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Why “theistic evolution” should properly be called Christian Darwinism

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Science historian Michael Flannery kindly responded to something I (O’Leary for UD News) had written to a group of friends about theistic evolution (TE): “I prefer to call it ‘Christian Darwinism’ because the element  that is not compatible with design (or Christianity) is the Darwinism.” His view:

Absolutely correct! The problem isn’t necessarily with common descent or evolution per se but with wholly random and chance mechanisms behind them. Darwinists (from Richard Dawkins on one end to Ken Miller on the other) constantly conflate this issue. So TE is really something of a misnomer that winds up working to their benefit.

Yes, the term “theistic evolution” does indeed work to TE’s benefit by blurring out all the meaning from the term “evolution.” God had a hand in it somehow, but what he did is unclear.

Ask and you’d be surprised what you’ll hear: For example, process theologian Karl Giberson helped found BioLogos, along with Francis Collins. Giberson and Collins offer in The Language of Science and Faith, (IVP Books, 2011):

… we hope readers will agree with us that the relevant part of our origins is not the story of how we acquired the specific details of our body plan—ten fingers, two ears, one nose—or how we lack a marsupial pouch to carry our newborns, or why potty-training takes so long. Nothing about these details is critical to what makes us human. Our humanness is embedded more holistically in our less tangible aspects and could certainly be embodied in creatures that looked nothing like us … (Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions (InterVarsity Press, 2011), p. 201, p. 204–5.)

Why should they hope that readers will agree with them? Unless we believe in space alien fiction, there is zero current evidence for a proposition that  that the details of the human form are not “the relevant part of our origins.” Maybe they are relevant. And it should hardly be necessary to point out that we are told by a more authoritative source that even the hairs of our heads are numbered.

Then Giberson and Collins resort to an airy ad hominem dismissal of those who prefer the more authoritative source:

Many may find this thought unsettling and strangely at odds with their understanding of creation, which celebrates that God created us “in his image.” We suggest that this is due to the influence that actual artistic images have had on our view of God and ourselves Because God became incarnate in Jesus, who looks like us, we all too quickly slip into the assumption that God also looks like us. (Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions (InterVarsity Press, 2011), p. 201, p. 204–5.)

This is disingenuous. The question isn’t whether God looks like us—or for that matter, whether man can even look on God and live*— but whether God intends us to look the way we do, for good reasons.

On a Darwinist reckoning, no. On a Christian reckoning, yes.

Theistic evolution consists first and foremost in evading such direct choices, in order to accommodate Christianity to the fads and fashions of Darwin’s followers. And that is why I call it Christian Darwinism.

* On that subject, from another authoritative source:  “But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.”

Comments
I take back my previous nominations. This one wins for Absurd Comment of the Week:
Once you have the most simple amino acids and catalytic functionality, the sky is the limit.
I have a little ongoing joke with my kids: if the kids are watching a science fiction movie or talking about wild stuff that could never occur in real life we'll keep adding more and more absurd things to the mix and then eventually one of us will jump in and say "Hey, that could happen!" in a voice dripping with sarcasm and we'll all have a good laugh. The sad thing is that Joealtle -- obviously having very little background about Miller-Urey other than a few talking points from pro-evolution websites, and having little appreciation for what is actually required for life -- proclaims with childlike naivete "the sky is the limit." No evidence. No explanation. No proposed detailed mechanism. Just "Hey, that could happen!" Stuff Happens. That is the primary evolutionary explanation. And in the materialist's mind, any experiment that shows that something can happen, proves that anything can happen. Truly sad.Eric Anderson
June 5, 2013
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Franklin writes,
I think your criticisms of the experiment are paraphrases of someone else’s criticism. I don’t think you have the knowledge of chemistry to sort through the actual materials and methods of the experiment to point out any flaws in the experimental design.
If you read my post, you noted that I posted books by scientists (including Miller himself) who discussed the experiment at length. Miller admitted to using the materials he did (hydrogen rich atmosphere) because it would give him the result he wanted. Feel free to re-read my posts and look up the information yourself. You’re right, I don’t have a background in chemistry. That doesn’t mean I can’t use critical thinking skills to determine whether or not I should believe something. "We believe that there must have been a period when the earth's atmosphere was reducing, because the synthesis of compounds of biological interest takes place only under reducing conditions." (Stanley L. Miller, and Leslie E. Orgel, The Origins of Life on the Earth, pg. 33 (Prentice Hall, 1974).) This is the quote that I noted earlier. He admits prejudice in choosing a reducing atmosphere because he needed it for his experiment, despite not knowing whether or not the early Earth atmosphere actually was hydrogen or oxygen rich. Stanley Miller himself conceded in an undergraduate seminar that Casey Luskin attended at UCSD that "making compounds and making life are two different things." He's made statements to a similar effect publicly: Even Miller throws up his hands at certain aspects of it. The first step, making the monomers, that's easy. We understand it pretty well. But then you have to make the first self-replicating polymers. That's very easy, he says, the sarcasm fairly dripping. Just like it's easy to make money in the stock market--all you have to do is buy low and sell high. He laughs. Nobody knows how it's done. (Peter Radetsky, "How Did Life Start?" Discover Magazine athttp://discovermagazine.com/1992/nov/howdidlifestart153/)
For example it is clear that you believed that only 2 amino acids were produced in the experiment when it is clear that there were 23. If you can’t get the basic results correct it certainly causes concern over the veracity of any of your other claims. Quite the discrepancy that only you can explain.
My post contained references, franklin. If you believe that there is a discrepancy there, then do your own research and show me where that discrepancy lies.
You also have yet to address all the other prebiotic research that is in the literature. In exploring any process you must first demonstrate feasability. In this case the first hurdle is to demonstrate that essential amino acids and nucleotides can be produced from inorganic compounds.
Many experiments followed, using various energy sources and different raw materials. Through much manipulation and doctoring, and ignoring the conditions existing in a natural environment, scientists in their rigidly controlled laboratory experiments obtained additional organic chemicals relevant to life. Miller used a spark to break up the simple chemicals in his atmosphere to allow amino acids to form. But this spark would even more quickly have shattered the amino acids! So again Miller rigged his experiment: He built a trap in his apparatus to store the acids as soon as they formed, to save them from the spark. Scientists claim, however, that in the early earth the amino acids would have escaped the lightning or ultraviolet rays by plunging into the ocean. Amino acids are not stable in water and in the ancient ocean would exist in only negligible quantities. If the organic soup had ever existed, some of its compounds would have been trapped in sedimentary rocks, but in spite of 20 years of searching, “the earliest rocks have failed to yield any evidence of a prebiotic soup.” Yet “the existence of a prebiotic soup is crucial.” So “it comes as . . . a shock to realize that there is absolutely no positive evidence for its existence.” (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, by Michael Denton, 1985, pp. 260-1, 263; Origins: A Skeptic’s Guide, pp. 112-13.) Forming amino acids is not the same as forming a protein. Forming a protein is not the same as forming a cell. You do understand that scientists still have not created life from inorganic compounds, which is what the theory of evolution states did happen in the distant past.
This is what has been done under widely varying experimental conditions. the Urey_Miller experiment was not designed to produce ‘life’. It was designed to test the hypothesis that inorganic compounds can and will react to form organic compounds which are recognized as being essential for life as we know it today.
See above. The Miller-Urey experiment was hailed as a breakthrough when it was first performed, but scientists today are far more skeptical of its relative merits. The Mystery of Life’s Origin: Reassessing Current Theories points out that if much free oxygen was present, ‘none of the amino acids could even be formed, and if by some chance they were, they would decompose quickly.’ How solid was Miller’s presumption about the so-called primitive atmosphere? In a classic paper published two years after his experiment, Miller wrote: “These ideas are of course speculation, for we do not know that the Earth had a reducing atmosphere when it was formed. . . . No direct evidence has yet been found.”—Journal of the American Chemical Society, May 12, 1955. Was evidence ever found? Some 25 years later, science writer Robert C. Cowen reported: “Scientists are having to rethink some of their assumptions. . . . Little evidence has emerged to support the notion of a hydrogen-rich, highly reducing atmosphere, but some evidence speaks against it.”—Technology Review, April 1981. And since then? In 1991, John Horgan wrote in Scientific American: “Over the past decade or so, doubts have grown about Urey and Miller’s assumptions regarding the atmosphere. Laboratory experiments and computerized reconstructions of the atmosphere . . . suggest that ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which today is blocked by atmospheric ozone, would have destroyed hydrogen-based molecules in the atmosphere. . . . Such an atmosphere [carbon dioxide and nitrogen] would not have been conducive to the synthesis of amino acids and other precursors of life.”
What was required for the first replicator is another question one part of which is what would the minimal amino acid library require for production of functional peptides and proteins.
We know that there are right-handed and left-handed gloves. This is also true of amino acid molecules. Of some 100 known amino acids, only 20 are used in proteins, and all are left-handed ones. When scientists make amino acids in laboratories, in imitation of what they feel possibly occurred in a prebiotic soup, they find an equal number of right-handed and left-handed molecules. “This kind of 50-50 distribution,” reports The New York Times, is “not characteristic of life, which depends on left-handed amino acids alone.” Why living organisms are made up of only left-handed amino acids is “a great mystery.”
Some of that other research you haven’t looked at demonstrates how amino acids condense to form peptides and proteins, e.g., evaporating and saline conditions which trigger polymerization of amino acids which do equal peptides and proteins.
I noted above that amino acids are not stable in water. In Molecular Evolution and the Origin of Life, Sidney W. Fox and Klaus Dose answer: The atmosphere must have lacked oxygen because, for one thing, “laboratory experiments show that chemical evolution . . . would be largely inhibited by oxygen” and because compounds such as amino acids “are not stable over geological times in the presence of oxygen.” Is this not circular reasoning? The early atmosphere was a reducing one, it is said, because spontaneous generation of life could otherwise not have taken place. But there actually is no assurance that it was reducing. Again, even if you allow for amino acids to form, which then can become peptides and proteins via polymerization, you still do not have enough material to form a single cell. You still have not created life, nor have you created what could become life given enough time. I find it amusing that scientists-who presumably know more about molecular biology and chemistry than you do—are skeptical of the Miller-Urey experiment, while you drone on about how important it is in understanding chemical evolution and the building blocks of life. JLAfan2001:
ranklin and Joelatle has provided evidence that the Urey-Miller experiments were not falsified and showed even more experiments that suggest life may indeed be an accident.
Really? I didn’t see any evidence presented. I provided evidence, including works cited, that showed that his experiment was rigged to produce the results he wanted. Do you have anything to say about that?Barb
June 5, 2013
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Wow! I just read through this thread and am a bit puzzled by joealte's posts. It seems he doesn't even listen to what others say to him. His mind is already made up so negative evidence cannot penetrate his mind. Here are some of his winners:
For YOU to accept the fact that evolution can produce molecular machinery, YOU require the entire process to be recreated. Do you not realize how impossible of a task this is? This would be a study of monumental proportions, all so you can just say, “oh well you guys designed the experiment to generate the evolution of this protein, therefore it was intelligently designed”
Good point! A contrived experiment would show nothing would it?
For people who can step back and see the big picture, it is understood that the evidence behind the theory of evolution is overwhelming. We dont have the luxury of direct experimentation a lot of the time when it comes to evolution, but there is still a huge amount of information that backs it.
Another excellent point. We cannot test evolution! Neither can we test ID. So we both look at the evidence, interpret it, and decide what we will believe. In the end, it takes faith for either side. Excellent point!
Numerous other experiments have also been done, Barb, they have produced similar results with different environment models. Did they create the right ones? Yes they did. Did it produce some of the fundamental building blocks of matter? Last I checked, amino acids were fundamental building blocks of matter, so yes it did.
Hmm. I wasn't aware that anyone here was trying to make that point. We all know a few amino acids were created, but they were racemic in nature and totally unusable for life. So, from that point of view, nothing usable for life was created. I think this is the point Barb was trying to make. Plus, not even these useless amino acids would have been formed had it not been for Miller's artificial trap which really invalidates the experiment. Not to mention the problem that the reducing atmosphere he assumed was probably not even right with would also invalidate the whole experiment. Sure, we admit a few unusable acids were created. If that is the only point you are trying to make, then you have no argument from us. But then please don't you dare try and insinuate that this in any way presents any evidence for abiogenesis!
You are mistaken in assuming that the first proto-cells required the complexity that we see in cells today. They did not, in fact the first proteins only needed to contain the right sized shape or space to catalyze a simple reaction. Once you have the most simple amino acids and catalytic functionality, the sky is the limit.
I see. Just curious, but how do you "know" this since you yourself admitted that this stuff cannot be tested?
Sounds reasonable to me.
OK, if sounding reasonable is good enough, then please don't take issue with us when we say that since codes cannot create themselves, software cannot write itself, hardware cannot design and construct itself, machines cannot assemble themselves or create their function, information cannot arise from random processes, it sounds reasonable that an Intelligent Designer had to have been involved! At least our human experience is evidence for our faith.
Hmm maybe, I have a lot of stuff to read that is based on facts and empirical evidence first though. “the Miller-Urey experiment was designed to show how inanimate raw material could form the building blocks of life.” Exactly, and it did just that.
It did that if you ignore all the problems with it. It did not create ALL the building blocks of life nor even any usable ones(they were racemic). If you call that a victory, that's encouraging for us!
So Barb, lets recap quick: Did Miller-Urey produce amino acids from inorganic matter? Yes it did. Thank you. Have a nice day.
Here again! He simply refuses to hear what we say, sticks his finger in his ear and yells, "I win!" If that is the best they can do, we have nothing to worry about. For a thorough rebuttal of the Miller-Urey experiment, check out this article. It's on a creationist website, but even IDers can appreciate this one: http://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis Here, Franklin weighs in with this claim:
23 amino acids were produced in the experiment if you want to be precise.
That is news to me unless he is talking about insignificant and therefore meaningless trace amounts of amino acids - again all racemic in nature and thus totally unusable. I loved Eric's challenge in @156! Would love to get an answer from Franklin and Joealte! Give 'em all the necessary building blocks for life even in homo-chiral form. Put them in whatever conditions/liquid you like. Cheat all you want. Zap 'em, shake 'em, whatever and see what you get. I bet they deteriorate rather than form life.tjguy
June 5, 2013
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EA: A pile of bricks a building doth not make, nor, a tornado in a hardware yard. (And if one compares, the comparison is apt if one looks at thermal agitation at molecular levels. [Cf. micro-jet in the vat thought exercise here in my always linked note.]) A month ago now, I posed the OOL challenge here at UD, first stage to the wider origins challenge to Darwinists, from now coming on nine months ago -- here. No serious takers, either time. Revealing. I think Johnson's take on all this is dead on:
For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [[Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." [Emphasis added] . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [[Emphasis added.] [[The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]
But of course, somebody out there is NOT listening. KFkairosfocus
June 4, 2013
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Surely you are aware of all those cyanide resistant strains of bacteria.
No I wasn't, but surely you are aware that a mix of right handed amino acids and left handed do not make life. :-) Your failure to point that out to JLAfan2001 surely is less than honest. Please tell JLAfan2001 of why you expect a mix of right and left handed amino acids will polymerize into proteins of left-handed homochirality with alpha-peptide bonds? Especially since the polymerization reaction requires energy. And random bursts of polymerization energy such as in Fox's experiment almost instantly racemized what few pathetic chains (that were epsilon, not alpha bonded by the way), were formed. Any Urey-Miller type experiments demonstrate this. Now, we can have an honest discussion won't we? By the way, don't polymerized homochiral chains, even if they become homochiral, have a half-life before they become a mix of left-and right handed again. And if there is a water one has to become concerned with hydorlisis, plus there are other reasons to consider the deanimation. Yeah, you strain at a gnat, and let 1000 camels through...honest discussion indeed.scordova
June 4, 2013
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sal: h that’s the other thing, Urey-Miller used lots of cyanide. You can read about the effect of cyanide on life:
Sal it seems that you've forgotten to put your claim of cyanide being poisonous for life in perspective. Surely you are aware of all those cyanide resistant strains of bacteria. Would it be too much to ask that we have an honest presentation of the material being discussed or brought into the discussion?franklin
June 4, 2013
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Franklin and Joelatle has provided evidence that the Urey-Miller experiments were not falsified and showed even more experiments that suggest life may indeed be an accident.
Let's assume just for discussion purposes that Miller-Urey (and similar subsequent experiments): (i) used a reasonable atmospheric makeup, (ii) accurately simulated natural conditions, (iii) didn't improperly provide energy input over long periods of time in just the right proportions, (iv) didn't input intelligence through the backdoor with the experimental setup, and (v) produced all 20 kinds of amino acids currently found in life. Where does that get us? I’m willing to grant you all the amino acids you want. Heck, I’ll even give them all to you in a non-racemic mixture. You want them all left-handed? No problem. I’ll also grant you the exact relative mixture of the specific amino acids you want (what percentage do you want of glycine, alanine, arganine, etc.?). I’ll further give you just the right concentration to encourage optimum reaction. I’m also willing to give you the most benign and hospitable environment you can possibly imagine for your fledgling structures to form (take your pick of the popular ideas: volcanic vents, hydrothermal pools, mud globules, tide pools, deep sea hydrothermal vents, cometary clouds in space . . . whichever environment you want). I’ll even throw in whatever type of energy source you want in true Goldilocks fashion: just the right amount to facilitate the chemical reactions; not too much to destroy the nascent formations. I’ll further spot you that all these critical conditions occur in the same location spatially. And at the same time temporally. Shoot, as a massive bonus I’ll even step in to prevent contaminating cross reactions. I’ll also miraculously make your fledgling chemical structures immune from their natural rate of breakdown so you can keep them around as long as you want. Every single one of the foregoing items represents a huge challenge and a significant open question to the formation of life, but I’m willing to grant them all. Now, with all these concessions, what do you think the next step is? Go ahead, what is your theory about how life forms?Eric Anderson
June 4, 2013
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JLA @ 154
I know that amino acids are a far cry from a living cell but it shows organic can come from inorganic.
The Miller-Urey experiment was rather late to the game in showing that organic compounds come from inorganic chemicals. Well over a century before, in 1828, Friedrich Wohler showed that urea can be produced from inorganic chemicals. For that matter, the scripture you previously found fault with, namely that God created man from the dust of the ground, seems to suggest very much the same thing (inasmuch as dirt and organic tissue share the same atomic constituents: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. - albeit arranged differently!).
Franklin and Joelatle has provided evidence that the Urey-Miller experiments were not falsified and showed even more experiments that suggest life may indeed be an accident....It shows the potential of life coming from non-life.
I would agree that declaring the Miller-Urey experiment falsified is not quite right, but I think you're reading way more into the results than is really warranted. Debates about the actual numbers of amino acids aside, the Miller-Urey experiment showed that under tightly controlled laboratory conditions racemic mixtures of amino acids can be generated from inorganic constituents. That's it, really. Even then, many sources question whether the atmospheric conditions on primordial earth are accurately represented by the gaseous mixture used. That the early earth possessed such a reducing atmosphere is debatable. To say that this experiment somehow furnishes support for abiogenesis is ridiculous. In the sixty years following that experiment never has there been any recorded example of such conditions generating any functional polypeptide (let alone a suite of such macromolecules); the informational relationship between proteins, DNA, and RNA; metabolism; etc. Some estimates put the number of necessary proteins for a bare-bones cell to function at around 200 or so. That would mean that in sixty years origin of life experiments have not even gotten 1/200th of the way to making a functional cell. How can anyone realistically say that this somehow shows the plausibility of life arising from nonlife? That's just as silly as someone claiming that castles can be produced by natural forces because large rocks (a castle component) can. The really important part is assembling everything in the proper configuration. That's what requires explanation. In all frankness, it just seems like you're not even trying very hard to apply your critical thinking skills to these issues. Just like Barry's post today, one has to learn to distinguish between actual data and the interpretations/extrapolations that some attach to them.Optimus
June 4, 2013
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JLAfan2001, Thank you for the response. It illustrates how many people can find the Urey-Miller experiments are convincing. I'm not trying to be critical, I'm trying to understand why you compute a different conclusion than I do. What did the Urey-Miller experiment claim to demonstrate? If you say, "make building blocks of life" I'll respond by saying, no, they were trying to show there exists a process that could lead to life. They did not do that. I could say, "atoms are building blocks of life, therefore life can arise from atoms". That's not too different than what you claim:
It shows the potential of life coming from non-life
The potential for life coming from non-life exists, otherwise we wouldn't be alive, the question is whether an accident or chemical law has the potential to build life. The question was never about the potential for life to come from non-life, the question is what is necessary to realize that potential... If you flipped a coin and saw it show heads after a few trials, does it make it believable given 13 billion years you could get 500 coins to be all heads? If you say yes, then that is a major reason we disagree. 13 billion years wouldn't be enough time... The Urey-Miller experiment made a mix of left and right handed amino acids when life is made of only left handed amino acids. A simple cell has millions of amino acids in proteins, and all of them are left-handed. To say the Urey-Miller experiments demonstrate that accidents are a good explanation for life is like saying accidents are a good reason to expect random chance to make 1 million coins all heads in the lifetime of the universe. The math that says chance is poor explanation for the origin of life... You might say Urey-Miller made progress, but it's like me saying "I have a million coins, and half are heads half are tails, I'm halfway to getting them all heads, therefore its believable chance can get them all heads in the lifetime of the universe." The resulting chemical mixture of their experiment was poisonous to any life forming. If you doubt me, I volunteer franklin and joeatle to drink the resulting mixture of Urey-Miller tars. :-) It's misleading to parade Urey-Miller as some example of a plausible route to life since the process mixes poison along with right-handed amino acids that would PREVENT the formation of life. The fact that some of the parts are building blocks of life doesn't suggest chance and chemical law will make life any more than a mix of proteins in cyanide and formadehyde... Oh that's the other thing, Urey-Miller used lots of cyanide. You can read about the effect of cyanide on life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_cyanide If you're convinced life can emerge from a soup of poisons that would also kill it, then there is little more I can say. Thank you for taking the time, however, to dialogue.scordova
June 4, 2013
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Franklin and Joelatle has provided evidence that the Urey-Miller experiments were not falsified and showed even more experiments that suggest life may indeed be an accident. I know that amino acids are a far cry from a living cell but it shows organic can come from inorganic. It shows the potential of life coming from non-life. Another step towards Nihilism. everything is BS, Sal.JLAfan2001
June 4, 2013
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Sal It seems that teacher may have been justified in killing himself after all.
Sincerely, why do you say that. Can you be a little more specific?scordova
June 4, 2013
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Sal It seems that teacher may have been justified in killing himself after all.JLAfan2001
June 4, 2013
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You guy have a real three ring circus going on here and you all graduated in the tops of your class at clown school.
Hey don't complain, some people pay to see a circus, and you're getting all this entertainment for free.scordova
June 4, 2013
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franklin- Building blocks don’t beget buildings.
Exactly. Dead organisms have much higher quality amino-acids (homochiral) than Urey-Miller (racemic) plus they are already polymerized with alpha-petide bonds with tons of functional proteins vs. the monomer form in Urey-Miller..... And even with all that, the dead organism stays dead, and becomes less likely to come back to life as time goes by. Finally, the RNA world gained prominence partly due to the failure of Urey-Miller to show a believable chapter in the evolution of non-life to life. Urey-Miller tried to demonstrate the Oparin hypothesis, it failed. To quote Nobel Prize winner George Wald:
We tell this story to beginning students of biology as though it represents a triumph of reason over mysticism. In fact it is very nearly the opposite. The reasonable view was to believe in spontaneous generation; the only alternative, to believe in a single, primary act of supernatural creation. There is no third position. For this reason many scientists a century ago chose to regard the belief in spontaneous generation as a ‘philosophical necessity.’ It is a symptom of the philosophical poverty of our time that this necessity is no longer appreciated. Most modern biologists, having reviewed with satisfaction the downfall of the spontaneous generation hypothesis, yet unwilling to accept the alternative belief in special creation, are left with nothing. I think a scientist has no choice but to approach the origin of life through a hypothesis of spontaneous generation (1954, 191:46).
scordova
June 4, 2013
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I was only referring to you and Joe when I said my goodbye, but you know what, youre right. I should be on my way. You guy have a real three ring circus going on here and you all graduated in the tops of your class at clown school. I wash my hands of this madness.Joealtle
June 4, 2013
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barb:And what about the criticism of the experiment that I posted? What about Miller rigging the experiment to get the desired results: is that intelligent design or evolution?
I think your criticisms of the experiment are paraphrases of someone else's criticism. I don't think you have the knowledge of chemistry to sort through the actual materials and methods of the experiment to point out any flaws in the experimental design. For example it is clear that you believed that only 2 amino acids were produced in the experiment when it is clear that there were 23. If you can't get the basic results correct it certainly causes concern over the veracity of any of your other claims. Quite the discrepancy that only you can explain. You also have yet to address all the other prebiotic research that is in the literature. In exploring any process you must first demonstrate feasability. In this case the first hurdle is to demonstrate that essential amino acids and nucleotides can be produced from inorganic compounds. This is what has been done under widely varying experimental conditions. the Urey_Miller experiment was not designed to produce 'life'. It was designed to test the hypothesis that inorganic compounds can and will react to form organic compounds which are recognized as being essential for life as we know it today. What was required for the first replicator is another question one part of which is what would the minimal amino acid library require for production of functional peptides and proteins. Some of that other research you haven't looked at demonstrates how amino acids condense to form peptides and proteins, e.g., evaporating and saline conditions which trigger polymerization of amino acids which do equal peptides and proteins.franklin
June 4, 2013
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So earlier in this thread you said "Cya" and stated you were leaving. But you're still posting. Why is that? Selfish genes compelling you to troll?Barb
June 4, 2013
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Wow another comment showing the genius of our buddy Joe here! Woohooo! *slow clapJoealtle
June 4, 2013
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As Joe explained, franklin, all the experiments from Miller-Urey on did not prove that life can come from nonliving matter, which is what evolution demands. What part of "amino acids =/= proteins" do you not understand? And what about the criticism of the experiment that I posted? What about Miller rigging the experiment to get the desired results: is that intelligent design or evolution?Barb
June 4, 2013
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franklin- Building blocks don't beget buildings.Joe
June 4, 2013
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barb: “Fact: It produced a few amino acids from inorganic matter.”
23 amino acids were produced in the experiment if you want to be precise. While your speaking of ignoring the evidence I can't but help wonder why you make no mention of any of the other experiments which have been shown to produce amino acids, nucleotides, purines, pyrimidines in great abundance under a variety of environmental conditions. Urey-Miller experiment was a simplistic demonstration of the formation of organic compounds from the inorganic. There is a rich bounty of literature on this topic but it seems you missed just about all of it.franklin
June 4, 2013
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They are most certainly not precisely directed, the truth is that they only have their effect at certain locations (my signal peptide example). You simply have no idea what you are talking about. Im not going to tell you again.Joealtle
June 4, 2013
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Joealtle, it would be much more proper for you to say that molecules are precisely directed to precise locations in the cell by elaborate mechanisms and machines within the cell, than for you to try to claim that,, “that random collisions and random diffusion gets the large majority of biomolecules where they need to go.,,,” “The cell is not as ordered and seemingly designed as you guys might have us think. In reality its a mess of things going on all at once.” It simply is deliberately misleading as to what is going on in the cell for you to say that. You accuse me of 'desperately clinging' to the idea that the actions of the molecules of the cell are extremely precisely coordinated, but the fact of the matter is that you are the one 'desperately clinging' to the notion that "its a mess of things going on all at once", in spite of the fact that you are shown directly to be wrong. ,,, Honesty starts with ones-self Joealtle!bornagain77
June 4, 2013
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Can you do me a favor and sum up why proteins behaving according to quantum dynamics is a problem for evolution?Joealtle
June 4, 2013
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BA, for the last time, please stop quote-mining. Random collisions and diffusion are relied heavily upon by the cell as i have stated numerous times. Your quote only highlights early thoughts on reaction mechanics, that we now know dont take into account other factors such as inhibitors and acitvators, coenzymes and prosthetic groups, etc. And how do these factors and the proteins themselves get to where they need to go in order to interact with each other? Random diffusion and collisons between molecules. Where the complexity comes into play that you are so desperately clinging to is in the binding sites and hence the affinities between these molecules. You can twist all the words youd like, but the cell still relies largely on random diffusion to make life possible.Joealtle
June 4, 2013
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And to add insult to injury Joealtle, these protein machines are found to belong to world of quantum physics, not to the classical world of entropic physics where molecules randomly collide: Here the flagellum is shown to be subject to quantum effects.
INFORMATION AND ENERGETICS OF QUANTUM FLAGELLA MOTOR Hiroyuki Matsuura, Nobuo Noda, Kazuharu Koide Tetsuya Nemoto and Yasumi Ito Excerpt from bottom page 7: Note that the physical principle of flagella motor does not belong to classical mechanics, but to quantum mechanics. When we can consider applying quantum physics to flagella motor, we can find out the shift of energetic state and coherent state. http://www2.ktokai-u.ac.jp/~shi/el08-046.pdf
Further confirmation of non-local quantum entanglement in molecular machines:
Persistent dynamic entanglement from classical motion: How bio-molecular machines can generate non-trivial quantum states – November 2011 Excerpt: We also show how conformational changes can be used by an elementary machine to generate entanglement even in unfavorable conditions. In biological systems, similar mechanisms could be exploited by more complex molecular machines or motors. http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.2126
to put it simply, this is not good news in the least for Darwinism which is based upon a reductive materialistic view of reality: supplemental note:
Souped-Up Hyper-Drive Flagellum Discovered - December 3, 2012 Excerpt: Get a load of this -- a bacterium that packs a gear-driven, seven-engine, magnetic-guided flagellar bundle that gets 0 to 300 micrometers in one second, ten times faster than E. coli. If you thought the standard bacterial flagellum made the case for intelligent design, wait till you hear the specs on MO-1,,, Harvard's mastermind of flagellum reverse engineering, this paper describes the Ferrari of flagella. "Instead of being a simple helically wound propeller driven by a rotary motor, it is a complex organelle consisting of 7 flagella and 24 fibrils that form a tight bundle enveloped by a glycoprotein sheath.... the flagella of MO-1 must rotate individually, and yet the entire bundle functions as a unit to comprise a motility organelle." To feel the Wow! factor, jump ahead to Figure 6 in the paper. It shows seven engines in one, arranged in a hexagonal array, stylized by the authors in a cross-sectional model that shows them all as gears interacting with 24 smaller gears between them. The flagella rotate one way, and the smaller gears rotate the opposite way to maximize torque while minimizing friction. Download the movie from the Supplemental Information page to see the gears in action. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/12/souped-up_flage066921.html
bornagain77
June 4, 2013
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Molecular Machines and the Problematic RNA World - Casey Luskin May 20, 2013 Excerpt: Now I've just received a copy of a wonderful 2011 Cambridge University Press book, Molecular Machines in Biology: Workshop of the Cell, that contains additional insightful language about molecular machines. In the Introduction, the book's editor, Joachim Frank of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columba University, gives a nice explanation of why we call them molecular machines: "Molecular Machines as a concept existed well before Bruce Alberts' (1998) programmatic essay in the journal Cell, but his article certainly helped in popularizing the term, and in firing up the imagination of students and young scientists equipped with new tools that aim to probe and depict the dynamic nature of the events that constitute life at the most fundamental level. "Machine" is useful as a concept because molecular assemblies in this category share important properties with their macroscopic counterparts, such as processivity, localized interactions, and the fact that they perform work toward making a defined product. The concept stands in sharp contrast to the long-held view of the cell as a sack, or compendium of sacks, in which molecules engage and disengage one another more or less randomly. (p. 1) http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/05/molecular_machi_2072311.htmlbornagain77
June 4, 2013
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Joealtle, you made thess specific claims: "that random collisions and random diffusion gets the large majority of biomolecules where they need to go.,,," "The cell is not as ordered and seemingly designed as you guys might have us think. In reality its a mess of things going on all at once." Yet Bruce Alberts, current Editor-in-Chief of Science who was the president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2005, states to the contrary of your belief,,
Glycolysis and the Citric Acid Cycle: The Control of Proteins and Pathways – Cornelius Hunter – July 2011 Excerpt: “We have always underestimated cells. Undoubtedly we still do today. But at least we are no longer as naive as we were when I was a graduate student in the 1960s. Then, most of us viewed cells as containing a giant set of second-order reactions: molecules A and B were thought to diffuse freely, randomly colliding with each other to produce molecule AB—and likewise for the many other molecules that interact with each other inside a cell. This seemed reasonable because, as we had learned from studying physical chemistry, motions at the scale of molecules are incredibly rapid. … But, as it turns out, we can walk and we can talk because the chemistry that makes life possible is much more elaborate and sophisticated than anything we students had ever considered. Proteins make up most of the dry mass of a cell. But instead of a cell dominated by randomly colliding individual protein molecules, we now know that nearly every major process in a cell is carried out by assemblies of 10 or more protein molecules. And, as it carries out its biological functions, each of these protein assemblies interacts with several other large complexes of proteins. Indeed, the entire cell can be viewed as a factory that contains an elaborate network of interlocking assembly lines, each of which is composed of a set of large protein machines,,, Bruce Alberts - Editor-in-Chief of Science - was the president of the National Academy of Sciences from 1993 to 2005 “The Cell as a Collection of Protein Machines: Preparing the Next Generation of Molecular Biologists,” Cell 92 (1998): 291-294. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2011/07/glycolysis-and-citric-acid-cycle.html
So Joealtle, do you think I ought to take the Editor-in-Chief of Science, Bruce Alberts', word for what is happening in the cell or do you really think that I should put any stock whatsoever in what you have been saying? ,, If you really think I should put any trust in what you, a atheist, are saying, then your opinion of yourself is far out of proportion with the evidence on the table.bornagain77
June 4, 2013
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Thank you Jokealtle, I quite enjoy your false accusations, cowardly innuendos and total inability to support your position. (equivocation isn't support)Joe
June 4, 2013
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Thank you joe and barb, I quite enjoy you guys saying the same things over and over again without any scientific knowledge on the subject while ignoring points you cant rebut. Its been a fun ride. CyaJoealtle
June 4, 2013
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