Why no mention of the ruling here today?

Chris

Hypothetical abiogenesis is no more or less than wild speculation. No one has come even close to demonstrating a plausible scenario in any contrived laboratory environment to say nothing of doing it in a laboratory mockup of known natural environments.

Is this sarcasm? The people in charge of science have made it quite clear that the publishing of peer reviewed papers is forbidden. Yes, it’s still legal, but it will be a career-killer if they have anything to say about it. Apparently this is how scientific knowledge is advanced: Alternatives that disagree with conventional wisdom but are politically popular with the great unwashed are smashed by brute force.

http://www.discovery.org/scrip.....php?id=101

I think they’re being a bit anal with some things but otherwise I don’t see the need for the uproar over making these changes. I also don’t see a problem with briefly mentioning alternative models/theories not covered in the textbook (the students can look them up if they’re interested).

As for the Miller-Urey experiment…it produced 85% tar, 13% carbolic acid, 1.05% glycine, 0.85% alanine, and trace amounts of other chemicals. Big whoop. If someone solves the homochirality problem then I’ll be interested.

“The view we are taking now is that Earth’s crust, oceans and atmosphere were in place very early on, and that a habitable planet was established rapidly.”

Is the reason they’re so willing to overthrow previous ideas is that this new historical narrative would give more time between a possible origin of life and the cambrian explosion? Unfortunately the news release contains mostly assertions and not much information on how they came to this conclusion. I suppose anyone interested could just email him: mojzsis@colorado.edu

No. The new research only shows that if your worldview is philosophical materialism and your theory of origins depends on certain physical atmospheric conditions (or it falls apart), then an experiment can be developed to produce the results needed to keep the theory on life support.

Bruce Fegley used “computer codes for chemical equilibrium to figure out what happens when the minerals in [selected] chondrites are heated up and react with each other.” Press reports of the experiment breathlessly conclude the calculations show “that the early Earth’s atmosphere was a reducing one, chock full of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water vapor.”

But several leaps of faith were taken to arrive at this conclusion.

“Chondrites are relatively unaltered samples of material from the solar nebula.” Speculation.

“…scientists have long believed [chondrites] to be the building blocks of the planets.” Speculation. (The classic “scientists believe” in reality means SOME scientists “believe” or suspect it while others neither believe it nor suspect it.)

“We assume that the planets formed out of chondritic material…” More speculation.

“…and we sectioned up the planet into layers…” Speculation about the composition of the layers. Kind of a “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”

What do geologists say about the presumed composition of the layers fabricated for this experiment?

Well, uh, now we resume our connection to reasonable hypothesis based on actual facts: “A major contingent of geologists believe that a hydrogen-poor, carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere existed because _they_ _use_ _modern_ _volcanic_ _gases_ _as_ _models_ _for_ _the_ _early_ _atmosphere_. Volcanic gases are rich in water , carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide but contain no ammonia or methane.”

Back to the experiment….

“…we used the composition of the mix of meteorites” (that we were able to fabricate in just the right way) “to calculate the gases that would have evolved from each of those layers….” Yes, we used a computer with special codes to literally peer back into time, to a “just so” composition and “see” exactly what “would have” happened (assuming we “designed” the experiment correctly).
And: “…that would have EVOLVED?…” No secret what we’re looking for.

And by golly, “We found a very reducing atmosphere for most meteorite mixes, so there is a lot of methane and ammonia.” MOST? not ALL? Still some glitches in the computer model; keep working on it, you will get ALL if you keep trying.

“In a reducing atmosphere, hydrogen is present but oxygen is absent. For the Miller-Urey experiment to work, a reducing atmosphere is a must. An oxidizing atmosphere makes producing organic compounds impossible,” the writer of the article admitted. “a MUST” they say. It is obvious they are trying to resuscitate Miller-Urey! (You can almost hear the “CLEAR!” thump “CLEAR!” thump” of the CPR defibrillator.)

Fegley says, “Geologists dispute the Miller-Urey scenario, but what they seem to be forgetting is that when you assemble the Earth out of chondrites, you’ve got slightly different gases being evolved from heating up all these materials that have assembled to form the Earth.” Geologist are FORGETTING? that when you manufacture an experiment with the results in mind you are after, regardless of whether ANY ACTUAL DATA supports the suppositions of the experiment, why then you will get entirely different outcomes than when you base your experiments on actual data!!!! Those silly geologists!

“Our calculations provide a natural explanation for getting this reducing atmosphere,” said Fegley. Yep, “natural” explanations from a COMPLETELY UNNATURAL experiment. Now THAT is science.

“Different compounds in the chondritic Earth decompose when they’re heated up, and they release gas that formed the earliest Earth atmosphere,” Fegley said. What “chondritic earth”? Oh yeah, the one you created out of thin air so to speak. I refrain here from making a comment using the “release gas” statement.

Gee, why didn’t anybody ever try this experiment before?
“I think these computations hadn’t been done before because they’re very difficult; we use a special code” said Fegley….

Oh. A “special code”. Of course.

Here’s a link to an article about it in our student newspaper:

http://www.dailynebraskan.com/.....908c1eea76

For what it’s worth, here’s the class:

http://unlsched.unl.edu/nusched/jsp/results.jsp

“William A. Dembski, mathematician, theologian, and philosopher, is also a heavyweight expert when it comes to self-promotion. So why is it, Steve, that Dembski has not himself boasted of the adoption of his particular methods by the NIH and NSF for “fraud detection”?

My basic stance on this is skepticism until such time as an independently verifiable reference is provided. One does not have to look far to find ID advocates exaggerating grandly from mundane reality, so I take the claim that someone other than Dembski has figured out how to make Dembski’s methods work (when even Dembski has thus far failed at that task) with a dried-up Permian sea of salt.”

How does one respond to this sham?