Irreducible complexity of a simple cell

[lifegazer]

Let's talk biology and evolution, for a change.

... http://hauns.com/~DCQu4E5g/Complexity.htm
Extracts:-
"The term simple cell is an oxymoron. There is no such thing.
... The truth is that the simplest living cell has over one trillion molecules in it... All of the molecules in that cell have to be in just the right place at the right time or the cell will either malfunction or not function and die. Think of it this way, there are from 500 to over 1,000 times more molecules in the simplest cell than there are people on Earth and, unlike the people on Earth, all of the molecules must be in exactly the right place at the right time or it wont work.
... If an evolutionist uses the phrase,"simple cell", he has already started lying to you. There is no such thing."

... http://www.foolishfaith.com/book_chap3_odds.asp
Extract:-
“To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the portholes of a vast spaceship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity.�

... http://acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/irredcomplex.htm
Extracts:-
"If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."
--Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

"With this statement, Charles Darwin provided a criterion by which his theory of evolution could be falsified. The logic was simple: since evolution is a gradual process in which slight modifications produce advantages for survival, it cannot produce complex structures in a short amount of time. It's a step-by-step process which may gradually build up and modify complex structures, but it cannot produce them suddenly."


Enough ammo there to start a discussion. I'm especially interested in that last paragraph. How do 'Darwinians' explain the origin of the so-called "simple cell"?

[Piscivore]

I'm very soon going to be too busy to play with you, LG, so I'll let the others bat you around awhile. But I do have one simple question; if none of it is "real", it is all just an illusion created by "sensations"- why do you care?

[c4ts]

*beats head against wall*

[Upchurch]

having failed elsewhere, you're shifting your rationalizations to try to include ID arguments now? You must be desperate. Someone must have scared you.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Enough ammo there to start a discussion. I'm especially interested in that last paragraph. How do 'Darwinians' explain the origin of the so-called "simple cell"?
Read your third extract again. "It's a step-by-step process which may gradually build up and modify complex structures, but it cannot produce them suddenly." So, unless you have some evidence that the cell appeared suddenly, it would seem you've answered your own question.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Piscivore
I'm very soon going to be too busy to play with you, LG, so I'll let the others bat you around awhile. But I do have one simple question; if none of it is "real", it is all just an illusion created by "sensations"- why do you care?
You haven't guessed that I'm using this thread as evidence for God's existence then?;)

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
Read your third extract again. "It's a step-by-step process which may gradually build up and modify complex structures, but it cannot produce them suddenly." So, unless you have some evidence that the cell appeared suddenly, it would seem you've answered your own question.
I'm talking about the origin of the simple-cell, a few billion years ago (ish).
Let me remind you of a snippet from the first paragraph:-

"... The truth is that the simplest living cell has over one trillion molecules in it... All of the molecules in that cell have to be in just the right place at the right time or the cell will either malfunction or not function and die."

We're discussing the origin of this complexity, formed suddenly from the so-called "primordial soup".

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by lifegazer
You haven't guessed that I'm using this thread as evidence for God's existence then?;)

That was a premise I was comfortable in assuming, yes. I was just getting to Upchurch's question in a roundabout way.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I'm talking about the origin of the simple-cell, a few billion years ago (ish).
Let me remind you of a snippet from the first paragraph:-

"... The truth is that the simplest living cell has over one trillion molecules in it... All of the molecules in that cell have to be in just the right place at the right time or the cell will either malfunction or not function and die."

We're discussing the origin of this complexity, formed suddenly from the so-called "primordial soup".
All right. Find for me, then, the evolutionist who has said the cell formed suddenly from the primordial soup, full-fledged and in its present form and level of complexity.

You may find some help here (http://www.hoksbergencompanies.com/cascade.html).

[Upchurch]

Not my field, but:Originally posted by lifegazer
We're discussing the origin of this complexity, formed suddenly from the so-called "primordial soup". Are you trying to talk about evolution or abiogenesis? The former concerns with the development of living things the latter about the origin of living organisms from lifeless matter. They are not the same thing.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Piscivore
That was a premise I was comfortable in assuming, yes. I was just getting to Upchurch's question in a roundabout way.
I just fancied a break from "sensed-things". But they shall return to haunt you all very soon.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Not my field, but:Are you trying to talk about evolution or abiogenesis? The former concerns with the development of living things the latter about the origin of living organisms from lifeless matter. They are not the same thing.
I'm looking for any kind of scientific/reasonable explanation for the origin of a complexity containing a trillion working parts. Doesn't matter to me what you want to label it.

[Lord Emsworth]

Why not simply kick this thread over to the science section or is this going to be a God of the gaps argument?

[Anathema]

Originally posted by wifegagger
How do 'Darwinians' explain the origin of the so-called "simple cell"? Well, you see, it's all this big dream of Gawd's --- the "simple cell" is just a ridiculous dream that Gawd has when he falls asleep on the sofa after 8 beers and a meal of really bad Thai take-out food.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I just fancied a break from "sensed-things". But they shall return to haunt you all very soon.

Replace "haunt" with "amuse and entertain". Thanks.

Have you considered writing fiction (I mean, intentionally)? You could try doing National Novel Writing Month (www.nanowrimo.org). You certainly have a good shot with the volume of text you post here, you know.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Lord Emsworth
Why not simply kick this thread over to the science section or is this going to be a God of the gaps argument? Indeed. Is there a reason this thread should not be moved to Science, where it seems to belong?

[TragicMonkey]

Isn't "complexity" in the eye of the beholder? I mean, it seems to be a relative term. The ballots in Florida are "complex" to some of the voters.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Indeed. Is there a reason this thread should not be moved to Science, where it seems to belong?
Yes. I'm going to argue that there is no way a trillion parts could all come together, randomly, in such a way as to produce a working "simple-cell".
Unless you want a discussion about 'God' in the science forum, I'd leave it here if I were you.

[lifegazer]

We're not just contemplating the number of working parts in a simple-cell... although that alone is breathtaking.
We're discussing the fact that these parts are all arranged in a specific order, like any other mechanism, so that the cell will function how a cell doth function.

Hence the enormity of the complexity present.

[The Mighty Thor]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I just fancied a break from "sensed-things". But they shall return to haunt you all very soon.

LG, before you do some real harm to yourself or someone else, dig out a copy of The Eagles' song "Wasted Time" and listen to the words very carefully. Then, stop the 'gazing' and try 'participating' in life.;)

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Yes. I'm going to argue that there is no way a trillion parts could all come together, randomly, in such a way as to produce a working "simple-cell". "We don't know how it could be done so it must be God", huh? The ol' God-of-the-gaps argument? You're on a roll today, continuing to amuse.

[lifegazer]

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0OIM/is_2001_March-April/ai_104031630
Extract:-
"For life to exist, assuming that the process of creative evolution works, it must be possible to create a single cell randomly by natural processes. This single cell must be capable of surviving, as well as reproducing before something kills it. That's why the "simple cell" is a major premise of evolution."

http://evolutionoftruth.com/evo/evocmplx.htm
Extract:-
"The DNA of a single E. coli bacteria cell contains about 10,000,000,000,000 bits of information. That's ten times the number of letters in all the books of the world's largest library.

Does evolution theory offer any evidence or even a truly plausible explanation as to how even a single bacteria cell came into being?"

You can't stick this into the science forum because science has no answers.
The origin of such harmonic-complexity has nothing to do with natural selection.

[Cosmo]

Yes, LG, it all arose from primordial soup. You don't seem to be able to grasp, however, the millions and millions and millions and millions of years it took for even the simplest molecules to combine in a meaningful fashion. It should be no surprise to you that common single-celled organisms would evolve, given enough aeons of time.

Are you actually trying to challenge evolution, a la god of the gaps? If so, take your rubbish elsewhere. You've hit a new low, LG.

[Marquis de Carabas]

I once said you were saner than 1inChrist, lg. Don't prove me wrong.

The evolution of the cell was a process that took millions of years. No-one except creationists think that evolution says it formed in one fell swoop.

[toddjh]

First, there's a basic flaw with Behe's concept of "irreducible complexity," namely that there is no objective way to determine what "irreducible" means. Unless you can give some reason why a certain organism or structure is "too" complex, the whole thing is nothing more than an argument from incredulity.

Second, it is likely that the first self-replicating entity was significantly less complex than current cells. It's not my field either, but I recall reading that a protein consisting of just twenty amino acids could be self-replicating in the presence of the right mixture of raw materials. It doesn't seem too hard to imagine something like that happening just by chance, given a whole planet and a few hundred million years. And once you set a self-replicating protein in motion in an ocean full of goop, good luck stopping it from evolving.

Third, the weak anthropic principle provides a possible explanation even if the formation of life does turn out to be extraordinarily unlikely. If the universe is infinite in spatial extent (as it may well be if it's "open," i.e. will not recollapse), then the probability of life forming somewhere is equal to 1 no matter how fantastically unlikely it is. If you're willing to accept less than absolute certainty, then an infinite universe isn't even required -- you can settle for one that is merely very large. Once you accept that, it becomes obvious why we "happen" to live in one of the places that life did form.

Jeremy

[sackett]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Indeed. Is there a reason this thread should not be moved to Science, where it seems to belong?
Yes: it belongs in the Lunacy section.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Does evolution theory offer any evidence or even a truly plausible explanation as to how even a single bacteria cell came into being?"No. Abiogenesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis) does (okay, when coupled with evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution)). But you're not going to make the effort to try to learn anything about it, are you?
You can't stick this into the science forum because science has no answers. Yeah, it kinda does, but not the ones you want to hear.
The origin of such harmonic-complexity has nothing to do with natural selection. Yeah, it kinda does, as the non-"harmonic-compleities" simply don't survive. :rolleyes:

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Cosmo
Yes, LG, it all arose from primordial soup. You don't seem to be able to grasp, however, the millions and millions and millions and millions of years it took for even the simplest molecules to combine in a meaningful fashion. It should be no surprise to you that common single-celled organisms would evolve, given enough aeons of time.

So what you're saying is that small molecules evolved into fractions of a cell... evolved into larger fractions of a cell... evolved into even larger fractions of a cell... until we get to a full cell?

Do you know how silly this argument is? Half a cell doesn't work. Neither does a quarter of a cell. Not even 9/10's of a cell will function.
I think you need a new explanation.
Does anyone have a poop scoop?

[phildonnia]

Let me illustrate LG's point with an analogy:

If you remove a person's heart, they will die. If you remove a person's brain, they will die. If you remove a person's kidneys, they will die. And so on. For a human to live, hundreds of parts must be all working at the same time. So there's no way that humans could have evolved, since all of these essential parts would have had to materialize simultaneously.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Half a cell doesn't work. Neither does a quarter of a cell. Not even 9/10's of a cell will function.Just for the amusement of your answer, how do you know that pre-cell forms of matter "do not work"? Do you have a source for that or are you guessing?

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by lifegazer
So what you're saying is that small molecules evolved into fractions of a cell... evolved into larger fractions of a cell... evolved into even larger fractions of a cell... until we get to a full cell?

Do you know how silly this argument is? Half a cell doesn't work. Neither does a quarter of a cell. Not even 9/10's of a cell will function.
I think you need a new explanation.
Does anyone have a poop scoop?
Half a cell might not work. A cell half as complex might.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by phildonnia
Let me illustrate LG's point with an analogy:

If you remove a person's heart, they will die. If you remove a person's brain, they will die. If you remove a person's kidneys, they will die. And so on. For a human to live, hundreds of parts must be all working at the same time. So there's no way that humans could have evolved, since all of these essential parts would have had to materialize simultaneously.
This statement is certainly relevant in regards the importance of a mechanism as a functioning whole.
However, it's better to confront the absolute origin of irreducible complexity, rather than talk about what's happening 3.75 billion years later.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally posted by phildonnia
Let me illustrate LG's point with an analogy:

If you remove a person's heart, they will die. If you remove a person's brain, they will die. If you remove a person's kidneys, they will die. And so on. For a human to live, hundreds of parts must be all working at the same time. So there's no way that humans could have evolved, since all of these essential parts would have had to materialize simultaneously.

Unlike all the parts starting off as something then growing into specialized functions together, complimenting each other. Kinda like....conception, gestation, birth, and growth of a human being? Seems like that's happened over 6 billion times with success in the last century.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
Half a cell might not work. A cell half as complex might. That made me wonder, isn't "irreducible complexity" an oxymoron? I suppose it would depend on the definition of the word "complexity" as used here.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Marquis de Carabas
I once said you were saner than 1inChrist, lg. Don't prove me wrong.

The evolution of the cell was a process that took millions of years. No-one except creationists think that evolution says it formed in one fell swoop.
Again, I'm talking about the absolute origin of life here. The first "simple cell".
Evolution is a process which takes place BETWEEN LIFE-FORMS. Surely you must understand that evolution (natural selection) is not a factor when contemplating the first-ever living cell?

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by TragicMonkey
Unlike all the parts starting off as something then growing into specialized functions together, complimenting each other. Kinda like....conception, gestation, birth, and growth of a human being? Seems like that's happened over 6 billion times with success in the last century.
"Success" is such a relative term. :p

Originally posted by Upchurch
That made me wonder, isn't "irreducible complexity" an oxymoron? I suppose it would depend on the definition of the word "complexity" as used here.
The only logical meaning I can ascribe to those two words conjoined as they are is "My little creationist's brain can't fathom how things work."

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Surely you must understand that evolution (natural selection) is not a factor when contemplating the first-ever living cell? one more time: "abiogenesis"

[Marquis de Carabas]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Again, I'm talking about the absolute origin of life here. The first "simple cell".
Evolution is a process which takes place BETWEEN LIFE-FORMS. Surely you must understand that evolution (natural selection) is not a factor when contemplating the first-ever living cell?
Nice of you to arbitrarily decide that the origin of life didn't officially happen until the very first simple cell was fully formed.

I understand that evolution is not a factor when contemplating the first ever replicator. There is no reason to believe the first replicator required nearly the complexity of a living cell.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
one more time: "abiogenesis"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life
"Abiogenesis, in its most general sense, is the generation of life from non-living matter."

Saying a word isn't offering an explanation upchurch. And after browsing through the above site, it's clear to me that they haven't got a bleedin' clue.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Saying a word isn't offering an explanation upchurch.Oh, I forgot. You like things spoon fed to you, don't you?

Try these (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/), then.

edited to add: other articles (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html#CB0)
And after browsing through the above site, it's clear to me that they haven't got a bleedin' clue. Because?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Because?
Because it doesn't offer an explanation (hypothesis) for anything other than the formation of molecules and proteins.

I want an explanation for what brings countless different parts together in a single complex mechanism.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I want an explanation for what brings countless different parts together in a single complex mechanism. Then I suggest you do a google search and find one (or two or three). Or, if it isn't too scary for you, pick up a book and read about. :eek:

added: or even *gasp* read the links I provided! :eek:

[Anathema]

Originally posted by Upchurch

Try these (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/), then. Very informative link, Upchurch. It seems the crux of the Creationist position on "irreducibility" is based on either an incomplete understanding of the facts, or intentional misrepresentation. This graphic (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/views.gif) from your link seems to sum up several functional subunits possible under the term "cell" - possibilities conveniently ignored by IDers.

[lifegazer]

http://informationcentre.tripod.com/abiogenesis.html

Very interesting stuff.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Hmmm, a term I've never seen before. What should I do? I know, I'll google it, and then paste the first link that presents a contrary view. That will prove me right for sure. :rolleyes:

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Lifegazer said:
So what you're saying is that small molecules evolved into fractions of a cell... evolved into larger fractions of a cell... evolved into even larger fractions of a cell... until we get to a full cell?

Do you know how silly this argument is? Half a cell doesn't work. Neither does a quarter of a cell. Not even 9/10's of a cell will function.
I think you need a new explanation.
Does anyone have a poop scoop?
Come on, man, please, you're making our heads hurt. Surely you have enough imagination to picture a cell-like entity that is extraordinarily simpler than a current cell? Not simpler in the sense of picking up a cell and chopping off 90% of it, but simpler in fundamental structure and operation? Surely you can picture this?

Have you ever written computer software? Did you have to write it all at once?

If you continue with this line of reasoning, we have no choice but to assume you've overdosed on ID propaganda.

~~ Paul

[lifegazer]

The basis problem here, is one of 'assembly'.

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.
The assembly of the parts of a jumbo jet is vitally important, of course. Likewise, those of a simplecell. For each to function correctly, the parts must be arranged "just so".

As we're talking about the absolute origin of the simple cell, we are unable to use 'natural selection' as a means of explaining the origin of such a cell.
That leaves us with random bonding or random arrangement as the only means to explain this initial assembly.

Imagine walking into a scrapyard and finding all the necessary parts to make a jumbo jet all in one place, purely by luck, ready for assembly. If that isn't remarkable enough, imagine that a tornado has blown over this pile of parts and that, when the wind settles, the jumbo jet will be perfectly built and ready to fly.

Ridiculous analogy? Hardly, since the simple-cell has many more parts than a jumbo - all of which have to concentrate at one place - and all of which have nothing other than randomness to arrange them "just so" to produce that cell.

You ask for evidence of your God and when presented by the miracle of life, just scorn.
Ask yourselves this: If we were to find a jumbo jet (or any very complex functioning mechanism) on Mars, would we say that we'd found evidence of intelligent life, or would we say that "Random chemistry built it."?

I would suggest that the "simple cell" is more-than-reasonable evidence of [ultra] intelligent design, but that the repercussions of such a conclusion forbid it's acceptance.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Why do you assume the cell could not have evolved? You brought this little tidbit to the table, not the evolutionists, and not the abiogenesisists.

Yeah, that's probably not a word...sue me.

[toddjh]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The basis problem here, is one of 'assembly'.

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.

I haven't seen you respond to the possibility I mentioned that the first "cell" (or rather, self-replicating entity) could consist merely of twenty or so units rather than the "trillions" you mention earlier -- although where you got that number is anyone's guess.

Surely twenty amino acids linking together, somewhere in a vast ocean full of them, isn't so hard to believe -- particularly given hundreds of millions of years for it to happen.

After that, it's a simple matter of evolution and time. A lot can happen in four billion years.

Jeremy

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.
The assembly of the parts of a jumbo jet is vitally important, of course. Likewise, those of a simplecell. For each to function correctly, the parts must be arranged "just so".A kite is made of 2-3 parts and still flies. It was one of the first man made constructs that was capable of flight. By your analogy, if a modern simple cell is like a jumbo jet, early cells (or whatever they were called) were like a kite or even a paper airplane (1 part). If you are going to argue about evolution, first understand evolution. I'm no biologist, but even I understand this much.
As we're talking about the absolute origin of the simple cell, we are unable to use 'natural selection' as a means of explaining the origin of such a cell. But we are able to talk about natural selection in terms of those combinations of molecules that are not conducive to making life.... well, not making life. For all the molecules that took part in abiogensis, how many didn't?
That leaves us with random bonding or random arrangement as the only means to explain this initial assembly.Yep.
Imagine walking into a scrapyard and finding all the necessary parts to make a jumbo jet all in one place, purely by luck, ready for assembly. If that isn't remarkable enough, imagine that a tornado has blown over this pile of parts and that, when the wind settles, the jumbo jet will be perfectly built and ready to fly.Better analogy: imagine walking into anywhere and finding all the necessary parts to make a kite or paper airplane. not that hard to imagine. A leaf, some sap, and a couple of twigs would do.
Ridiculous analogy? Hardly, since the simple-cell has many more parts than a jumbo - all of which have to concentrate at one place - and all of which have nothing other than randomness to arrange them "just so" to produce that cell.Perhaps not ridiculous, but inappropriate. The modern simple cell did not spring forth as it currently is. To suggest so is a gross oversimplification and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of biology.
I would suggest that the "simple cell" is more-than-reasonable evidence of [ultra] intelligent design, but that the repercussions of such a conclusion forbid it's acceptance. God of the gaps.

[Anathema]

Originally spewed by wifegagger
The basis problem here, is one of 'assembly'.

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.
The assembly of the parts of a jumbo jet is vitally important, of course. Likewise, those of a simplecell. For each to function correctly, the parts must be arranged "just so".

You are trying very hard to remain in the dark.

Simple chemicals (work "just so")
|
....combine through natural forces into....
|
Polymers (that work "just so")
|
....combine through natural forces into....
|
Replicating Polymers (that work "just so")
|
...combine through natural forces into....
|
Hypercycles (that work "just so")
|
...combine through natural forces into...
|
Protobionts (that work "just so")
|
..which over the course of ~1.1 billion years combine through natural forces into....
|
Single-celled microscopic organisms (that work "just so")

Much is still theoretical, of course - but far more parsimonious than proposing an Omnimax dimensionless, uncreated creator.

The junkyard analogy is, well, junk.


Edited to correct spelling error

[lifegazer]

http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/research/evolution1.shtml

"The simplest form of life is the bacterial cell, which consists of 100 billion atoms."
And...
"Could bacteria just happen?

A soup of chemicals would first have to occur, then would have to become an amino acid. There are 20 different natural amino acids, these would all have to come together to make proteins. An amino acid would have to become 100 amino acids.

But each amino acid needs a peptide bond to join with other amino acids of the same chain. Peptide and non-peptide bonds occur equally, yet we need only peptides to work. The probability of getting 4 peptides in a row is ½ x ½ x ½ x ½. The likelihood of getting 100 peptides in a row is ½100 (10 with 29 0's after it). Also, laboratory-made amino acids have a mirror image of themselves, left handed and right, also occurring. But proteins in cells are only made up of left handed amino acids. The likelihood of all left occurring is another 1 in 1030

A protein, the simplest needing to be formed out of 100 amino acids, would need many other sorts of proteins to make the simplest bacterium. A bacterium would need all its proteins, including ATP enzymes, in precisely the right place with a membrane round them, along with DNA that carries its ability to reproduce itself and carry out a function. It is irreducibly complex. That is, you can't have a half or three quarters of a bacterium. It must, like a mousetrap, all be there to work.

However, proteins need their 100 or more amino acids linked in the right order, like letters in a sentence. If one is wrong the protein will not work."

[uruk]

Why abiogenesis is impossible
http://informationcentre.tripod.com/abiogenesis.html

Very interesting stuff.


I noticed a few glaring omission in his articles. One that deep space is also a source of amino acids. Amino acids have been discovered in meteorites, space dust, etc. Also that the lagoon theory is pretty much old hat. Organic molecules have been found developing in mineral strata nodules. Scientists have actulay found that organice molecule production is rather easy and prevlent in very varied environmental conditions.
I also wonder if thermal vents are so detrimental to life, why is there so much life clustered around these vents? especially with enough organic chemical reactions to go around supporting an ecosystem?

Scientific knowlege is not static, it evolves and changes the deeper we look into things. The author attacked many old and out dated theories as well as some ideas that were just primarily hypotheses.
Hey, even I can attack old, outdated theories and appear halfway right.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
http://www.noahsarkzoofarm.co.uk/research/evolution1.shtmlHonestly, why not just cut to the chase (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp)?

While you're at it, if you follow American politics, George Bush's website has a rather detailed discussion of John Kerry's political positions. :rolleyes:

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
A kite is made of 2-3 parts and still flies. It was one of the first man made constructs that was capable of flight. By your analogy, if a modern simple cell is like a jumbo jet, early cells (or whatever they were called) were like a kite or even a paper airplane (1 part).

I've searched several sites tonight and have read stuff in the past which suggests that the simplest form a cell could take-on would still mean that it had several million parts comprised of billions upon billions of molecules.

Are you seriously suggesting that you can build a living cell with less than half-a-dozen parts?

[Yaotl]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The basis problem here, is one of 'assembly'.

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.
The assembly of the parts of a jumbo jet is vitally important, of course. Likewise, those of a simplecell. For each to function correctly, the parts must be arranged "just so".

As we're talking about the absolute origin of the simple cell, we are unable to use 'natural selection' as a means of explaining the origin of such a cell.
That leaves us with random bonding or random arrangement as the only means to explain this initial assembly.

Imagine walking into a scrapyard and finding all the necessary parts to make a jumbo jet all in one place, purely by luck, ready for assembly. If that isn't remarkable enough, imagine that a tornado has blown over this pile of parts and that, when the wind settles, the jumbo jet will be perfectly built and ready to fly.

Ridiculous analogy? Hardly, since the simple-cell has many more parts than a jumbo - all of which have to concentrate at one place - and all of which have nothing other than randomness to arrange them "just so" to produce that cell.

You ask for evidence of your God and when presented by the miracle of life, just scorn.
Ask yourselves this: If we were to find a jumbo jet (or any very complex functioning mechanism) on Mars, would we say that we'd found evidence of intelligent life, or would we say that "Random chemistry built it."?

I would suggest that the "simple cell" is more-than-reasonable evidence of [ultra] intelligent design, but that the repercussions of such a conclusion forbid it's acceptance.

You're making my head hurt. Let's take your analogy a little before the scrapyard. The parts came from somewhere, no? Someone made them, yes? But someone had to get the basic material first, yes? The basic material came from where? Did this intelligent creator make them? If we found a jumbo jet on Mars, you're damn well right we'd expect an intelligent designer, but no one would even think they created the raw material to make the parts for the jet.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Are you seriously suggesting that you can build a living cell with less than half-a-dozen parts? I refer you to Anathema's post above. Not only the part that depicts the steps between simple chemicals and bacteria but also the part of your willful ignorance.

[uruk]

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts?
Hey, even jet engines went through an evolutionary process. It all started with a greek guy with a copper ball and some steam.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Honestly, why not just cut to the chase (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0055/0055_01.asp)?

While you're at it, if you follow American politics, George Bush's website has a rather detailed discussion of John Kerry's political positions. :rolleyes:
So I can't refer to anyone's site who is remotely religious because there's not a hope of them telling the truth about anything?

That's a stinky attitude Upchurch. It's a bit like you going to a christian site and debating the same subject and having one of the christians berate you for using an atheist source of info.

Info is info. Unless you are accusing the guy in that site of telling lies, I would suggest that you take it on board and think about it.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
So I can't refer to anyone's site who is remotely religious because there's not a hope of them telling the truth about anything?It's possible they might come across some nugget of fact, but the fact of the matter is that they, like yourself, have a pre-decided conclusion and essentially cherry-pick information to fit their conclusion. They argue not to find the facts of the matter but to further their own ends. It's inherently dishonest.

[uruk]

Are you seriously suggesting that you can build a living cell with less than half-a-dozen parts?
Typical creationist wrong thinking.

When you get down to the molecular/atomic level, the line that divides "life" from "chemical process" becomes very thin.

[Ipecac]

Originally posted by lifegazer
So I can't refer to anyone's site who is remotely religious because there's not a hope of them telling the truth about anything?

That's a stinky attitude Upchurch. It's a bit like you going to a christian site and debating the same subject and having one of the christians berate you for using an atheist source of info.

Info is info. Unless you are accusing the guy in that site of telling lies, I would suggest that you take it on board and think about it.

The difference is that scientists are EXPERTS. They study this stuff, perform experiments, look at the evidence, and have no agenda but the truth.

The religious guys generally have no science background, are NOT experts, perform no experiments and have an agenda. They merely try to pick apart theories they don't understand.

[lifegazer]

Hello. Don't believe I've ever spoken with you before. Anyway...
Originally posted by Yaotl
You're making my head hurt.

Considering that I'm not in your locality, this may qualify me for claiming Randi's million bucks.

Let's take your analogy a little before the scrapyard. The parts came from somewhere, no?

Yes, but I don't want to argue about the origin of "the parts". I want to argue about the ordered assembly of those parts.

If we found a jumbo jet on Mars, you're damn well right we'd expect an intelligent designer, but no one would even think they created the raw material to make the parts for the jet.
That's irrelevant. What's relevant is how - in this case - you would instantly judge that intelligent-design was needed for this very complex mechanism.
Yet when it comes to the simplest of "simple cells" - several-times more complex than the mechanism of a jumbo-jet - you want to believe that random interaction of the parts were responsible.

How do you explain that?

[Anathema]

Originally posted by uruk
Typical creationist wrong thinking.

When you get down to the molecular/atomic level, the line that divides "life" from "chemical process" becomes very thin. Indeed. Criteria for a "fully living" organism are the abilities to:
Ingest
Breathe
Excrete
Respond to a stimulus
Move itself
Grow
Replicate
Likely the simplest pure replicators couldn't perform all of the above; but, performing a significant number of them would put a proper globule on the path to "life".

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
It's possible they might come across some nugget of fact, but the fact of the matter is that they, like yourself, have a pre-decided conclusion and essentially cherry-pick information to fit their conclusion. They argue not to find the facts of the matter but to further their own ends. It's inherently dishonest.
Given that you refuse to believe any of my links, I challenge you to find your own [biased towards atheism] links which will support the view that the simplest of simple-cells may have been comprised of just a handful of parts.
If you succeed, I will concede to the possibility that "randomness" may have created life.
How's that for open-mindedness and fairness?

[chance]

Lifegazer Something I wrote in another forum. A possible scenario for abiogenesis:

1. Earth cools.
2. Free standing water and atmosphere.
3. Powered by heat, chemicals build up in all environments that are no too hot.
4. With no life processes, chemicals are only affected by the natural elements.
5. Rapid increase in quantity and complexity of chemicals.
6. Some simple chemicals are able to make crude copies of themselves.
7. Replicating chemicals dominate the earth’s wet environments.
8. Some replicating chemicals form more stable forms (simple DNA).
9. Simple DNA, out evolves, all other replicating chemicals, and dominates the wet environments.
10. Simple DNA evolves into countless billions of forms.
11. Simple DNA evolves into complex forms by combining with other chemicals and other forms of DNA (Symbiotic or Prey).
12. Complex DNA becomes ‘super complex’ and is able to form stable structures to protect it’s self from the environment (Simple life).
13. Complex forms of Simple life dominate the earth’s wet environments.
14. Complex life, form symbiotic relationships with other forms of Complex life.
15. An explosion of Complex life (equivalent to Virus and ‘components of single cells’) dominates the Earth’s wet environments.
16. Symbiotic processes become unstoppable. Countless billions of different forms of life evolve.
17. Single Cell Life becomes Stable. Everything else is either food or a building block of life.
18. Two dominant life forms evolve (Plants and Animals).
19. Multi cellular structures survive, and evolve into all forms of life as we know it.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Given that you refuse to believe any of my links, I challenge you to find your own [biased towards atheism] links which will support the view that the simplest of simple-cells may have been comprised of just a handful of parts.
If you succeed, I will concede to the possibility that "randomness" may have created life.
How's that for open-mindedness and fairness?
As you seem to be blind to Anathema's post, I give you her comment on a link I've already given:



Incidently to you equate "athiestic" with "scientific"?

edited to add: specifically Anathema is referring to this article (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html).

[Anathema]

I'm sure LG has me on ignore, as I've openly switched from dialog mode to pure ridicule. Due to so many of my direct questions going response from LG, I normally don't even address him directly: kinda like "it puts the lotion on its skin, or it gets the hose again".

btw: Anathema is a "he", but just barely....

[lifegazer]

None of you seem to understand my point.
You can argue that random chemistry [alone] created the most complex of molecules. You can even argue that random chemistry was responsible for DNA and RNA. But chemistry wasn't responsible for putting several-million independent parts (clusters of molecules or single molecules) in a very small and precise space relative to one another so that they'd all function together as a whole.

Like I said, arrange the parts of a jumbo "just so" and it will do wonders for you; but arrange them any other way than "just so" and it will just sit there like a rock.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Why does God spend so much time dreaming up conflicting views on subjects and then imagine Himself arguing about it on Internet message boards? What a loony place singularity must be.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
As you seem to be blind to Anathema's post, I give you her comment on a link I've already given:



Incidently to you equate "athiestic" with "scientific"?

edited to add: specifically Anathema is referring to this article (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html).
Be more specific. It's almost 11pm here and I don't want to read a very long article just to find the words: "The simplest of cells were comprised of a handful of parts.".
Your readers probably feel the same way.
Do what I do - mention the link and then paste an extract.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
None of you seem to understand my point.
You can argue that random chemistry [alone] created the most complex of molecules. You can even argue that random chemistry was responsible for DNA and RNA. But chemistry wasn't responsible for putting several-million independent parts (clusters of molecules or single molecules) in a very small and precise space relative to one another so that they'd all function together as a whole.Any evidence for this last assertion or are you just assuming it because you cannot conceive of any way that "chemistry" could do this?
Like I said, arrange the parts of a jumbo "just so" and it will do wonders for you; but arrange them any other way than "just so" and it will just sit there like a rock. In other words, those assembly of parts that were not "just so" were unsuccessful and failed. Those parts that happened to be in the right combination succeeded and (going back to the cells and parts of cells) reproduced.

Congrats, you may just yet understand what natural selection is.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Anathema
I'm sure LG has me on ignore

May I reassure you that I don't. :)
In fact, I've never put anyone on 'ignore'. [Not even Geoff!]
To be honest, I don't see where you've made a relevant point
addressing this:

"None of you seem to understand my point.
You can argue that random chemistry [alone] created the most complex of molecules. You can even argue that random chemistry was responsible for DNA and RNA. But chemistry wasn't responsible for putting several-million independent parts (clusters of molecules or single molecules) in a very small and precise space relative to one another so that they'd all function together as a whole.

Like I said, arrange the parts of a jumbo "just so" and it will do wonders for you; but arrange them any other way than "just so" and it will just sit there like a rock."

[Anathema]

Perhaps not on technological "Ignore", but on a figurative ignore, to be sure.

The graphic I linked and Upchurch repeatedly pointed you to is all you need, and it is quite relevant. You continue to assert that random chemistry jumped to a complete single-celled organism in one gross step. The article and the graphic cited contain four categories of lower level order as precursors to the single cell. Please explain them away with your vast arsenal of "Creation Science", and stop beating that poor strawman.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
"But chemistry wasn't responsible for putting several-million independent parts (clusters of molecules or single molecules) in a very small and precise space relative to one another so that they'd all function together as a whole."

Any evidence for this last assertion or are you just assuming it because you cannot conceive of any way that "chemistry" could do this?

Well this is the issue, isn't it?
How do you propose that "chemistry" is so-ordered as to construct a "simple cell"?
What sort of chemistry puts the engines on the wings?

Congrats, you may just yet understand what natural selection is.
Wake-up mate - we're talking about the origin of life... not processes that may have been responsible for life's own evolution. I've already explained this.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Anathema
Perhaps not on technological "Ignore", but on a figurative ignore, to be sure.

The graphic I linked and Upchurch repeatedly pointed you to is all you need, and it is quite relevant. You continue to assert that random chemistry jumped to a complete single-celled organism in one gross step. The article and the graphic cited contain four categories of lower level order as precursors to the single cell. Please explain them away with your vast arsenal of "Creation Science", and stop beating that poor strawman.
I'll tell you what I'll do for you: I promise to make an in-depth response to anything that you post here which will explain the assembly of many many many parts in a precise order which enables the whole to function.
Can't be fairer than that.

Nothing you have posted so far, explains how independent parts that are not naturally attracted to one another, all come together as a complex functioning whole. When you say something that relates to this, I will either concede or make an in-depth response.
Cheers.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Well this is the issue, isn't it?
How do you propose that "chemistry" is so-ordered as to construct a "simple cell"?
What sort of chemistry puts the engines on the wings?That doesn't answer my question. You've put forth the claim that "chemistry wasn't responsible for..." Which indicates that you know for certain that formation of the cell is not a product of "chemistry". What do you base your certainty?

My guess is that your certainty is based on two things. First your faith in the dogma of your philosophy. Second, that you personally can not conceive of how "chemistry" could be responsible for the formation of a cell.

Am I correct or do you have another source of information?
Wake-up mate - we're talking about the origin of life... not processes that may have been responsible for life's own evolution. I've already explained this. Then why do you keep refering to evolution? :con2:

[Wudang]

Interestingly your "jumbo jet" argument is one of the first things Dawkins throws out in his Blind Watchmaker book. Anyway, you might want to start by reading about what mitochondria are, the nature of viruses (which are not simple cells), what prions are (made famous by BSE) etc.
Ignorance is excusable and treatable. Again, lifegazer, try to understand what you're arguing against. The stuff you've quoted isn't taken seriously even by most religious people, just by a few loony fringers.

[uruk]

How do you propose that "chemistry" is so-ordered as to construct a "simple cell"?
What sort of chemistry puts the engines on the wings?
Before you crap on molecular biology, maybe you should first understand what it really says and not rely on your own assumptions of what you think it says. Oh wait, that's right. You don't want to be brainwashed by all that accumulated knowlege. Besides, willfull ignorance gives you the fodder to make all the strawmen you need.

Good luck on your latest total waste of time and effort.
If you were really honest about seeking those answers you would go find some good books at a library and read.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
That doesn't answer my question. You've put forth the claim that "chemistry wasn't responsible for..." Which indicates that you know for certain that formation of the cell is not a product of "chemistry". What do you base your certainty?

There's no chemistry which places the engines "just so" on the wings of a jumbo. It happens by will and designed order.
Likewise, there's no chemistry which places your legs under your bum. According to you, it happens by "natural selection" which equates to beneficial random-chance.
But natural-selection isn't an issue here since we're discussing the first simple-cell. However, 'randomness' is still an issue. Thus, we can omit the benifits that natural-selection facilitates, but we cannot omit 'randomness'.
So, all 'Darwinians' must argue that randomness (not chemistry or natural-selection) was responsible for putting the engines "just so" on the wings of the first-ever jumbo, so-to-speak.

My guess is that your certainty is based on two things. First your faith in the dogma of your philosophy.

As you can see, I'm producing reasons for my conclusions.

Second, that you personally can not conceive of how "chemistry" could be responsible for the formation of a cell.

It cannot be, since there is no reason why "chemistry" would not put your legs on your head.

That kinda highlights the problem of your dependency upon chemistry. 'It' doesn't care where the engines or the legs are positioned.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by uruk
Good luck on your latest total waste of time and effort.
If you were really honest about seeking those answers you would go find some good books at a library and read.
If you have the answers to anything I have typed here, then fire away.
References to distant libraries containing books that have all the answers don't make for a meaningful discussion.
Since you (obviously) have read these books, I await your next post which will [clearly] demonstrate why and how the engines of the first jumbo-jet (so-to-speak) happened upon the back of it's wings.
Until that post, I'll just continue to highlight the flaws in Darwinian thought.

[Dancing David]

"... The truth is that the simplest living cell has over one trillion molecules in it... All of the molecules in that cell have to be in just the right place at the right time or the cell will either malfunction or not function and die."



Ah the hamster can dance, the hamster can sing, bring out the hamster!

That quote is a load of bull Lifegazer, if you are as smart as you claim then you will realise it is simply wrong.

Uh lets see shall we, the minority of molecules in a cell have to be in a certain place for the cell to function. If the cell was as organised as you say then it would be a microchip and not a cell, better luck next time!

[lifegazer]

Maybe I should diversify my arguments more-often. 80+ posts in 5+ hours must be close to a record for this place.
Thanks for the interest. I appreciate it.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Ah the hamster can dance, the hamster can sing, bring out the hamster!

That quote is a load of bull Lifegazer, if you are as smart as you claim then you will realise it is simply wrong.

Uh lets see shall we, the minority of molecules in a cell have to be in a certain place for the cell to function. If the cell was as organised as you say then it would be a microchip and not a cell, better luck next time!
Do some research Davey lad. A living cell is more complex than a balloon filled with water. Come back later and make a meaningful contribution.
Otherwise, do as I challenged upchurch to do - provide a link which can reduce a simple-cell down to a handful of separate parts.

[Z]

Ah, but here is your analogy problem, little boy - random recombination did NOT make the 'jumbo jet'. However, it very well might have made the floating leaf or the lightweight bit of something that inspired jet creation.

You keep arguing about the 'first cell' - yet are ignoring the fact that life forms (of a sort) exist which are magnitudes more simple than a cell. Protocells, viruses, etc. A virus can be made out of a few hundred molecules, and is essentially a life form. What you should be looking at is the first self-replicating protein chain. After one self-replicating chain forms, it would replicate (hence, the term self-replicating) - and as variation occured, those would survive which were able to interact accordingly. Eventually, over billions of years, these chains formed viruses, protocells, and simple single-celled organisms.

You remind me of Irritating Ian and his inability to grasp the exceedingly low probability of his having been born to still be vastly large given the size of the universe. A matter of scale - in a large enough universe, every improbably chain of events becomes actualized.

[Dancing David]

look away from the light Lifegazer, walk towards my voice, you are a silly git if you think that misrepresenting Darwin makes you smart.


posted by Slimegazer
As we're talking about the absolute origin of the simple cell, we are unable to use 'natural selection' as a means of explaining the origin of such a cell.
That leaves us with random bonding or random arrangement as the only means to explain this initial assembly.




What a complete lack of imagination you have! There is no absolute origin to the 'cell', lets us just imagine that there is one molecule (a) that helps systhesize the molecule (b) and that it in turn helps to synthesize the molecule (c).

Given the raw materials and temperatures you will tend to find larger concentrations of (b) in the presence of (a) and you will tend to find higher concentrations of (c) in the presence of (b). So start with something like that, 'collectives of self catalyzing chemicals'.

So call the first set of self catalysts to be *A* and they eventualy bump into a set called *B*, because remember these chemicals move around in a process called diffusion. So you have set *A* and set *B* and further imagine that in the presence of each other they create a product P, and that this product P is a set of lipids that tend to cluster together. Shake and roll for millenia.

There is a random chance that tossed by sea foam there will be all the following in a speck of spray. *A*,*B* and P. Further imagine that the lipid creates an even spherical body that helps preserve the interior sets. You might get the super collective to go around creating other super collectives, little sets of *A* and little sets of *B* surrounded by a lipid shell. Natural selection applies, sea foam that encases just *A* and just *B* in lipid globs will not lead to further production of the lipid. Lipid globs that contain incorrect proportions of the two sets will also not create new collectives.

Mix in other sets like *C* and *D* which perhaps allow the collective to maintain the lipid shell or to selctively draw in certain nutrients. This is then where natural selection can have a role to play.

Collectives that tend to create stronger lipid shells will tend to survive, collectives that tend to draw nutrients will tend to survive. Collectives can occur in all sorts of combination but those that have traits that create a more coherent lipid layer will tend to survive, those that draw in nutrients to the collective will tend to survive. There is still no need for intent , just that there are first agrregates of self catalyzing molecules, and then eventualy that they have some effects in combination with each other.

This is a possible scenario for the developement of the exterior of a cell, the chemicals are simple, the rules are simple, it just requires the chemicals and time.

[Z]

1) Sorry, LG. I should not have called you 'little boy'. I'm fighting a sinus infection and am just unusually short tempered.

2) Ladies and gents, I have to say I'm going to be unusually silent as long as this thread stays on topic - Personally, I think the actualization of probabilities which led to the formation of life on Earth IS the hand of Deity in action - that Deity, being inherently unreal, interacts with the real by causing actualizations of probability - that God can only do the highly improbable, not the impossible.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Lifegazer said:
But natural-selection isn't an issue here since we're discussing the first simple-cell. However, 'randomness' is still an issue. Thus, we can omit the benifits that natural-selection facilitates, but we cannot omit 'randomness'.
I don't get it. Was natural selection on vacation while the "first simple-cell" was evolving?

~~ Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Zaay said:
2) Ladies and gents, I have to say I'm going to be unusually silent as long as this thread stays on topic - Personally, I think the actualization of probabilities which led to the formation of life on Earth IS the hand of Deity in action - that Deity, being inherently unreal, interacts with the real by causing actualizations of probability - that God can only do the highly improbable, not the impossible.
Now this is interesting. Can we test this hypothesis? How does the unreal god interface with the real world? Can he actualize probabilities at all levels of reality, or just at the quantum level? For example, can he make a coin flip unfair?

~~ Paul

[Z]

I suppose she could if she really wanted to... but how do you ask her to make a coin toss unfair?

Another small part of my 'faith' is that I think her 'interest' in the formation of life may be less than we'd like it to be. She may have actualized probability so that complex life would evolve, but after that? Heck, she's probably toying with probabilities on the other edge of the Universe to create life that doesn't look for Gods.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Dancing David
look away from the light Lifegazer, walk towards my voice, you are a silly git if you think that misrepresenting Darwin makes you smart.

Screw Darwin. His theory is the most incomplete and full-of-holes theory ever to be bestowed upon humanity as "scientific fact". This wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't had the anti-God effect upon humanity that it evidently has.
As a theist, I have no objection to the principle that "life is capable of evolving". But from whence cometh that life? The evolution (ability to change it's own form) of life itself has nothing to do with the actual origin of that life.
... One speaks of life changing. The other speaks of life starting.

Get my drift?

What a complete lack of imagination you have! There is no absolute origin to the 'cell', lets us just imagine that there is one molecule (a) that helps systhesize the molecule (b) and that it in turn helps to synthesize the molecule (c).

Okay, I will imagine such a thing - but at the end of that imagining process, I am still left imagining one part.

What I am discussing here, is the amalgamation of several-million
parts - most of them complex within themselves - to instigate the origin of an ultra-complex mechanism better-known as the "simple cell".

[Z]

What I am discussing here, is the amalgamation of several-million parts - most of them complex within themselves - to instigate the origin of an ultra-complex mechanism better-known as the "simple cell".

And, once again, this is not the beginning of the process, but a step millions of years down the line. Like I said, better to start with formation of basic molecules than with cells. Cells were a LONG way down the evolutionary path.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I don't get it. Was natural selection on vacation while the "first simple-cell" was evolving?

~~ Paul
As a theist, I have no objection to the principle that "life is capable of evolving". But from whence cometh that life? The evolution (ability to change it's own form) of life itself has nothing to do with the actual origin of that life.
... One speaks of life changing. The other speaks of life starting.

Get my drift?

[Z]

He's starting to sound like Iacchus, just copying and pasting the same phrases over and over again, parrot-like, as if multiple assertion were a logical form of argument.

(sigh)

Oh, and it does nothing for your credibility, LG, to randomly insert poorly-imitated Olde English into your rants {Whence cometh?}. Just makes you sound like a religious loony.

[Anathema]

Dancing David has given you a good rundown on the "bottom up" approach to building the ultimate complexity of a cell from basic chemical constituents. Of course, it relies on understanding the chemical composition of the early earth, determining what kinds of temperature, pressure and mixing forces were likely, and building a model of valid causal inference from the early chemical states to the first known fossils of cyanobacteria, since chemical reactions themselves leave no neat fossil evidence.

If we had computers today capable of simulating the trillions of simultaneous natural reactions the model represents, and could compress the timescale from billions of years to the span of a human lifetime, I have no doubt we would have the precise combination of chemicals, forces and events that resulted in "life". That computing power is an eventuality, as is the the demise of the slim "gray area" that allows you to still entertain your teetering God-fantasy.

[Ratman_tf]

Oh my god. LG is making all the old, often (http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm) refuted (http://www.talkorigins.org/) arguments of YECs?

Oh, by the way Luci, I'm posting the rest of that Darwin quote.

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html#quote84

Not very honest of you to edit the quote like that...

[Wudang]

No he was losing the plot in two other threads "questions lifegazer can't answer" and "Upchurch's Question" (the latter for the 20th time) so as usual he urgently had to start a new thread. Trouble was he couldn't come up with anything so grabbed this pile of uneducated blather off the shelf.

[RamblingOnwards]

Since all the cliches are out in full force...

Think of that milk you added to your coffee this morning out of the fridge. You bought it at a store. It got to the store by some sort of shipping truck from a bottling (cartoning?) plant. It got to that plant in some sort of tanker from a diary. Now if any single one element - the dairy, the tanker, the plant, the truck, the store or the fridge - was missing, you wouldn't have been able to put that freah milk in your coffee.

Undeniable proof that no one drank milk before the industrial age.

[H'ethetheth]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Screw Darwin. His theory is the most incomplete and full-of-holes theory ever to be bestowed upon humanity as "scientific fact". This wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't had the anti-God effect upon humanity that it evidently has.
As a theist, I have no objection to the principle that "life is capable of evolving". But from whence cometh that life? The evolution (ability to change it's own form) of life itself has nothing to do with the actual origin of that life.
... One speaks of life changing. The other speaks of life starting.

Get my drift?

Okay, I will imagine such a thing - but at the end of that imagining process, I am still left imagining one part.

What I am discussing here, is the amalgamation of several-million
parts - most of them complex within themselves - to instigate the origin of an ultra-complex mechanism better-known as the "simple cell".

First of all, Darwin didn't concern himself with the organisms involved in evolution much. He just found a principle that explains why and how organisms change. It's not "full of holes". On the contrary, it's complete and very elegant and has been observed in action many many times. It is a principle that describes change, hence "evolution". He called his book "the origin of species", not "the origin of life".

Secondly, when you have considered Dancing Davids story, you are left with a molecule within a cell wall.

So what we have is a molecule that reproduces itself and produces some byproducts that enhances its chances of survival and of its progeny.
Byproducts can include lipids that cluster together and form bubbles of sorts because of their chemical makeup. Molecules protected by bubbles have an advantage, clearly.
But these bubbles must be permeable to some chemicals and impermeable to others. This creates selective pressure towards mechanisms that select chemicals to let through.

There you have it, a simple cell-like organism, not very unlike a primordial cell, starting from a self-replicating molecule.
More complex cells like yours and mine have probably arisen through symbiosis of several different types of early cells, that have in time become specialised for certain tasks.

And lastly. We know nothing about the chance that life arises, but we know it happened here on earth.
Only one self-replicating molecule has to come into being. The chance that that happens is unknown, but cannot be zero.
From then on evolution by natural selection takes over.

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by Ratman_tf
Oh my god. LG is making all the old, often (http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/default.htm) refuted (http://www.talkorigins.org/) arguments of YECs?

Oh, by the way Luci, I'm posting the rest of that Darwin quote.



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/mine/part1-4.html#quote84

Not very honest of you to edit the quote like that...

Oh, I meant Lifegazer in that second sentence, obviously. My bad.

[Mercutio]

Originally posted by lifegazer
There's no chemistry which places the engines "just so" on the wings of a jumbo. It happens by will and designed order. Wow...you must have missed out on all those great newsreel films showing people's attempts at flying. They were great fun; one wing, two, seven...circular wings, triangular, rectangular...engines in front, in back...main wings in front or in back...and you get to see, time after time, people failing to fly...and usually there is funny music in the background.

And then, there are the "test pilots", from back then and from today. I think maybe you have heard of them. Some, over the decades, have died in the process of making sure those jet engines are placed "just so" on the wings of a jumbo. Guess what? We did not keep the designs that did not work. It's kind like...oh, I don't know, some natural sort of a selection process where we discard what does not work, and improve on what does.

[epepke]

Obviously most theories posit that a cell was not the earliest form of life. However, I'd just like to address this:

All of the molecules in that cell have to be in just the right place at the right time or the cell will either malfunction or not function and die.

This is just such an absurdly false statement that I have a hard time coming up with a phrase for it. "Pablum down the bib" is the closest I can come, but I overuse that one.

The chemistry of life works like any other chemistry. Chemicals slosh around pretty much at random, except that at a chance meeting, they can react with another chemical or stick to another chemical or bounce off another chemical. There's no special place in 3-space that each molecule has to be. Of course, there are relative concentrations of chemicals, but this happens by the mechanisms I've already listed. A layer of cells (which stick to each other) can form a differentially permeable membrane, and chemical reactions can change the relative positions of molecules to perform surprisingly complex functions, such as phagocytosis, but at a fundamental level, it's just molecules bumping around. Reactions are more probable or less probable due to certain conditions, but there are no molecular marching orders.

Some kinds of cell can become more-or-less completely dehydrated and remain viable. Even some multicellular creatures such as frogs can be frozen, and when they thaw, they live just fine. (The trick seems to be the excretion of sugars, which keep the ice from forming pointy bits.)

[wollery]

I've just been sitting on the sidelines reading this thread as it developed, and I must say that my gast has been truly flabbered.

LG, I have no idea what you are trying to prove with this awful attempt at scientific discussion, but your own philosophy renders the whole thing moot anyway. By your reasoning there is no such thing as the material world, it is all just the creation of our own minds, each of which is a different aspect of the overmind you choose to call God. This being the case, the entire Universe could have come into existence last Tuesday, and we would be none the wiser, since God could have just imagined us a history that would be every bit as real to us as if we had lived it.

Discussing the origins of life is, for you at least, an utterly pointless exercise.

Or are you suggesting that the primordial first cell had an imagination and senses with which to create the Universe it inhabited?

[Ipecac]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Screw Darwin. His theory is the most incomplete and full-of-holes theory ever to be bestowed upon humanity as "scientific fact". This wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't had the anti-God effect upon humanity that it evidently has.

Yeah, the truth will do that to fantasy. Be careful, your agenda is showing.

When I was (much) younger, I used to believe that homosexuality was a choice because I was sure that if there was a physical reason for homosexuality, "we would have found it by now." I had no conception of genes and the science of genetics, which was, compared to today, in its infancy. Turns out, genes could very well be the cause of homosexuality. I was ignorant and trying to pass my ignorance off as the obvious answer. Too bad I was wrong.

You seem to be doing the same thing.

[uruk]

LG. It not that simple a processe of "Placing a wing just so" It even took time for nature to evolve flight. Using your wing and engine analogy; it took time for engineers and designers to get the right combinations. Look up the history of flight. It took a long time for people to figure out how to achieve powered flight. look at all the failed experiments.
Same thing happens in nature. The nature of biochemistry allows many diffferent combinations to happen. only the successful combination survive. thats why you never see a "plane with the wings perpindicular or right angles to each other" it is an unsucesseful combination and not persued further. Nature uses the "shotgun" method (to use a technical or engineering term). It allows for many different combinations to be produced and only the successful cobination survive. And those successful combination then combine with other succecssful but different combination in different ways and then again only the successful of those combination survive to combine with others...so forth and so forth...etc.

Here's another question. If there is an omnicient god designing everything. why all the failed species? (i.e. extinct species) Species in whom their "design" was "not conducive to their continued existance in the face of environmental change?
Was that god was experimenting? perhaps practicing? If god is omnicient then he would already know how to design a species that would be perfect for all environmental conditions. You would probably argue that that perfect species would be us. But that does not answer why other failed species. why the long road to us. Why would an omnicient god need to "practice" or "experiment"? It already knows.

[Stitch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The basis problem here, is one of 'assembly'.

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.
The assembly of the parts of a jumbo jet is vitally important, of course. Likewise, those of a simplecell. For each to function correctly, the parts must be arranged "just so".

As we're talking about the absolute origin of the simple cell, we are unable to use 'natural selection' as a means of explaining the origin of such a cell.
That leaves us with random bonding or random arrangement as the only means to explain this initial assembly.

Imagine walking into a scrapyard and finding all the necessary parts to make a jumbo jet all in one place, purely by luck, ready for assembly. If that isn't remarkable enough, imagine that a tornado has blown over this pile of parts and that, when the wind settles, the jumbo jet will be perfectly built and ready to fly.

Ridiculous analogy? Hardly, since the simple-cell has many more parts than a jumbo - all of which have to concentrate at one place - and all of which have nothing other than randomness to arrange them "just so" to produce that cell.

You ask for evidence of your God and when presented by the miracle of life, just scorn.
Ask yourselves this: If we were to find a jumbo jet (or any very complex functioning mechanism) on Mars, would we say that we'd found evidence of intelligent life, or would we say that "Random chemistry built it."?

I would suggest that the "simple cell" is more-than-reasonable evidence of [ultra] intelligent design, but that the repercussions of such a conclusion forbid it's acceptance.

Oh boy, rather than starting from a Jumbo, start from a sheet of paper that floats to the fllor when you drop it, then go on to a simple "concorde" paper areoplane, then go to a small balsa model, then go to the Wright brothers and so on and so on and one day you get to the Jumbo. You keep trying to start with all the parts of the most complex version and wonder how it came to be rather than looking where the complex version came from.

So - the origins of the first cell were little more than a simple string of a few carbon atoms with a bit of hydrogen, maybe oxygen and some nitrogen that bubbled away for days in a hot soup of other chemicals before another Carbon atom bonded to the chain. At the same time other chains were forming in differing configurations. These chains keep being added to and becoming more complex until we get polymers (we have just moved from floating sheets of paper, blue, red, green etc to the first fold towards a paper plane).

[Stitch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I've searched several sites tonight and have read stuff in the past which suggests that the simplest form a cell could take-on would still mean that it had several million parts comprised of billions upon billions of molecules.

Are you seriously suggesting that you can build a living cell with less than half-a-dozen parts?

The pre-cursor to one yes. Man didn't start with a Jumbo, he started with a kite or whatever, which has far fewer parts. It isn't a Jumbo but it flies.

Cells started out as self replicating polymers, not a cell but it can replicate.

Add a few more atoms to the chain every few minutes / hours over a few billion years and bingo. I have no dobt there were billions of chemical chains produced that never self replicated, however, one combination did and it goes from there.

[Stitch]

Originally posted by lifegazer

Yes, but I don't want to argue about the origin of "the parts". I want to argue about the ordered assembly of those parts.


OK, lets's adjust your junkyard analogy a little here. I don't think anybody is going to try to suggest that the "primordial soup" only contained enough of each component to build 1 cell. So....

In your junk yard you have the complete parts list for say a couple of billion billion jumbo jets. You also have a couple of billion billion average Joes off the street. They each have 4 billion years to produce something that flies, if their first try doesn't work they get another go, each go take a few hours. How many possible outcomes do we have now? Is somebody going to produce a Jet from the bits?? That's also assuming that a previous version can't help the next one to go a little further which may well have been the case.

[Stitch]

Originally posted by lifegazer


It cannot be, since there is no reason why "chemistry" would not put your legs on your head.


Ho hum - and indeed it is quite likely in the early cell that some had their legs on their heads, some had them where the arms should be and a few had them in the right place. The latter ones did better in the environment and were able to replicate better and produce more like themseleves and the others didn't. Next...

[Wudang]

Have a look at the diversity of form found in the Burgess Shale.

[pupdog]

Young kids can be fascinated by the antics of Charlie Chaplin. I was. My parents were. My grandparents were...

How about we just set up a file, or a single Web page, with all of these often-heard, thoroughly-refuted, arguments listed numerically--then we can simply post replies like "See URL-x, number 29." (Come to think of it, it' has been pretty nearly done already, at talkorigins and elsewhere.)

Even William Paley's work of 200 years ago was not original. Yet people frequently bring up the same arguments as though they have had a revelation entrusted to no predecessor. Lifegazer (and others)--show us something we have not seen; present some new evidence; and maybe even look around to see if what you have to say has been argued for many years.

[UserGoogol]

I don't know the exact way in which the cell first evolved, but I think a good analogy is a house of cards.

Let us suppose you have a house of cards. Now, if you remove a card, the house of cards will probably collapse. Despite this, the house was still constructed entirely by adding one or two cards at a time.

[lifegazer]

Let's progress...
You all argue that life came about via the laws of physics, without the need for 'A Creator God'.
So let's ask a couple of questions about these laws:-

(1) The laws of physics mirror the order of the forces which exist in the universe and which have moulded matter into life.
The question is, from what does this order emanate?
What is the enforcing agent of these universal forces?
What is the orderer of this order?

(2) http://www.2001principle.net/2005.htm
Extract:-
Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University: "The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly. You see," Davies adds, "even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life -- almost contrived -- you might say a 'put-up job."

The site lists details of this "fine-tuning".
Another good site I found:-
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml?main

Comments?

[wollery]

Congratulations LG, you've discovered the anthropic principle. Unfortunately, as an argument for God it's useless.

The important question is; if the Universe weren't fine tuned to support life, would we be amazed at the fact that we weren't there to witness the fact that we didn't exist?

[Anathema]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Let's progress...I'm certainly not counting on that.
Originally posted by lifegazer
What is the enforcing agent of these universal forces?
What is the orderer of this order? Let me guess. You'd say, "dimensionless, uncreated singularity named God-with-a-capital-G, on yer knee, plonkers"

And I'd say: "There needn't be one"

[TragicMonkey]

Originally posted by wollery
Congratulations LG, you've discovered the anthropic principle. Unfortunately, as an argument for God it's useless.

The important question is; if the Universe weren't fine tuned to support life, would we be amazed at the fact that we weren't there to witness the fact that we didn't exist?

Not to mention the very obvious: the point of natural selection is that the best able to adapt is the best able to survive. So if Earth had a methane-and-vodka atmosphere, life would have developed that thrives on methane-and-vodka.

Incidentally, do the fundies realize that oxygen was originally poisonous to life? Life adapted to it so well that now some life requires it.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by wollery
LG, I have no idea what you are trying to prove with this awful attempt at scientific discussion, but your own philosophy renders the whole thing moot anyway.

You miss the point: The flock follow their science-sheppards and eat anything that the sheppards feed them. A discussion like this will, ultimately, explain to the sheep why they have been eating garbage. Then, those sheep might open their minds to feeding off other pastures.

[uruk]

I'll just continue to highlight the flaws in Darwinian thought.
Yep. It's easy to criticize something you don't understand.
How can you possibly do this without knowing what it is first?
Oh yea, just read some anti-darwinian web site and cut and paste. Great strategy there.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by wollery
Congratulations LG, you've discovered the anthropic principle. Unfortunately, as an argument for God it's useless.

The important question is; if the Universe weren't fine tuned to support life, would we be amazed at the fact that we weren't there to witness the fact that we didn't exist?
None of this addresses the origin of universal order nor the fine-tuning required.

[wollery]

Originally posted by lifegazer
You miss the point: The flock follow their science-sheppards and eat anything that the sheppards feed them. A discussion like this will, ultimately, explain to the sheep why they have been eating garbage. Then, those sheep might open their minds to feeding off other pastures. No, you miss the point. If your philosophy is correct then our entire Universe is illusion and there's no point discussing anything, because we have no way of verifying whether or not we've existed for more than 20 seconds. If, on the other hand, you are wrong, then why should we trust anything you have to say on any subject?

[wollery]

Originally posted by wollery
Congratulations LG, you've discovered the anthropic principle. Unfortunately, as an argument for God it's useless.

The important question is; if the Universe weren't fine tuned to support life, would we be amazed at the fact that we weren't there to witness the fact that we didn't exist? Originally posted by lifegazer
None of this addresses the origin of universal order nor the fine-tuning required. It does.

You just don't realise that it does.

[Pixel42]

Originally posted by lifegazer
(2) http://www.2001principle.net/2005.htm
Extract:-
Dr. Paul Davies, noted author and professor of theoretical physics at Adelaide University: "The really amazing thing is not that life on Earth is balanced on a knife-edge, but that the entire universe is balanced on a knife-edge, and would be total chaos if any of the natural 'constants' were off even slightly. You see," Davies adds, "even if you dismiss man as a chance happening, the fact remains that the universe seems unreasonably suited to the existence of life -- almost contrived -- you might say a 'put-up job."

The site lists details of this "fine-tuning".
Another good site I found:-
http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml?main

Comments?

Oh dear, there it is again.

I can only once again quote Douglas Adams' wonderful puddle analogy to illustrate the fallacy at the heart of this argument:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking "This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"

To put it in (mostly) words of one syllable: The Universe is not the way it is so that we can exist as we do. We exist as we do because the Universe is the way it is.

Many current cosmological theories suggest a multiverse containing an infinite number of universes, in only a tiny fraction of which will the universal constants etc be suitable for life as we know it to arise. Which means that there will be an infinite number of such universes, as even the tiniest fraction of infinity is infinity.

That doesn't mean that the other 99.99% of Universes are lifeless, however. They may well contain completely different forms of life that could no more exist in our Universe than we could exist in theirs. Each would, however, fit into its own Universe as neatly as each puddle fits into its hole.

[monkboon]

Originally posted by lifegazer
None of this addresses the origin of universal order nor the fine-tuning required.

No, you missed the point. The fine tuning argument doesn't hold water - if the variables that were tuned had been anything different, as the argument goes, we wouldn't be here. It says nothing about what would be here in our places though.

Sure, life as we know it wouldn't exist, so what? That does not mean that some other form would not have come about. That's the anthropic principal - we observe the universe to be the way it is because 1) the universe is the way it is; and 2) we're here to observe it. If either weren't true, we wouldn't be here arguing the point, but that doesn't imply that something/someone else wouldn't be.

I'm not a biologist or anthropologist, I'm a mathematician. An example I like to use is a simple flip of a coin - suppose you flip a coin, and it lands somewhere completely at random (i.e., it wasn't forced to a specific location). The probability, before you threw the coin, that it would land precisely where it did was effectively 0, but it landed there nonetheless, hence it wasn't impossible to have happened that way. Zero probability, when the result set is infinite, does not imply impossibility, only extreme unlikelyhood. Now apply that to the random selection of the so-called tuning parameters of the universe - the fact that they came to be as they did was extremely unlikely before it happened, but that in no way implies that it was impossible to have happened that way by random processes.

[epepke]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Until that post, I'll just continue to highlight the flaws in Darwinian thought.

Darwin was an interesting historical figure and a pioneer. That's about it. We've gotten a lot better at stuff since then.

If you want to masturbate in the 19th century, well, then, go ahead. But that's what it is.

[TragicMonkey]

Originally posted by epepke
If you want to masturbate in the 19th century, well, then, go ahead.

I urge you to send this line to a band for use as a song lyric. The Offspring would probably love to use it.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Pixel42
To put it in (mostly) words of one syllable: The Universe is not the way it is so that we can exist as we do. We exist as we do because the Universe is the way it is.

I'm well aware of the fact that I exist. I'm also well aware of the fact that my environment facilitates that existence. But the WAP still doesn't provide me with any answers regarding the aforementioned questions:
(1) What is the origin of the order I am a witness to?
(2) How likely is it that this specific order - and hence my existence - should come about?
The questions are worthy of answers.

[uruk]

(1) What is the origin of the order I am a witness to?
Well that's a very good question. Truth is that there is only hypothesis and theories at the moment. But it would be folly to just give up and and say "god did it."
So many times in the past when that answer was applied to other natural phenomena it proved erroneous. As our understanding grew, we discovered the true explination of those phenomena. An honest answer would be :we don't know yet.
But that's because our understanding in those areas are just beginning to bear fruit.
But hey. If you wanna cop out and say "goddidit" then go ahead. but don't expect to get any "amens" around here.
2) How likely is it that this specific order - and hence my existence - should come about?
Well this is kind of a useless question. It's moot. Thats like witnessing a meteorite strike somebody in the head and asking "what are the odds." Kind of pointless since it happened.

[Correa Neto]

LG, I strongly suggest you to return just after "finding" something better than the clock-without-a-maker argument.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by lifegazer

(2) How likely is it that this specific order - and hence my existence - should come about?


That would be 1...

P.S. uruk Alluded to this, also.

[Skeptical Greg]

Originally posted by Pixel42
Oh dear, there it is again.

I can only once again quote Douglas Adams' wonderful puddle analogy to illustrate the fallacy at the heart of this argument:

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking "This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!"

To put it in (mostly) words of one syllable: The Universe is not the way it is so that we can exist as we do. We exist as we do because the Universe is the way it is.

Many current cosmological theories suggest a multiverse containing an infinite number of universes, in only a tiny fraction of which will the universal constants etc be suitable for life as we know it to arise. Which means that there will be an infinite number of such universes, as even the tiniest fraction of infinity is infinity.

That doesn't mean that the other 99.99% of Universes are lifeless, however. They may well contain completely different forms of life that could no more exist in our Universe than we could exist in theirs. Each would, however, fit into its own Universe as neatly as each puddle fits into its hole.
The simple version...


If things were different, they'd be different.

[Ratman_tf]

What percentage of the entire universe is just the earth?

The earth is the only place in the universe we know of that can support human life.

If god originated the universe, and the vast majority of it is a deadly environment to humans...

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Diogenes
The simple version...


If things were different, they'd be different.
What are the odds of getting 4 aces in poker?
WAPer's answer:
"If things were different they'd be different."

[monkboon]

Originally posted by lifegazer
What are the odds of getting 4 aces in poker?

In 5 card stud (the one where 4 aces is least likely) a whopping 54145:1 against. Yet it happens. What's your point?

(edited to correct a mathematical error)

[Anathema]

Originally posted by monkboon
What's your point? Man, are you far behind. LG has already proven that points don't exist in his distanceless Gawd-dream. Maybe he could make a sensed-point, but that would require sense....and a point.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by monkboon
What are the odds of getting 4 aces in poker?

In 5 card stud (the one where 4 aces is least likely) a whopping 216580:1 against. Yet it happens. What's your point?
I thought the point was obvious. If you're dealt 4 aces in a game of poker, you'd gasp in surprise, fully-aware of the unlikelihood of such an experience.
Yet, when asked to contemplate "the hand" dealt to us by existence, you have nothing to say save:
"If things were different, they'd be different."

The WAP is a cop-out. It answers no questions. In fact, the creation of the WAP was borne of the desire to avoid answering those questions.

[monkboon]

Originally posted by monkboon
In 5 card stud (the one where 4 aces is least likely) a whopping 216580:1 against. Yet it happens. What's your point?

I should have finished thought...

Even if you don't get your 4 ace hand, you still get a hand, and a good many of them are very good hands. The fact that 4 aces is an unlikely hand doesn't mean that poker required divine intervention to be created.

(edited for whatever)

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by monkboon
I should have finished thought...

Even if you don't get your 4 ace hand, you still get a hand, and a good many of them are very good hands. The fact that 4 aces is an unlikely hand doesn't mean that poker required divine intervention to be created.

(edited for whatever)
The point is to draw the reader's attention to the unlikelihood of any singular experience.
Getting 4 aces in a game of poker is almost a certainty compared to the infinitessimal odds of "being dealt" the laws-of-physics as they are.

[monkboon]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I thought the point was obvious. If you're dealt 4 aces in a game of poker, you'd gasp in surprise, fully-aware of the unlikelihood of such an experience.

I'd be even more surprised if it never happened at all. The odds of getting any of the hands I've gotten, before the hands were dealt, were even lower than a 4 ace hand (1/48 of the 4 ace probability, in case you were wondering), but the vast majority of those hands are not as interesting. Big deal.

Your analogy is akin to my being dealt a 5 card hand, marveling at the improbability of it, and believing that if I had been dealt any other hand I wouldn't be playing poker any more.

(edited to correct another mathematical error. This isn't like me, really.)

[monkboon]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Getting 4 aces in a game of poker is almost a certainty compared to the infinitessimal odds of "being dealt" the laws-of-physics as they are.

Agreed, but again, so what? Reread my post on the fallacy that zero probability implies impossibility.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by monkboon
Agreed, but again, so what? Reread my post on the fallacy that zero probability implies impossibility.
Agreed, but then we enter the realms of the Strong Anthropic Principle... which at least takes account of the infinitessimal odds that you mentioned.

[RamblingOnwards]

What are the odds that the winning lottery numbers are 1 2 3 4 5 6 ? The same as the odds that they are 25 29 51 8 32 17.

The odds that the universe is exactly the way it is is incredibly low, but it has to be something. Every lottery winner in the world is thinking to themselves, 'how unbelievably lucky am I?' but that doesn't mean the game was rigged.

[Wudang]

Richard Feynman : "I had the most remarkable experience this evening. While coming in here I saw license plate ANZ 912. Calculate for me, please, the odds that of all the license plates in the state of Washington I should happen to see ANZ 912."

Yawn.
If you want to be interesting lifegazer, try to answer Upchurch's Question

[Yahweh]

Lifegazer,

I havent read the thread, as I'm other people have probably pointed you to various resources, but here a few resources which I find useful:

For a long time, most scientists refused to bother with the Creationism vs. Science explanations for life. The Scientific American, for one, refused to acknowledge that Creationism even merited refutation, such were its poor arguments and denials of observable facts. However, the journal finally could hold out no longer. The article found at this site sets forth fifteen straightforward reasons why Creationism should be ignored, at best. From Sciam.com - 15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000D4FEC-7D5B-1D07-8E49809EC588EEDF&pageNumber=3&catID=2):
7. Evolution cannot explain how life first appeared on earth.

The origin of life remains very much a mystery, but biochemists have learned about how primitive nucleic acids, amino acids and other building blocks of life could have formed and organized themselves into self-replicating, self-sustaining units, laying the foundation for cellular biochemistry. Astrochemical analyses hint that quantities of these compounds might have originated in space and fallen to earth in comets, a scenario that may solve the problem of how those constituents arose under the conditions that prevailed when our planet was young.

Creationists sometimes try to invalidate all of evolution by pointing to science's current inability to explain the origin of life. But even if life on earth turned out to have a nonevolutionary origin (for instance, if aliens introduced the first cells billions of years ago), evolution since then would be robustly confirmed by countless microevolutionary and macroevolutionary studies.

8. Mathematically, it is inconceivable that anything as complex as a protein, let alone a living cell or a human, could spring up by chance.

Chance plays a part in evolution (for example, in the random mutations that can give rise to new traits), but evolution does not depend on chance to create organisms, proteins or other entities. Quite the opposite: natural selection, the principal known mechanism of evolution, harnesses nonrandom change by preserving "desirable" (adaptive) features and eliminating "undesirable" (nonadaptive) ones. As long as the forces of selection stay constant, natural selection can push evolution in one direction and produce sophisticated structures in surprisingly short times.

As an analogy, consider the 13-letter sequence "TOBEORNOTTOBE." Those hypothetical million monkeys, each pecking out one phrase a second, could take as long as 78,800 years to find it among the 2613 sequences of that length. But in the 1980s Richard Hardison of Glendale College wrote a computer program that generated phrases randomly while preserving the positions of individual letters that happened to be correctly placed (in effect, selecting for phrases more like Hamlet's). On average, the program re-created the phrase in just 336 iterations, less than 90 seconds. Even more amazing, it could reconstruct Shakespeare's entire play in just four and a half days.

Stanford Encylcopedia of Philosophy - Creationism (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/#7):
7. Is Complexity Irreducible?

Irreducible complexity is supposedly something which could not have come through unbroken law, and especially not through the agency of natural selection. Critics claim that Behe shows a misunderstanding of the very nature and workings of natural selection. No one is denying that in natural processes there may well be parts which, if removed, would lead at once to the non-functioning of the systems in which they occur. The point however is not whether the parts now in place could not be removed without collapse, but whether they could have been put in place by natural selection. Consider an arched bridge, made from cut stone, without cement, held in place only by the force of the stones against each other. If you tried to build the bridge from scratch, upwards and then inwards, you would fail — the stones would keep falling to the ground, as indeed the whole bridge now would collapse were you to remove the center keystone or any surrounding it. Rather, what you must do is first build a supporting structure (possibly an earthen embankment), on which you will lay the stones of the bridge, until they are all in place. At which point you can remove the structure for it is no longer needed, and in fact is in the way. Likewise, one can imagine a biochemical sequential process with several stages, on the parts of which other processes piggyback as it were. Then the hitherto non-sequential parasitic processes link up and start functioning independently, the original sequence finally being removed by natural selection as redundant or inconveniently draining of resources.

Of course, this is all pretend. But Darwinian evolutionists have hardly ignored the matter of complex processes. Indeed, it is discussed in detail by Darwin in the Origin, where he refers to that most puzzling of all adaptations, the eye. At the biochemical level, today's Darwinians have many examples of the most complex of processes that have been put in place by selection.
Following from there is an explanation of why criticisms of Irreducible Complexity are smoke and mirrors, and details a bit why existing criticisms of the development of cells dont carry much water.

And if you want a much more complicated explanation, I direct you to this thread:
http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37795

Here is a source which explains three known ways (http://freethought.freeservers.com/reason/sciencerel.html) "irreducibly complex" systems can be reduced.

In a basic sense, things which are called "irreducibly complex" are very often reducible down through a series of simple and non-remarkable steps. Common claims of "odds render evolution of complexity to no chance in Hell" usually contain a number of outrageous assumptions, and rely on the false idea that systems that exist today are the only systems which can possibly exist (when its allowed for other working biological systems to exist, then the mystique of "cells are so unique and special" really fades away. There are probably many different ways replicating cells can evolve, it just so happens that they exist in this present-day form). "Irreducible Complexity" and "Fine-tuning" arguments merely a sophisticated God-of-the-Gaps.

[monkboon]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Agreed, but then we enter the realms of the Strong Anthropic Principle... which at least takes account of the infinitessimal odds that you mentioned.

An accounting of the infinitessimal odds is unnecessary, as pointed out in several replies already. We're not discussing what is the probability that some future universe will be suitable to the formation of life.

The universe we live in supports life as we know it, because life as we know it developed within the constraints imposed by this universe.

If it were different, a different monkboon could conceivably be having the same discussion with a different lifegazer. So what?

[pupdog]

And if you haven't checked this one (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/index.html) , please do so.

[Piscivore]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I thought the point was obvious. If you're dealt 4 aces in a game of poker, you'd gasp in surprise, fully-aware of the unlikelihood of such an experience.


Hardly.

On an unrelated note, LG, we're having a game this weekend down at the Atheist Hall and I wanted to invite you to come.

Bring cash.

[RussDill]

Originally posted by lifegazer
So what you're saying is that small molecules evolved into fractions of a cell... evolved into larger fractions of a cell... evolved into even larger fractions of a cell... until we get to a full cell?

Do you know how silly this argument is? Half a cell doesn't work. Neither does a quarter of a cell. Not even 9/10's of a cell will function.
I think you need a new explanation.
Does anyone have a poop scoop?

thats funny, because for the most part, a cell is made up of many smaller living things...fractions of cells, even ones with their own form of DNA called RNA.

[RussDill]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The basis problem here, is one of 'assembly'.

Do you know that a jumbo-jet has a million working parts? Yet this is several-times less-complex than the complexity of a simple-cell.
The assembly of the parts of a jumbo jet is vitally important, of course. Likewise, those of a simplecell. For each to function correctly, the parts must be arranged "just so".

As we're talking about the absolute origin of the simple cell, we are unable to use 'natural selection' as a means of explaining the origin of such a cell.
That leaves us with random bonding or random arrangement as the only means to explain this initial assembly.

Imagine walking into a scrapyard and finding all the necessary parts to make a jumbo jet all in one place, purely by luck, ready for assembly. If that isn't remarkable enough, imagine that a tornado has blown over this pile of parts and that, when the wind settles, the jumbo jet will be perfectly built and ready to fly.

Ridiculous analogy? Hardly, since the simple-cell has many more parts than a jumbo - all of which have to concentrate at one place - and all of which have nothing other than randomness to arrange them "just so" to produce that cell.

You ask for evidence of your God and when presented by the miracle of life, just scorn.
Ask yourselves this: If we were to find a jumbo jet (or any very complex functioning mechanism) on Mars, would we say that we'd found evidence of intelligent life, or would we say that "Random chemistry built it."?

I would suggest that the "simple cell" is more-than-reasonable evidence of [ultra] intelligent design, but that the repercussions of such a conclusion forbid it's acceptance.

You don't need a jumbo jet to get started, for a good example, look up prions (mad cow disease is a result of prions). Very simple protien chains that can self replicate.

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

[RussDill]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I thought the point was obvious. If you're dealt 4 aces in a game of poker, you'd gasp in surprise, fully-aware of the unlikelihood of such an experience.
Yet, when asked to contemplate "the hand" dealt to us by existence, you have nothing to say save:
"If things were different, they'd be different."

The WAP is a cop-out. It answers no questions. In fact, the creation of the WAP was borne of the desire to avoid answering those questions.

Lets say you played poker day in, day out, for your entire life, but you never got any sleep, in fact, you pretty much slept through everything, didn't remember anything. Except when you got 4 aces. That is the only time you were concious and aware. You would then swear that it must of been divinely dealt, ignoring the other tens of thousands of hands you were dealt. Course, you'd be wrong, and still wouldn't be getting any better odds than chance.

[Ratman_tf]

Originally posted by RussDill
You don't need a jumbo jet to get started, for a good example, look up prions (mad cow disease is a result of prions). Very simple protien chains that can self replicate.

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

I think this is an important point for LG to consider.

Lifegazer is right that a single celled organism couldn't have just fallen together by chance. It was already the product of evolution from simpler forms.

[Filip Sandor]

LG,

I have questioned the same aspect of Darwin's theory myself; the question I am talking about is: How does a collection seemingly mindless amino acids and chemicals form a DNA strand that exhibits a complex order or purpose, to be more precise, that becomes philosophical in nature and has no apparent logical correlation to the basic physical archetypes that created it. This gap between physics and meaning seems to drive evolution theory into the ground indeed, but how does this necessitate a God??

Why do you think there has to be a purpose giver in order for purpose and meaning to exist at all?

Just curious what you think that's all...

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Screw Darwin. His theory is the most incomplete and full-of-holes theory ever to be bestowed upon humanity as "scientific fact". This wouldn't be so bad if it hadn't had the anti-God effect upon humanity that it evidently has.
As a theist, I have no objection to the principle that "life is capable of evolving". But from whence cometh that life? The evolution (ability to change it's own form) of life itself has nothing to do with the actual origin of that life.
... One speaks of life changing. The other speaks of life starting.

Get my drift?

Okay, I will imagine such a thing - but at the end of that imagining process, I am still left imagining one part.

What I am discussing here, is the amalgamation of several-million
parts - most of them complex within themselves - to instigate the origin of an ultra-complex mechanism better-known as the "simple cell".

Start over again Lifegazer, did you read the post or has your apriori assumption caused you to miss the point?

Do you understand how aggregate collectives of self catalyzing molecules might lead to the formation of cell walls and how narural selection might influence that process?

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Let's progress...
You all argue that life came about via the laws of physics, without the need for 'A Creator God'.
So let's ask a couple of questions about these laws:-

(1) The laws of physics mirror the order of the forces which exist in the universe and which have moulded matter into life.
The question is, from what does this order emanate?
What is the enforcing agent of these universal forces?
What is the orderer of this order?



You so silly LG, get out the hamster, she (or he) has more sense than you!

You say we don't feel that a creator could exist, I say they could but there is no evidence as of yet.

The laws of physics show an underlying order.
1. Electrons form the basis of most of chemistry, they are not ordered, they are chaotic and seemingly random. The order only is an appearance created by the aggregate of probablity.

The forces that mould matter into life?
2. If those forces gave a crap why do they create so many rejects? Did you know that God is the Grand Abortioner? Why create life forms that will only feel intnse suffering before they die?

From where does this order emanate?
3. There is no order, such order as humans percieve is created by the aggregate of probabilty. There are no orderly little assembly lines inside cells the molecules sloch around by diffusion. They don't march from organelle to organelle. They drift, they wander.

What is the orderer of these forces?
4. You haven't shown order, on the level of the atom or molecules it is mor like the 'circle' that water makes when it goes down a drain. It isn't really a circle, it isn't even close to one, we just percieve it as having the qualities of a circle.

The orderer of the order?
5. Your brain.

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by lifegazer
You miss the point: The flock follow their science-sheppards and eat anything that the sheppards feed them. A discussion like this will, ultimately, explain to the sheep why they have been eating garbage. Then, those sheep might open their minds to feeding off other pastures.

You really ought to get treatment for your biploar disorder LG, you mania is causing you to have delusions of grandeur again.

You lack imagination!

What if you are the sheep?

What if we dod feed in those pastures and have chosen the other pasture?

What if we posses the same abilities as you, but our god sends us in a different direction?

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Start over again Lifegazer, did you read the post or has your apriori assumption caused you to miss the point?

Do you understand how aggregate collectives of self catalyzing molecules might lead to the formation of cell walls and how narural selection might influence that process?

Hey DD,

Not to interrupt you in your ferverous debate with LG, but don't you think you should both be discussing the nature of DNA in more detail and maybe where DNA came from? Explinations for why we are the way we are today are quite plentiful, but that's because we already have at least a theoretical model (based on real life experience) to work by.

What about DNA? What caused mindless amino acids to start doing the DNA dance and ordering other Amino acids around via an indirect 'DNA code' as opposed to the regular 'ol bumping into eachother and sticking to the ones that seem to connect the best and repelling the ones that don't?

Some people like to use the example of molecules making a crystalline formation to demonstrate that randomness actually creates order on it's own, but Crystals don't have DNA, they aren't build to procreate, survive and evolve into complex, multi-facetted organisms that end up crawling around on the earth.. philosophizing about their existence and looking for Gods. I don't think it's a fair comparrison and I think there is more going on behind the structurizing of DNA than evolution theory describes. (I'm not talking about the atomic complexity or set of events that occur to make the DNA strand per se, but rather, the dramatic archetypical differences between the different 'levels' of order ranging from physical all the way to "spiritual" or "moral" - I don't even know what words to use to describe this incredibly complex and diverse, non-atomic nature of life.

Looking at atoms and crystals (for those of you who love to use this example) and how they behave, one would ever, ever in their dreams fathom that life as we know it or anything remotely close could ever exist unless they experienced it first hand. I'm surprised how many people take it for granted that life exists as it does, without any real 'core explination'.

I don't think we should instantly run to the belief that there must be a creator - I just think we should look a deeper into LIFE.

[tdn]

All this talk of anthropic principles brings back a fond memory.

On a different message board someone said (I'm paraphrasing) "Evolution can't be true. Look at all of the species that have an urge to procreate. What are the the odds of that happening by random chance?"

Made my day, it did.

Lifegazer, to answer your jet question: Take a million jets and try fastening the engines on in random ways. Kill off all the jets where the engines are attached incorrectly. The ones that survive get to live and produce little baby jets.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

You made that up, tdn.

~~ Paul

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by tdn
Lifegazer, to answer your jet question: Take a million jets and try fastening the engines on in random ways. Kill off all the jets where the engines are attached incorrectly. The ones that survive get to live and produce little baby jets.
Again, I must reiterate the fact that we are contemplating the origin of the simple-cell... the very first cell.

As I've said already, natural selection is something that comes into effect after the origin of life - not before it.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Again, I must reiterate the fact that we are contemplating the origin of the simple-cell... the very first cell.

As I've said already, natural selection is something that comes into effect after the origin of life - not before it. I guess I gotta ask, then, what you mean by "life". At what point is something "alive" and when is it "not alive"?

Also, what do you mean by "first cell"? At what point to you distinguish between "first cell" and pre-"first cell" objects? As has been pointed out, there are simpler objects than the "simple cell" that could be considered ancestors of the "first cell".

[Anathema]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Again, I must reiterate the fact that we are contemplating the origin of the simple-cell... the very first cell. You are simply too far behind to catch up. You've been repeatedly shown levels of functional order below the "single cell'; natural, self-sustaining processes, that are still "sub-life" in that they fail to have all of the life characteristics I previously delineated, while still having some of them.

It has all been addressed repeatedly, but as per your custom, the inconvenient facts have been waltzed-over if not spoon-fed to you. Sorry, the beginner class is two doors down.

[tdn]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
You made that up, tdn.

~~ Paul

I swear, it really happened. Although that poster's next post was something to the effect of "Yeah, of course. Now I feel like an idiot."

[tdn]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Again, I must reiterate the fact that we are contemplating the origin of the simple-cell... the very first cell.

As your jet analogy attempts to illustrate, correct? I stand by my explanation.

The point you don't seem to be getting is the first cell probably was not the first life. The first cell evolved from previous, less sophisticated life. The first cell was just one more rung on the evolutionary ladder. Now, if you want to ask about the first stuff we could call life, that would be a valid question. But it wsn't a fully formed cell.

[Wudang]

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earth to lifegazer

[lifegazer]

The complexity of a cell is one thing, but let us consider something else:-

DNA is the blueprint of the cell it inhabits. DNA contains the information of the cell's make-up.
In effect, a cell is a twin-creation, comprising the body/form of the cell and the blueprint of that cell.

The DNA effects copies of the cell it inhabits by using messenger RNA to pass through the nucleus into the cytoplasm of the cell, where it then connects to something called a ribosome. This is, basically, like a factory - it uses amino acids to create proteins as dictated by the RNA.

Some thoughts
(1) The cell cannot manufacture proteins (replicate) unless the full mechanism of this replication is already in place. Clearly, DNA is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism
briefly described in the preceding paragraph.
(2) A complex cell without DNA is clearly not going to be able to replicate. A non-replicating cell isn't going to ~evolve~.

Conclusion (debate):-
The complexity of a cell containing DNA in it's nucleus, RNA, and ribosomes capable of manufacturing proteins, had to have come about instantaneously, without ~evolution~ playing a part in the formation of this highly-complex mechanism.

If this is correct, it is highly significant.

[Anathema]

Originally posted by lifegazer
If this is correct, it is highly significant. It is incorrect, and highly insignificant. You appear to have a learning disability. Please do your own background study before you continue spewing things that would make any semi-conscious entity embarrassed.

[Upchurch]

Oops. let me help you with that typo.
Originally posted by lifegazer
Clearly, DNA in it's current form is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism briefly described in the preceding paragraph.Much better.
If this is correct, it is highly significant. But it is not, so it isn't.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
Oops. let me help you with that typo.
Much better.
But it is not, so it isn't.
What do you mean "in it's current form"?

What are you suggesting?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Anathema
"Conclusion (debate):-
The complexity of a cell containing DNA in it's nucleus, RNA, and ribosomes capable of manufacturing proteins, had to have come about instantaneously, without ~evolution~ playing a part in the formation of this highly-complex mechanism."

It is incorrect, and highly insignificant. You appear to have a learning disability. Please do your own background study before you continue spewing things that would make any semi-conscious entity embarrassed.
"Debate"?
You assert that it is incorrect. Therefore, address the reasoning which led to the conclusion:-

(1) The cell cannot manufacture proteins (replicate) unless the full mechanism of this replication is already in place. Clearly, DNA is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism
briefly described in the preceding paragraph.
(2) A complex cell without DNA is clearly not going to be able to replicate. A non-replicating cell isn't going to ~evolve~.

[Upchurch]

Originally posted by lifegazer
What do you mean "in it's current form"?

What are you suggesting? I'm suggesting that DNA changes over time.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Upchurch
I'm suggesting that DNA changes over time.
Duh. Of course it does, that's why there's a diversity of life.
But this is irrelevant to what I posted.

The replication of a cell involves a complex mechanism - not just the DNA.
Now, refer to points 1 & 2 in my post and tell me why either of those points are incorrect. If you cannot, then the conclusion holds.

[Anathema]

Originally posted by lifegazer
"Debate"?
You assert that it is incorrect. Therefore, address the reasoning which led to the conclusion:-

No thank you. Please refer to the relevant part of my post, about doing our own background study. You've been very neatly spoon fed already, and it just doesn't sink in.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Anathema
No thank you. Please refer to the relevant part of my post, about doing our own background study. You've been very neatly spoon fed already, and it just doesn't sink in.
What a cop-out.
In future, don't judge my posts without explanation. Rather, just stay away.

[RamblingOnwards]

If you cannot, then the conclusion holds.

Prove to me that evapouration isn't really the result of invisible spirits drinking.If you cannot, then the conclusion holds.

[Anathema]

What a cop-out.
In future, don't ignore my posts without explanation. Rather, just stay away.

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by Anathema
You are simply too far behind to catch up. You've been repeatedly shown levels of functional order below the "single cell'; natural, self-sustaining processes, that are still "sub-life" in that they fail to have all of the life characteristics I previously delineated, while still having some of them.

It has all been addressed repeatedly, but as per your custom, the inconvenient facts have been waltzed-over if not spoon-fed to you. Sorry, the beginner class is two doors down.

All this talk shows only that nobody knows how or why DNA formed and started to order other chemicals around in an attempt to 'survive' against 'something'. Everyone simply assumes that it was all a big accident - happening all over the world, in many different places, at different times... all the time.

Somehow amino acids always seem to become replicating strands of DNA and then replicating organisms for no apparent reason! How interesting, but why do these molecules always seem to move towards this "trendy replicating behaviour" and "survival behabiour" when conditions are even remotely right without abiding by a correlating order?? (certain conditions are necessary for certain things to happen, but they don't necessarily need to be viewed as the cause, of course everyone knows that, right?)

So what is DNA trying to preserve and why? Well, if you don't know the answer, just shout evolution theory and all questions will disappear!!

[UserGoogol]

(1) The cell cannot manufacture proteins (replicate) unless the full mechanism of this replication is already in place. Clearly, DNA is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism
briefly described in the preceding paragraph.
(2) A complex cell without DNA is clearly not going to be able to replicate. A non-replicating cell isn't going to ~evolve~.

Conclusion (debate):-
The complexity of a cell containing DNA in it's nucleus, RNA, and ribosomes capable of manufacturing proteins, had to have come about instantaneously, without ~evolution~ playing a part in the formation of this highly-complex mechanism.

If this is correct, it is highly significant.

Nuh-uh. DNA was originally free-floating, I think. No cells, just floating around in a warm pool which had enough nucleotides to make do. Then, small changes in the DNA began to have the DNA react with RNA. Then, this RNA started reacting with other chemicals. This eventually built up to DNA making all sorts of stuff, which eventually led to a rudimentary cell membrane.

So what is DNA trying to preserve and why? Well, if you don't know the answer, just shout evolution theory and all questions will disappear!!

Piece of cake. It doesn't try. But, small mutations in DNA will lead to some DNA molecules being better at attracting nucelotides than others. The ones which are better have a better chance taking the nucleotides, causing the rest to not reproduce, and eventually be destroyed.

[Filip Sandor]

Hi LG,

I just thought I would mention this to you because it might help your inquieries into this subject or evolution vs. creation, etc.

If you know for sure that there is a Creator you should really explain how you came to believe this.

Nobody is going to argue with you that there is order in nature because it's plain obvious that order exists in nature. The reason you are getting so many arguements against your theory is because your claiming that there is a concious decision maker that is making up the order in nature (at least to some degree), but why can't the order exists just exist on it's own? Why do you believe there is a creator?

The fact that Life experience doesn't seem to have a logical correlation to atomic phenomena is very intruiging, but is not enough to claim there is a creator. There is no logical necessity for this, under this view so far. It's enough to say that the connection between life experience and atomic phemomena is mysterious at best. Atoms may not have the ability to make decisions the way we do, but the fact is that they do form DNA and they do lead to living organisms with brains; however, this fact in itself does not automatically call for a Creator.

There must be some other reason why you believe....

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by UserGoogol
Piece of cake. It doesn't try. But, small mutations in DNA will lead to some DNA molecules being better at attracting nucelotides than others. The ones which are better have a better chance taking the nucleotides, causing the rest to not reproduce, and eventually be destroyed.

UG,

Is it fair then to cross-over this analogy and say that nothing is "trying" to survive, but that it just does? Why then, does nature go to such great lengths and spend great deals of energy on just doing something that it doesn't have to do at all?

Is a fierce battle between to male cats for mating rights to a female really necessary from the perspective of a non-thinking DNA strand? Why does the DNA go to such great lengths to preserve itself. For what purpose??

If it's not 'surviving' what is it doing?

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The point is to draw the reader's attention to the unlikelihood of any singular experience.
Getting 4 aces in a game of poker is almost a certainty compared to the infinitessimal odds of "being dealt" the laws-of-physics as they are.

I refer you to Tricky's Theory of Cosmological Evolution, one can consider he universes where the strong force was so strong that the universe never developed or where gravity was so weak that galaxies never formed.

However if natural selection apllies between universes that expand into an infinite space time continum, those that don't collapse are more likely to exist and more likely to create sub-universe.

This whole thing about tinkering with the constants is silly, you can tinker with some of them to quite an extent before the universe doesn't exist. You can safely tinker with them to a variance of 5%.

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by lifegazer
[B]Some thoughts
(1) The cell cannot manufacture proteins (replicate) unless the full mechanism of this replication is already in place. Clearly, DNA is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism
briefly described in the preceding paragraph.
(2) A complex cell without DNA is clearly not going to be able to replicate. A non-replicating cell isn't going to ~evolve~.
More thoughts:
(3) Some replicating DNA can be incredibly simple, as short as about 6 nucleotides
(4) Most anything that replicates is subject to evolution, such as the aforementioned DNA
(5) There are a few ways in which cells can come about through natural processes without any exhaustive odds playing against their favor. Again, I point you to http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=37795

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
Hey DD,

What about DNA? What caused mindless amino acids to start doing the DNA dance and ordering other Amino acids around via an indirect 'DNA code' as opposed to the regular 'ol bumping into eachother and sticking to the ones that seem to connect the best and repelling the ones that don't?



There is a rub but not an insummountable one, I find the "it happened in clay" explanation to be no go.

My solution is that of transpermia. The niverse was seeded with life in the inflationary period. Then infinite regression to a life producing universe.

I had heard that the problem was not creating DNA but how to make RNA was the real challenge. Getting the DNA with RNA is easier but getting RNA is hard, Unless natural selection chose to create a lot of molecules that catalyse reaction, and RNA was the winner.

It is kind of like asking why does acetyl choline become dopamine.

[Anathema]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
All this talk shows only that nobody knows how or why DNA formed and started to order other chemicals around in an attempt to 'survive' against 'something'. Everyone simply assumes that it was all a big accident - happening all over the world, in many different places, at different times... all the time.

Somehow amino acids always seem to become replicating strands of DNA and then replicating organisms for no apparent reason! How interesting, but why do these molecules always seem to move towards this "trendy replicating behaviour" and "survival behabiour" when conditions are even remotely right without abiding by a correlating order?? (certain conditions are necessary for certain things to happen, but they don't necessarily need to be viewed as the cause, of course everyone knows that, right?)

So what is DNA trying to preserve and why? Well, if you don't know the answer, just shout evolution theory and all questions will disappear!! You pop in here 175 posts down, and this is your summary? There is a lot of material in the preceeding posts that honestly describes the state of the science, and it is not as either you or lifegazer portray. But, you'd have to wade through both the posts themselves and the extensive contextual links provided in order to put it together. I won't cater to anyone's laziness in refusing to do so.

No extra credit for glibness or exclamation points.

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
Somehow amino acids always seem to become replicating strands of DNA and then replicating organisms for no apparent reason! How interesting, but why do these molecules always seem to move towards this "trendy replicating behaviour" and "survival behabiour" when conditions are even remotely right without abiding by a correlating order?? (certain conditions are necessary for certain things to happen, but they don't necessarily need to be viewed as the cause, of course everyone knows that, right?)


I think that this could use some expansion.

I assume that there were a lot of ife forms prior to the advent of RNA and DNA. But as to why molecules move towards "trendy replicating behavior", that would be subject to some form of determinism.

In a primordial slooge of chemicals, those that replicate do just that, they say create other molecules similar to themselves. There are others that don't do nothing, there are those that break apart other molecular structures. All without intent, so I would answer you question by responding that the trend towards replication occurs in inverse proportion to destructive enzymes that destabalize other compounds.

You seem to be asking the question that Zaaydragon proposed, could something be influencing the improable and making it more likely?

Perhaps but that force would be kept very busy fusing hydrogen into helium.

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by Anathema
You pop in here 175 posts down, and this is your summary? There is a lot of material in the preceeding posts that honestly describes the state of the science, and it is not as either you or lifegazer portray. But, you'd have to wade through both the posts themselves and the extensive contextual links provided in order to put it together. I won't cater to anyone's laziness in refusing to do so.

No extra credit for glibness or exclamation points.

You're obviously taking something I said out of context. I simply find it strange, from a "basic laws of physics" perspective that any molecules at all should be drawn to reproduce their own structure using other molecules with no apparent mathematical explination. It obviously takes energy for DNA to order around other molecules and (I would expect that you agree with me on this at least) and at the level of these chemical structures there is apparently no logical reason why this should occur rather than molecules remaining as simple formations, which eventually break down "under their own weight" when they get too complex. Which brings us to the next question, how does a DNA strand discriminate the good mutations from the bad ones throughought at least hundreds of thousands of generations before something that actually proves beneficial to it's reproduction is formed without being affected by destructive mutations which are equally bound to happen.

It's like trying to build a castle by chucking bowling balls at random from the sky onto the ground while it's raining bowling balls. Couple this with the fact that DNA seemed to have sprouted up in thousands of locations all over over the planet in a relatively short amount of time about it obviously doesn't seem like there is much to stop it from evolving when the conditions are right (ie. there is chemical energy and heat plus the necessary building blocks).

If random mutations are really the cause of genetic evolution then there must be a discriminating mechanism in DNA of some kind. Personally, I don't see any reason one should reject this theory. It totally plausible... no, logical in light of the ideas put forth by ET. There is nothing I have said here that would requires you to discard ET entirely - only to modify it.

[H'ethetheth]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
You're obviously taking something I said out of context. I simply find it strange, from a "basic laws of physics" perspective that any molecules at all should be drawn to reproduce their own structure using other molecules with no apparent mathematical explination. It obviously takes energy for DNA to order around other molecules and (I would expect that you agree with me on this at least) and at the level of these chemical structures there is apparently no logical reason why this should occur rather than molecules remaining as simple formations, which eventually break down "under their own weight" when they get too complex. Which brings us to the next question, how does a DNA strand discriminate the good mutations from the bad ones throughought at least hundreds of thousands of generations before something that actually proves beneficial to it's reproduction is formed without being affected by destructive mutations which are equally bound to happen.
[...]
If random mutations are really the cause of genetic evolution then there must be a discriminating mechanism in DNA of some kind. Personally, I don't see any reason one reject this theory. It totally plausible... no, [b]logical in light of the ideas put forth by ET. There is nothing I have said here that requires us to discard ET - only to modify it slightly.

This is a very strange argument. Every mutation that affects the fitness of a self-replicator has either a beneficial effect or a detrimental effect. There is no need for DNA or any self-replicator to "discriminate" between the two. The discrimination is done by the environment. You're presenting this as if DNA is waiting for the right sequence of mutations to expire, and then seizing the opportunity to increase its fitness.
This is nonsensical and not necessary to constitute evolution by natural selection. All that is needed for some great benefit to evolve is that the vast majority of mutations leading to it must be beneficial or neutral to the fitness of the replicator.

Edited to remove some excess words

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by H'ethetheth
This is a very strange argument. Every mutation that affects the fitness of a self-replicator has either a beneficial effect or a detrimental effect. There is no need for DNA or any self-replicator to "discriminate" between the two. The discrimination is done by the environment. You're presenting this as if DNA is waiting for the right sequence of mutations to expire, and then seizing the opportunity to increase its fitness.
This is nonsensical and not necessary to constitute evolution by natural selection. All that is needed for some great benefit to evolve is that the vast majority of mutations leading to it must be beneficial or neutral to the fitness of the replicator.

Edited to remove some excess words

You're misunderstanding my arguement H. Environment only filters out bad combinations - it doesn't force good combinations to occur.

According to evolution theory, the only mechanism that DNA has to evolve is random mutation and natural selection. So called "beneficial attributes" of even the most simple kind apparently require thousands of "positive mutations" to occur... my question is, what keeps the thousands of negative mutations from destroying the process?

Even if it only took one or two mutations to create a new, beneficial attribute for DNA's survival, chances are that the odds would balance out sooner or later anyway and the process would inevitably break down without some discriminating mechanism other than the environment. All this means basically is that there is some underlying, physical process that helps to push DNA mutation in the right direction. No Creator is needed in this explination.

[H'ethetheth]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
You're misunderstanding my arguement H. Environment only filters out bad combinations - it doesn't force good combinations to occur.

According to evolution theory, the only mechanism that DNA has to evolve is random mutation and natural selection. So called "beneficial attributes" of even the most simple kind apparently require thousands of "positive mutations" to occur... my question is, what keeps the thousands of negative mutations from destroying the process?

Even if it only took one or two mutations to create a new, beneficial attribute for DNA's survival, chances are that the odds would balance out sooner or later anyway and the process would inevitably break down without some discriminating mechanism other than the environment. All this means basically is that there is some underlying, physical process that helps to push DNA mutation in the right direction. No Creator is needed in this explination.

It appears I did misunderstand you somewhat, but not completely. As I tried to point out, it is important to realise that the majority of mutations leading to a beneficial attribute must in themselves be beneficial in some (small) way. That is all that's needed for the environment to favor some over others.
This way of building new features on old ones is easy but sometimes isn't the most effective way to achieve a specific beneficial attribute. The classic example is our eye, which has a blind spot because the wiring is messed up.

[Dancing David]

Filip,

Please read my response to your post, your responses to the black knight and H'ethetheth contain a lot of determinism which is unproductive in looking at biology and evolution. The question is never why. That is because in the case of evolution, there is no way for an organism to predict which benefits or detriments there are to a mutation or combination. What mey look to be a benefit may turn out to be lethal in another enviroment. What looks useless may be very beneficial in another enviroment.

Genetic change and adaptation are blind, as is the theory of natural selection.

You ask why a molecule replicates, the answer is because it replicates.

[pupdog]

Some people, rather than sitting around saying "Too complicated--God must have done it" are investigating how things may have come about in this world.

In Science of 8 October 2004 there's an article on an investigation of prebiotic polymerizations where they demonstrated that carbonyl sulfide (a gas from volcanoes) can bring about the formation of peptides from amino acids.

So it's not at all like taking a box of nuts, bolts and sheet metal, shaking it, and producing a jumbo jet. It's a lot more like having all those parts in the Boeing factory, with subassemblies being put together in different parts of the factory and then joined together. And to bring the analogy closer to evolutionary processes, one needs to consider the changes in aircraft construction over the years as some methods were discarded in favor of better methods. (The analogy is still off a bit, because aircraft are not sexually reproducing.)

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Lifegazer, you really appear not to be able to grasp the idea of early precursors to life as we know it today, which were much simpler in their mechanism and did not require all the machinery we now see in a cell. Why can't you imagine this situation?

Let me quote Marvin Minsky:
The Process of Evolution is the following abstract idea:

There is a population of things that reproduce, at different rates in different environments. Those rates depend, statistically, on a collection of inheritable traits. Those traits are subject to occasional mutations, some of which are then inherited.

Then one can deduce, from logic alone, without any need for evidence, that

THEOREM: Each population will tend to increase the proportion of traits that have higher reproduction rates in its current environment.
Now imagine this process over a few billion years.

~~ Paul

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Lifegazer, you really appear not to be able to grasp the idea of early precursors to life as we know it today, which were much simpler in their mechanism and did not require all the machinery we now see in a cell. Why can't you imagine this situation?

I'll tell you what I think is wrong with your statement:-

In my post about DNA, yesterday, I discussed the mechanism which exists between DNA, RNA, and the ribosomes.
Now, at some point in the evolution of a cell, we must progress from a point in time when this mechanism doesn't exist to a point in time when it instantaneously exists.

There is no other inbetween scenario. As I pointed-out in that post, DNA is useless without the rest of the mechanism already in place... and the rest of the mechanism is useless without the DNA.

The mechanism must exist as a whole, or not at all.

Once you acknowledge this, you also acknowledge the significance of it.

[Jellby]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I'll tell you what I think is wrong with your statement:-

In my post about DNA, yesterday, I discussed the mechanism which exists between DNA, RNA, and the ribosomes.
Now, [b]at some point in the evolution of a cell, we must progress from a point in time when this mechanism doesn't exist to a point in time when it instantaneously exists.

No, the mechanism itself can be modified.

There could have been a primitive version of the mechanism which could have been not significantly more efficient than other mechanisms (maybe as efficient as random reactions), gradually, the mechanism could be modified, DNA takes the place of RNA (or vice-versa), ribosomes appear, other structures disappear.

Exactly at which point do you get a mastiff or a fox terrier when breeding dogs?

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I'll tell you what I think is wrong with your statement:-

In my post about DNA, yesterday, I discussed the mechanism which exists between DNA, RNA, and the ribosomes.
Now, at some point in the evolution of a cell, we must progress from a point in time when this mechanism doesn't exist to a point in time when it instantaneously exists.
The mechanism always exists, that of course being the physics which allows simple molecules to form chains, and said chains to replicate. So, as you said, the mechanism does "exist as a whole".

Please note: The existence of cells isnt necessary for DNA to reproduce itself.

[Anders]

Originally posted by Jellby
No, the mechanism itself can be modified.

There could have been a primitive version of the mechanism which could have been not significantly more efficient than other mechanisms (maybe as efficient as random reactions), gradually, the mechanism could be modified, DNA takes the place of RNA (or vice-versa), ribosomes appear, other structures disappear.

Exactly at which point do you get a mastiff or a fox terrier when breeding dogs?
Yes, that is the current theory. RNA evolved before DNA. RNA works basically the same way as DNA, and sometimes RNA molecules can replace DNA molecules in the chromosomes.

Through evolution RNA was replaced by DNA as the "memory" carrier molecule, but stayed in serivice as information-transporter and coder of amino acids.

I really don't see the fuzz about cells. There are simple cells and complex cells. Procaryote cells are much simplier than eucaryote cells, but on the other hand Procaryotes does have a much more effective way to multiply.

Anyways cells are just containers of more or less complex molecules, gouverned by the ordinary laws of chemistry.

[lifegazer]

The cell-replicating mechanism involving DNA, RNA and ribosomes, must have been an instantaneous creation.

... This specific mechanism is useless to cell-replication if it is incomplete.
Therefore, there is no reason to argue the case for a slowlllllllllly developing DNA, RNA and ribosome mechanism.

[Anders]

Originally posted by lifegazer
The cell-replicating mechanism involving DNA, RNA and ribosomes, must have been an instantaneous creation.

... This specific mechanism is useless to cell-replication if it is incomplete.
Therefore, there is no reason to argue the case for a slowlllllllllly developing DNA, RNA and ribosome mechanism.
Nope, you're wrong. DNA is not necessary for replication, and ribosomes has nothing to do with replication. Replication are done by proteins called DNA or RNA polymeras.

[lifegazer]

Let's consider 'mechanisms' that provide a function for complex bodies...

Let's consider the function of 'flight':

Any complex (multi-part) body which can fly due to the actions of its own parts, must have a base mechanism facilitating that function.
Consider manned-flight, for example. It has evolved alot over the last hundred years, but the base-principles of the mechanism which yields 'flight', has not: basically, we need a propulsion system, a lifting capability, and a steering capacity.
This has not and will never change, even if we eventually "do a star trek".

As you can see, there is an irreducible complexity of a mechanism which applies to complex bodies and specific functions.

... Now, if we follow this reasoning to complex cells and the function known as 'self-replication', we will also see that there is an irreducible complexity of this mechanism.
Consequently, we are left with an absolute realisation: the ORIGIN of cell replication via mechanisms was an instantaneous creation.

[Anders]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Let's consider 'mechanisms' that provide a function for complex bodies...

Let's consider the function of 'flight':

Any complex (multi-part) body which can fly due to the actions of its own parts, must have a base mechanism facilitating that function.
Consider manned-flight, for example. It has evolved alot over the last hundred years, but the base-principles of the mechanism which yields 'flight', has not: basically, we need a propulsion system, a lifting capability, and a steering capacity.
This has not and will never change, even if we eventually "do a star trek".

As you can see, there is an irreducible complexity of a mechanism which applies to complex bodies and specific functions.

... Now, if we follow this reasoning to complex cells and the function known as 'self-replication', we will also see that there is an irreducible complexity of this mechanism.

....wooa, you are making very very large assumptions right here! And you are wrong. Just because a mechanism is fairly complex, like flying, or seeing, it does not imply any instantaneous creation. For instance, the evolution of birds is very well documented nowadays.

Consequently, we are left with an absolute realisation: the ORIGIN of cell replication via mechanisms was an instantaneous creation.
Also, despite being very complex many things point towards that self-replication in cells was developed from lee complex forms. The holder of genetic information was probably RNA before DNA. Proteins show signs of being submitted to evolution, for instance globin.

No, Lifegazer, you are just handwaving. Nothing more.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Anders
....wooa, you are making very very large assumptions right here! And you are wrong.

How can there NOT be an irreducible complexity of a mechanism?
Do you understand what a mechanism is? It is the action of several (or many) parts to provide singular functions.

There has to be an irreducible complexity of ALL mechanisms, by logical default.
Hence, the ORIGIN of ANY mechanism must be instantaneous.

Simple logic friends. Logic which not a single one of you wants to accept.

[Anders]

Originally posted by lifegazer
How can there NOT be an irreducible complexity of a mechanism?
Do you understand what a mechanism is? It is the action of several (or many) parts to provide singular functions.

There has to be an irreducible complexity of ALL mechanisms, by logical default.
Hence, the ORIGIN of ANY mechanism must be instantaneous.

Simple logic friends. Logic which not a single one of you wants to accept.
You made a connection between "irreducible complexity of mechanisms" and creationism. That’s a really long shot.

There are a lot of things in the world that are very complex and no one has been able to show that they been created, There is no connection.

You might say it is, in some philosophical way, but philosophy is not necessary the real world. And you have so far been wrong on the specifics.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Lifegazer said:
How can there NOT be an irreducible complexity of a mechanism?
Do you understand what a mechanism is? It is the action of several (or many) parts to provide singular functions.
And that mechanism may be irreducible from its present form. But that does not mean that it could not evolve to its present form with the help of scaffolding precursors.

Look at that barn: If you remove one side wall, it will collapse. Does that mean that they had to build the entire barn all of an instant? No, they use scaffolding, which was then removed.

If you would just play with these ideas in your mind, you would be enlightened.

~~Paul

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Check this out:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/evolve_irreducible.html

~~Paul

[Anders]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Check this out:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/creation/evolve_irreducible.html

~~Paul
Funny, an old creationistic argument of course have a old scientific rebuttal.

[Jellby]

Originally posted by lifegazer
How can there NOT be an irreducible complexity of a mechanism?
Do you understand what a mechanism is? It is the action of several (or many) parts to provide singular functions.

There has to be an irreducible complexity of ALL mechanisms, by logical default.
Hence, the ORIGIN of ANY mechanism must be instantaneous.

For (almost) any mechanism you can imagine, there is a simpler version which maybe lacks some feature or has it diminished, but it's not possible/easy/obvious to say it's not the same "phenomenon".

You said manned flight you need "a propulsion system, a lifting capability, and a steering capacity"... so the simplest delta-wing is not flight?

Yes, if you define strictly a given mechanism or whatever, there must be some point where it doesn't exist and then exists, but that's usually an artificial borderline. If you define a cell by stating it must have DNA and a phospholipid membrane with this composition, and this and that, then there must be some point where the first cell appears out of non-cells, but that's an artificial definition you've made.

This reminds me of the chicken-and-egg thing. Let's assume evolution and all that. What's first, the egg or the chicken? Obviously the egg, there were eggs millions of years before chickens. Well, but we're talking about "chicken eggs", that narrows it down, but... what's a "chicken egg"? Is it an egg giving birth to a chicken or an egg laid down by a chicken? At some point in evolution you could say that a chicken was born out of non-chickens, but when exactly? What are the features defining a chicken and separating it from anything else (real or imagined)?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Anders
You made a connection between "irreducible complexity of mechanisms" and creationism. That’s a really long shot.

Why?
Given the definite function in each part of a mechanism... and given the fact that a mechanism as an incomplete whole is useless... and given the fact that the creation of any functioning mechanism must, ultimately be instantaneous - since any fraction of a mechanism is useless - then why do you see no correlation between 'mechanism' and 'ordained creation'??

... Consider, again, the origin of the mechanism that yields the functions of 'an aeroplane':-
How do a multitude of parts created by "random chance" suddenly (no evolution involved in the origin of a mechanism) [emphasis "origin of a mechanism"], suddenly come together, in the correct order, to enable that function?

... If "chemicals" got together and formed 'wings' or 'propellers' or 'steering parts', etc., your eyebrows would raise. But if "chemicals", via the laws of physics, were to SUDDENLY (no room for evolution in the origin of a mechanism!!!!!) bring all of these parts together into a functioning whole, then your eyebrows would disappear into your hairline!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by Dancing David
Filip,

Please read my response to your post, your responses to the black knight and H'ethetheth contain a lot of determinism which is unproductive in looking at biology and evolution. The question is never why. That is because in the case of evolution, there is no way for an organism to predict which benefits or detriments there are to a mutation or combination. What mey look to be a benefit may turn out to be lethal in another enviroment. What looks useless may be very beneficial in another enviroment.

Genetic change and adaptation are blind, as is the theory of natural selection.

You ask why a molecule replicates, the answer is because it replicates.

Hi David, sorry for not answering your earlier post.

You said:

There is a rub but not an insummountable one, I find the "it happened in clay" explanation to be no go.

My solution is that of transpermia. The niverse was seeded with life in the inflationary period. Then infinite regression to a life producing universe.

I had heard that the problem was not creating DNA but how to make RNA was the real challenge. Getting the DNA with RNA is easier but getting RNA is hard, Unless natural selection chose to create a lot of molecules that catalyse reaction, and RNA was the winner.

It is kind of like asking why does acetyl choline become dopamine.

I don't know much about brain chemisty (I assume that's where dopamine exists), but I agree whole-heartedly with your idea of "transpermia". There are clearly no if's about whether Life does or doesn't exist (or whether it will exist in other habitable climates in the Universe where it doesn't yet exist) since it's existence under the right circumstances does seem to be inherent in the laws of nature.

The problem I have with evolution theory is that it claims (indirectly) that beneficial mutations in the DNA occur without the DNA being destroyed in thousands of generations while the equally likely to occur negative mutations which would destroy the organism within a few generations or less don't apply somehow, just because it happens in many places and for a long time. As you said, evolution is apparently blind, which means that negative or 'non-beneficial' mutations which occur blindly with the same percentage of chance in the DNA would inevitably cause the DNA to break down and go extinct within a few generations, at best. It takes far more than a few generations to create even the most basic beneficial structure for an organism. I'm going solely by what I have read and heard on TV about DNA being an unimaginably complex structure and if it is true, which it seems to be according to most scientists then there has to be a 'deterministic' factor involved in so called random evolution that somehow correlates to the end result. In other words, evolution may be partially 'blind', but it can't be entirely 'blind' or it would break down very quickly.

LG's theory that useful components in DNA evolution must have formed instantaneously basically draws on the same idea, except it shortens the process where as my theory allows the regular 'long-term' evolution to occur, but is more controlled.

Of course this controlling factor naturally demands a physical model of some sort. However, it might just be that the closest physical model we have is like you said, it just happens... the same way atoms just exist the way they exist. Try explaining it any further without any more evidence and you're bound to go nuts.

[Z]

LG, you're clearly missing the point.

These 'mechanisms' never just 'suddenly' appear. That's the point. Every chemical mechanism has been moulded by the basic forces (weak, strong, electromagnetic, gravitic) along a variety of patterns that have a variety of properties. Diamonds formed from carbon just as readily as organic compounds. Over here, a few scraps of hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon bonded to form a fairly complex molecule that ignited and burned for a while. Over there, the same four chemicals made a new molecule, and began shaping other CHONs into similar or complimentary shapes. The exact process took billions of years, but eventually, on one planet out of the possibly billions that exist, a few CHONs started making complex proteins, quite by accident.

And so on, and so on... until, eventually, complex molecules arose that became the precursors of modern cellular structures.

I mean, think about it, LG - did birds just SUDDENLY appear? No, of course not. They evolved, slowly, methodically, until they eventually changed from reptiles to birds. But do we still have those intermediaries, those things that are not QUITE birds, but not EXACTLY reptiles? Not really - but there's no reason to assume an in-between species could survive long being neither one nor the other.

Likewise, mechanisms don't just suddenly appear... they develop, over time, from far less complex mechanisms - those that are more stable survive and get a chance to combine with other complex mechanisms. Once again, your vast ignorance of even basic scientific principles is shining through.

(sigh)

You know, I just gotta wonder - are we going to have to slosh through every subject in science, with you blatantly flashing your ignorance, until we've exhausted every major discipline? What next, going to tell us how miraculous it is that stars formed, SUDDENLY and INSTANTANEOUSLY, in the void?

[SezMe]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
...snip...
The problem I have with evolution theory is that it claims (indirectly) that beneficial mutations in the DNA occur without the DNA being destroyed in thousands of generations while the equally likely to occur negative mutations which would destroy the organism within a few generations or less don't apply somehow, just because it happens in many places and for a long time.
Evolution does not claim that negative mutation don't apply. In fact, they apply just as much as positive ones and that line dies out.

Imagine a game where thousands of people all guess the result of a coin toss. Those who guess wrong have to drop out. Now start the game. After a while, more and more people drop out (negative mutations) until only one is left...and he might have a long string of good guesses (positive mutations).

Now, no doubt his series of guesses is VERY unlikely, but they did occur. But notice all the losers who dropped out along the way.

Same with evolution.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Filip said:
The problem I have with evolution theory is that it claims (indirectly) that beneficial mutations in the DNA occur without the DNA being destroyed in thousands of generations while the equally likely to occur negative mutations which would destroy the organism within a few generations or less don't apply somehow, just because it happens in many places and for a long time.
Can you clarify what you mean here? It sounds like you are treating an entire population as the entity that mutates, but it is individuals who mutate. An individual who obtains a harmful mutation dies, but that does not affect the rest of the population.

Lifegazer said:
Given the definite function in each part of a mechanism... and given the fact that a mechanism as an incomplete whole is useless... and given the fact that the creation of any functioning mechanism must, ultimately be instantaneous - since any fraction of a mechanism is useless - then why do you see no correlation between 'mechanism' and 'ordained creation'??
I can only infer from your constant repetition of these ridiculous assertions that you are not paying attention to anything anyone is saying here.

~~ Paul

[Anathema]

[i]I can only infer from your constant repetition of these ridiculous assertions that you are not paying attention to anything anyone is saying here.

~~ Paul [/B] It's par for the course. Argument by assertion, equivocate when cornered, redine words at your own whim.

Why he struggles is clear: he's thought of reality as a monolithic Dream-o-God for so long, he's lost the ability to incorporate any new concepts. Parsing his worldview back out into all these confusing discrete bits taxes brain circuits that have atrophied from disuse.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
I can only infer from your constant repetition of these ridiculous assertions that you are not paying attention to anything anyone is saying here.

The conclusion I reached was a process of reasoning. If you think that process was incorrect, then explain why. Otherwise, your judgement aint worth a dime.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
These 'mechanisms' never just 'suddenly' appear. That's the point. Every chemical mechanism has been moulded by the basic forces (weak, strong, electromagnetic, gravitic) along a variety of patterns that have a variety of properties. Diamonds formed from carbon just as readily as organic compounds.

Look, my reasoning applied to 'mechanisms' that provide a working function for complex bodies. You're not even on-topic.

I mean, think about it, LG - did birds just SUDDENLY appear? No, of course not.

How do you know this?

They evolved, slowly, methodically, until they eventually changed from reptiles to birds.

So the story goes.

But do we still have those intermediaries, those things that are not QUITE birds, but not EXACTLY reptiles? Not really

Exactly, so what are you rambling-on about?

Likewise, mechanisms don't just suddenly appear... they develop, over time, from far less complex mechanisms

I've explained that there is an irreducible complexity of any mechanism. Yet true to form neither you or any of your buddies has even confronted the reasoning in that post.

You know, I just gotta wonder - are we going to have to slosh through every subject in science, with you blatantly flashing your ignorance, until we've exhausted every major discipline?

Ignorance of what? Science cannot explain the origin of the so-called simple cell.

Confront my reasoning or don't bother.

[Filip Sandor]

Originally posted by Paul C. Anagnostopoulos
Can you clarify what you mean here? It sounds like you are treating an entire population as the entity that mutates, but it is individuals who mutate. An individual who obtains a harmful mutation dies, but that does not affect the rest of the population.

Paul,

In order to understand what I am saying you have to realise that the word 'positive' is taken out of the context of a positive outcome in the future, after many thousands of individually useless mutations, which by themselves are not beneficial to the organism or 'positive'.

If the process of mutation is truly random then the codes required to make something beneficial for an organism probably require tens of thousands of incremental, random mutations to develop. It only takes a few negative mutations however, to cause imbalance in the genetic code and quickly kill off an organism (before it has a chance to develop any attributes that would help it to survive). In order for a beneficial complex of DNA coding to form from random mutations there would have to be a discriminating factor that prevents 'negative' mutations from occuring, while allowing and perhaps even encouraging 'positive' mutations to occur for the thousands of generations it requires to form something beneficial to the organism that helps it's survival.

What's really dissapointing me is that I don't know how to explain it a way that more people understand what I am saying. :(

Nonetheless, I'm sure some other people do understand and with this last explination maybe you understand too Paul. If you understand then it shouldn't come as a surprise when I say that I actually think LG understands the problem as well.... only his solution to the problem doesn't seem entirely justified by the evidence he has given.

[Anders]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Let's talk biology and evolution, for a change.
[snip a lot of unscientific religious babble]
Enough ammo there to start a discussion. I'm especially interested in that last paragraph. How do 'Darwinians' explain the origin of the so-called "simple cell"?
The molecules of the does not have to be at a precise position. The cytosol is like porridge of large and small molecule that travel quite fast between the cell boundaries. The molecules interact with each other governed by the laws of statistics. It there are many molecules there are more rapid reactions, if there are few, slower reactions. We don’t have to worry about energy levels in the cell, as the temperature is quite stable, and enzymes smooth out the energy barriers. These patterns are not that complicated. If you want something really complicated, take a look at the reactions taking place in the mitochondria.

[Anders]

Originally posted by lifegazer



Ignorance of what? Science cannot explain the origin of the so-called simple cell.

Confront my reasoning or don't bother.
Science can explain, reasonably precise, but as in all science it’s always theories. Now, let me get my bio-book, just a minute…dam di dam…dam di dam….

First of all, if you don’t grasp that the globin gene has evolved, then there is not much to talk about, we can stop right here.

Anyways: The theory goes that in the early days of life, there was one type of primordial cell, that swapped genes with each other (this is a function still present in modern day bacteria). Eventuly the three domains emerged, again through evolution. Evolution means basically that the genes change and if the new genes are good, the organism survives, if not, it dies. How a gene looks does absolutely govern how the organism look, its abilities, its functions. No doubt about that, right? So, gene evolution would mean organism evolution, right?

The globin gene has evolved, so it is possible for other genes to evolve. For instance the genes that take care of meiosis and mitosis (there are quite a few).

So, there it is, a scientific view of evolution.

[H'ethetheth]

Originally posted by Filip Sandor
Paul,

In order to understand what I am saying you have to realise that the word 'positive' is taken out of the context of a positive outcome in the future, after many thousands of individually useless mutations, which by themselves are not beneficial to the organism or 'positive'.

If the process of mutation is truly random then the codes required to make something beneficial for an organism probably require tens of thousands of incremental, random mutations to develop. It only takes a few negative mutations however, to cause imbalance in the genetic code and quickly kill off an organism (before it has a chance to develop any attributes that would help it to survive). In order for a beneficial complex of DNA coding to form from random mutations there would have to be a discriminating factor that prevents 'negative' mutations from occuring, while allowing and perhaps even encouraging 'positive' mutations to occur, over thousands of generations to form something beneficial to the organism that helps it's survival.

I am not making anything up here, I'm just pointing out some peculiar facts. What's really dissapointing me is that I don't know how to explain it a way that more people understand what I am saying.

You say that any benefit only becomes noticeable after heaps of mutations, and that there is no way - within evolution theory - to discern wheter these benefits will occur in the future. Then you go on to say that evolution theory cannot work in this fashion, so there must be some other mechanism to determine the long term benefits of certain mutations.
Indeed, evolution theory cannot work in the above fashion, but as I've said twice before:
The only requirement for evolution to work as it's supposed to work, is that basically every individual mutation leading to a great benefit - like wings or eyes or a cell membrane - must be beneficial in itself.

Edit: In case you're wondering if I understood you: I think you're asking the old "what good is half an eye" question.

[Wudang]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Look, my reasoning applied to 'mechanisms' that provide a working function for complex bodies. You're not even on-topic.



Mitochondria


I've explained that there is an irreducible complexity of any mechanism.
Confront my reasoning or don't bother.

It was not an explanation. it was an unfounded assertion. There is no reasoning to confront. It has been pointed out several times that the complexity is not irreducible.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Wudang
Mitochondria

What about them?

"... there is an irreducible complexity of any mechanism."

It was not an explanation. it was an unfounded assertion. There is no reasoning to confront.

You're a liar. What's the point in telling porkies?
I'll just repeat my reasoning then:-


(1) The cell cannot manufacture proteins (replicate) unless the full mechanism of this replication is already in place. Clearly, DNA is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism
briefly described in the preceding paragraph.
(2) A complex cell without DNA is clearly not going to be able to replicate. A non-replicating cell isn't going to ~evolve~.

Conclusion (debate):-
The complexity of a cell containing DNA in it's nucleus, RNA, and ribosomes capable of manufacturing proteins, had to have come about instantaneously, without ~evolution~ playing a part in the formation of this highly-complex mechanism.

AND...
Now, at some point in the evolution of a cell, we must progress from a point in time when this mechanism doesn't exist to a point in time when it instantaneously exists.

There is no other inbetween scenario. As I pointed-out in that post, DNA is useless without the rest of the mechanism already in place... and the rest of the mechanism is useless without the DNA.

The mechanism must exist as a whole, or not at all.

AND...
The cell-replicating mechanism involving DNA, RNA and ribosomes, must have been an instantaneous creation.

... This specific mechanism is useless to cell-replication if it is incomplete.
Therefore, there is no reason to argue the case for a slowlllllllllly developing DNA, RNA and ribosome mechanism.


AND...
Let's consider 'mechanisms' that provide a function for complex bodies...

Let's consider the function of 'flight':

Any complex (multi-part) body which can fly due to the actions of its own parts, must have a base mechanism facilitating that function.
Consider manned-flight, for example. It has evolved alot over the last hundred years, but the base-principles of the mechanism which yields 'flight', has not: basically, we need a propulsion system, a lifting capability, and a steering capacity.
This has not and will never change, even if we eventually "do a star trek".

As you can see, there is an irreducible complexity of a mechanism which applies to complex bodies and specific functions.

... Now, if we follow this reasoning to complex cells and the function known as 'self-replication', we will also see that there is an irreducible complexity of this mechanism.
Consequently, we are left with an absolute realisation: the ORIGIN of cell replication via mechanisms was an instantaneous creation.


It has been pointed out several times that the complexity is not irreducible.
You mean it's been asserted several times that there is not an irreducible complexity of a mechanism. No reasoning provided.

Anyone with a modicum of intelligence must realise that there must be an irreducible complexity of any mechanism, since a mechanism is, by definition, the working integration of several+ parts to produce singular functions.

[evildave]

A computer can not process rip CD tracks to MP3 files unless (long list of stuff all works). Therefore, a computer is irreducibly complex? Doesn't seem so to me, but I know how computers work.

Computers can drive robots to make more computers, which can be viewed as a form of asexual reproduction.

My favorite version of this irredicible nonsense is here:
WinAce's Argument from Irreducible Grotesqueness
http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/designed_organisms/

The 'Mind Control Barnacles' is the best.

[H'ethetheth]

Originally posted by lifegazer
What about them?

You're a liar. What's the point in telling porkies?
I'll just repeat my reasoning then:-
[...]
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence must realise that there must be an irreducible complexity of any mechanism, since a mechanism is, by definition, the working integration of several+ parts to produce singular functions.

Lifegazer, why do you not look these things up? The reasoning behind the answers to you question is nearly as old as the question you ask. There's no need to rehash it, because the information you seek is waiting here (http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB200.html).
This site, which has been pointed out to you several times, is there for people to get a comprehensive answer to all questions pertaining to the creation/evolution of life. Browse around, it's interesting and you'll probably find the answer to all the questions in this thread.
Scientists think about these things too, you know.

[Z]

See, the problem, LG, is you are attempting to reason that, because a cell could not function in its current form without all of its parts in-tact, that it must have appeared fully formed in its current form. This is what we are trying, rather patiently, to explain - that cells don't just 'appear' fully formed (evolutionarily speaking), and that we have an excellent working theory of how cells evolved from simple proteins, complete with observed and observable intermediary molecular structures, proto-cells, etc.

Take, for example, your 'airplane' example. If I were to come across an SR-71 Blackbird, I would marvel at its incredible integrated technology. Why, if I removed even a part of one engine, this magnificent machine would be unable to fly, much less break the sound barrier. Does that make this thing 'irreducibly complex'? Yes, it does. But does that mean that it must have just been made this way, first and foremost, with no forerunners whatsoever? Clearly not. And this is a created thing!

Early Man didn't just start making tools and such for the sole purpose of building this aircraft. Simple flying machines had to be attempted first; eventually moving up through massive winged structures, propeller-driven craft, early jets, etc. Even the simplest flying machine - the paper airplane, perhaps - has had to undergo a sort of 'evolution' before becoming what it is now.

And these are clearly man-made things! Yet they can easily be related to the processes in nature - in that things don't just appear spontaneously.

So what is it you are claiming? If I understand correctly, you are claiming that the cell, being incredibly complex, is dependant upon its current complexity; and therefore, could not have evolved from a less complex state, since this less complex state would not contain certain components which the CURRENT cell needs to survive.

Yet biologists have addressed this issue before. Each proto-cell which formed upwards from the first self-replicating molecules was slightly more complex than the proto-cell before it; each depended upon different circumstances for survival; and, in some cases along the way, the proto-cell that evolved became dependant upon some alteration that its precursor didn't possess but also didn't need to survive. (Or, quite probably, which the precursor didn't possess and therefore died off as the environmental factors that led to the required alteration allowing for survival failed to emerge in them).

I know, biology is hard. Science, in general, seems to be hard for you. And you'll have a very hard time being taken seriously by us when you discuss scientific theory since 1) you have openly shown a hostility towards science and 2) you have demonstrated clear and willful ignorance about basic scientific theories and concepts. I mean, why are we going to accept whatever you say about biology when you can't even understand why 'infinite distances'
are not a requirement of 'infinite spaces'?

Consider, also, that just because a given mechanism can be demonstrated to be irreducibly complex does not mean that the mechanism can't have come about from less complex mechanisms.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Filip said:
If the process of mutation is truly random then the codes required to make something beneficial for an organism probably require tens of thousands of incremental, random mutations to develop. It only takes a few negative mutations however, to cause imbalance in the genetic code and quickly kill off an organism (before it has a chance to develop any attributes that would help it to survive).
Yes, but that doesn't affect all the other organisms that have some of the same incremental mutations and thus have the chance to go on and develop some useful attribute. Also, you may be off by orders of magnitude with the "tens of thousands," especially if those incremental mutations are useful in themselves.

Picture these beneficial attributes as being much more incremental. The organism doesn't have to develop a good eye all of a sudden. It can go through 100 versions of an eye before ending up with its final version. Thus it doesn't require tens of thousands of mutations before something useful comes up, maybe only 10 or 20.

Edited to add: And if we're talking about the shape of the eye or the lens, maybe only one.

~~ Paul

[pupdog]

Science cannot explain the origin of the so-called simple cell.
Just this morning I read in the 1 October 2004 issue of Science "Multicompartment Micelles from ABC Miktoarm Stars in Water." Put in very simple terms, the article dealt with spontaneous, self-assembling molecules that provide compartmentalization--of certain molecules or substances--from the surrounding environment. The article does not discuss every detail of the formation of the original cells, merely one aspect relevant to cellular origin. In fact, the article was geared more toward nanotechnology, but the important point is that the investigation sheds some light on how the process of cell origin may have come about. (Meanwhile, back at the Discovery Institute, what have those investigators demonstrated?)

[Wudang]

Originally posted by lifegazer
What about them?
Exactly, what about mitochondria? If you're going to argue the subject it would be nice if you learned a little about it



You're a liar. What's the point in telling porkies?
I'll just repeat my reasoning then:-

[color=teal]
(1) The cell cannot manufacture proteins (replicate) unless the full mechanism of this replication is already in place. Clearly, DNA is useless without the different parts of the functioning mechanism
briefly described in the preceding paragraph.
(2) A complex cell without DNA is clearly not going to be able to replicate. A non-replicating cell isn't going to ~evolve~.


Anyone with a modicum of intelligence must realise that there must be an irreducible complexity of any mechanism, since a mechanism is, by definition, the working integration of several+ parts to produce singular functions.

The only one who's been caught consistently lieing is you lifegazer. You even claimed not to knwow what Upchurch's Question was when you had started a thread devoted to it.

Anyway, I snipped your concusions because your premises are fallacious where they are not meaningless.
Protein replication is not restricted to cells alone - BSE was caused by prions remember? And what does useless mean?
And your statement that "a mechanism is irreducible" is a no-brainer. So by that definition a broom is irreducibly complex as it needs a head and a handle to be a broom but I can tie some twigs to a branch or even just pick a usable branch. So it's not a very useful definition is it? In fact, water is irreducibly complex by your definition. So I think I'll stick with the usual usage, thank you, by which a cell is nor irreducibly complex.
And if the origin of a mechanism is instantaneous at what point does my branch become a broom? Precisely how many twigs need to be attached with what firmness?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Wudang
Exactly, what about mitochondria? If you're going to argue the subject it would be nice if you learned a little about it

I know what mitochondria are. But unless you're going to state a point relating to this discussion in reference to them, how do you expect me to respond to a one-word statement? Did I claim to be psychic?

The only one who's been caught consistently lieing is you lifegazer. You even claimed not to knwow what Upchurch's Question was when you had started a thread devoted to it.

I didn't know what the question was since I'd forgot what it was. So I wasn't lieing.
The fact of the matter is that if you read the beginning of that thread you'll see that there is some confusion as to what the actual question is. Indeed, upchurch's first post is not far-short of a thousand words, which hardly eases the confusion.

Anyway, I snipped your concusions because your premises are fallacious where they are not meaningless.

That's nice of ya. In future, I suggest that you explain yourself rather than just brush my reasoning under the carpet so that you don't have to address it.

Protein replication is not restricted to cells alone - BSE was caused by prions remember?

Who cares? That's got nothing to do with the topic at-hand, which is 'mechanisms'. Specifically, the mechanism involving DNA, RNA and ribosomes.

And what does useless mean?

Well if you don't know simple English there's no hope of having a meaningful discussion with you.

And your statement that "a mechanism is irreducible" is a no-brainer. So by that definition a broom is irreducibly complex as it needs a head and a handle to be a broom but I can tie some twigs to a branch or even just pick a usable branch.

The issue at-hand is working mechanisms - with dynamic parts. A bleedin' broom does nothing unless I pick it up and move it myself.
Sober up Wudang. Participate when you have something useful to contribute. Or do I need to define "useful" to you?

[Wudang]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I know what mitochondria are. But unless you're going to state a point relating to this discussion in reference to them, how do you expect me to respond to a one-word statement? Did I claim to be psychic?

Who cares? That's got nothing to do with the topic at-hand, which is 'mechanisms'. Specifically, the mechanism involving DNA, RNA and ribosomes.

Well if you don't know simple English there's no hope of having a meaningful discussion with you.

The issue at-hand is working mechanisms - with dynamic parts. A bleedin' broom does nothing unless I pick it up and move it myself.
Sober up Wudang. Participate when you have something useful to contribute. Or do I need to define "useful" to you?

Oh shifting the game again? So now it's "working mechanism" rather than just mechanism and it has to have moving parts to fit your definition of such? So my digital watch is not a "working mechanism" then? How odd, as it seems to be keeping the time quite well.
Anyway if you claim that something is "irreducible" because a "mechanism" is by definition irreducible what is wrong with someone producing counterexamples? Don't go having a hissy fit everytime you get corrected, it's bad for your image and your image is all you care about, not so?
And the prions are relevant, my ill-informed friend, because they are things simpler than cells that are modified versions of constituents of cells and they have interesting properties.
And if your premises are flawed there is no point in addressing your reasoning based on those premises.

[Z]

Originally posted by lifegazer
I didn't know what the question was since I'd forgot what it was. So I wasn't lieing.
The fact of the matter is that if you read the beginning of that thread you'll see that there is some confusion as to what the actual question is. Indeed, upchurch's first post is not far-short of a thousand words, which hardly eases the confusion.

Attention-deficit problems, I gather? Me too... :D

That's nice of ya. In future, I suggest that you explain yourself rather than just brush my reasoning under the carpet so that you don't have to address it.

Is THAT what that was? I thought your cat had been naughty again... :D

Well if you don't know simple English there's no hope of having a meaningful discussion with you.

:dl:

How many times have we said the same thing to you? Oh, Pot, how black thou art!

The issue at-hand is working mechanisms - with dynamic parts. A bleedin' broom does nothing unless I pick it up and move it myself.
Sober up Wudang. Participate when you have something useful to contribute. Or do I need to define "useful" to you?

Ah, 'useful' - IOW, 'supportive of lifegazer's philosophy'.

You're avoiding the issues, LG - perhaps you should address them instead.

[Pixel42]

lifegazer: how do you explain the fact that over 90% of the DNA of most living cells appears to be junk?

See http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041018/full/041018-7.html for instance.

I can understand how this would occur if the DNA was the result of random mutations and evolution, but not if it was the product of deliberate design.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Wudang
Oh shifting the game again? So now it's "working mechanism" rather than just mechanism and it has to have moving parts to fit your definition of such?

I thought it was obvious that we were speaking of dynamic mechanisms.

So my digital watch is not a "working mechanism" then?

Yes it is. I'll talk about watches if you want - but not brooms.

it's bad for your image and your image is all you care about, not so?

What image? I lick no butts here and don't care whether you lick mine or not. It's all about the philosophy for me.

And the prions are relevant, my ill-informed friend, because they are things simpler than cells that are modified versions of constituents of cells and they have interesting properties.

Asserting your beliefs as "facts" again, I see. Nobody knows for sure whether 'prions' actually exist, least of all what they are capable of:-
http://www.microbe.org/news/prions.asp
Extract:-
"Now, not all scientists accept the idea that prions exist or cause the brain ailments. Several still believe that an unknown, really slow-acting virus is responsible for BSE and nvCJD. Who's right? We just don't know for sure yet. Science doesn't always yield quick discoveries, especially on such difficult problems. The prion theory is still that: a theory, or a guess with some evidence to support it. At the same time, the idea that slow-acting viruses cause these diseases is just a theory, too."

I'd prefer it, in future, if you responded with definite facts or cutting reason.

[Z]

Alright, prions are out - what about viruses? Sub-cellular parasites that do their own DNA/RNA work? Whither viri?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Pixel42
lifegazer: how do you explain the fact that over 90% of the DNA of most living cells appears to be junk?

See http://www.nature.com/news/2004/041018/full/041018-7.html for instance.

I can understand how this would occur if the DNA was the result of random mutations and evolution, but not if it was the product of deliberate design.
I read the article.
Extract:-

"Knowles cautions that the study doesn't prove that non-coding DNA has no function. "Those mice were alive, that's what we know about them," she says. "We don't know if they have abnormalities that we don't test for."

David Haussler of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has investigated why genetic regions are conserved, says that Rubin's study gives no hint that the deleted DNA has a function. But he also believes that non-coding regions may have an effect too subtle to be picked up in the tests to far.

"Survival in the laboratory for a generation or two is not the same as successful competition in the wild for millions of years," he argues. "Darwinian selection is a tougher test."


I can only answer definite facts. What you are stating cannot be confirmed as such.

[Dancing David]

Originally posted by lifegazer
How can there NOT be an irreducible complexity of a mechanism?
Do you understand what a mechanism is? It is the action of several (or many) parts to provide singular functions.

There has to be an irreducible complexity of ALL mechanisms, by logical default.
Hence, the ORIGIN of ANY mechanism must be instantaneous.

Simple logic friends. Logic which not a single one of you wants to accept.

I refer you to Adam Smith and the manufacture of pins.

This must be a Turing machine Lifegazer, not the real one.

I accept your logic Lifegazer, I happen to disagree with it.

[Z]

http://www.mbio.ncsu.edu/JWB/MB409/lecture/lecture16/lecture16.html (http://www.mbio.ncsu.edu/JWB/MB409/lecture/lecture16/lecture16.html\)

Fascinating article categorizing many types of cellular life - LG, which of these is the 'simple cell' of which you speak?

But just to play devil's advocate...

From as early as we have data to the present, the most complex organisms on Earth have gotten progressively more complex, giving rise to the notion of "The Age of Bacteria"-->"The Age of Sea Creatures"-->"The Age of Plants"-->"The Age of Dinosaurs"-->The Age of Mammals"-->"The Age of Man". On way to interpret this is that evolution includes a force driving 'progress', but this is at odds with Darwin's writing and our current understanding of evolutionary processes. What is your interpretation of this apparent dilemma?

That, honestly, is one question I've often had myself. Which is why I often hold that manifestation of improbable events (a.k.a. massive leaps in evolution) are the means by which deity interacts with the world.

But back to my virus question:

Could viruses be remnants of pre-cellular life forms, and if so, how could they have survived independently, when they are largely parasitic now?

I won't bore you with more stuff to read, but if you feel like it, do a search for 'precellular structure' on Google. There's some interesting PubMed research on various chemical 'encapsulization' where simple chemical reactions cause 'cells' to form - not the complex cells we associate with life, but in at least one case, a 'casing' formed around simple protein chains. Could be significant.

edit: Just found an interesting but rather over-decorated web page discussing viroids as an example of pre-cellular life. Anybody else out there know anything about these? I've never heard of them before, and any website that's over-decorated (i.e. complex backgrounds, colored text, etc.) tends to make me doubt the veracity of said information.

http://www.callisto.si.usherb.ca/~jpperra/viroida.htm (http://)

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I accept your logic Lifegazer, I happen to disagree with it.
Why?

(1) A mechanism is several+ parts all working together to yield definite function(s).
(2) Therefore, all mechanisms must, ultimately, have an irreducible complexity.
(3) Therefore, the ORIGIN of any and all mechanisms must be instantaneous.

I don't know how it's even possible to disagree with that.

[Z]

Originally posted by lifegazer
Why?

(1) A mechanism is several+ parts all working together to yield definite function(s).
(2) Therefore, all mechanisms must, ultimately, have an irreducible complexity.
(3) Therefore, the ORIGIN of any and all mechanisms must be instantaneous.

I don't know how it's even possible to disagree with that.

It's the leap between 2 and 3 that we disagree with. Irreducible complexity is, itself, an unusual term - usually, it refers to mechanisms which are utterly dependent upon all parts for its function. However, there are many cases in which some parts become vestigial - no longer necessary for the funtion of a mechanism. There are cases where one part or process is replaced by another part or process. There are cases where certain functions no longer become necessary, or new ones become necessary, causing a need to change parts. The origin of mechanisms are not, therefore, instantaneous, but dynamic and evolving. Man, who creates artificial mechanisms all the time, has wonderfully complex - irreducibly complex - mechanisms, but even these did not originate instantaneously. Think of your car! The parts of your car are vital for its function as a car, but each part has probably undergone numerous changes historically from the original wheeled carriage.

After all, if the origin of mechanisms must be instantaneous, that also infers that no mechanism can be improved - rather, new mechanisms must simply form, instantaneously, and can never be evolved from previous mechanisms.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
But back to my virus question:

Could viruses be remnants of pre-cellular life forms, and if so, how could they have survived independently, when they are largely parasitic now?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus
Ext:-

A virus is a small particle which can infect other biological organisms. Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites meaning that they can only reproduce by invading and taking over other cells as they lack the cellular machinery for self reproduction.
Viruses cannot predate the origin of the cell.

Anyway, what have viruses got to do with the discussion about irreducible mechanisms?

[Z]

http://fp.bio.utk.edu/botany/Botany_courses/fpcourses/240%20genetics/Web%20presentations/The%20RNA%20World.pdf

Here's an interesting theory that may explain the necessary leap between 'primordial soup' and the first cellular life forms.

Theory of my own: viruses could have evolved from viroids. I have found further articles studying viroids, and viroids are not at all dependent upon cells for replication.

In fact, viruses contain a structure very similar to viroids that assist in the replication process, though they need certain things from cells to complete the process.

The theory that viruses may have predated cells really merits only minimum consideration unless we somehow find independent viruses - not only would this be incredibly difficult to do, but we may not know we have found them once we do.

Still - it's an interesting thought.

Plus - who can say what happened before the Earth settled into the current chemical stage? There were a lot of differences back when oxygen was completely locked into existing structures.

[Wudang]

First off your referenced pages on prions seem to be a few years out of date. Science moves on even when webpages don't. Try
this (http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/07/30/syntheticprotein.ap/) about a synthetic infective prion.

Your evolving definition of mechanism is flawed as you are using it in, as usual, several senses at once. Let's step back and review terms. Why is a cell a mechanism? By your argument a mechanism by the definition you have selected is not a term I would choose to use for a cell. We say that a cell's purpose is to survive and replicate but is purpose the right word or is it anthropomorphising?

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by zaayrdragon
"(2) Therefore, all mechanisms must, ultimately, have an irreducible complexity.
(3) Therefore, the ORIGIN of any and all mechanisms must be instantaneous."

It's the leap between 2 and 3 that we disagree with.

What leap?
If ALL mechanisms ultimately have an irreducible complexity, then the ORIGIN of those irreducible mechanisms has to be instantaneous, by logical default.
Once you reach that state of irreducibility, you have reached the stage where there can be no simpler versions of the mechanism. Hence, the irreducible mechanism has to have come together instantaneously.

There are cases where one part or process is replaced by another part or process. There are cases where certain functions no longer become necessary, or new ones become necessary, causing a need to change parts. The origin of mechanisms are not, therefore, instantaneous, but dynamic and evolving.

You're talking about the evolution of mechanisms AFTER their irreducible origin.
I'm well-aware that mechanisms can become more complex, but this doesn't affect the reasoning I have presented.

After all, if the origin of mechanisms must be instantaneous, that also infers that no mechanism can be improved - rather, new mechanisms must simply form, instantaneously, and can never be evolved from previous mechanisms.
It doesn't infer that at all. DNA mutations facilitate change. But again, this refers to the evolution of a mechanism, rather than to it's origin. It's the latter issue which you should be addressing here.

[Wudang]

Originally posted by lifegazer
What leap?
If ALL mechanisms ultimately have an irreducible complexity, then the ORIGIN of those irreducible mechanisms has to be instantaneous, by logical default.

For them to be "mechanisms" by your definition perhaps they have irreducible complexity but even if I accept that (which I do not) then things are still as they are whether or not they are still mechanisms for the purpose you acribe to them.

Once you reach that state of irreducibility, you have reached the stage where there can be no simpler versions of the mechanism. Hence, the irreducible mechanism has to have come together instantaneously.

Having built many mechanisms myself I can assure you that this is not true. I do not work that fast.

You're talking about the evolution of mechanisms AFTER their irreducible origin.
I'm well-aware that mechanisms can become more complex, but this doesn't affect the reasoning I have presented.

So why is the cell the cut-off point? Why can't an amino acid or a prion-like molecule be the cut-off where it "instantaneously" becomes an "irreducibly complex mechanism"?


It doesn't infer that at all. DNA mutations facilitate change. But again, this refers to the evolution of a mechanism, rather than to it's origin. It's the latter issue which you should be addressing here.

And don't accuse me of being unable to speak english when you still don't use the word "infer" properly. You mean "imply". Sloppy english and sloppy thinking.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Wudang
Why is a cell a mechanism?

"A cell" is the name we give to the whole. Actually, a cell (the whole) is a series of mechanisms all providing various functions.

By your argument a mechanism by the definition you have selected is not a term I would choose to use for a cell.

True. But "irreducibility" can be applied to 'a cell'.

We say that a cell's purpose is to survive and replicate but is purpose the right word or is it anthropomorphising?
'Purpose' entails will.
I would say that purpose is present within a cell, but I wouldn't say that the cell is the owner or origin of that purpose.

[Wudang]

Originally posted by lifegazer
"A cell" is the name we give to the whole. Actually, a cell (the whole) is a series of mechanisms all providing various functions.


So it's not irreducibly complex then. "A broom" is the name we give to the whole . Actually a broom is a stick with a brush on the end.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Wudang
For them to be "mechanisms" by your definition perhaps they have irreducible complexity but even if I accept that (which I do not) then things are still as they are whether or not they are still mechanisms for the purpose you acribe to them.

What??

Once you reach that state of irreducibility, you have reached the stage where there can be no simpler versions of the mechanism. Hence, the irreducible mechanism has to have come together instantaneously.

[/b]
Having built many mechanisms myself I can assure you that this is not true. I do not work that fast.
[/b]

Well I don't recall saying that 'Wudang' created life on earth.

So why is the cell the cut-off point? Why can't an amino acid or a prion-like molecule be the cut-off where it "instantaneously" becomes an "irreducibly complex mechanism"?

Mechanisms are different. For example, the mechanisms in your watch are different to the mechanisms in your radio.
Whatever mechanisms may or may not exist in our dubious prions bear no relation to the mechanisms existing in a complex cell.

[lifegazer]

Originally posted by Wudang
So it's not irreducibly complex then.

Yes - it's irreducibly complex in the sense that the mechanisms comprising it's wholeness are irreducibly complex.

"A broom" is the name we give to the whole . Actually a broom is a stick with a brush on the end.
Thanks for that lesson on brooms. Apt for haloween, no doubt, but no relevance to this discussion whatsoever otherwise.

[Jellby]

Originally posted by lifegazer

If ALL mechanisms ultimately have an irreducible complexity, then the ORIGIN of those irreducible mechanisms has to be instantaneous, by logical default.
Once you reach that state of irreducibility, you have reached the stage where there can be no simpler versions of the mechanism. Hence, the irreducible mechanism has to have come together instantaneously.

You're talking about the evolution of mechanisms AFTER their irreducible origin.
I'm well-aware that mechanisms can become more complex, but this doesn't affect the reasoning I have presented.

Then you should also be aware that mechanisms can become less complex.

And a given "more complex" mechanism could be reached from different "less complex" mechanisms. Start with 1 go to the "more complex", then simplify and reach 2, wich is irreducibly complex but didn't appear instantly.

I'd like to cite a passage form "The Science of Discworld", by Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen (in spite of its title, it's a serious divulgation book). I believe this falls into "fair use", but since it's a longish fragment I've put it online. Please read it in: http://www.terra.es/personal5/jignafez/circuit.htm It shows, quite clearly, evolution at work.

Edit: typo

[Wudang]

Originally posted by lifegazer

Mechanisms are different. For example, the mechanisms in your watch are different to the mechanisms in your radio.
Whatever mechanisms may or may not exist in our dubious prions bear no relation to the mechanisms existing in a complex cell.

Don't they? Mind telling me where you learned so much about prions so quickly?


Yes - it's irreducibly complex in the sense that the mechanisms comprising it's wholeness are irreducibly complex.



Hmm, it can't be considered as made up of bits because the bits that go together to make it up can't be considered as bits. That doesn't really work, you know.


Thanks for that lesson on brooms. Apt for haloween, no doubt, but no relevance to this discussion whatsoever otherwise.

Well since you've just shifted the definition again perhaps not. So the only mechanisms we are considering are whole cells? So I have to explain how whole cells could evolved but I'm not allowed to mention anything simpler? Logical problem there Darren.

[Z]

If you refer to the original mechanisms, then you are referring to the basic forces within the universe. IF TOE theories are correct, you are referring to a singular weak-strong-electromagnetic-gravitic force. This supposed singular force in itself is the mechanism by which everything works, according to some. And it did, apparently, spring from nothing, if the big-bang theories are correct.

Anything further along, and you no longer have true 'irreducible complexity'.

[Robin]

It pains me to be in the position of defending intelligent design but I must point out that Lifegazer has made the whole "irreducible complexity" argument seem a whole lot dumber than it actually is.

The champion of the concept of IC, Micheal Behe would never claim, for example, that flight was an example of irreducible complexity. In order for something to be irreducibly complex it must have no possible evolutionary precursors and that is not something that can be said about birds and bats.

For the real IC case try :http://www.arn.org/behe/behehome.htm

For the anti IC case try: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/behe.html

My apologies if these references have been given before, but I couldn't see where they were.

Oh and let's try to keep the areas of science separate. Evolution does not explain the origin of life any more than the theory of gravity explains the origin of gravity.

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Lifegazer said:
What leap?
If ALL mechanisms ultimately have an irreducible complexity, then the ORIGIN of those irreducible mechanisms has to be instantaneous, by logical default.

What in hell is "logical default"? Irreducible complexity does not imply instantaneous creation.

Robin said:
The champion of the concept of IC, Micheal Behe would never claim, for example, that flight was an example of irreducible complexity. In order for something to be irreducibly complex it must have no possible evolutionary precursors and that is not something that can be said about birds and bats.
What does "no possible evolutionary precursors" mean? Behe claims, for example, that the flagellum is irreducibly complex. However, the flagellum appears to have evolved from the type II secretory system.

~~ Paul

[Robin]

From Paul C. Anagnostopoulos

What in hell is "logical default"?

Quite simply it is the fallacy at the centre of all ID arguments - specifically the false dichotomy. "If it is not A then it must be B". You will find this kind of thinking throughout all of Behe and Dembski.

If there is anything that has not been explained then it must be a designer.

What does "no possible evolutionary precursors" mean? Behe claims, for example, that the flagellum is irreducibly complex. However, the flagellum appears to have evolved from the type II secretory system.

The reason I gave the link is that Behe can explain what he means better than I can. "No Darwinian pathway" is, I think, the expression he actually uses.

I didn't say the irreducible complexity wasn't dumb. I just said it wasn't as dumb as Lifegazer makes it seem. Personally I find the questions asked quite interesting but the conclusions jumped at rather lame.