666...the Devils Moving Average

Quote from stu:

dark... a charming and inspiring piece of biblical enlightenment, perhaps one theists would choose as particularly suitable for a nation's children at the breakfast table :D
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Interesting and enlightening dodge. Why don't you instead cite the scientific and superior human logic to refute that statement.
 
Last night I had a very long talk with God.......we walked along the forest edge and talked of many things, but as he was leaving he asked me to pass a message on to all the atheists and believers......" LET IT GO ALREADY"!!!!!:p
 

Just where in his paper DID Morowitz say this ??
Morowitz's Energy Flow in Biology was a work which established a fact to do with the effects of maximized entropy on a chemical system and had nothing to do with the odds against life origination.


Hey, I was actually minding my own business working on some trading, relaxing and you had to go and give me a small text book! :D

It’s not a paper but a book. I have it listed in several independent sources. Here is one where the page number, etc. is cited:

Morowitz, Harold J., Energy Flow in Biology (Academic Press, New York, 1968), p. 99.

Now, don’t ask me to scan in the page: I don’t own the book! :D
 

Harold Morowitz:
It is always possible to argue that "any unique event would have occurred" but "this is outside the range of probabilistic considerations and, really, outside of science."

And again….

"Analysis of the metabolic chart makes it very likely that the first chemistry was the reductive citric acid cycle. You now have a source of those compounds to jump start the process - to get life started "

And again:...

"So that you have the core, based on the modern metabolic chart, of the pathways to make everything you need to be a cell. And now we can get a number of these reactions to go without enzymes."

Morowitz's Arkansas Court Testament:...

"In general in the creation science literature, they start out by assuming, by making statements about the complexity of living systems. These will generally be fairly accurate statements about the complexity of living systems.

They then proceed on the basis of probabilistic calculations to ask, what is the probability that such a complex system will come about by random. When you do that, you get a vanishingly small probability, and they then assert that therefore life by natural processes is impossible.

But the fact of the matter is, we do not know the processes by which life has come about in detail. To do the probabilistic calculations, we would have to know all the kinetic and mechanistic details by which the processes have come about, and, therefore, we would then be able to do the calculations. We are simply lacking the information to do the calculations now, so to present them on the basis of the random model is somewhat deceptive

......they play rather fast and loose with the use of the second law of thermodynamics to indicate that the natural origin of life would not be possible. "


I never said, nor meant to say in any way, that Morowitz did not believe that life could form by random chances. What I said was that the gave up on RNA/DNA processes for that! Morowitz called himself a "scientific mystic" and spent the last part of his life at the Santa Fe Institutue in the hopes of finding some new alternative pathway.

Again, my point is that the "best and brighest" minds have absolutely no idea how such an event could occur.

Morowitz also admitted by the way that he origin of life had to occur within 100 million years or less! Again, this is imho a ridiculously short period of time to put together something as incredibly complex as a living cell/organism.
 

But these are laboratory conditions !!! The Universe as a laboratory has infinitely more forces and (yet) unknown phenomena about itself. It is has been impossible to emulate the sun's power or to create precious elements at will in the scientists' laboratory. If time is one ingredient which is essential for 'Prebiotic soup experiments' then they will be buggered from the get go. Billions of years is a long time to be hanging around to see if you can kick start life. A way around that complication is needed but "Prebiotic soup experiments" do not negate self-replicating proteins as creationists would have them do.



Listen to what you are doing: you are invoking "strange forces and unknown phenomenon" to help explain these incredibly low probablility events. Here's the point: you invoke materialistic physical processes to explain these ultra low probability events. I attribut them to God. Neither assumption is more rational or irrational than the other at this point in time. Both have merit.
 

At temperatures over 1,000 °C. (water boils@ 100 °C in the laboratory), and at 1.5 miles deep under what should be intolerable pressures for any life form to exist (including primitive bacteria), "a LIVING HELL for even the most primitive of life" The 'science community' was astonished to find abundant and unusual life on the sea floor, thriving in impossibly hostile conditions next to hot water vents.

But what would not be so incredible, is the idea that in early earth history, life would be unaffected from "AT LEAST 30" of your life exterminating impacts" in same or similar circumstances.


Sorry but this is all avoidance (and I'm not saying you're doing it deliberately) of what I am saying. I am not trying to force you to say, "Okay, SSB, you're right. This had to have been done supernaturally."

Here's what I am saying: nothing is going right for the Origin of Life researchers. They have the WORST imaginable conditions in the early earth for the creation of life by mechanistic processes: meteors, comets, asteroids, an oxidizing atmosphere and an EXTREMELY short time span.

You can argue with me if you want about little details, but that does not change the overlying facts. There is no way currently to explain how this could possibly happen by any known process in this short of a time frame. In fact, I will go so far as to say it is IMPOSSIBLE to occur by any known process.

I know there are things that creationists do that drive you crazy, but the above is a perfect example of a non-theist doing the same thing.

You take something that is impossible at this time and then pretend that everything is okay and that you know exactly what is going on.

By doing this you are alienating the very people you are trying to reach. If you wonder why theists do not trust science, it is because of this attitude. Example: why can't science just admit it has no (or at best EXTREMELY few) decent transitional fossils and put it in the text books?

I love science and many things, like relativity, have lots of strong evidence behind them. But why pretend you have a good situation when you don't? What can be gained from this except to alienate?
 
"Sorry but this is all avoidance (and I'm not saying you're doing it deliberately) of what I am saying. I am not trying to force you to say, "Okay, SSB, you're right. This had to have been done supernaturally." "

Stu was not attempting to avoid anything here.
He was giving you an example of how life can SURPRISE
us and pop up in the most unimaginable areas.

He also is showing where your flaw is again by using an analogy.
If a creationist had not known of life living in these extremely
hot areas, he may very well have claimed that the probability
was 1 in 1,000,000,000,000.

But we have observed life emerge in some of the most inhospitable of places.


"Here's what I am saying: nothing is going right for the Origin of Life researchers. They have the WORST imaginable conditions in the early earth for the creation of life by mechanistic processes: meteors, comets, asteroids, an oxidizing atmosphere and an EXTREMELY short time span."

Your claim of short contradicts reality. It's an opinion.
Who are you to say this is short?
Life in fact did emerge within your time limits.
Maybe this is a LONG time for life to emerge?
We don't know, do we?


"You can argue with me if you want about little details, but that does not change the overlying facts. There is no way currently to explain how this could possibly happen by any known process in this short of a time frame. "

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Fact is, IT HAPPENED. We just haven't figured out how.
Should scientists immediately make up supernatural claims
every time they cant explain something YET?
Or is the more reasonable approach to say, "I don't know",
and keep looking?

If we just make up a supernatural explanation like primitive
man did, there would be less reason to continue researching it,
since we already have our answer. Bad bad idea.



" In fact, I will go so far as to say it is IMPOSSIBLE to occur by any known process."

Now THAT is a blatant assertion you have NO WAY of backing up.
Very dangerous asserting "impossible" in a debate.
Better retract this :D
How are you going to prove it's impossible without an exhaustive
search of ALL POSSIBLE methods in the universe? :)


"You take something that is impossible at this time and then pretend that everything is okay and that you know exactly what is going on."

What is impossible? That which already has occurred? I think not.


"By doing this you are alienating the very people you are trying to reach. If you wonder why theists do not trust science, it is because of this attitude. Example: why can't science just admit it has no (or at best EXTREMELY few) decent transitional fossils and put it in the text books? "

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-transitional.html


"I love science and many things, like relativity, have lots of strong evidence behind them. But why pretend you have a good situation when you don't? What can be gained from this except to alienate? "


Compared to ID, I think the scientists have an extremely strong case, by any measure.


It strikes me as odd that this is even debated.
Scientists can produce lots of data, lab experiments, etc.
What can the ID guys produce? Just words and attacks.

Isn't funny how the ID guys spend most of their time attacking
science instead of supporting their position??

Attacking science IN NO WAY constitutes evidence for the
ID hypothesis. So what IS the evidence for ID?

Still waiting for the tiniest of shreds. Until then.... there really
isn't much to argue over. ID without a tiny spec of evidence
is nothing more than a statement.

I might as well claim unicorns created life in the universe.
I have just as much support for this. ( aka none ).


If you truly believe science has NADA on how life came about
in the universe, and you do not have any other theories
with supporting evidence, then the only rational choice
left is agnosticism. Just say you don't know, and get it over with :)

peace

axeman
 
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