Creation vs. Evolution
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DeLoreanBrown
Actually, no Neanderthal site has ever turned up any evidence that they had even the most basic ability to form abstract concepts such as art. Their minds simply did not work like ours.
They were incapable of forming societal groups larger than a dozen or, at most, 15 individuals. There was no such thing as a Neanderthal "tribe".
No arrowheads have ever been found at a Neaderthal site. They couldn't even come up with the simple concept of the bow and arrow. The crudest form of spear was high technology for them. When tribes of Cro-Magnon archers spread through Europe about 30,000 years ago, the small bands of Neanderthals were exterminated in very short order.
Neanderthal dig sites that are 150,000 years old are virtually identical to sites dated at the end of their era. In 120,000 years they made virtually no progress at all.
The Neanderthals were not "absorbed" by the Cro-Magnon. Two DNA studies published in the last couple of years confirm that we carry none of their DNA. We did not intermingle with the Neanderthals. We wiped them out.
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#17
Good Lord! MekTek now has three MekPaks for Mercenaries, and ol' Buzz Litebeer is still around and posting away! I'm an old online MechWarrior dating back to MW3, and its amazing to see that these guys are still going at it! I mean, how many ways can there be to blow up a walking tank? I guess, for some people, that sort of thing will never get boring...
if you want a good 'simple" history of the theories of everything such as string and brane theory watch the elegant universe on PBS which was a nova special about the book by Brian Greene of columbia university. Amazing special taht simplifies the ideas enough taht you can at least grasp what they are talking about even if you cant actually do the math he can. Or you can read The book titled you guessed it "the elegant universe".
No didnt jsut provide a legal link to watch the whole special...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
No didnt jsut provide a legal link to watch the whole special...
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/elegant/program.html
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actually, the bible never says "how" he created the earth, it simply says he did. therefore, the question of, "who created all the matter that exists" is quite the question maybe we should be asking.
A. Famine did not conquer all, he agreed with many a scientist. Scientifically, nothing he said can be proven, and is therefore a theory. a theory is quite similar in meaning to speculation, and that is the reason I said "speculation". <---it sounds harsher.
While everything he said sounds good in theory, we just don't know, not even the smartest scientists ever do.
B. Assume for a hypothetical second that a God created all of your matter in existance. Now assume he transformed it the very same way your talking about, on purpose.... and he would still have hypothetically created it.
C. while I realize by the true meaning of creating, nothing mankind has built is created, it is moreso than anything that is simply changing between it's 3 forms of matter. Gaseous, solid, and liquid.
Mankind, has taken solid wood, and made solid paper. Solid rock, and made a watch. What mankind can do, is change the solid form to a different solid form, therefore, much more of a creation than simply gas, to solid, etc.
P.S. the reason I call theory speculation is simply this: the smartest known people all through history have always thought of "great" theories, yet, very commonly, these theories have not been correct. I can theorize that bread can be liquified into water, by adding salt. As long as it makes sense in my mind, it is a theory, untill proven otherwise. The common denominator here is that any theory is solid, until somebody can prove it wrong, or if people suspect it to be wrong. And the difference is that most people get lost when it gets this detailed. Am I saying this theory is wrong? no. But i'm certainly not calling it right, not with the speculation required to assume other people know exactly whats going on 50billion light years away, when many still believe we havent even gotten to the moon yet.
A. Famine did not conquer all, he agreed with many a scientist. Scientifically, nothing he said can be proven, and is therefore a theory. a theory is quite similar in meaning to speculation, and that is the reason I said "speculation". <---it sounds harsher.
While everything he said sounds good in theory, we just don't know, not even the smartest scientists ever do.
B. Assume for a hypothetical second that a God created all of your matter in existance. Now assume he transformed it the very same way your talking about, on purpose.... and he would still have hypothetically created it.
C. while I realize by the true meaning of creating, nothing mankind has built is created, it is moreso than anything that is simply changing between it's 3 forms of matter. Gaseous, solid, and liquid.
Mankind, has taken solid wood, and made solid paper. Solid rock, and made a watch. What mankind can do, is change the solid form to a different solid form, therefore, much more of a creation than simply gas, to solid, etc.
P.S. the reason I call theory speculation is simply this: the smartest known people all through history have always thought of "great" theories, yet, very commonly, these theories have not been correct. I can theorize that bread can be liquified into water, by adding salt. As long as it makes sense in my mind, it is a theory, untill proven otherwise. The common denominator here is that any theory is solid, until somebody can prove it wrong, or if people suspect it to be wrong. And the difference is that most people get lost when it gets this detailed. Am I saying this theory is wrong? no. But i'm certainly not calling it right, not with the speculation required to assume other people know exactly whats going on 50billion light years away, when many still believe we havent even gotten to the moon yet.
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Disturbed07
How can any rational, thinking person use a book like this as their guide to life? :
http://www.evilbible.com/
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Zardoz
Almost everyone would agree that the morals and life instruction of the bible are good. The thing that people are questioning in this thread is the validity of teaching creation in school.
Not to mention that is a radically biased view of the bible that doesn't take many things into account. Like the REST of the bible.
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As i completely did mention in this post which you ( sort of ) quoted in this post, there is currently considerable speculation surrounding the extinction of the Neanderthal from Northern Europe.
Is it a genocidal demolishment by the mighty armed legions of the mek-magnon?
Or perhaps something a little more light-hearted and smoochy?
For a start, in paleoanthropology, skeletons are hard to come by, especially of the gazelle-like Cro-Magnon, whereas the Neandertal has been found in clusters at well - known Mousterian sites, the reason for this being that prolly this 120,000yr fat-ass ruling stint as the only Hominid in Europe left a lot of bone and ure Cro-magnon quickly donned the appropriate silks & hosiery to become the grand ruling classes of Europe ever after, happily hanging on to the old scourgish ways thus forming the peasantry.
Lets see;
& Woah!
No power struggles, duplicate production, language difficulties? Just a bunch of big ole Apes in the Veldt, Ya those Kooky Neanderdales!
120,000yrs of that **** not suprising they needed 10% larger whatevers.But lets keep this on the straight & narrow, WAAAAAAY TOOO MANY Zeroes, that's right.
Lets get this back in Creationist Time & what are we creating today Kiddies ? The sapling and gut Bow& Arrow! Leave those flints & speartips that in Mousterian fashion piled up in Gigantic heaps unchanging for Millennia! As if tey were jus Tokens .
And get this Civ thing back in the Sights W/ high-power razor-bore Arrowtips, totally different species dude, boy were they backward and were'nt we (sweet CroMaginons ) teh flippin' Alien from teh Africa 'n all.
Compare how people of learning over on that [WIKIPEDIA]Wikipedia[/WIKIPEDIA] give the Meknoes & the Neanders the Column Inch Score before ya blow us all away with those Archer Death-Squads of yourn.
Maybe the beeb is just Gooching us with this Portugese kid could have easily fixed himself a larger brain(Mama was won after two tons {180x2}&treb20treb17dbl15)
Seriously, how accurate to the 10th of a mil is this science lashed together in the five summers between the Neanderthal coining of1863 and the Cro-Magnon minting of1868, What's up with that ?? Two species , european discovered in europe by europeans, five years apart , quick lets get a tale of massive pwnage together to the ones w/ the nicer brows(ers)
Look at this recreated prehistoric kid
and then this non joint rolling fool
Both seem Bipedalus Erectus to me, the only thing the cro-newbs have going ifor them that makes them bioidentical to Paris Hilton and Alex Rodriguez is frickin' archery !
Here's 21st refs from wikipedia;
# 2000: Igor Ovchinnikov, Kirsten Liden, William Goodman et al. retrieve DNA from a late (29,000 BP) Neanderthal infant from Mezmaikaya Cave in the Caucausus.
# 2005: The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology launches a project to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome.
And to leave on a Quartoed note ;
"Particularly intriguing is a hollowed-out bear femur with four holes in the diatonic scale deliberately bored into it."
This flute was found in western Slovenia in 1995 near a Mousterian Era fireplace used by Neanderthals.
Is it a genocidal demolishment by the mighty armed legions of the mek-magnon?
Or perhaps something a little more light-hearted and smoochy?
For a start, in paleoanthropology, skeletons are hard to come by, especially of the gazelle-like Cro-Magnon, whereas the Neandertal has been found in clusters at well - known Mousterian sites, the reason for this being that prolly this 120,000yr fat-ass ruling stint as the only Hominid in Europe left a lot of bone and ure Cro-magnon quickly donned the appropriate silks & hosiery to become the grand ruling classes of Europe ever after, happily hanging on to the old scourgish ways thus forming the peasantry.
Lets see;
This period of unparalleled stability in terms of European Manners & Mores is a Bad Thing?theBigZ
& Woah!
Extended Families are definitely 'gainst ure Religeous Codex . No advantges from this null tribe? no government? woah, dude, ide go all nostalgiac 'bout those Taxes.TheBigZ
No power struggles, duplicate production, language difficulties? Just a bunch of big ole Apes in the Veldt, Ya those Kooky Neanderdales!
120,000yrs of that **** not suprising they needed 10% larger whatevers.But lets keep this on the straight & narrow, WAAAAAAY TOOO MANY Zeroes, that's right.
Lets get this back in Creationist Time & what are we creating today Kiddies ? The sapling and gut Bow& Arrow! Leave those flints & speartips that in Mousterian fashion piled up in Gigantic heaps unchanging for Millennia! As if tey were jus Tokens .
And get this Civ thing back in the Sights W/ high-power razor-bore Arrowtips, totally different species dude, boy were they backward and were'nt we (sweet CroMaginons ) teh flippin' Alien from teh Africa 'n all.
Compare how people of learning over on that [WIKIPEDIA]Wikipedia[/WIKIPEDIA] give the Meknoes & the Neanders the Column Inch Score before ya blow us all away with those Archer Death-Squads of yourn.
Maybe the beeb is just Gooching us with this Portugese kid could have easily fixed himself a larger brain(Mama was won after two tons {180x2}&treb20treb17dbl15)
Seriously, how accurate to the 10th of a mil is this science lashed together in the five summers between the Neanderthal coining of1863 and the Cro-Magnon minting of1868, What's up with that ?? Two species , european discovered in europe by europeans, five years apart , quick lets get a tale of massive pwnage together to the ones w/ the nicer brows(ers)
Look at this recreated prehistoric kid
and then this non joint rolling fool
Both seem Bipedalus Erectus to me, the only thing the cro-newbs have going ifor them that makes them bioidentical to Paris Hilton and Alex Rodriguez is frickin' archery !
There is no full matching genome, that does not mean that the Neanderdales, a seperate species, have not got some five'o'clock shadow on us. There is a resonance and now to the 100% cro-magnon genotype match ? i can't find this main causal bridge anywhere, maybe U can help, providing U stay off the bats a bit.TheBigZ
Here's 21st refs from wikipedia;
# 2000: Igor Ovchinnikov, Kirsten Liden, William Goodman et al. retrieve DNA from a late (29,000 BP) Neanderthal infant from Mezmaikaya Cave in the Caucausus.
# 2005: The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology launches a project to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome.
And to leave on a Quartoed note ;
Que?TheBigZ
"Particularly intriguing is a hollowed-out bear femur with four holes in the diatonic scale deliberately bored into it."
This flute was found in western Slovenia in 1995 near a Mousterian Era fireplace used by Neanderthals.
Pako
Staff Emeritus
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DeLoreanBrown
On the point of this supposed flute, we say it's a flute and even mathematically calculate where the other holes 'would be' had we found the whole flute. Why do you think we see it as a flute? Because it looks familiar? Because some people are looking for a piece that would imply higher thinking and this happens to fit that missing piece? It could have been used as a tool. Maybe the holes were used to thread fibers though and used as a tension rod or as a clevis pin. Or maybe the holes were made out of boredom or nervousness. It's an interesting 'theory' that it 'might be' a flute, but lets not call it fact. I am neither supporting or denying the claim, but you can't just offer up this site as gospel according to using standards of 'fact'.
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Take those four notes or leave them to sail a ship with, Pako. I think BigBrows was still from the mother.
Oh, and there is no DNA proof that we are not related to the Neanderdales, it is all cranial measurements etc spread out amongst all primates, democratic Huh?
Have to wait for that genome project then . . .
http://www.brightsurf.com/news/jan_04/EDU_news_012704_b.php
Oh, and there is no DNA proof that we are not related to the Neanderdales, it is all cranial measurements etc spread out amongst all primates, democratic Huh?
Have to wait for that genome project then . . .
http://www.brightsurf.com/news/jan_04/EDU_news_012704_b.php
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DeLoreanBrown
We have an established history of that sort of thing, don't we? It's what we do. We're really good at it.
DeLoreanBrown
Okay, point taken. I have to agree that if my arrow-slingin' Cro-Mags had kept their skinny butts out of Europe and left your beloved Neanderthals alone, we would never have seen atrocities such as this:
Nevertheless, I must also agree with the purveyors of the Conventional Wisdom about them being too dumb to grafitti a cave wall. Desperate attempts such as this are occasionally made to assign "artistic ability" to those poor doofuses:
Oh, please...
However, you'll note that the dating of these artifacts just so happens to coincide pretty well with the time Paris Hilton's clean-limbed ancestors showed up. Even your bear-bone flute, found in Eastern Europe, could conceivably have been the work of a very early Homo Sapien immigrant. We use 35,000 years ago as a general age of the Cro-Mag invasion into western Europe, but who's to say eastern Europe wasn't probed a little earlier by adventurous Africans? One bone with two holes in it is not what most juries would call "conclusive evidence" of Neander musicianship. It could also have been left at the site by a band of roving Cro-Mag thugs that slaughtered the Neanders and used their "campsite" for a while.
Here's a blurb on the DNA deal. We aren't part-Neanderthal. They were not us:
DNA evidence
We didn't bang 'em; we bashed 'em. Sorry.
DeLoreanBrown
When did I say we're "better"? All I'm advocating is that we came, we saw, we slaughtered, just like we've been doing ever since.
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Anyone see this show last night? Great stuff!! Probably more at home in the 'Religion Is Contrived' thread or the 'Questioning Religion' thread, but there was quite a bit of C v E debate thrown in for good measure as well...Touring Mars
For those of you who missed it, last night's show was Part One (of two) subtitled 'The God Delusion', where Dawkins argued his case against religion. Next week, Part Two (subtitled 'The Virus of Faith') will discuss the concept that faith and religious belief acts like a mind-virus... a must-watch. 👍
Dawkins is currently in the process of writing a book called 'The God Delusion', and there is an interesting article in today's Guardian (Education supplement) which discusses last night's episode, amongst other things...
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/profile/story/0,11109,1682655,00.html
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Touring Mars
But Dawkins reserves his greatest scorn for creationists. "How any government could promote the Vardy academies in the north-east of England is absolutely beyond me. Tony Blair defends them on grounds of diversity, but it should be unthinkable in the 21st century to have a school whose head of science believes the world is less than 10,000 years old."
This is news to me. I had no idea the infection was spreading. Pretty outrageous:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3825461.stm
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Zardoz
Yes, it was news to me as well - the argument that these schools teach creation 'science' to allow children to 'weigh up both sides of the argument' and then 'make up their own minds' is a worthy goal, but is fundamentally flawed when you take into account the fact that these schools are religious schools, and hence these poor children don't stand a chance of receiving an unbiased education. The illusion of balance is most likely going to be just that, an illusion.
But when it comes to teaching creation versus evolution, ironically teachers could be afforded a valuable chance to show children just how profoundly flawed so-called Intelligent Design theory really is, and how much more sense Evolution theory makes, especially when considering that most key of issues, the origin of Mankind.
The presence of Mankind, no matter which way you look at it, is an extremely improbable event. In the show last night, Dawkins suggests an analogy (from his book 'Climbing Mount Improbable') of a sheer cliff face, representing the leap required to reach the complexity of Mankind from primordial simplicity (or nothingness, if you prefer). There are different ways by which Mankind could have arisen, different ways how the cliff face could have been scaled.
1) By random chance - bits of organic matter just came together at random to assemble a human being. This is akin to climbing the cliff face in one single bound, and is clearly impossible (well, nothing is 'impossible', just so improbable that one could try for a billion times longer than the age of the universe and still never succeed).
2) By design - Similarly, this approach is akin to trying to climb the sheer cliff face in a single bound. As an attempt to explain how Mankind arose, it is a non-starter, for the simple reason that you then have to explain how the designer was made etc. (the Occam's Razor problem), as discussed many times in this thread already... *1
3) By evolution - in the sheer cliff face analogy, the slow, gradual, step-by-step process of evolution is likened to the other side of the cliff-face, which reveals a gentle slope, all the way up to the top. In order to lend creedence to this argument, however, certain assumptions need to be made about the age of the Earth. The Earth would have to have existed for much longer than Creationists will allow you to believe to allow sufficient time for the evolution of Mankind to have happened. Fortunately, evidence of a much older Earth has not only been found, but has been found in abundance. Also, more assumptions need to be made, such as 'were the right ingredients there in the first place?'. Again, like the age of the Earth argument, assumptions can be dispensed with on the presentation of solid evidential support... Unlike the design argument (which does not even attempt to explain where all this biological machinery came from), the evolution argument takes as it's starting point the primordial Earth model. We know, by simple observation, that the Earth had (and of course, still does have) carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen in great abundance, all the essential raw ingredients to create the biological machinery that all life forms are comprised of. Although the exact mechanisms of how these entities originated is not fully understood, we do know that a) it did happen one way or another (again, take your pick to which method you think is most probable!), and b) we also have very good ideas of how things as complex as DNA/proteins can (and do) arise by using simpler entities as scaffolding, itself a process of evolution!. The scaffolding concept can also be used to counter the problem of 'irreducible complexity' discussed in the footnote below. But the least plausible explanation of how such primoridal simplicity arranged itself into biomolecular complexity, is to invoke the notion of a supernatural being who came down and fashioned all these biomolecules with His own fair hand.
Take your pick, one of those three arguments must be correct (since we are here talking about it)... although there are many arguments for the latter two hypotheses, both for and against, there exists evidential support (and an abundance thereof) for only one, and that is the final explanation... that Mankind surmounted the vast improbability of his creation by a gradual, step-wise process.
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*1 The design argument is flawed at every turn, but especially since it offers no explanation of where the raw material came from. Were proteins, DNA and RNA all made as seperate entities and then assembled into an animal? Not only is this ludicrous, but it's physically impossible. ID theorists argue that proteins and the 'machinery' to create them are inter-dependent, so cannot have come into existence separately - the system is irreducibly complex. But this is analogue to a stone arch. All the stones are dependent on each other. Take one away, and the arch collapses. So how do stone arches get built at all? The answer is easy - scaffolding. Similarly, so-called irreducibly complex biological systems may well be interdependent now, but they formed in the presence of biomolecular scaffolding which has long since been removed
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- swift-bass
TM, I'm not trying to be a jerk here. But NO scientist can say that they know where the matter for the universe came from. None, they have theories but no proof. So to say that the biggest flaw in the creation argument is it doesn't explain where all the matter came from is exactly the same flaw as ANY of the theories offered by modern science.
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Swift
I cannot express how happy I am that somebody other than me pointed this out already.
Aside from that, and maybe different from his point of view, how is it so much more sensible to assume that mankind or earth wasnt created? matter had to start somewhere, and if it wasnt an all-powerful being, I'd certainly love to hear what created all this matter.
Why do all the "genious's" in the world act like it would be so horribly stupid to believe a God created it? something, somewhere, or somebody did. you can't rationally state that any is more logical than the other.... except that we've never witnessed any form of any of this, that has been documented, other than some smaller forms of creation, forms that matter itself could not possibly do...without an intelligent being guiding it.
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Wow, I can't believe I never asked this before.
Why, oh why, do we have all these oh so smart scientists, who KNOW that there is no God, turn around, and say mankind is stupid, some even say we're the stupidest beings on the planet, and some say mankind is arrogant (and stupid) for assuming they are the smartest beings in existance? Anybody catch the humor? How can you say all that, then say it's stupid, foolish, and irrational to believe in an all-powerful being? how blatently hypocritical, and moronic can one be to fiercly argue all these point?
Why, oh why, do we have all these oh so smart scientists, who KNOW that there is no God, turn around, and say mankind is stupid, some even say we're the stupidest beings on the planet, and some say mankind is arrogant (and stupid) for assuming they are the smartest beings in existance? Anybody catch the humor? How can you say all that, then say it's stupid, foolish, and irrational to believe in an all-powerful being? how blatently hypocritical, and moronic can one be to fiercly argue all these point?
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It doesn't take a genius.Disturbed07
One brain cell - dogmatic, unable to change. All ideas hard-wired in during first 5 years of life.
Two brain cells - each brain cell can question each other to hopefully arrive at a rational theory. This is the start of the scientific process. You only need two brain cells to rub together! 👍.
BTW, it's "geniuses".
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James2097It doesn't take a genius.
One brain cell - dogmatic, unable to change. All ideas hard-wired in during first 5 years of life.
Two brain cells - each brain cell can question each other to hopefully arrive at a rational theory. This is the start of the scientific process. You only need two brain cells to rub together! 👍.
BTW, it's "geniuses".
so your saying all of our "geniuses" have 2 brain cells, and they never stop arguning with each other, and that's why they "know" a God can't exist, but also "Know" that people are arrogant and stupid for thinking they are the king kong's of the universe?
I think I'd rather misspell some words, and realize there's more in the universe than anything science will ever prove, at least, in the next 40 million years....
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Disturbed07
So you will just ignore science?
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Disturbed07
It was a joke. Nevertheless, an analogy of the dogmatic mantra common in certain (religious or otherwise) mindsets where you simply 'believe' things as opposed to those who subscribe to the scientific process where everything is up for debate. I was implying there is some accountability and questioning happening with 2 brain cells (you need some kind of discourse to be sure you're being rational - you don't just believe the first idea that comes... I was implying science is a far better way of eventually arriving at a truth, not that a person with 2 brain cells "knows" things for 100% certainty... only that if you have the belief mindset, you'll NEVER have the potential to "know" anything for sure (but will (rather comically) think you do).
I was also (on a very basic level) implying that people that are scientific of mind are generally more intelligent (by a factor of 2 - just to be mean
) than people happy to be spoon fed an archaic and irrational belief system. Obviously I was also implying that logical reasoning is within the bounds of normal people - not just geniuses.
Its a mindset thing. Once you understand the scientific process you invariably will just agree with Famine, Touring Mars et all..For someone with that sig, it wasn't a very perceptive response...
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Very fair point Swift (and Disturbed07), worthy of more discussion, and you are both quite right - IF we are talking about the origin of matter from first principles... this is still very much a moot point, to which only the most recent and advanced physics can postulate an answer...Swift
But this is not the point I was trying to make - my point is in relation to organic matter, and more specifically, the origin of biological macromolecules that constitute the matter of organic life, and how it pertains specifically to the origin of Mankind as a species.
Wherever it came from, and whoever put it here (if anybody), the raw materials required to make a living creature (the elements of the period table) were, at some stage in the dim and distant past, somehow taken from a state of complete randomness, and fashioned into a state of complete non-randomness/high complexity. The question therefore remains, by which method did this occur? We have only three options (as described above, these are 'random chance', 'design' or 'evolution')... only the theory of evolution (by cumulative selection) explains adequately how this massive probability barrier may be overcome. The other two explanations simply don't hold water.
I concede that we may not be able to explain precisely where matter originated from, but this is irrelevant in answering the question "Once matter was present in the Universe, by which processes did it later find itself in the highly improbable state of biological complexity?" And despite the fact that the origins of matter are not yet fully understood, we do know the processes by which the different elements arose (i.e. nucleosynthesis) - we know that elements are actually fundamentally all made from the same stuff - i.e. God didn't fashion each element individually - you can, in theory, convert any element into any other, given enough energy. In practice, it's pretty difficult, but we already do it. It even happens naturally in radioactive elements and in supernova nucleosynthesis. The vast majority of matter present in the universe is in the form of hydrogen and helium (the two lightest atoms). Is this a coincidence? No. The heavier elements formed later as a result of the fusion of these 'starter' atoms and continue to form in stars and supernovae.
The point remains, if we can explain how all the raw materials (the elements of the periodic table) for life could have originated from simpler 'precursor' elements hydrogen and helium (which still happens to this day, observable in every star in the night sky by spectroscopic methods), then it doesn't require a tremendous leap of faith to then contemplate the possibility that these more complex elements could go on to form molecules (in the right environment, such as on a planet like ours, again this is easily observable in nature), and in turn go on to form complex biological molecules. Much like the origin of higher species of life from simpler species of life, this is a step-by-step progression from simplicity to increasing complexity.
By moving away from a philosophical discussion about the origin of matter, and concentrating on what we can (and do) know about the processes that came after the Big Bang, we can start to build up a picture of how the formation of living systems is possible. By conceding that the Big Bang happened (for which there is strong evidence), you do not necessarily need to dispense with the notion of a God - but you do have to dispense with the notion that the Earth and that Mankind were not made in the way as described in Genesis, but rather, they formed as a result of the complex step-by-step processes of cosmological and biomolecular evolution respectively. This, to me, is the essence of how one can rationalise faithful belief whilst incorporating modern scientific understanding in the process.
This is my understanding of it anyway. The fact that we can explain (and even demonstrate) that elements required for life did not always exist, is a very convincing argument to suggest that Mankind itself, as well as life on Earth in general, similarly did not always exist...
___
edit: about to go to a lecture in my department called "The Emergence and Early Evolution of Life: Energy Supply,Cubane-Based Catalytic Clusters and Context" (Prof. Michael J. Russell, SUERC, Glasgow/Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena) should be interesting!
Update: Excellent talk, easily the best I've seen all year!
No, seriously, fascinating lecture centred upon the role of inorganic elements in the process of the early formation of organic molecules. He dispelled a few theories, such as a metoer impact containing pre-made genetic/organic material. A nice statement was along the lines of "Some people think that Life must have started in Space... but Earth is a good place to be in Space for life to begin (independently), we are already 'in Space'. ". Another good quote - "It is inorganic elements that bring organic elements to life". He also made some very interesting comparisons between minerals containing Fe-S clusters and proteins (such as the one I am currently studying) and specifically their relevance as early biomolecular reaction centres... it's amazing just how similar these inanimate, inorganic 'lumps of rock' are in both structure and function to modern day (as well as ancient) proteins. Indeed, the oldest known proteins, the ferrodoxins, are just such proteins - Fe-S cluster containing proteins... food for thought (P.S. How coincidental is it that this chap would give this talk in my work today? 
spooky... )- 86
The ones who think that religion is information, believe
The ones that know that religion is hope, don't believe.
(rough translation from a finnish aphorism)
Religion the opium of the masses...
- Karl Marx
The ones that know that religion is hope, don't believe.
(rough translation from a finnish aphorism)
Religion the opium of the masses...
- Karl Marx
- 3,425
Mr traveler of Mars..could you help me out a bit with the transformation of inorganic material to organic material ? Is there that part of the molecular structure of mi eral compounds that can mutate ? or can molocules of inorganic compounds be combined in the optimum conditions to " become" organic ..like living rocks .. Alchemy..hehehehe ....could it even be a situation where some molecules are " left out " to transform to organic ?
Alchemy..hehehehe ....could it even be a situation where some molecules are " left out " to transform to organic ?
- 29,316
- Glasgow
- GTP_Mars
It's not a question of inorganic material 'becoming' organic material. It's a question of how inorganic material present in minerals in the Earth's crust can transform inanimate (i.e. non-living) 'organic' compounds (such as ubiquitous CO2, NH3, H2 etc.) into the molecules of life, such as amino acids and peptides etc. The chemistry is quite complex, but the fact of the matter is that all the ingredients required to carry out this complex chemistry (including the necessary catalytic sites, required for electron donation etc.) are present in geothermal vents.
Many minerals present in the Earth's crust contain iron-sulphur clusters that can act as catalytic centers to donate electrons to initiate chemical reactions. (This is what the protein that I study does - it uses a cube-shaped 4Fe-4S cluster to catalyse one stage in the biosynthesis of a vitamin molecule) - but the utility of the inorganic iron-sulphur cluster is not limited to just proteins. These clusters are abundant in nature, as minerals and ores, found throughout the Earth's crust. Acting as a catalytic surface, the 'organic' molecules that encounter it are provided with an opportunity to react with each other and form more elaborate molecules, and so on and so forth. Interestingly, these clusters are abundant in deep-sea thermal vents, an environment rich in the raw material (both inorganic and organic elements), catalytic sites and most importantly of all, energy (heat from the thermal vents).
The notion that the Earth was once lifeless is a true one. But the notion that life arose in little rock pools dotted around the globe is not. When the world was very young (around 150,000 yrs old) the surface would have been almost entirely sea. Underwater volcanoes and geothermal vents created sources of minerals, as well as a myriad of locations where energy could be concentrated (focused). With so-called organic material in it's simplest form (carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen gas) also abundant (as it still is today), underwater thermal vents would have (and of course, must have) been the perfect place for the beginnings of the processes we now collectively term the origins of life. There is even strong evidence that the actual structures of the vents themselves (iron sulfide bubbles) lend themselves perfectly to be inorganic 'culture chambers' where primordial organic matter would have been protected and 'grown', until they were durable enough to form their own organic chambers, or 'cells'... anyway, must dash for the moment, back later
Many minerals present in the Earth's crust contain iron-sulphur clusters that can act as catalytic centers to donate electrons to initiate chemical reactions. (This is what the protein that I study does - it uses a cube-shaped 4Fe-4S cluster to catalyse one stage in the biosynthesis of a vitamin molecule) - but the utility of the inorganic iron-sulphur cluster is not limited to just proteins. These clusters are abundant in nature, as minerals and ores, found throughout the Earth's crust. Acting as a catalytic surface, the 'organic' molecules that encounter it are provided with an opportunity to react with each other and form more elaborate molecules, and so on and so forth. Interestingly, these clusters are abundant in deep-sea thermal vents, an environment rich in the raw material (both inorganic and organic elements), catalytic sites and most importantly of all, energy (heat from the thermal vents).
The notion that the Earth was once lifeless is a true one. But the notion that life arose in little rock pools dotted around the globe is not. When the world was very young (around 150,000 yrs old) the surface would have been almost entirely sea. Underwater volcanoes and geothermal vents created sources of minerals, as well as a myriad of locations where energy could be concentrated (focused). With so-called organic material in it's simplest form (carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrogen gas) also abundant (as it still is today), underwater thermal vents would have (and of course, must have) been the perfect place for the beginnings of the processes we now collectively term the origins of life. There is even strong evidence that the actual structures of the vents themselves (iron sulfide bubbles) lend themselves perfectly to be inorganic 'culture chambers' where primordial organic matter would have been protected and 'grown', until they were durable enough to form their own organic chambers, or 'cells'... anyway, must dash for the moment, back later
- 226
I think either some people missed my earlier points, or simply ignored them.
By the way James2097, mine was a joke too. (winking face here)
My point's here a very simple.
A. I saw Scientists trying to prove there were planets revolving around a star, in space, earlier this year. I saw those pictures, they were crap, you couldnt see anything. Question: How could they possibly see/know what causes stars to form and eventually burn out, if that was all the better they can see out there? If they can see better, why not give us a better picture?
B. The bible never once says how God would have created the earth, not once, not ever. So, assuming the earth was actually created by a giant bang, a star burning out, and fragments and what-not melting and forming in a "clump" to form the earth.... who says God didnt purposefully do this? where is the founding evidence that makes everybody take this for granted?
Since all we have are theories, and arent even close to proving anything about the origin of "matter", why is any theory more logical or sensible than another?
The difference here? the "intelligent" people, in arguments about this, simply rely, in the end, saying believers are "stupid" and of "lower intelligence" than they are.
Yet everybody ignored my point of the people who call mankind ignorant and stupid, and arrogant, for assuming to be the smartest, or greatest creature in the universe, yet turn around and call the very people who don't believe to be the smartest, or greatest creature in the universe, stupid, and irrational, and claim they're simply ignorant hopefuls...what gives?
This is all seperate from the fact that, assuming I believe in God, why would I simply believe what a scientist tells me? wouldnt I want to see actual results? rather than simply take someone so distrustworthy as a scientist's word for it? Scientists have been trying to "prove" theorys for centuries now, so go through, most don't, many, many, believe in things that don't even make much sense, in subjects I won't bring up.
Fact: The Christian Believes in : God.
Fact: the Scientist Believes in : What he can scientifically prove.
What here can be scientifically proven?
By the way James2097, mine was a joke too. (winking face here)
My point's here a very simple.
A. I saw Scientists trying to prove there were planets revolving around a star, in space, earlier this year. I saw those pictures, they were crap, you couldnt see anything. Question: How could they possibly see/know what causes stars to form and eventually burn out, if that was all the better they can see out there? If they can see better, why not give us a better picture?
B. The bible never once says how God would have created the earth, not once, not ever. So, assuming the earth was actually created by a giant bang, a star burning out, and fragments and what-not melting and forming in a "clump" to form the earth.... who says God didnt purposefully do this? where is the founding evidence that makes everybody take this for granted?
Since all we have are theories, and arent even close to proving anything about the origin of "matter", why is any theory more logical or sensible than another?
The difference here? the "intelligent" people, in arguments about this, simply rely, in the end, saying believers are "stupid" and of "lower intelligence" than they are.
Yet everybody ignored my point of the people who call mankind ignorant and stupid, and arrogant, for assuming to be the smartest, or greatest creature in the universe, yet turn around and call the very people who don't believe to be the smartest, or greatest creature in the universe, stupid, and irrational, and claim they're simply ignorant hopefuls...what gives?
This is all seperate from the fact that, assuming I believe in God, why would I simply believe what a scientist tells me? wouldnt I want to see actual results? rather than simply take someone so distrustworthy as a scientist's word for it? Scientists have been trying to "prove" theorys for centuries now, so go through, most don't, many, many, believe in things that don't even make much sense, in subjects I won't bring up.
Fact: The Christian Believes in : God.
Fact: the Scientist Believes in : What he can scientifically prove.
What here can be scientifically proven?
- 120
Yes, it could have been a god or supernatural being who created the earth using the accretion disk method. But It could also have been the flying spaghetti monster.
There's no proof for either, just evidence for the method. The asteroid belt, Oort cloud (to a degree) and the numerous bodies orbiting around pluto's orbital path and beyond are all remnants of this.
Despite the method and argument over whether God or probability and chance gave birth to life, do you agree it should be taught as a science in school?
I have no issue with it in a sociology class, but not alongside the periodic table.
In response to the crappy pictures used to try and prove that planets are circling a star. I'm pretty sure they usually determine the planets existance mathematically before ever actually getting a picture of it. They did it with pluto (whether pluto is considered a planet anymore is a whole other issue) with great success. They also used used math to prove how mass affects space time which in turn bends light. They tested einsteins theory by predicting when mercury would be visible after going behind the sun. The math that went with eistein's theory was basically perfect and the previously decided theory's was off.
Basically my point is there is more ways to check a theory/idea/whatever than observing something though i agree that observing something makes the most sense.
Basically my point is there is more ways to check a theory/idea/whatever than observing something though i agree that observing something makes the most sense.
