On the Origin of Life (draft 1)
david ford
Suppose we play the game Let's Find the Atom. I label an atom, and you
look at atoms at a rate of one per second. How long would you have to
search to have a 95% probability of locating the labeled atom? (Only
10^17 seconds have passed since the big bang, and there are about 10^80
_atoms_ in the visible/ currently-observable universe.)
About the known blind/ non-intelligence-directed processes said to
exist, can any of them give rise to:
A spherical ball having a uniformly-identical radius of 1 meter, and
consisting of only metal, starting with 1,000 burning stars?
A functional refrigerator, or a functional car, starting with the
non-man-refashioned material on and within the earth?
A functional watch starting with the parts of a once-functional watch
that has been taken apart down to its individual watch-part-component parts?
A functional watch, starting with the pieces of a once-functional watch
that has been cut up into 200 pieces of equal weight?
A functional mousetrap, starting with the components of a mousetrap
separated from each other by a least 1 millimeter?
A functional biological lifeform, starting with non-living matter?
(below is some straying from the origin of life question)
A fruit fly population, starting with a bacterium?
A dragonfly population, starting with a fruit fly population?
A human population, starting with a dragonfly population?
A magazine's worth of arrangements of Roman letters conveying meaning,
starting with a massive bowl of alphabet cereal soup?
The encoded-in-DNA/ genetic instructions coding for:
an _E. coli_ bacterium, starting with non-living matter?
a human, starting with an _E. coli_ bacterium population?
A living bacterium, starting with the pieces of a once-living bacteria
that has been cut up into 2,500 pieces of equal weight?
The first biological lifeform, starting from non-living matter?
For which if any of the above scenarios could we say "totallyblind
processes couldhave didit"?
Suppose I take my watch apart using a screwdriver, teasing apart each of
the elements that constitute the watch. Within the following
circumstances, about how many seconds will it take for a 95% probability
of the watch coming back together and working?:
the pieces sit in a box that I bury: _____ seconds
the pieces are placed into a box that a machine then jiggles around:
_____ seconds
the pieces are placed into a sealed, water-filled container that a
machine then jiggles around: _____ seconds
With jiggling, which will occur first: the pieces come together to form
a functional watch, or the pieces turn into dust?
Suppose I take a living cell apart, teasing apart each of those
components of the cell I can see using a 10,000 power microscope. How
many seconds will it take for the cell to come back together and become
a living cell, and what would be the circumstances under which such
occurred?
Suppose I grind a living cell up into its constituent atoms. How many
seconds will it take for a 95% probability of the cell pieces coming
back together and becoming a living cell, and what would be the
circumstances under which such occurred?
Do you believe that starting with simply physics, life can come from
non-life? If "yes":
Suppose you had the opportunity to sit down and talk with British
philosopher and ex-atheist Antony Flew about the origin of life
question. What lines of evidence and arguments would you present to
Flew as part of your case that spontaneous generation is possible?
Would you tell Flew that the early earth's atmosphere was actually _not_
highly-reducing, and would you spell out the practical consequences of
that fact?
Would you share with Flew what Davies recently learned about the state
of the origin of life question from researchers in the field, namely
[Davies]"investigators feel uneasy about stating in public that the
origin of life is a mystery, even though behind closed doors they freely
admit they are baffled"?
Davies, National Academy of Sciences, Dawkins, Feynman
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990511230015.1040149B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
In your discussion with Flew, how would you account for the origin of
the meaning-laden genetically-encoded information present in the first
biological lifeform?
1985 A.G. Cairns-Smith; How did recorded-in-DNA/ genetic information
originate?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-32gv43F3jsrelU1%40individual.net
How does a seeingwatchmakingist account for the origin of
the recorded-in-DNA/ genetic information within:
a human? a bacterium? the first biological lifeform?
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-348nj6F47evohU1%40individual.net
/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Bateson, William. 1915. "Heredity" _Annual Report of the
Smithsonian Institution, 1915_, 359-394. On 375:
....when we hear the spontaneous formation
of formaldehyde mentioned as a possible first
step in the origin of life we think of Harry Lauder in the
character of a Glasgow schoolboy pulling out his
treasures from his pocket-- "That's a wassher-- for
makkin' motor cars."
Because matter-energy began to exist, consequently the world of biology
began to exist. The input of mind/intelligence was needed for the first
biological lifeform to originate. Human intelligence/ mind has not yet
been able to create life from non-living matter; consequently, the
mind/intelligence responsible for the creation of the first biological
lifeform was more brilliant than humankind's most brilliant biochemists
of today.
In his book _Darwin's Black Box_, biochemist and creationist Michael J.
Behe uses the analogy of a 1000 lane highway with busy traffic that must
be crossed to illustrate the formation of life from non-life.
Biochemists and chemists set up physically unrealistic/ implausible
conditions, and send thousands of candidates across. Some make it to
lane 2. Even fewer make it to lane 3. And none can be found to have
crossed to lane 4. They got run over by the traffic.
Then, in a valiant effort at trying to show that life can spontaneously
generate, the biochemists and chemists helicopter candidates to lane
700. They purposefully mix up some nucleotides and put them together,
or do other things whose occurrence requires much intelligence. Of
their attempts, even with the highly contrived conditions, only a few
make it to lane 701. Fewer still can be found to have crossed to lane
702. And none can be found to have gotten to lane 703. This is the
case with a reported peptide catalyzing its own formation. The
fragments that were joined were manufactured using human intelligence,
and who knows what for other intelligence went into making this peptide
supposedly make copies of itself.
Behe makes another excellent analogy. Imagine a person alleged that a
cake could be formed via totally-mindless processes. If he were to put
some sugar cane, wheat, and cocoa plants near a hot spring, then we
would have no problem with that. If, however, he got refined sugar,
cocoa, and flour at the store, we would get a little suspicious. If he
placed things in an oven to "speed things up," we would start shaking
our heads. And when he carefully measured out the components, mixed
them, placed the mix in a pan, and put it in the oven, we would walk
out. He claimed totally-mindless processes could result in a cake
originating, and then he put a whole lot of intelligence into the making
of the cake, which is not anywhere close to a cake appearing by
totally-mindless processes. Humans can make cakes. They cannot yet
make life. If scientists do produce life in the lab, that will only
show that intelligence was needed for the origination of biological
life.[Behe, 169]
In the Miller-Urey sparking apparatus experiments, the experimenters
intervened in protecting the amino acids formed from destruction by the
same electricity that formed them, and they had continuous sparking for
several days. This is not "leaving the lab alone for a while," but
rather an (unsuccessful) unrealistic attempt at creating life through an
input of intelligence. Even then, nothing even close to life was made.
In the controlled environment of a laboratory, humans can make it so
that any life forms that spontaneously generate do not get eaten up by
existing life forms.
Thought/ mind isn't required _any more_ for existing life to fabricate
copies of itself, but that doesn't mean that mind wasn't required in the
first place for the origination of the first biological lifeform. For
example, I used to use the software Pine to post to newsgroups. I
didn't have to expend much thought in getting at newsgroups, for the
computer programmers that wrote the software took care of all that with
the programs they made and that I used, blissfully unaware of the
complexity lurking behind every keystroke pressed that took me where I
wanted to go. Just because not much thought is required any more, that
does not mean that no intelligence/ mind was required to make the
software in the first place.
The much-ballyhooed Miller-Urey experiments of the 1950s used a
highly-reducing atmosphere, and even then, did not produce some of the
required amino acids. Not-highly-reducing atmospheres tremendously slow
down production of amino acids.
In all probability, the fabled primordial organic soup never existed.
To set the record straight, the early atmosphere was not highly-reducing
as has often been claimed. Instead of being predominantly composed of
methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2), it was made up of
carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen (N2), and carbon monoxide (CO), with
insignificant quantities of ammonia, hydrogen, methane, and hydrogen
sulfide (H2S).[Beck, Liem, and Simpson, 1177. See also Johnson (1993),
105, and Ross, 139]
The early earth's atmosphere was _not_ highly-reducing, as is required
if one is to get anywhere close to a reasonable number and variety of
amino acids. Instead, the atmosphere was for the most part nitrogen,
carbon monoxide, and carbon dioxide, with volcanoes spewing out CO2 and
N.[Naeye, 41. For volcanoes, see Horgan, 121. See also Shapiro,
111-112, Rana & Ross, 99-100] With such an atmosphere, experimenters
report getting only glycine. With some reactions, one can obtain an
additional 4 amino acids, but then that's it.[Schlesinger & Miller, 381]
Regarding the amount of time available for spontaneous generation,
Manfred Schidlowski of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry reports
from studying carbon 12 and carbon 13 isotopes that he's found, in the
words of his article's title, "A 3,800-million-year isotopic record of
life from carbon in sedimentary rocks."[_Nature_ 333: 313-318 (1988)]
That's on the lower end.
At the upper end, it's reported in _Nature_ 342: 139-42 (1989) that
early earth suffered much bombardment by asteroids, bombardments that
may have sterilized the earth, with the latest sterilizing bombardment
most likely occurring 3.8 billion years ago. (For something not
requiring light, i.e., living near an ocean vent, it could have survived
as early as 4.44 bya.)
So, in the words of Christopher Chyba and Carl Sagan, "The terrestrial
origins of life must therefore have coincided with the final stages of
the heavy bombardment of the inner Solar System...."[_Nature_ 355:
125-132 (1992), 125] In short, proponents of spontaneous generation
have extremely little, if any, time for their non-existent nucleotides
and amino acids to happen to come together to form life.
The important point to keep in mind is not just that there was no
primordial pond oozing with amino acids and nucleotides-- remember that
destructive processes would have been at work at least as much as
constructive processes, and the atmosphere was not highly-reducing-- but
that even with the existence of such a pond, the formation of life by
mindless processes from it is essentially zero.
According to _Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary_, 10th ed.,
"chance" is defined as 1a: "something that happens unpredictably
without discernable human intention or observable cause," and 1b: "the
assumed impersonal purposeless determiner of unaccountable happenings:
LUCK."
If one adheres to materialism, one does not believe that an immaterial,
superior intellect exists, nor that such a superintellect created
biological life. According to materialism, life must have arisen by
chance, i.e., life arose apart from any intelligent entity's "intention"
to create life, i.e., life arose in an "impersonal purposeless" manner.
Now we could follow materialist Francis Crick of double helix fame and
propose that life arrived on earth with the assistance of aliens:
To avoid damage, the microorganisms are supposed to have
traveled in the head of an unmanned spaceship sent to Earth
by a higher civilization which had developed elsewhere some
billions of years ago. The spaceship was unmanned so that
its range would be as great as possible. Life started here
when these organisms were dropped into the primitive oceans
and began to multiply....[as quoted in Hoyle, 159]
However, the question would then become "Where did those aliens come
from?" Replying "other aliens" demonstrates the infinite regress gotten
with this line of thought, and this infinite regress cannot go on
forever, since the universe is at most only 20 billion years old.
The choice is clear: either intelligence/mind was at least in part
behind the origination of the first biological lifeform, or life
(whether ours or the purported aliens' or their progenitors, etc.) arose
by non-intelligence-directed-at-any-level processes.
Fred Hoyle rejects the big bang model, not because of a lack of evidence
for it-- ironically, he actually put together some of the evidence
supporting the model-- but in part because he knows from ten years of
studying biochemistry that 20 billion years is fantastically too short
to produce anything like the complexity seen in biology:
Lightman, Alan and Roberta Brawer. 1990. _Origins: The
Lives and Worlds of Modern Cosmologists_ (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Harvard University Press), 563pp., Hoyle
section on 51-66. Material on 59-60:
"But today, I do have rather strong feelings that I don't
think the big bang is right. I happen to get those views
from something that hardly anybody else believes. I just
don't think that the huge complexities of biology could
have evolved in a mere 10^18 grams of material on the
earth. (The biosphere of the earth is 10^18 grams.) I don't
think that chemical evolution on the earth could possibly
have produced the biological system. I think this has to be
considered as a cosmological issue."
"You think it requires more than the Hubble time to
produce the biology we see? We need more time than the
big bang gives us?" "Yes. That's right." "When did you
develop this idea?" "Most of the last 10 years I've spent
reading technical biology. It's come as a result of
understanding the complexity of enzymes and all the rest
of the biochemistry that is involved."
To illustrate the improbability of chance _protein_ formation-- not
including the also necessary DNA and RNA-- and they are necessary, since
all three components have to be there for the highly-interdependent
system to work-- Hoyle uses the analogy of the chances that a junkyard
having the debris of a Boeing 747 would, after a tornado had passed
through, contain a plane capable of flight to convey the chances he
calculated that a usable set of enzymes for a bacterium could be formed
by chance, specifically, 1 in 10^40,000 (or 1 followed by 40,000
zeros).[Hoyle, 17, 19]
Hoyle, Fred. 1983. _The Intelligent Universe_ (NY: Holt, Rinehart
and Winston), 256pp. On 18-19, the section "The idea of the
primordial soup":
The popular idea that life could have arisen spontaneously on
Earth dates back to experiments that caught the public
imagination earlier this century. If you stir up simple
non-organic molecules like water, ammonia, methane, carbon
dioxide and hydrogen cyanide with almost any form of intense
energy, ultraviolet light for instance, some of the molecules
reassemble themselves into amino acids, a result demonstrated
about thirty years ago by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey. The
amino acids, the individual building blocks of proteins can
therefore be produced by natural means. But this is far from
proving that life could have evolved in this way. No one has
shown that the correct arrangements of amino acids, like the
orderings in enzymes, can be produced by this method. No
evidence for this huge jump in complexity has ever been found,
nor in my opinion will it be. Nevertheless, many scientists have
made this leap-- from the formation of individual amino acids to
the random formation of whole chains of amino acids like
enzymes-- in spite of the obviously huge odds against such an
event having ever taken place on the Earth, and this quite
unjustified conclusion has stuck.
In a popular lecture I once unflatteringly described the thinking
of these scientists as a "junkyard mentality". Since this
reference became widely and not quite accurately quoted I will
repeat it here. A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a
Boeing 747, dismembered in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow
through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a
fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there?
So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow
through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.
To vaguely give you an idea of the odds of 1 in 10^40,000, 10^17 seconds
have gone by since the big bang, and there are 10^80 atoms in the
visible/ currently-observable universe. In conveying the figure 1 part
in 10^37, astronomer and creationist Hugh Ross uses the analogy of the
chances of picking out, blindfolded, one red dime out of a billion piles
of silver dimes. "How big are the dime piles?" you ask. Each one
covers the area of North America and reaches to the moon.[Ross, 109]
Much worse odds than Hoyle's 1 in 10^40,000 are provided by physicist
Harold Morowitz, who figured the odds of an _entire_ bacterium
reassembling by chance whose every chemical bond had been broken (i.e.,
the bacterium is ground into its constituent atoms) as being 1 in
10^100,000,000,000.[Shapiro, 128] Twenty billion years is pitifully
inadequate for the mindless assembly of even the "simplest" forms of
life even if the entire visible cosmos consisted of a primordial soup;
if significantly less complex, they could not exist.[Ross, 140-1]
A virus is not a lifeform, but merely an encapsulated piece of DNA or
RNA, and it must use a living cell to request that copies of itself be
made. That's why Sagan says that viroids "have probably most recently
evolved from more complex organisms rather than from simpler ones."
Viroids "are composed of less than 10,000 atoms." Sagan adds that "the
smallest known free-living organisms are the PPLO (pleuropneumonia-like
organisms) and similar small beasts. They are composed of about 50
million atoms."[Sagan, _Cosmos_ (1980), 365pp., 39] I invite you to
attempt to come up with a description of an organism that would be alive
and survive on its own and that is simpler than these PPLO organisms.
Biological life is able to fabricate a reproduction of itself, which is
an extraordinarily complicated feat-- imagine if you had designed a
robot that could fabricate other robots-- and thus, it should come as no
surprise that:
life is extremely complicated and sophisticated, and this sophistication
is _essential_ to the feat of fabricating a copy of itself.
Cairns-Smith, A.G. 1985. _Seven Clues to the Origin of
Life: A Scientific Detective Story_ (Great Britain:
Cambridge University Press), 131pp. A paragraph on 22:
This is perhaps the most technical chapter in the book
(although it is not that bad). Some readers may want
just to skim it (or skip all but this page if they must),
taking on trust the main burden of argument that it
presents-- that the workings of all life on the Earth are
seen to be fabulously complex and sophisticated on the
molecular scale. Present-day organisms are manifestly
pieces of 'high technology', and what is more seem to be
necessarily so.
On 29, a sentence and three paragraphs:
An _E. coli_ just is a complicated machine too, and I
think that _any_ free-living nucleic-acid-based forms of
life would have to be.
Take just part of our system-- the automatic protein
synthesiser. Any such machinery, however it is made,
is surely going to be clever, complicated engineering;
because it is a complicated and difficult job that has
to be done.
Ask any organic chemist how long it takes to put
together a small protein, say one with 100 amino acids
in it. Or go and look up the recipe for such an operation
as it is written out in scientific journals. You will find
pages and pages of tightly written instructions, couched
in terms that assume your expertise in handling
laboratory apparatus and require you to use many rather
specialised and well-purified chemical reagents and
solvents. And the result of following such instructions?
If you are lucky a few thousandths of a gram of product
from kilograms of starting materials.
Or go and read all the details and examine the
engineering drawings for a laboratory machine that can
build protein chains automatically. (If you want to buy
one it will cost you more than a video-recorder.) You
will be impressed by how clever such machines are--
and not surprised that _E. coli_'s machine is clever too.
It would have to be, wouldn't it?
Rather than accepting the input of a non-material entity in the creation
of life, Hoyle proposes that the universe is infinitely old using a
jerry-rigged version of his discredited steady state theory and by
saying that life originated in space, since the earth is only 4.5
billion years old. He remarks,
We have seen that life could not have originated here on the
Earth. Nor does it look as though biological evolution can
be explained from within an Earthbound theory of life.
Genes from outside the Earth are needed to drive the
evolutionary process. This much can be consolidated by
strictly scientific means, by experiment, observation, and
calculation.[Hoyle, 242]
To reiterate, the idea of "genes from outside the Earth" leaves
unanswered the question of how those genes came into existence. Some
other people driven by the data to the idea that life must have
originated from elsewhere in the universe (acceptance of the input of a
superior non-material mind/intellect is unacceptable to them) include
Thomas Gold, Leslie Orgel, Chandra Wickramasinghe, and Swedish physicist
Svante Arrhenius, besides Crick and Hoyle.[Heeren, 183-4] Crick worked
with DNA for a long time. It is significant that this Nobel laureate
has to resort to little green men in a pathetic attempt to avoid the
evidence staring him in the face that a superintellect designed
biological life.
You might want to think that spontaneous generation occurred in the
hostile conditions of outer space. The universe is at most 20 billion
years, but you'll have to wait for heavier, life-essential elements to
form through star burning's nuclear fusion. I'll give you say 5 billion
years for spontaneous generation to occur in space making use of the
wastes of 2 generations of stars. You have 5 billion years to get life
from non-life in the exceedingly life-hostile environment of space.
Good luck.
Incidentally, Ross expects that life or remnants of life will be
discovered on Mars because Mars is close enough to earth that material
ejected by asteroid collisions could very easily have traveled
there.[Ross, 144-5]
RNA World
In discussing the idea of self-replicating RNA, a Feb. 1991 article in
_Scientific American_ notes that "RNA is difficult to synthesize...
[and] the molecule cannot easily generate copies of itself."[pg 118]
And this is assuming that the early atmosphere was highly reducing,
which it wasn't. Rebek's experiment, where he got something that's like
proteins and nucleic acids, was made using _highly_ contrived
conditions.[pg 120]
It is observed that "RNA and its components are difficult to synthesize
in a laboratory under the best of conditions...."[pg 119] One problem
is that in getting the requisite ribose, one also gets all kinds of
other material that stands in the way of RNA formation. Also, a key
component of RNA is phosphorous, which is pretty rare. Also, once the
scientist synthesizes RNA, it needs much outside, i.e., intelligent,
help so it can make copies of itself.
Joyce, Gerald F. 1989. "RNA evolution and the origins of life"
_Nature_ 338: 217-24. The last paragraph:
The transition to an RNA world, like the origins of life in
general, is fraught with uncertainty and is plagued by a lack of
relevant experimental data. Researchers into the origin of life
have grown accustomed to the level of frustration in these
problems. Perhaps it is time for a new group of scientists to join
in the frustration. The discovery of catalytic RNA and the
appreciation of the dual role of RNA as both genetic material and
catalyst have kindled new interest in the evolution of RNA and the
origins of life. It is time to go beyond talking about an RNA world
and begin to put the evolution of RNA in the context of the
chemistry that came before it and the biology that followed.
Clay
Pigliucci, Massimo. Sept-Oct 1999. "Where do we come from?: a humbling
look at the biology of life's origin" _Skeptical Inquirer_. From the
section "From Dust to Dust..." at
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_5_23/ai_55683967/pg_3
What is wrong with this picture? First of all,
Cairns-Smith seems to completely ignore what a
living organism is to begin with. For one thing....
Second.... Furthermore.... Moreover.... Another
colossal hole in the clay theory....
Two lines of evidence against the spontaneous generation hypothesis
a) theoretical considerations
2001 Gerald Schroeder, 1999 Paul Davies, 1992 Hubert Yockey, & 1968
Michael Polanyi: [Davies]"life cannot be 'written into' the laws of
physics" presently known
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-33b2blF3tdum0U1%40individual.net
on "order" and varieties of "complexity"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407211714.53153989%40posting.google.com
b) experiment results
1985 A.G. Cairns-Smith, 1986 Andrew Scott, 1999 Freeman Dyson
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-33bltcF3rgbovU1%40individual.net
some 1915-1999 doses of reality
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-33arf3F3vjdggU1%40individual.net
You take a highly-reducing atmosphere and zap it for a week using
electricity or heat. What do you get? You might get tar. You might
get some amino acids. Do you get life? No. This experiment has been
done many times in the lab. Did life ever appear? No. A question for
you: how many times does this experiment have to be done before you
concede that life cannot spontaneously appear in such a situation?
You take a non-highly-reducing atmosphere and zap it. What do you get?
You might get nothing. And you might get the amino acid glycine,
largely. After some reactions with the glycine, you get a few more
amino acids, and then that's it. With the small number of amino acids,
does life appear out of them? No.
Question: regarding experiments that take into consideration the fact
that the early earth's atmosphere was not highly-reducing, how many
times must those experiments be done and come up empty before you
concede that life does not spontaneously generate? Keep in mind that
protein by itself is not anywhere close to the highly-interdependent
DNA, RNA, protein system seen today.
Bibliography
Beck, William, Karel Liem, and George Gaylord
Simpson. 1991. _Life: An Introduction to Biology_,
3rd edition (NY: HarperCollins), 1361+pp.
Behe, Michael J. 1996. _Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical
Challenge to Evolution_ (NY: The Free Press), 307pp.
Cairns-Smith, A.G. 1985. _Seven Clues to the Origin
of Life: A Scientific Detective Story_ (Great Britain:
Cambridge University Press), 131pp.
Davies, Paul. 1999. _The Fifth Miracle: The Search for
the Origin and Meaning of Life_ (New York: Simon &
Schuster), 304pp.
Heeren, Fred. 1995. _Show Me God: What the
Message from Space is Telling Us About God_
(Wheeling, Illinois: Searchlight Publications), 336pp.
Horgan, John. February 1991. "In the Beginning..."
_Scientific American_, 117-125.
Hoyle, Fred. 1983. _The Intelligent Universe_ (NY:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston), 256pp.
Johnson, Phillip E. 1993. _Darwin on Trial_
(Illinois: InterVarsity Press), 220pp., 102-112.
Naeye, Robert. July 1996. "Okay, Where Are They?"
_Astronomy_, 38-43.
Rana, Fazale and Hugh Ross. 2004. _Origins of Life:
Biblical and Evolutionary Models Face Off_ (USA:
NavPress), 298pp.
Ross, Hugh. 1993, ____. _The Creator and the Cosmos:
How the Greatest Scientific Discoveries of the
Century Reveal God_ (Colorado Springs, CO:
NavPress Publishing Group), 185pp.
Schlesinger, Gordon and Stanley L. Miller. 1983.
"Prebiotic Synthesis in Atmospheres Containing
CH_4, CO, and CO_2: I. Amino Acids" _Journal
of Molecular Evolution_ 19: 376-382.
Shapiro, Robert. 1986. _Origins: A Skeptic's Guide to the
Creation of Life on Earth_ (Great Britain: Penguin
Books), 332pp.
Other Books and Reading
Broom, Neil. 2001. _How Blind Is the Watchmaker?:
Nature's Design & The Limits of Naturalistic Science_
(Illinois: InterVarsity Press), 224pp.
Davis, Percival, Dean H. Kenyon, Charles B. Thaxton. 1993.
_Of Pandas and People: The Central Question of Biological
Origins_ (Dallas, Texas: Haughton Publishing Company),
170pp., 41-58.
Denton, Michael. 1986. _Evolution: A Theory in
Crisis_ (USA: Adler & Adler), 368pp., 249-273.
Johnson, Phillip E. 1997. _Defeating Darwinism by
Opening Minds_ (Illinois: InterVarsity Press), 131pp.
Johnson, Phillip E. 2000. _The Wedge of Truth: Splitting the
Foundations of Naturalism_ (Illinois: InterVarsity Press),
191pp.
Timeline of Materialism, Spontaneous Generation, and Blindwatchmaking Views
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-348jecF47mfcjU1%40individual.net
phrase "spontaneous generation" used by Haeckel, Wald, Barrow & Tipler,
and Dawkins
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0408230552.47df9705%40posting.google.com
Intelligence isn't needed to account for this "engine"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-b1c67abe.0503101041.2bfdea1a%40posting.google.com
To all IDiots: simply collect the dirt and look in the box
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0407281853.53226b90%40posting.google.com
Belief in spontaneous generation, blindwatchmaking, and mental
spoon-bending is scientific; 1933 Engels
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=b1c67abe.0401291120.41a6d843%40posting.google.com
1983 Russell F. Doolittle on origin of life on earth: developed in
stages/evolved; 1959 Julian Huxley: "all aspects of reality are subject
to evolution"
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.95.970802094315.27893C-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
1984 Dean Kenyon
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-34j9b2F4a5gioU1%40individual.net
summary of portion of 1954 George Wald article on spontaneous generation
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.LNX.4.44L.01.0310021326030.23080-100000%40linux3.gl.umbc.edu
Joyce, Wald, Simpson, Dose, about Thaxton (a creationist)
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990811214247.4395286C-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
Gould, Davies, Yockey, Thaxton (a creationist)
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990510174524.238430A-100000%40umbc8.umbc.edu
Davies, National Academy of Sciences, Dawkins, Feynman
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.3.96A.990511230015.1040149B-100000%40umbc9.umbc.edu
Julie T. (a creationist) on an irrelevant "abiogenesis" paper
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=7kh4g1%244jn%241%40alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu
Hoyle was an intelligent design person
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=Pine.SGI.4.21L.01.0008260947160.377959-100000%40irix1.gl.umbc.edu
Reality vs. worldview philosophy of materialism
http://groups.google.co.in/groups?selm=dford3-3813ksF5ggkc3U1%40individual.net
aka
http://tinyurl.com/4glkm
Tracy Hamilton
"david ford" <dfo...@gl.umbc.edu> wrote in message
news:dford3-39oh...@individual.net...
> Some questions precede the general essay.
>
> Suppose we play the game Let's Find the Atom. I label an atom, and you
> look at atoms at a rate of one per second. How long would you have to
> search to have a 95% probability of locating the labeled atom? (Only
> 10^17 seconds have passed since the big bang, and there are about 10^80
> _atoms_ in the visible/ currently-observable universe.)
Irrelevant exercise to origin of life.
[snip more irrelevant questions]
This essay is not looking very promising so far...
[Probability of]
> A functional biological lifeform, starting with non-living matter?
That would depend on the conditions. On the surface of the sun, for forming
the biological organisms of the kind on earth, I can safely say zero.
This is merely an illustration why your rhetorical questions are
ineffective.
> (below is some straying from the origin of life question)
[snipped]
No kidding!
> Suppose I take a living cell apart, teasing apart each of those
> components of the cell I can see using a 10,000 power microscope. How
> many seconds will it take for the cell to come back together and become
> a living cell, and what would be the circumstances under which such
> occurred?
The chances of that are effectively zero. But then, cells never were
proposed to come together in such a way as to be the reverse of the
way you unmade them.
Making the probability calculation irrelevant.
[snip more of the same]
> Do you believe that starting with simply physics, life can come from
> non-life? If "yes":
> Suppose you had the opportunity to sit down and talk with British
> philosopher and ex-atheist Antony Flew about the origin of life
> question. What lines of evidence and arguments would you present to
> Flew as part of your case that spontaneous generation is possible?
> Would you tell Flew that the early earth's atmosphere was actually _not_
> highly-reducing, and would you spell out the practical consequences of
> that fact?
I would tell him to ignore irrelevant calculations of probabilities.
I would ask him why a calculation probability technique that would
give the same answer for "highly-reducing" and "mildly-reducing" tells
you anything of value, or is just GIGO.
I would also tell him to ignore quotes from rather old literature that have
subsequently been answered, and intentionally incomplete presentations
that have the same. Like the following...
[snip]
> Bateson, William. 1915. "Heredity" _Annual Report of the
> Smithsonian Institution, 1915_, 359-394. On 375:
> ....when we hear the spontaneous formation
> of formaldehyde mentioned as a possible first
> step in the origin of life we think of Harry Lauder in the
> character of a Glasgow schoolboy pulling out his
> treasures from his pocket-- "That's a wassher-- for
> makkin' motor cars."
What do you think Bateson is saying here, and have subsequent experiments
provided the answer? Think of this as a reading comprehension test,
followed
by logical reasoning based on familiarity with recent literature.
In other words, do you have what it takes to write a good essay?
Tracy P. Hamilton
Neil W Rickert
[lots of snippage in this response. I have quoted only the parts to
which I have directly responded]
>Suppose I grind a living cell up into its constituent atoms. How many
>seconds will it take for a 95% probability of the cell pieces coming
>back together and becoming a living cell, and what would be the
>circumstances under which such occurred?
What's your point. The problem you pose did not need to be solved.
Nor any of the other (snipped) impossible problems.
If your point was to demonstrate that you are ignorant, and
thoroughly misunderstand the theory of evolution, then I guess you
were successful at that.
>Do you believe that starting with simply physics, life can come from
>non-life?
No. Life can start from matter. Whether or not a science of physics
had been developed is irrelevant. Whether or not today's physics
correctly describes matter is also irrelevant. Life started from
what was there, not from what we choose to say was there.
> If "yes":
>Suppose you had the opportunity to sit down and talk with British
>philosopher and ex-atheist Antony Flew about the origin of life
>question.
Why should I want to talk to Flew? What little of his work that I
have read did not impress me. So it did not surprise me to hear that
he had been misled into a faulty judgement.
> What lines of evidence and arguments would you present to
>Flew as part of your case that spontaneous generation is possible?
There is at present no way of proving that it is possible, nor of
proving that it is impossible. Why waste time on an unproductive
argument? Moreover, there is currently no way of ruling out
panspermia.
Perhaps in future eras there will be better knowledge of other
planets in other solar systems, and of the circumstances in which we
find planets with living things. Until we have such evidence, it is
all speculation.
>In your discussion with Flew, how would you account for the origin of
>the meaning-laden genetically-encoded information present in the first
>biological lifeform?
Why should we assume that DNA or RNA spontaneously self-created? It
seems to me that it might have evolved from some simpler proto-life
system that did not depend on our current genetic codes.
>Because matter-energy began to exist, consequently the world of biology
>began to exist.
I keep an open mind on whether matter-enery began to exist. Perhaps
it always existed.
> The input of mind/intelligence was needed for the first
>biological lifeform to originate.
Unwarranted jumping to conclusions.
>In his book _Darwin's Black Box_, biochemist and creationist Michael J.
>Behe uses the analogy of a 1000 lane highway with busy traffic that must
>be crossed to illustrate the formation of life from non-life.
Why should anybody take Behe seriously, given his mistakes of
judgement?
>Thought/ mind isn't required _any more_ for existing life to fabricate
>copies of itself, but that doesn't mean that mind wasn't required in the
>first place for the origination of the first biological lifeform.
It doesn't mean that it was required either. Why these strawman
arguments?
> For
>example, I used to use the software Pine to post to newsgroups.
My sympathies. I hope you have now found a more competent
newsreader.
> I
>didn't have to expend much thought in getting at newsgroups, for the
>computer programmers that wrote the software took care of all that with
>the programs they made and that I used, blissfully unaware of the
>complexity lurking behind every keystroke pressed that took me where I
>wanted to go.
Those of us involved with software are not impressed by such
arguments.
>If one adheres to materialism, one does not believe that an immaterial,
>superior intellect exists, nor that such a superintellect created
>biological life.
Whether or not a superintellect was involved is irrelevant to
science. Science is about what can be observed, not about that which
cannot be observed.
>Fred Hoyle rejects the big bang model, not because of a lack of evidence
>for it-- ironically, he actually put together some of the evidence
>supporting the model-- but in part because he knows from ten years of
>studying biochemistry that 20 billion years is fantastically too short
>to produce anything like the complexity seen in biology:
Hoyle's opposition to BB is older than his investigations of
biochemistry.
>To reiterate, the idea of "genes from outside the Earth" leaves
>unanswered the question of how those genes came into existence.
However, it could make the question less important.
------------
Why does Ford waste so much effort on this? All he appears to be
arguing for, is the kind of deism that most people will admit cannot
be ruled out. So much effort, so many bogus arguments, all to
establish so little.
Pithecanthropus Erectus
>
> Why does Ford waste so much effort on this? All he appears to be
> arguing for, is the kind of deism that most people will admit cannot
> be ruled out. So much effort, so many bogus arguments, all to
> establish so little.
>
In his case, we see a demonstration that no new information is added no
matter how many times it is copied.
Scooter the Mighty
<snip>
I think all after-the-fact attempts to calculate the probability of
something happening that in fact already happened are bogus.
Shuffle 20 decks of cards together, and deal them all out. What are
the chances of the cards coming out in exactly whatever order you got?
How do you explain that?
Carl Melander
you use. Although my eyes are about ready to bleed, I will take the
time to put forth a couple of responses. Theists often like to use the
plane in the junkyard, ground up cell and (my favorite) Watch maker
analogies, but the bottom line is that you are misrepresenting
evolution. (I apologize in advance for any repetition of other authors
on this topic).
We all know a little about physical laws and how entropy works. Yes,
if you take apart a plane and throw a tornado at the plane, it will not
form back together. This is because the plane is not in the natural
state of the matter of which it's composed. Second, if ground up a
cell and set it in a liquid, it would not come back together. This is
true, you've disrupted the cell and it is not the function of the
cell to reform. You've stop it from working.
I'm going to present you with a simple system of which most of us,
which have graduated high school, have come across to make my point on
this. Hydrolysis of water is comprised of three systems. If you pass
electrical energy through a solution of ( NaCl- + 2H20) you will break
apart the bond of water into H2 and 02. If you apply energy in the form
of fire it will cause the H2 and 02 to bond to form water and release
energy in the form of heat. (I might be a little off in formula, please
forgive)
At this point the Theists will point out entropy and how the system
will run out of energy and thus prove my point, for the lack of a
better word, pointless. The Theists forget though, that the Earth is
not a closed system, but is an open system because of the outside
influences of the sun.
The final objection I have is with the authors god-centered idea of a
*spark of life* (Soul). It doesn't give you any authority when you
separate your concept of god with the god of bible of which you are
obviously talking about. I don't blame you for not wanting to bring
the bible into the discussion. We all know the bible is riddled with
contractions to the science of which you are trying to prove your
theories with. You can make you ideas sound as scientific as you want
but that is not going to make it so. There is no way you can hide that
fact that you believe that universe popped into existence in 6 days and
that god sniffed a little dirt and out came a 'man-boogie'.
***Sorry again about the roughness of this but I don't have time to
revise***
___________________
Carl Melander (2005)
Cmel...@gmail.com
___________________
Dave Oldridge
> Some questions precede the general essay.
>
> Suppose we play the game Let's Find the Atom. I label an atom, and
> you look at atoms at a rate of one per second. How long would you
> have to search to have a 95% probability of locating the labeled atom?
> (Only 10^17 seconds have passed since the big bang, and there are
> about 10^80 _atoms_ in the visible/ currently-observable universe.)
> About the known blind/ non-intelligence-directed processes said to
> exist, can any of them give rise to:
>
> A spherical ball having a uniformly-identical radius of 1 meter, and
> consisting of only metal, starting with 1,000 burning stars?
>
> A functional refrigerator, or a functional car, starting with the
> non-man-refashioned material on and within the earth?
>
> A functional watch starting with the parts of a once-functional watch
> that has been taken apart down to its individual watch-part-component
> parts?
>
> A functional watch, starting with the pieces of a once-functional
> watch that has been cut up into 200 pieces of equal weight?
>
> A functional mousetrap, starting with the components of a mousetrap
> separated from each other by a least 1 millimeter?
>
> A functional biological lifeform, starting with non-living matter?
This question is still open, pending investigation of autocatalytic
compounds.
> (below is some straying from the origin of life question)
> A fruit fly population, starting with a bacterium?
About 2 billion years, given an environment that progresses towards one
suitable for fruit flies.
> A dragonfly population, starting with a fruit fly population?
Probably wouldn't happen, though from the initial common insect ancestor
of dragonflies and fruit flies maybe not more than 200 million years,
maybe less.
> A human population, starting with a dragonfly population?
Wouldn't happen. Humans and dragonflies share a common ancestor but
dragonflies don't and won't evolve into humans. From the common
ancestor, to seperate populations of humans and dragonflies, about a
billion years. Will it ever happen again? Probably not. A lot of
things happen only once and are highly improbable to begin with. But
they happen in open state spaces with very large degrees of freedom, so
they happen.
> A magazine's worth of arrangements of Roman letters conveying meaning,
> starting with a massive bowl of alphabet cereal soup?
It would depend on whether anyone or anything was trying to make them
spell things.
> The encoded-in-DNA/ genetic instructions coding for:
> an _E. coli_ bacterium, starting with non-living matter?
About 3.8 billion years, though there is no guarantee that you'd get
specifically e. coli.
> a human, starting with an _E. coli_ bacterium population?
Again, probably not gonna happen, since e. coli is a late model
bacterium.
> A living bacterium, starting with the pieces of a once-living bacteria
> that has been cut up into 2,500 pieces of equal weight?
Uh, where and when are the pieces laying around? If they happen to be in
an environment rich with basic self-replicators, this might take anywhere
from months to a 100 million years. If you do it on the surface of the
moon, expect never.
> The first biological lifeform, starting from non-living matter?
Depends what you mean by "biological lifeform." Basic self-replicating
molecules are well within the range of random polymerization.
> For which if any of the above scenarios could we say "totallyblind
> processes couldhave didit"?
What do you mean by "totally blind process?" Your theology seems to have
some leaks here? Do you think that there are processes that occur in
nature in some manner in which God's sovereignty is precluded? Is THAT
what all your caterwauling is about? Well, science cannot measure God's
sovereignty, so yes, science is totally blind to it. The processes of
nature are what science observes. Is there some observation we could
make to determine the presence of God's sovereignty in lottery draws? In
the "random" assemblage of genes from each parent that make up YOU? Or
should we just take it on faith? I'm OK with that, really. But why are
you trying to browbeat scientists?
> Suppose I take my watch apart using a screwdriver, teasing apart each
> of the elements that constitute the watch. Within the following
> circumstances, about how many seconds will it take for a 95%
> probability of the watch coming back together and working?:
In your case infinite. In my case, using better screwdriver and tools,
I'd probably get it back together in a day or so. Shaking them will not
work. What's your point? Or do you have one? A watch is not chemicals,
it's a bunch of metal parts. They do not naturally react with each other
as chemicals do and they don't at any time form self-replicating bits, as
chemicals do.
[large pile of similar hogwash deleted]
Suppose you stop wasting our time with bad analogues and show us your
actual positive evidence for whatever it is you are claiming we should
teach in science courses.
Or suppose you just sod off and leave people alone to do their jobs
without interference from a bunch of howling theocrats with a political
agenda of outright tyranny, blasphemy and false witness?
--
Dave Oldridge+
ICQ 1800667
A false witness is worse than no witness at all.
firel...@hotmail.com
> I think all after-the-fact attempts to calculate the probability of
> something happening that in fact already happened are bogus.
>
> Shuffle 20 decks of cards together, and deal them all out. What are
> the chances of the cards coming out in exactly whatever order you
got?
> How do you explain that?
Who was it who said words to the effect that all real
world events are highly improbable?
Walt Smith
Firelock on DALNet
Scooter the Mighty
Carl Melander wrote:
> The first error I've seen is with the Christian Apologetic analogies
> you use. Although my eyes are about ready to bleed, I will take the
> time to put forth a couple of responses. Theists often like to use
the
> plane in the junkyard, ground up cell and (my favorite) Watch maker
> analogies, but the bottom line is that you are misrepresenting
> evolution. (I apologize in advance for any repetition of other
authors
> on this topic).
> We all know a little about physical laws and how entropy works. Yes,
> if you take apart a plane and throw a tornado at the plane, it will
not
> form back together. This is because the plane is not in the natural
> state of the matter of which it's composed.
<snip> (not disagreeing but adding on)
At the same time though, if you had a selective force so that when
pieces fit together correctly they are saved, and when pieces were fit
together incorrectly they are broken apart, and the tornado lasted a
very long time, you might just get an airplane.
That's how evolution makes things that look designed; because living
things either continue living or else they die. The mindless process
of natural selection prunes away the bad "designs," leaving the good
"designs" by default. Obviously this doesn't happen with inanimate
objects since they don't live or die, so all these analogies to
non-living things are apples and oranges.
Danny Kodicek
"Scooter the Mighty" <Grey...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1110928528.9...@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
>
> Carl Melander wrote:
> > The first error I've seen is with the Christian Apologetic analogies
> > you use. Although my eyes are about ready to bleed, I will take the
> > time to put forth a couple of responses. Theists often like to use
> the
> > plane in the junkyard, ground up cell and (my favorite) Watch maker
> > analogies, but the bottom line is that you are misrepresenting
> > evolution. (I apologize in advance for any repetition of other
> authors
> > on this topic).
> > We all know a little about physical laws and how entropy works. Yes,
> > if you take apart a plane and throw a tornado at the plane, it will
> not
> > form back together. This is because the plane is not in the natural
> > state of the matter of which it's composed.
>
> <snip> (not disagreeing but adding on)
>
> At the same time though, if you had a selective force so that when
> pieces fit together correctly they are saved, and when pieces were fit
> together incorrectly they are broken apart, and the tornado lasted a
> very long time, you might just get an airplane.
An even more accurate analogy: if particular combinations of parts are able
to make copies of themselves (one way they might do this would be through a
human agency, as long as we remember that this human agency is working
'mindlessly'), and if combinations of parts which happen to be able to stay
in the air longer are copied more frequently than other combinations (again,
this could be determined mechanically by a standard wind tunnel experiment
or similar), then you probably wouldn't get back your original plane, but
you might well get something that can fly.
Similarly, if you took apart a cell into its constituent molecules and put
them back together by the same kind of process, you would be very unlikely
to get the same cell, but you might well be able to get a cell which
performs the same functions (in computing terminology, an object
implementing the same interface)
Danny
scooter
Whats your point? We already know most of heavy elements that we know
of came from exploding stars--e.g. carbon, iron, ect. The further from
the center of the galaxy one is the more of these heavy elements will
be present in those surrounding stars and planets. Thats because older
stars reside closer to the center of the galaxy and those particles
created in the furnaces of said stars blows out to the edges where
newer stars are formed..e.g. the Sun. That's a scientific theory based
on physics and physical evidence.
What you propose is a mutated form of religion that attempts to support
itself through statistical probabilities (that are highly suspect)
instead of "faith". Though I'm not a religious person, I think that may
be blasphemos...I'd be careful...hehe.
Homer Sapiens
instead of yours. For the sake of brevity, I will truncate the list and
only keep certain ones to make my point..
What intelligence-directed processes have been proven to exist that can
give rise to:
A spherical ball having a uniformly-identical radius of 1 meter, and
consisting of only metal, starting with 1,000 burning stars?
A functional biological lifeform, starting with non-living matter?
(below is some straying from the origin of life question)
A fruit fly population, starting with a bacterium?
A dragonfly population, starting with a fruit fly population?
A human population, starting with a dragonfly population?
The encoded-in-DNA/ genetic instructions coding for:
an _E. coli_ bacterium, starting with non-living matter?
a human, starting with an _E. coli_ bacterium population?
A living bacterium, starting with the pieces of a once-living bacteria
that has been cut up into 2,500 pieces of equal weight?
The first biological lifeform, starting from non-living matter?
For which if any of the above scenarios could we say we have proof that
we know for certain "totallyblind processes could not have didit"?
Your argument cuts both ways David. Before you demand proof from this
side of the debate be prepared to provide proof from your side.
David, If you are depending on Anthony Flew's so-called conversion, or
Behe's mouse trap, or Dumbski's (er, I mean Dembski's) lame arguments
as your reason for believing then I would imagine that God is very
disappointed.
I can hear the voice booming through the clouds now..."My children. My
children. I gave you a heart and a soul to feel the majesty and beauty
of my creations. I gave you tears to show love. But I also gave you a
brain. Jesus Christ! Is that the best you could come with as a basis
for believing in me! A freakin' mouse trap! You couldn't just believe
in me because you felt deep in your heart that was the thing to do. No!
You had to go looking for proof! I give you love, humanity, charity,
kindness, and forgiveness. And the best you could come with was a
bloody mousetrap and the tail of a bacteria!
Matt Giwer
> Some questions precede the general essay.
>
> Suppose we play the game Let's Find the Atom. I label an atom, and you
> look at atoms at a rate of one per second. How long would you have to
> search to have a 95% probability of locating the labeled atom? (Only
> 10^17 seconds have passed since the big bang, and there are about 10^80
> _atoms_ in the visible/ currently-observable universe.)
A perfectly formed grain of salt. Billions of molecules ordered precisely to result in a perfect
cube. The odds are 1 in 2 to the power of billions against it. Could this possibly happen without
supernatural intervention?
--
Jesus did not condemn slavery. Enough said.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 3393
nizkor http://www.giwersworld.org/nizkook/nizkook.phtml
Ronald 224
"Matt Giwer" <ma...@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote in message
news:VLOZd.119339$pc5....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
> david ford wrote:
>> Some questions precede the general essay.
>>
>> Suppose we play the game Let's Find the Atom. I label an atom, and you
>> look at atoms at a rate of one per second. How long would you have to
>> search to have a 95% probability of locating the labeled atom? (Only
>> 10^17 seconds have passed since the big bang, and there are about 10^80
>> _atoms_ in the visible/ currently-observable universe.)
>
> A perfectly formed grain of salt. Billions of molecules ordered precisely
> to result in a perfect
> cube. The odds are 1 in 2 to the power of billions against it. Could this
> possibly happen without
> supernatural intervention?
>
> --
> Jesus did not condemn slavery. Enough said.
>
slavery anywhere in the Bible.
Richard Forrest
david ford wrote:
> Some questions precede the general essay.
<snipped>
Suppose you take a different approach, David.
Suppose you learn about evolution and evolutionary theory by reading
and trying to understand some books written by evolutionary scientists.
Suppose you study seriously in an academic institution, and learn about
how scientists work and how they treat evidence and theory.
Suppose that you attend some palaeontological conferences, listen to
the presentations, and talk to the delegates to find out what motivates
them and informs their research.
Suppose you present your thoughts in a clear, concise manner, and back
up any theories you have with evidence and argument rather than appeals
to incredulity and demonstrations of ignorance.
Suppose you earn some respect from the scientists who contribute to
this forum rather than making yourself look like an pompous idiot.
Have fun.
Siaberwoci
Selyf Roberts
Mae'n brydgell ac mae'r brochgim stwd
Yn gimblo a gyrian yn y mhello:
Pob cólomrws yn féddabwd,
A'r hoch oma'n chwibruo.
'Gwylia'r hen Siaberwoc, fy mab!
Y brathiad llym a'r crafanc tynn!
A rhed pan weli'r Gwbigab
A'r ofnynllyd Barllyn!'
Cym'rodd ei gleddyf yn ei law
I geisio ei fanawaidd brae--
A gorffwys ger y goeden Taw,
I feddwl--fel pe tae.
A thra pendronai ymhlith y coed
Y Siaberwoc a'i lygaid fflam
A ddaeth, mor wallgof ag erioed
Gan ffrwtian gam a cham!
Un, dau! Un, dau! drwy'r awyr oer
Aeth min y cledd ysgiw, ysgôl!
Fe'i lladdodd, a chan gludo'i ben
Hwblamodd yn ei ôl.
'A lleddaist ti y Siaberwoc?
Tyrd yma, hapllon fachgen!
O jiwblus ddydd! Hwrê! Hwroc!'
Gan wenu arno'n llawen.
Mae'n brydgell ac mae'r brochgim stwd
Yn gimblo a gyrian yn y mhello:
Pob cólomrws yn féddabwd,
A'r hoch oma'n chwibruo.
RF
TomS
<Xns961A87DFCC904...@24.71.223.159>, Dave Oldridge stated..."
[...snip...]
>Suppose you stop wasting our time with bad analogues and show us your
>actual positive evidence for whatever it is you are claiming we should
>teach in science courses.
Let's see the first step, which is a statement of "whatever it is
you are claiming".
Once it is established as to just what is being claimed, then
let's see how that has any relevance to patterns in the world of
life, something like this:
Assuming something about the methods, purposes, and materials
which an intelligent designer uses, what is the probability that
some particular pattern is what an intelligent designer would do.
(For example, how do we go from "an intelligent designer did
it" to "some bacteria have flagella"?)
That's just the beginning of what an "intelligent design
hypothesis" would do, in explaining some pattern.
First the hypothesis, then the evidence.
--
---Tom S. <http://talkreason.org/articles/chickegg.cfm>
"It being as impossible that the Organized Body of a Chicken should by the Power
of any Mechanical Motions be formed out of the unorganized Matter of an Egg; as
that the Sun, Moon and Stars, should by mere Mechanism arise out of a Chaos."
Samuel Clarke (1675-1729) Second Defense...Immortality of the Soul
allanm
> Some questions precede the general essay.
>
> Suppose we play the game Let's Find the Atom. I label an atom,
> and you look at atoms at a rate of one per second. How long would
> you have to search to have a 95% probability of locating the
> labeled atom? (Only 10^17 seconds have passed since the big bang,
> and there are about 10^80 _atoms_ in the visible/ currently-
> observable universe.)
>
I've answered this one before. I would restrict my search to the places
where you are likely to have hidden it (ie, somewhere in the vicinity
of the earth's surface). I can look at atoms at a rate of billions in a
second. So provided you make your label big enough, I reckon a couple
of weeks should do it.
> About the known blind/ non-intelligence-directed processes said to
> exist, can any of them give rise to:
>
<big snip - I haven't time to look for atoms AND read your posts in
detail>
>
> A magazine's worth of arrangements of Roman letters conveying
> meaning, starting with a massive bowl of alphabet cereal soup?
You really need to be more specific. How big a magazine did you have in
mind? Just a rough idea, for delimiting the phase space. And since
meaning depends on context, which context did you have in mind? (hint:
in the context of a monoglot French-speaker, for example, a magazine
written in Swahili conveys little or no 'meaning'). What analysis
do you propose for measuring 'meaning' and what minimum value would
you consider acceptable? Is 'meaning' a bit like 'information'?
And this bowl, how 'massive' is it, exactly? More importantly, how
much alphabet cereal soup does it contain? C'mon, help me out here,
we're not going to get the funding for this research if we can't
put a few numbers on it.
<snip>
Tracy Hamilton
"Ronald 224" <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:XQOZd.30082$6g7....@bignews1.bellsouth.net...
Then obviously Jesus did not condemn slavery!
Nor Pol Pot.
Tracy P. Hamilton
robpar
wrote:
>
>"Matt Giwer" <ma...@tampabay.REMover.rr.com> wrote in message
>news:VLOZd.119339$pc5....@tornado.tampabay.rr.com...
>> Jesus did not condemn slavery. Enough said.
>>
>I have searched the Bible I cannot find the word slave, slaves or
>slavery anywhere in the Bible.
>>
slave (slâv) noun
1. One bound in servitude as the property of a person or
household.
Excerpted from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English
Language, Third Edition © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Electronic version licensed from INSO Corporation; further
reproduction and distribution in accordance with the Copyright Law of
the United States. All rights reserved.
Laws of Moses concerning
Exd 21:1-11,20,21,26,27,32; Lev 19:20-22; 25:6,10,35-55; Deu
15:12,14,18; 24:7
Kidnapping forbidden
Deu 21:10-14; 24:7; 1Ti 1:10; Rev 18:13
Fugitive, not to be returned to his master
Deu 23:15,16
David erroneously supposed to be a fugitive slave
1Sa 25:10
Instances of fugitive
Hagar, commanded by an angel to return to Sarah (Sarai), her owner
Gen 16:9
Sought by Shimei
1Ki 2:39-41
Onesimus interceded for, by Paul
Phm 1:21
Philemon
This short letter was written by Paul to his slave-owner friend,
Philemon. Paul is writing about Onesimus, who he has recently
converted, and who happens to also be a runaway slave belonging to
Philemon. Since Paul is in a position of authority in the church, this
would have been a great opportunity for him (and God) to condemn
slavery -- if he (and God) had anything against it, that is. But he
doesn't. Instead he returns the slave to his owner without so much as
a word against the institution of slavery.
The only other thing of interest in this letter is the rather strange
expression, "refresh my bowels in the Lord." Okay, I know that Paul's
bowel fixation is mostly just an artifact of the King James
translation. But it sounds too darned funny to pass up.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7 Paul says that "the bowels of the saints are refreshed by
"Philemon."
10 Does God approve of slavery?
12 Paul returns the runaway slave, Onesimus, to his "rightful owner",
Philemon, asking him to receive him just as though he were Paul's very
"own bowels." This was, of course, a great opportunity for Paul (and
God) to condemn slavery -- if he (and God) had anything against it,
that is. But he doesn't. Instead he returns the slave to his owner
without a word against the institution of slavery.
20 Paul pleads with Philemon to "refresh [his] bowels in the Lord."
Amen
Rights of those born to a master
Gen 14:14; 17:13,27; Exd 21:4; Pro 29:21; Ecc 2:7; Jer 2:14
Bought and sold
Gen 17:13,27; 37:28,36; 39:17; Deu 28:68; Est 7:4; Eze 27:13; Joe
3:6; Amo 8:6; Rev 18:13
Captives of war became slaves
Deu 20:14; 21:10-14; 2Ki 5:2; 2Ch 28:8,10; Lam 5:13
Captive bondservants shared by priests and Levites
Num 31:28-47
Thieves punished by being made
Gen 43:18; Exd 22:3
Defaulting debtors made
Lev 25:39; Mat 18:25
Children of defaulting debtors sold as
2Ki 4:1-7
Voluntary servitude of
Lev 25:47; Deu 15:16,17; Jos 9:11-21
Given as dowry
Gen 29:24,29
Owned by priests
Lev 22:11; Mar 14:66
Slaves owned slaves
2Sa 9:10
The master could marry, or give in marriage
Exd 21:7-10; Deu 21:10-14; 1Ch 2:34,35
Taken in concubinage
Gen 16:1,2,6; 30:3,9
Used as soldiers by Abraham
Gen 14:14
Must be circumcised
Gen 17:13,27; Exd 12:44
Must enjoy religious privileges with the master's household
Deu 12:12,18; 16:11,14; 29:10,11
Must have rest on the sabbath
Exd 20:10; 23:12; Deu 5:14
Equal status of, with other disciples of Jesus
1Cr 7:21,22; 12:13; Gal 3:28; Eph 6:8
Kindness to, commanded
Lev 25:43; Eph 6:9
Bond service threatened, as a national punishment, for the
disobedience of Israel
Deu 28:68; Joe 3:7,8
Degrading influences of bondage exemplified by cowardice
Exd 14:11,12; 16:3; Jdg 5:16-18,23
Emancipation of
Ezr 1:1-4; Jer 34:8-22; 1Cr 7:21
Freedmen called "Libertines,"
Act 6:9
Cruelty to
The Israelites
Exd 1:8-22; 2:1-4; Act 7:19,34
An abandoned sick man
1Sa 30:13
Kindness to
By the Roman centurion
Mat 8:8-13; Luk 7:2-10
By Paul
Phm 1:21
INSTANCES OFJoseph
Gen 37:26-28,36
Israelites
Exd 1:10-22; 5:7-14; Deu 6:12,21
scooter
Whats your point? We already know most of heavy elements that we know
Earle Jones
"Ronald 224" <ro...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
*
Keep looking. In the KJV there are only two references to slaves,
one in Jeremiah and one in Revelations. There are 881 references to
servants: how to obtain them, how to treat them, and what the
punishments are if you hurt or kill them.
Leviticus has some very good advice if you want to sell your
daughter as a maidservant. It also covers that situation where you
need a couple of extra 'bondmen' or 'bondmaids', which you should
buy from heathens.
Keep looking,
earle
*