity for making his/her own mind up....and in a couple of decades, will argue against the teaching of evolution.
06 Oct 07
Originally posted by agrysonGo on then hire a lab and show the world what is demonstrably so easy!
While you may think it's just a handy cover all, it really does just take time... take this for example...
Put in all the favorable preconditions and lets see this thing develop. Given that scientists apparently sparked off some definition of life quite a while back, by your math they should have a guinea pig by now, heh?
07 Oct 07
Originally posted by kmax87LOL
Go on then hire a lab and show the world what is demonstrably so easy!
Put in all the favorable preconditions and lets see this thing develop. Given that scientists apparently sparked off some definition of life quite a while back, by your math they should have a guinea pig by now, heh?
At 20:54 I posted this link (near the top of this page)...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
there you go. You should really pay attention to posts before you make an ass of yourself...
07 Oct 07
2 edits
Originally posted by agrysonRead this!
LOL
At 20:54 I posted this link (near the top of this page)...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
there you go. You should really pay attention to posts before you make an ass of yourself...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
.."The Guardian can reveal that a team of 20 top scientists assembled by Mr Venter, led by the Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, has already constructed a synthetic chromosome, a feat of virtuoso bio-engineering never previously achieved. Using lab-made chemicals, they have painstakingly stitched together a chromosome that is 381 genes long and contains 580,000 base pairs of genetic code.
The DNA sequence is based on the bacterium Mycoplasma genitalium which the team pared down to the bare essentials needed to support life, removing a fifth of its genetic make-up. The wholly synthetically reconstructed chromosome, which the team have christened Mycoplasma laboratorium, has been watermarked with inks for easy recognition.
It is then transplanted into a living bacterial cell and in the final stage of the process it is expected to take control of the cell and in effect become a new life form. The team of scientists has already successfully transplanted the genome of one type of bacterium into the cell of another, effectively changing the cell's species. Mr Venter said he was "100% confident" the same technique would work for the artificially created chromosome.
The new life form will depend for its ability to replicate itself and metabolise on the molecular machinery of the cell into which it has been injected, and in that sense it will not be a wholly synthetic life form. However, its DNA will be artificial, and it is the DNA that controls the cell and is credited with being the building block of life..."
You should also read what you post. Taking everything but the cell (which in case you did not get the sarcasm, was a lot more than they contributed) and tinkering with it by putting their best genetic knowledge into play which no doubt involved computer aided design in getting the 580,000 base pairs to actually make genetic sense, does not qualify as putting the precursors of life together under presumed perfect conditions in a lab and then watch a hitherto afore unobserved ordering principle that allows the simple to congregate into more complex forms become a viable reality of replicating life.
IF it took them how long? ; Years, no doubt!, to get to this threshold. How much industry and deft engineering would be required do you think, with all that energy and all that expertise that they can muster, for that team to come up with all the other bits that they just happened to cannibalize from a suitable cell so that they could achieve the same feat of bio-engineering ingenuity.
And then when you look at the orders of magnitude of organized energy to pull off a feat like that, you then still want to troll around a paradigm of "given that they can do that, with enough time and randomness, all of life could have easily also have just developed?" Puhrleese, if creationists are deluded, then evolutionists have been smoking from the same supply!
07 Oct 07
Originally posted by kmax87You just followed the link, didn't you, you didn't actually go back to the 20:54 one and see what I'd originally said about it, did you. I clearly said in that post that they had admittedly hijacked the cellular machinery of another cell. I didn't leaving it hiding in the article, I came out and said it... could've saved yourself a lot of work there.
Read this!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/oct/06/genetics.climatechange
.."The Guardian can reveal that a team of 20 top scientists assembled by Mr Venter, led by the Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, has already constructed a synthetic chromosome, a feat of virtuoso bio-engineering never previously achieved. Using lab-made chemicals, they have pa ...[text shortened]... , if creationists are deluded, then evolutionists have been smoking from the same supply!
Anyway, I also gave you the calculation, though that was admittedly based on ideal conditions. And of course hijacking the cellular machinery, though the only machinery you need is some communicator proteins in the membrane, and ribosomes along with a sufficiently nutrient rich environment, which on earth at the time would have existed, as we know. The fact is that you can't argue against the fact that for a genome of 580kb, you have a 1/20,880,000 chance. Lets multiply that by a hundred thousand to compensate for the missing proteins and the off chance that the code would have ended up in a mycelle. you still have a 1/2,088,000,000,000. That still works out (at one attempt per second) about 68,000 years. As you can see, all it really takes is time.
As you can see, "the orders of magnitude of organized energy to pull off a feat like that" are easily achieved, even if nature is 37,500,000 times less efficient than man, which just so you know is 7 orders of magnitude.
Also, while I'm happy to continue having the origin of life discussion with you, please stop confusing evolutionary theory with abiogenesis. You know better than that.
07 Oct 07
Also, Kmax, why are you so opposed to the idea that time erodes statistical improbabilities? A probablity is merely how many times do you need to try something for it to work, and if you have billions of years (that really is an enormous amount of time, in fact all land based animal life has only been around for less than that, about a third of that time, look where we are now). you have pretty much as many goes at it as you want, even at the slow rate of one reaction per second.
If something is a million billion gazillion to one against, it's really just a matter of time, I don't get why your so hostile to such a simple fact.
07 Oct 07
Originally posted by agrysonI have a problem with your grasp of statistics then it seems. A possible outcome is not just that events probability multiplied by its inverse. You are basically saying that if an event has a probability of one in a hundred occurring say for a random draw for arguments sake of 100 balls in a jar numbered 1 to a 100. Then given that the probability of you drawing the number 7 is 1/100 for you to be assured that you will get a number 7 every time you draw 100 balls must mean that you have decided not to replace any balls after each draw and what in essence then occurs is that every time you draw one hundred balls from that jar, by not replacing any balls after each draw you are shortening the odds as you progress such that if you draw 7 on the last ball it has a probability of 1 of being picked at that time.
Also, Kmax, why are you so opposed to the idea that time erodes statistical improbabilities? A probablity is merely how many times do you need to try something for it to work, and if you have billions of years (that really is an enormous amount of time, in fact all land based animal life has only been around for less than that, about a third of that time, lo ...[text shortened]... nst, it's really just a matter of time, I don't get why your so hostile to such a simple fact.
If the odds of anything occcuring are incredible small, any suggestion that that allows for some conditional shortening of further odds is simply at odds with common sense and real world experience. If it were not so then any deluded gambler thinking that the odds were something other than impersonal statistics would realize that chasing a win based on the results that have gone before is just wishful thinking. At every roll of the die or turn of the wheel, the odds still stack up as they always were.
Btw statistically speaking anything above 10^50 is irrelevant, and most calculations that I have read about of the probability it would take for life to spontaneously emerge out of a pool of its constituent chemicals place it in the order of 10^256, which is so way of any chart you may as well say that Petra the rock city was formed by random wind and sand weathering.
I'm okay if you are over this debate. This is about as far as I went with scottishnz before we agreed to disagree.
If you believe time can shorten odds or as you eloquently put it 'erode[s] statistical improbabilities" then hey you have a religion my friend, and you sit in the church of the vestal possibility. Nothing wrong with that per se, but if I was watching The Empire Strikes Back on TV could you then not convince me that in some part of the multiverse at the very time that I was watching Luke slip off the Death Star in my lounge, that in some galaxy far far far far far far away at that relative frame of reference moment, an actual living being named Luke SkyWalker was not actually falling to his imagined death of a powerful stellar destruction device?
07 Oct 07
Originally posted by kmax87That's your problem I think, you're looking at it as simply a game of chance. All we need is the self repliacting molecules, after that, we are throwing away a ball every time we take one out because once you get that first self replicating molecule (though in and of itself it is not life) it's not going to go away so that the universe has to start from scratch, it'll stick around, multiply and errors (which are much more likely when not protected by a cell membrane or using efficient ribosomes, as it initially would've been) will accumulate meaning there's that roll of the dice again, picking out the ball until you get one ball closer so on so forth. The initial random step is not that big a step, labs simulating early earth have already come up with the nucleotides required after only a few decades. Once you get that self replicating chemistry, no matter how simple at first, the rest works to narrow the probability. You really are throwing away a ball every time you get the wrong one.
I have a problem with your grasp of statistics then it seems. A possible outcome is not just that events probability multiplied by its inverse. You are basically saying that if an event has a probability of one in a hundred occurring say for a random draw for arguments sake of 100 balls in a jar numbered 1 to a 100. Then given that the probability of you dra ...[text shortened]... lker was not actually falling to his imagined death of a powerful stellar destruction device?