Creation vs. Evolution

[TheCracker]

I believe in God, and that doesnt hold me back from thinking about and trying to understand the mysteries of the universe.

Why bother pondering the mysteries of the universe. When you can just be ignorant and take whats written in some old book as concrete truth?

 

[Grand Prix]

science...is the religion...of scientists.

That was true in the Alchemist days, when they thought they could turn anything into gold, even though philosophers knew better. They've come a long way since then.

 

[Touring Mars]

That was true in the Alchemist days, when they thought they could turn anything into gold, even though philosophers knew better. They've come a long way since then.

Yes, any philosopher worth his salt would have told a would-be alchemist that he was wasting his time... not because making gold from other elements is impossible (it is theoretically possible), but because if you could make gold from anything, you'd make all the gold in the world completely worthless 💡

 

[Grand Prix]

Yes, any philosopher worth his salt would have told a would-be alchemist that he was wasting his time... not because making gold from other elements is impossible (it is theoretically possible), but because if you could make gold from anything, you'd make all the gold in the world completely worthless 💡

Precisely.

 

[Famine]

I believe in God, and that doesnt hold me back from thinking about and trying to understand the mysteries of the universe.

It really does.

Your thoughts and interpretations are coloured by a presupposed conclusion - that God did it. We have no presupposed conclusions - maybe God did do it. Maybe a different god did it. Maybe it happened naturally because of "Physics". Maybe we need to write some new physics based on the discovery. Who knows? We don't, that's for sure.

If something becomes to complex to understand, I say it's too complex for me to understand. You say "God". If there's something we just don't know about the universe, I say "We just don't know". You say "God".

 

[Pako]

It's ok. We were pretty hard on you. I apologize if I took it the wrong way, but what part did I get wrong?

After re-reading your post, I would have to agree with you that given enough time, science and religion will arrive at the same conclusion.

I can say this because I know I have a personal relationship with God. There are millions of other Christians that will confess having the same relationship. Science hasn't devised an instrument yet that can measure God's existence. Again, summarizing what has already been said earlier in this thread.

 

[Touring Mars]

Your thoughts and interpretations are coloured by a presupposed conclusion - that God did it. We have no presupposed conclusions - maybe God did do it. Maybe a different god did it. Maybe it happened naturally because of "Physics". Maybe we need to write some new physics based on the discovery. Who knows? We don't, that's for sure..

This is very similar to what Michael Behe was saying in the article I linked to yesterday (from the Guardian)... but I find it slightly misleading.

Logically, if you are prepared to accept that God created life, then God could literally be anything, from the omnipotent being described in the Bible, to the Flying Spaghetti Monster (that seems so popular around here!). In other words, if we say we don't know, then we cannot logically ascribe creation to just the Biblical 'God'. That's why Creationists do not (and cannot) say that we do not know, because it would destroy their argument.

But for a scientist, it is unsatisfactory to reach the answer "We don't know" and then just to leave it there. The fact is, by taking small (but significant) facts together from a vast array of different branches of science, we can safely say that the origins of life are explicible in terms of what we currently understand. We know what molecules and conditions are required for life. And we know that they can easily form spontaneously (as demonstrated by the experiments of Miller and Urey) given the right conditions. Simple mixtures of compounds known to have existed in prebiotic Earth (as well as other planets in our solar system today) such as water, methane, molecular hydrogen and oxygen, and ammonia (and other elements such as phosphorus) combined with electrical discharges (lightning) is sufficient to create all the basic building blocks that go into making DNA, RNA and amino acids.

In other words, there is now no further need to suggest that the basic builidng blocks of life were the result of divine intervention. We know for a fact that they can form spontaneously, without the need to be 'created' by a designing hand. Thus if the building blocks can form spontaneously, then given enough time, and once again, the right conditions (which given geological timescales are practically inevitable to happen somewhere at sometime), these building blocks (by their physical nature, and not as Bill Bryson suggests, as if by 'magic') they will polymerise and form higher structures... therefore, the presence of small biological molecules is also easily explicible, without having to call it divine either.

It doesn't take a huge leap of faith to take it further from there either...

 

[Swift]

It doesn't take a huge leap of faith to take it further from there either...

But it takes you right back to the question, where did the building blocks come from?

 

[Famine]

Actually, I was just talking about the conclusion, not the hypothesis.

We don't know what the answer to our question will be before we ask it. It could be anything, and precisely because we know that, we're receptive to it. We'll ask more questions based on that answer, and more based on that, and more based on that, and ultimately we'll have an answer with no further questions, but we don't know what that answer will be either.

If you throw God into the mix and know that the answer to the last question in the chain is "God did it", then you aren't receptive to any possibly conclusion. Only one.

Of course it might well be that the final answer IS in fact "God did it" (or Allah, god, gods, FSM/IPU, whatever), but we're receptive to that too. It's exceptionally unlikely, given the all the answers and successor questions we've uncovered so far, but if we weren't open to all possibilities (very important word), we'd be cack scientists.


Swift:

In other words, there is now no further need to suggest that the basic builidng blocks of life were the result of divine intervention. We know for a fact that they can form spontaneously, without the need to be 'created' by a designing hand.

 

[Danoff]

After re-reading your post, I would have to agree with you that given enough time, science and religion will arrive at the same conclusion.

I didn't say that. Your quote says that. I disagree. I don't think we can know that.

 

[Touring Mars]

Of course it might well be that the final answer IS in fact "God did it" (or Allah, god, gods, FSM/IPU, whatever), but we're receptive to that too. It's exceptionally unlikely, given the all the answers and successor questions we've uncovered so far, but if we weren't open to all possibilities (very important word), we'd be cack scientists.

That's a very good summary...

I'm of the notion that the presence and creation of the Universe could well be a divine thing for the same reason as you've just stated, but I no longer believe that human life on Earth was a divine creation because it doesn't stand to reason that it was.

 

[Swift]

In other words, there is now no further need to suggest that the basic builidng blocks of life were the result of divine intervention. We know for a fact that they can form spontaneously, without the need to be 'created' by a designing hand.

I'm sorry, but this part of the theory is just well bleh. I mean, you get the atomic sized particles that supposedly come from nothing(though the universe as we know it is already here) and we're to believe that over eons of time that process created enough matter for all the galaxies that we know of today. That's really really shaky stuff. I can see how someone that supports the theory of evolution would very much like the idea though.

Maybe I understand it wrong. But I remember reading the site that famine posted and it was talking about radically minute amounts of matter.

 

[Touring Mars]

I'm sorry, but this part of the theory is just well bleh. I mean, you get the atomic sized particles that supposedly come from nothing(though the universe as we know it is already here) and we're to believe that over eons of time that process created enough matter for all the galaxies that we know of today. That's really really shaky stuff. I can see how someone that supports the theory of evolution would very much like the idea though.

Maybe I understand it wrong. But I remember reading the site that famine posted and it was talking about radically minute amounts of matter.

Well, it depends on how philosophical you want to be... for me, it's like this. No-one knows where the original universe (pre-Big Bang) came from... that is, and always will be, a question for philosophers and theologists to discuss....

But what we do know is that the matter that does exist here and now, the known, measurable and observable universe, has a finite mass... and that mass is, and can be measured/seen to be moving rapidly away from one central point.

By measuring the speed, distance and direction of travel of these celestial objects, we can safely say where (in space) these objects used to be, and more importantly, how long they have been moving (or have existed) for.... hence these easily made measurements give us a pretty accurate estimate of the age of the known universe.

Why it exists, and where it came from, we don't know.... but how long it has existed for (relative to the time scales we are familiar with anyway) and the nature of the particles that exist within our universe (protons, neutrons and electrons etc.), we do know... and we know how they behave... we know that in the primordial universe, shortly after the big bang, that matter did not exist as atoms... it was only when the universe cooled that matter, governed by the laws of physics, coalesed into the matter that we are now (by concerted study) familiar with.

The fact that we know in great detail how atoms are structured and how they behave, means that we have also come to understand how molecules form, and hence more complex molecules (like biological molecules) follow thereafter.

The experiments of Miller and Urey showed that basic elements and molecules that are abundant in the Universe (including here on Earth of course) can and will form more complex molecules (including biologically relevant molecules like nucleotides, sugars, amino acids etc.) spontaneously, so long as they are given the right conditions - principally the presence of UV light (from the Sun) and electrical discharges (from lightning)....

 

[Kylehnat]

I'm sorry, but this part of the theory is just well bleh. I mean, you get the atomic sized particles that supposedly come from nothing(though the universe as we know it is already here) and we're to believe that over eons of time that process created enough matter for all the galaxies that we know of today. That's really really shaky stuff. I can see how someone that supports the theory of evolution would very much like the idea though.

Maybe I understand it wrong. But I remember reading the site that famine posted and it was talking about radically minute amounts of matter.

It's not shaky at all. The process of atoms conglomerating into life took several billion years. A few atoms came together in the just the right way to form molecules, which in turn came together in just the right way to form complex organic molecules, which then came together in just the right way to form the simplest single-cell organism. It does seem highly improbable until you consider the time scale involved, which allows an event with small probability to become almost certain. It took 3 billion years for this to happen, an amount of time which no person on earth can comprehend.

 

[Swift]

It's not shaky at all. The process of atoms conglomerating into life took several billion years. A few atoms came together in the just the right way to form molecules, which in turn came together in just the right way to form complex organic molecules, which then came together in just the right way to form the simplest single-cell organism. It does seem highly improbable until you consider the time scale involved, which allows an event with small probability to become almost certain. It took 3 billion years for this to happen, an amount of time which no person on earth can comprehend.

I was talking about the formation of matter in the universe not the primorial ooze.

 

[Touring Mars]

It's not shaky at all. The process of atoms conglomerating into life took several billion years. A few atoms came together in the just the right way to form molecules, which in turn came together in just the right way to form complex organic molecules, which then came together in just the right way to form the simplest single-cell organism. It does seem highly improbable until you consider the time scale involved, which allows an event with small probability to become almost certain. It took 3 billion years for this to happen, an amount of time which no person on earth can comprehend.

I wouldn't even say that.... stick some of the most basic molecules around in the same room (cave, rock pool, whatever)... hydrogen gas, molecular oxygen, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, zap with lightning, and heat up, and hey presto, you've got precursor biomolecules... there is no 'in just the right way' about it. Bill Bryson (in his new book about 'A Short History of Everything') suggests that it is all just by blind luck and that there is some mystery about it... but it's actually much less likely that it doesn't happen than it does....

But obviously, for complex biomolecules and living beings to form requires billions of years, but the bucket chemistry most probably didn't...

 

[Danoff]

I was talking about the formation of matter in the universe not the primorial ooze.

We don't really know how matter came into existance, we only have theories about how it got distributed, clumped, and changed its arrangement.

 

[Kylehnat]

I wouldn't even say that.... stick some of the most basic molecules around in the same room (cave, rock pool, whatever)... hydrogen gas, molecular oxygen, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, zap with lightning, and heat up, and hey presto, you've got precursor biomolecules...

Add a dash of pesto, let sit for 5 minutes, and you've got yourself and excellent pasta sauce!

You're right; those particular molecules would form very quickly in a soup of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. They'd still have to be in the correct relative concentrations in that same "room" to make sure that when the lightning does strike (ripping all of those molecules apart, creating free radicals), they don't immediately reform, but bump into other pieces from other molecules. There's still a bit a hit or miss there, but given the unstable nature of the atmosphere at that time, it was a very reaction-friendly environment.

 

[ledhed]

Of course it might well be that the final answer IS in fact "God did it" (or Allah, god, gods, FSM/IPU, whatever), but we're receptive to that too. It's exceptionally unlikely, given the all the answers and successor questions we've uncovered so far, but if we weren't open to all possibilities (very important word), we'd be cack scientists.

Just because you can make crack doesnt mean your a scientist . Thats silly .

 

[Touring Mars]

Add a dash of pesto, let sit for 5 minutes, and you've got yourself and excellent pasta sauce!

You're right; those particular molecules would form very quickly in a soup of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. They'd still have to be in the correct relative concentrations in that same "room" to make sure that when the lightning does strike (ripping all of those molecules apart, creating free radicals), they don't immediately reform, but bump into other pieces from other molecules. There's still a bit a hit or miss there, but given the unstable nature of the atmosphere at that time, it was a very reaction-friendly environment.

pesto... careful... you make the flying spaghetti monster nervous (and tasty!)

Of course, with no ozone layer shielding the Earth, the UV radiation would be very intense, hence free radicals would be abundant.

 

[Zardoz]

I'm sorry, but this part of the theory is just well bleh. I mean, you get the atomic sized particles that supposedly come from nothing (though the universe as we know it is already here) and we're to believe that over eons of time that process created enough matter for all the galaxies that we know of today. That's really really shaky stuff...

As has been said many times before, the greatest minds our species has produced are working on the math of how it all came about in the first place. They're a long way from figuring it out, but progress is being made.

The "bleh" part of your idea is that there is an ever-existing, infinitely-powerful entity who lives "outside of time", simply willed the entire universe into existence, and is still micro-managing it to this day. Now THAT is "really, really shaky stuff".

 

[Swift]

As has been said many times before, the greatest minds our species has produced are working on the math of how it all came about in the first place. They're a long way from figuring it out, but progress is being made.

The "bleh" part of your idea is that there is an ever-existing, infinitely-powerful entity who lives "outside of time", simply willed the entire universe into existence, and is still micro-managing it to this day. Now THAT is "really, really shaky stuff".

Ok, so you don't think that it's at all shaky that lightning hit this pool of goo at just the right time, in mulitiple different pools of goo(to give us the different types of animals and plant life). Lighting, probably one of the most random, yet common natural occurences.

Hey you're entilted to you opinion. But if you come at it from a logical viewpoint, it's every bit as shaky as intelligent design.

 

[PS]

Ok, so you don't think that it's at all shaky that lightning hit this pool of goo at just the right time, in mulitiple different pools of goo(to give us the different types of animals and plant life). Lighting, probably one of the most random, yet common natural occurences.

Hey you're entilted to you opinion. But if you come at it from a logical viewpoint, it's every bit as shaky as intelligent design.

Not it's not. At any given time, there are 9000 lightning storms simultaneously happening anywhere on Earth. Now lets backtrack about 1.75 billion years and give us an unstable climate with lots of free atoms and a psycho atmosphere.

Quite easy to see it, actually.

 

[Touring Mars]

The point is that the lightning doesn't need to strike "just at the right time"... the chemical reaction occurs when the lightning strikes... the molecules that react will happily sit there forever, but when they are exposed to UV radiation and electricity, they will acquire the requisite energy to form more complex molecules, and so on and so forth.... it's not a question of luck or timing... in the millions of years of prebiotic Earth time, these essential chemical reactions would be common place...

 

[Famine]

Ok, so you don't think that it's at all shaky that lightning hit this pool of goo at just the right time, in mulitiple different pools of goo(to give us the different types of animals and plant life). Lighting, probably one of the most random, yet common natural occurences.

Hey you're entilted to you opinion. But if you come at it from a logical viewpoint, it's every bit as shaky as intelligent design.

Ummm, whu?

Notwithstanding the fact that it cannot have possibly hit "multiple different pools of goo (to give us all the different types of animals and plant life)" (one pool. One origin), if it HAD hit, everything IN the pool would have been fried to a crisp.

Primordial Earth was a very hostile place, racked with near constant lightning storms (YES, there's evidence for it). All that is required is an electrical potential in the goo, and in a highly-charged atmosphere, it'd get it.

 

[Swift]

Ummm, whu?

Notwithstanding the fact that it cannot have possibly hit "multiple different pools of goo (to give us all the different types of animals and plant life)" (one pool. One origin), if it HAD hit, everything IN the pool would have been fried to a crisp.

Primordial Earth was a very hostile place, racked with near constant lightning storms (YES, there's evidence for it). All that is required is an electrical potential in the goo, and in a highly-charged atmosphere, it'd get it.

OK, well I was saying at least 2 pools. One for plants and one for animals. That's what I would assume would be needed.

 

[Danoff]

Ummm, whu?

Notwithstanding the fact that it cannot have possibly hit "multiple different pools of goo (to give us all the different types of animals and plant life)" (one pool. One origin), if it HAD hit, everything IN the pool would have been fried to a crisp.

Primordial Earth was a very hostile place, racked with near constant lightning storms (YES, there's evidence for it). All that is required is an electrical potential in the goo, and in a highly-charged atmosphere, it'd get it.

What's to say that it didn't occur in multiple places then? It sounds like this is a fairly easy event to happen. You get some chemicals and an electrical potential... seems like that would be easy to come by. So perhaps it happened in two or three or 20 different places on the planet within the same 10,000 years or so.

 

[Danoff]

OK, well I was saying at least 2 pools. One for plants and one for animals. That's what I would assume would be needed.

Nope. Animals and plants could come from the same line. That's totally possible. At the beginning we're talking about organisms that are much much simpler than Animals and plants.

 

[Touring Mars]

So perhaps it happened in two or three or 20 different places on the planet within the same 10,000 years or so.

Of course it did... the point is it only needed to happen once.

 

[Famine]

OK, well I was saying at least 2 pools. One for plants and one for animals. That's what I would assume would be needed.

Nope. And...

What's to say that it didn't occur in multiple places then? It sounds like this is a fairly easy event to happen. You get some chemicals and an electrical potential... seems like that would be easy to come by. So perhaps it happened in two or three or 20 different places on the planet within the same 10,000 years or so.

There's nothing to say it didn't happen in multiple places - and there's no clearly defined size of the Soup - but the fact that every living thing on Earth can be traced to every other living thing by DNA and rRNA (when it starts getting bizarre) indicates that everything alive now has a single common origin.

Just like there were multiple, "cohabiting" hominid species, only one is a human progenitor. The others were outcompeted by it. If there were multiple Soups, of which there is no evidence (because, let's face it, Soup from 3 billion years ago is rather tough to evidence at all), then OUR Soup was the most successful.