Human skull found by Mars rover!

[JBR]

How does Dion find the time to make it to Mars?

[Jake]

Originally Posted by photon

That's very good, since evolutionists also have a problem believing that a living reproducing organism was produced by chance!

That's a common argument used by creationists who do not understand evolution at all... But they're attacking the wrong windmill.

I think the first organism was actually produced by chance. The conditions needed are extremely rare. However, the subsequent evolution of the first first organism was not by chance.

Not that I'm not supporting evolution, I accept it as a fact. I think the sheer amount of evidence supporting it is impossable to ignore. Call me crazy, but I have a hard time believing that the first organism popped out of no where

[SpitFire40]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Looks like a stormtrooper helmet! Time to start shooting swamprats in Beggar's Canyon, just in case.

Wamprats ya nerd! *Hops in T-16*

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I beg to differ. As a former creationist, I would suggest that most have problems far more basic than this:

Are you taught in school to answer any question regarding evolutionary lore with a general attack on creation and/or fundanental Christianity? Because it seems to be a pattern you all follow. Much easier then defending your house of cards I suppose.

No. The "impossible" can never happen. If it can happen, it must be possible. I believe what you meant to say was that given enough time, even the statistically improbable will occur. I am no scientist, so I will leave it to others to explain how evolution can and does occur given the space of billions of years and billions upon countless billions of permutations.

No I meant Impossible. Non-life doesn't produce life.

http://www.creationresearch.org/crsq...iogenesis.html

The above article is on a creation web site so I suppose you can always devalue and disregard it but, it does provide a good history plus the present day problems making such a theory impossible.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Jake

I think the first organism was actually produced by chance. The conditions needed are extremely rare. However, the subsequent evolution of the first first organism was not by chance.

Not that I'm not supporting evolution, I accept it as a fact. I think the sheer amount of evidence supporting it is impossable to ignore. Call me crazy, but I have a hard time believing that the first organism popped out of no where

Ah I see what you mean, yes the first self-reproducing things (RNA or whatever it was) would have happened by random chance, but that's quite simple to explain with a billion billion possible places for it to happen, and like you said it only had to happen once.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Much easier then defending your house of cards I suppose.

It's hard to defend a house of cards from someone who can't even see the deck.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

No I meant Impossible. Non-life doesn't produce life.

I remember a experiment on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, where they produced a kind of organic soup by mixing chemicals and electricity. It didn't result in life, but the implications were very interesting. I'll see if I can dig up that research.

Astrobiology: Life In The Universe:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:...a&ct=clnk&cd=4

http://www.astrobio.net/

http://www.astrobiology.com/

http://astrobiology.arc.nasa.gov/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrobiology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment

The Miller-Urey experiment (or Urey-Miller experiment) was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions present on the early Earth and tested for the occurrence of chemical evolution (the Oparin and Haldanehypothesis stated that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors; the Miller-Urey tested this hypothesis). The experiment is considered to be the classic experiment on the origin of life. It was conducted in 1953 by Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey at the University of Chicago.

The molecules produced were simple organic molecules, far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them first.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by troutman

I remember a experiment on Carl Sagan's Cosmos, where they produced a kind of organic soup by mixing chemicals and electricity. It didn't result in life, but the implications were very interesting. I'll see if I can dig up that research.

The Miller-Urey experiment (or Urey-Miller experiment) was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions present on the early Earth and tested for the occurrence of chemical evolution (the Oparin and Haldanehypothesis stated that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors; the Miller-Urey tested this hypothesis). The experiment is considered to be the classic experiment on the origin of life. It was conducted in 1953 by Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey at the University of Chicago.

The molecules produced were simple organic molecules, far from a complete living biochemical system, but the experiment established that the hypothetical processes could produce some building blocks of life without requiring life to synthesize them first.

If you read my previous link you would find that even Miller no longer believes his research demonstrated the origin of life. The only reason that experiment is still referenced is because nothing plausible has come along to replace it.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

The above article is on a creation web site so I suppose you can always devalue and disregard it but, it does provide a good history plus the present day problems making such a theory impossible.

It's not so much that the article appears on a creation web site, it's the content. It does a lot of work setting up false ideas to knock down. From a light read they make a lot of assumptions about what the minimum requirements for life are (with no basis for those assumptions).

Just because the problem of first life hasn't been solved doesn't mean it's impossible.

Plus why if there is a problem with a specific theory of abiogenesis is Creation the only alternative?

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perl...l.pbio.0030396

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

If you read my previous link you would find that even Miller no longer believes his research demonstrated the origin of life. The only reason that experiment is still referenced is because nothing plausible has come along to replace it.

If life could come from non-life (and I don't know that it can, but it certainly seems plausible to me) does this necessarily conflict with a creationist view? Could not a creator have made a universe that allows for this?


Calculations favor reducing atmosphere for early earth

Was Miller-Urey experiment correct?
http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/5513.html

A debate on this topic:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article239.html

Summary (Jul 22, 2002): Microbial life, at least, may be common in our stellar neighborhood and even may be present on other planets in our Solar System. That being the premise, the probability of complex life elsewhere is then dependent on the probability of the transition from slime to civilization. It happened here, so why not elsewhere? Do you think that complex life should develop on a sizeable fraction of worlds around other stars?

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

No I meant Impossible. Non-life doesn't produce life.

So how did God begin then?

Obviously in the very beginnings of time, something had to come from nothing. It all had to start somewhere.

[Jake]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

It all had to start somewhere.

Not necessarily... you're thinking of time as an absolute thing. I spent like 10 minutes trying to explain that further, but failed lol so thats all I'm going to say.

[Igottago]

I knew Total Recall was based on a true story..

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by photon

It's not so much that the article appears on a creation web site, it's the content. It does a lot of work setting up false ideas to knock down. From a light read they make a lot of assumptions about what the minimum requirements for life are (with no basis for those assumptions).

I thought the article did a very good job at looking at what the basic requirements would be to constitute life. He quoted more than one view point on the subject and tried to simplify it as much as possible.

Just because the problem of first life hasn't been solved doesn't mean it's impossible.

I think you are arguing that until every possible senerio for the evolving of life from non-life is examined we can't rule such a thing as impossible. Of course we will never exaust ourself of hypothetical theories so you have a point. What I can say is that science hasn't come up with a plausible theory and the possibility of finding that theory has become increasing remote with our increased understanding of the complexity of even the most simple life forms. Moreover, we have found no observable evidence that these necessary links have ever existed.

Plus why if there is a problem with a specific theory of abiogenesis is Creation the only alternative?

Of course there being a Creator is not the only alternative. I do think that after 100 plus years of looking for an alternative a Creator still remains as the most probable hypothesis. Perhaps that will change in our life time. Until then it would be great if more scientists owned up to their limited progress instead of presenting failed theories as proven.
[/quote]

[troutman]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Until then it would be great if more scientists owned up to their limited progress instead of presenting failed theories as proven.

[/quote]

That's now how science (should) work.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address

[Calgaryborn]

That's now how science (should) work.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.
-- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address[/quote]

I think you would find even on this site people who political or religious positions on different issues have changed at different points in their life.

[Azure]

Originally Posted by CaramonLS

So how did God begin then?

Obviously in the very beginnings of time, something had to come from nothing. It all had to start somewhere.

God would be eternity though...so if he has no end...he also had no beginning.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Are you taught in school to answer any question regarding evolutionary lore with a general attack on creation and/or fundanental Christianity? Because it seems to be a pattern you all follow. Much easier then defending your house of cards I suppose.

I already outlined my several problems with creationism above. I would presume that any intellectually honest person would agree that a critical examination of philosophy, history, science and their relationship to church doctrine will teach us much about the evolution of religious thought. On the contrary, the doctrine of biblical inerrency which is at the very heart of creationist theory and fundamentalist theology is the very definition of the proverbial "house of cards".

I recommend that you take a look at a forthcoming book by a friend and colleague of mine: Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon. (Evangelical Ressourcement Series; Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2007).
http://www.bakeracademic.com/
I am presently reading his manuscript, and it is an excellent summary of the issues and pratfalls which plague so many biblical inerrentists.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by Azure

God would be eternity though...so if he has no end...he also had no beginning.

Ahhhh, way to wrap that one up with some circular logic.

If life can't come from non-life, then whatever created life must be life. But that life doesn't have to come from anywhere because I have arbitrarily said so. Sounds reasonable to me.

This is what I don't like about creationist "SCIENCE" is that it applies a bad definition to something to disprove something else, and then claims, "See, it doesn't work so it must be God".

I have no problem debating these things, and you are fully within your realm to beleive them, and you can try to debate them all you like. All I ask is that you apply the same standard of proof to your own reasoning that any half way respecatble scientist would.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I already outlined my several problems with creationism above. I would presume that any intellectually honest person would agree that a critical examination of philosophy, history, science and their relationship to church doctrine will teach us much about the evolution of religious thought. On the contrary, the doctrine of biblical inerrency which is at the very heart of creationist theory and fundamentalist theology is the very definition of the proverbial "house of cards".

I recommend that you take a look at a forthcoming book by a friend and colleague of mine: Craig D. Allert, A High View of Scripture? The Authority of the Bible and the Formation of the New Testament Canon. (Evangelical Ressourcement Series; Grand Rapids, Mich: Baker Academic, 2007).
http://www.bakeracademic.com/
I am presently reading his manuscript, and it is an excellent summary of the issues and pratfalls which plague so many biblical inerrentists.

I will consider reading your friends book once it comes out. I have an interest in Church history and have read several 19th century books on the subject. Can you tell me his religious affiliation. I've notice that has a lot to do with a persons view of ecclesiastical history. I also have a few book regarding the formation of the canon mostly from the twentieth century.

This of course is a departure from the question being discussed. You responded to a challenge to the validity of the scientific theory on the origin of life with an attack on christian views on the origin of life.