kinetekade

I wish C/E discussions would occasionally stick to a single topic

I've been presented with yet another list and, as usual, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. You guys are most-likely familiar with it, and there are probably websites that address these q's, but I've had no luck finding them. If you have the time, could you please help me out? Thanks in advance!

Here it is... (copy/paste from http://www.rae.org/falsify.html)

When Jesus fasted for forty days in the desert, Satan came and challenged Him to jump from the top of a building and allow the angels to catch him. He refused. God is not into grandstanding or showing off a miracle every time someone without faith issues a challenge. So this atheist should not expect God to do anything if faith is not involved. Therefore that girl's test for the existence of God was invalid.

We would expect that the scientific evidence would be more consistent with the predictions of a world created by God than it would be with the evolutionary model. If one wanted to disprove the existence of God as creator, he then would have to come up with a scenario that explains the existence of life on earth, evolving from inanimate matter through the food chain to man. To falsify the creation theory, an evolutionist would need to demonstrate the following:

Natural chemical processes that produces all of the components of life from non-life in quantities sufficient to account for all life on earth.
A natural process that purifies amino acids in their left handed form, and sugars in their right hand form for use as the building blocks of life.
The origin of the DNA, RNA, protein manufacturing process.
The origin of photosynthesis and the appearance of chlorophyll.
The origin of reproduction at the chemical level.
The origin of the genetic code and the chemical infrastructure to make it work.
Once you have determined what these processes are, show that these processes are much more likely to happen than the processes that break down the components of life.
Once you have demonstrated that the chemical origin of life is possible from off-the-shelf chemicals, show the biochemical changes that occur to increase the meaningful information content of organisms to produce the vast variety of creatures found today.
A corollary to this would be to show that mutations in the vast majority of cases are beneficial and promote evolution.
At the biochemical level, evolutionists haven't yet begun to explain their theory satisfactorily. We do not think that it is possible to do so. One possible reason that it may be hard to falsify the creation model: it may just be true.


- Revolution Against Evolution

Doubting Didymus

If creationists are relying so heavily on attacking abiogenesis these days, they must know they are beaten on everthing past that point.

What if, just for a day, I became a theist of sorts. I agreed for this day to accept that abiogenesis is impossible, and that god must have created the first bacterial cell. Unfortunately we have some very rugged and battle worn theories that cover practically everything past this point, so does this mean god's creative power is limited to bacteria? He must rely on natural processes for everything else? Should I worship this god?

tgamble

Unfortunately, that will NOT falseify creation "theory" because what the bible says won't change and cretinists take that as absolute proof.

Furthermore, demonstrating that something is possible doesn't prove the alternate explanations wrong.

Finally, since the creation "theory" includes things like a young earth, a global flood and all sorts of other rubbish, one could prove it wrong by demonstrating that these things never happened.

It's been done.

Dr.GH

The "essay" was written almost 4 years ago. There is no major rush to respond.

Some of the questions are still without definitive answer, some are already well studied. Learning the current state of the art should take you a year (part time of course).

Enjoy.

Dr.GH

Oh well, Iwasn't going to post (lasted three days).

On the first question (these are nearly all recent literature):

Amend, J. P. , E. L. Shock
1998 “Energetics of Amino Acid Synthesis in Hydrothermal Ecosystems” Volume 281, number 5383, Issue of 11 Sep , pp. 1659-1662.

BRANDES, JAY A., NABIL Z. BOCTOR, GEORGE D. CODY, BENJAMIN A. COOPER, ROBERT M. HAZEN & HATTEN S. YODER JR
1998 Abiotic nitrogen reduction on the early Earth Nature 395, 365 - 367

Cleaves, H. James, Stanley L. Miller
1998 “Oceanic protection of prebiotic organic compounds from UV radiation” PNAS-USA v. 95, issue 13: 7260-7263

Horita, Juske, Michael E. Berndt
1999 Abiogenic Methane Formation and Isotropic Fractionization Under Hydrothermal Conditions. Science 285 (5430): 1055

Huber, Claudia, Gunter Wachtershauser
1997 “Activated Acetic Acid by Carbon Fixation on (Fe,Ni)S Under Primordial Conditions” Science v. 276: 245-247

Huber, Claudia, Gunter Wachtershauser
1998 “Peptides by Activation of Amino Acids with CO on (Ni,Fe)S Surfaces: Implications for the Origin of Life” Science v.281: 670-672

Imai, E., Honda, H., Hatori, K., Brack, A. and Matsuno, K.
1999 “Elongation of oligopeptides in a simulated submarine hydrothermal system“ Science 283(5403):831–833.

* See my response to Answers in Genesis: J. Sarfati's review of this paper HERE.

Lollar, B. Sherwood, T. D. Westgate, J. A. Ward, G. F. Slater & G. Lacrampe-Coulloume
2002 “Abiognic formation of alkanes in the Earth’s crust as a minor source for global hydrocarbon reserevoirs.” Nature (letters) Vol 416: 522- 524

*Miller, Stanley L.,
1953 “A Production of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions” Science
vol. 117:528-529

*Miller, Stanley, Harold C. Urey
1959 “Organic Compound Synthesis on the Primitive Earth” Science vol 139 Num 3370:
254-251

* These classic papers are more for historical purpose, but the applications are still current.

Miyakawa, Shin, Hiroto Yamanashi, Kensei Kobayashi, H. James Cleaves, Stanley L. Miller
2002 Prebiotic synthesis from CO atmospheres: Implications for the origins of life Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, Vol. 99, Issue 23, 14628-14631, November 12,

Mojzsis, Stephen J., T. Mark Harrison,
2000 “Vestiges of a Beginning: Clues to the Emergent Biosphere Recorded in the Oldest Known Sedimentary Rocks” GSA Today, April

MOJZSIS, STEPHEN J., T. MARK HARRISON, ROBERT T. PIDGEON
2001 ”Oxygen-isotope evidence from ancient zircons for liquid water at the Earth's surface 4,300 Myr ago” Nature 409, 178-181 (11 January )

Shock, Everett L.
1990 “Geochemical Constraints on the Origin of Organic Compounds in Hydrothernal Systems” Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere v.20: 331-367

Dr.GH

There is no need to "purify" anything as both amino acid isomers (L and D) are present today. What is interesting is that biochemical systems almost exclucively rely on L forms. (But not exclucively)! The creationists make a big deal aout of this, but in truth there are amino acids that are not "handed" and there are even some D- form amino acids that are found in natural living systems. This last item makes a great bar bet at conferences (you learn this and you will never need to buy another conference beer. Hint: it is in a bacterial membrane pore)

Here is a sample of (mostly) current articles:

MP BERNSTEIN, JP DWORKIN, SA SANDFORD, GW COOPER &
LJ ALLAMANDOLA
2002 Racemic amino acids from the ultraviolet photolysis of interstellar ice analogues. Nature 416, 401 - 403 (2002)

Hazen, R.M., T.R. Filley, and G.A. Goodfriend.
2001. Selective adsorption of L- and D-amino acids on calcite: Implications for biochemical homochirality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 98(May 8):5487.

*Irion, Robert
1998 “Did Twisty Starlight Set Stage for Life?” Science July 31; 281: 626-627. (in News of the Week)

* This is really just a lightweight news item.

Parsons, Ian, Martin R. Lee, and Joseph V. Smith
1998 Biochemical Evolution II: Origin of Life in Tubular Microsrtuctures on Weathered Feldspar Surfaces. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 95 (26): 15173

Saghatelion A, Yokobayashi Y, Soltani K, Ghadiri
2001 "A chiroselective peptide replicator", MR, Nature 409: 797-51, Feb

Singleton, D A,& Vo, L K,
2002 “Enantioselective Synthsis without Discrete Optically Active Additives” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 124, 10010-10011

Dr.GH

de Duve, Christian
1995 “The Beginnings of Life on Earth “ American Scientist September-October 1995

Dworkin, Jason P., David W. Deamer, Scott A. Sandford, and Louis J. Allamandola
2000 “Self-assembling amphiphilic molecules: Synthesis in simulated interstellar/precometary ices” PNAS 98: 815-819

Ellington, Andrew D., Michael P. Robertson, and Jim Bull
1997 ”Ribozymes in Wonderland”Science April 25; 276: 546-547. (in Perspectives)

Lazcano, Antonio, Stanley L. Miller
1996 “The Origin and Early Evolution of Life: Prebiotic Chemistry, the Pre-RNA World, and Time” Cell vol 85:793-798

Lee DH, Severin K, Yokobayashi Y, and Ghadiri MR,
1997 Emergence of symbiosis in peptide self-replication through a hypercyclic network. Nature, 390: 591-4,

Levy, M and Miller, S.L.,
1998 The stability of the RNA bases: Implications for the origin of life, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95(14):7933–38,

Nelson, K. E., M. Levy, S. L. Miller
2000 “Peptide nucleic acids rather than RNA may have been the first genetic molecule” PNAS-USA v.97, 3868-3871

*Orgel, Leslie
1998 “The Origin of life - a review of facts and speculations” Trends in Biochemical Science 23:491-495

Reader, J. S. and G. F. Joyce
2002 "A ribozyme composed of only two different nucleotides." Nature vol 420, pp 841-844.

*Rode, Bernd Michael
1999 “Peptides and the origin of life” Peptides 20:773-786

* I was not very fond of these two.

Segre, Daniel, Doron Lancet
2000 “Composing life” European Molecular Biology Organization Reports Vol. 1, #3:217-222.


Photosynthesis is well understood. Creatos need to try an keep up.

Brocks, Jochen J., Gram A. Logan, Roger Buick, Roger E. Summons
1999 Archaen Molecular Fossils and the Early Rise of Eukaryotes. Science 285 (5430):1033-1036

Canfield, Donald E., Kristen S. Habicht, Bo Thamdrup
2000 “The Archaen Sulfur Cycle and the Early History of Atmospheric Oxygen” Science 288 (5466): 658

Dismukes, G. C., V. V. Klimov, S. V. Baranov, Yu. N. Kozlov, J. DasGupta, A. Tyryshkin.
2001 “The Origin of Atmospheric Oxygen on Earth: The Innovation of Oxygenic Photosynthesis” PNAS-USA vl 98 no. 5: 2170-2175

Hedges, S. Blair, Hsiong Chen, Sudhir Kumar, Daniel Y-C Wang, Amanda S. Thompson, Hidemi Watanabe.
2001 “A genomic timescale for the origin of eukaryotes” Bio-med Central: Evolutionary Biology 1:4

Holland, Heinrich D.
1984 The Chemical Evolution of the Atmoshphere and Oceans, Princeton Series in Geochemistry Princeton University Press

Holland, Heinrich D.
1999 “When did the Earth’s atmosphere become oxic? A Reply.” The Geochemical News #100: 20-22

Kasting, J.F.
1993 “Algae and oxygen in Earth's ancient atmosphere” (Tech. Comment) and B. Runnegar “Responce to Kasting.” Science 259: 835.

Dr.GH

Bawww

I shouldn't, but I'll probably post some more Monday.

Oolon Colluphid

Yeah, we would, if the bible is correct. But the creation model has been tested, and has been refuted. Whereas evolution is the model that has emerged as the most consistent with the data.
What god? What sort of god? A creator that creates hookworms, and gives a less efficient respiratory system to bats than to birds, is not as advertised. “It’s God, Jim, but not as we know it.” There are countless examples of unintelligent ‘design’ and cruel ‘design’ in nature that do indeed refute the standard-issue creationary god. End of story.
Nonsense. We do not need to have all the details of every step --- do not have to prove every bit of evolution -- in order to disprove creationary hypotheses. We test hypotheses by their predictions. And every testable creationary hypothesis has been tested, and found wanting.

For instance, biblical creation predicts that organisms came into existence without antecedents -- there should never ever be transitional fossils. But there are. Plenty. The gaps in the record do not matter, what counts is that organisms have been found that bridge between groups -- as evolution predicts, and as creation says cannot be. Therefore evolution is vindicated, and creation refuted.

And apart from anything else, evolutionary scenarios are more parsimonious, requiring neither an (unevinced) creator not (unevinced) creationary mechanisms. And so are preferred... pending evidence that there even is a creator to have done the creating. Standard request to creationists: demonstrate that there is a god, then we can talk about how he went about his creating.
Rubbish. See above.
Dr G.H. has admirably covered these. So let’s try this:

To falsify the evolutionary theory, a creationist would need to demonstrate the following:

• That there is a sensible reason for god as described to have created Plasmodium falciparum and Rickettsia prowazekii.
  
• That there’s a sensible reason for god to have created apparently intermediate forms which are no longer around.
  
• That there’s a sensible reason for god to have created apparently poorly designed forms.
  
• That it is indeed impossible for one ancestral form to produce radically different descendants -- a hoofed land mammal becoming a whale, for example; a bipedal dinosaur becoming a bird.
  
• That there’s a sensible reason for creation to produce the pattern we find in the fossil record -- first fish, then tetrapods, then reptiles, then mammals, then humans, for example.
  
• That there’s a sensible reason for creation to produce the pattern of biogeography we find -- why, for instance, there are fossas but no cats in Madagascar; moles in many places, but marsupial moles in Australasia; why so may of the diverse range of birds on the Galapagos are finches.
  
• That there’s a sensible reason for creation to produce pseudogenes, and non-functioning genes for things that organisms have never had, like teeth and complete fibulas in birds.
  
• That there’s a sensible reason for creation to produce the embryology we see in nature -- why wing buds develop in flea pupae, when fleas do not have wings; why human embryos have tails.

... and so on. In short, that there’s a sensible reason for god to have made it look exactly as if evolution were the real answer.

Cheers, DT

Oolon Colluphid

Just realised that answering that list still wouldn’t actually refute evolution, it is merely some of the things necessary to put creation on a par with evolution. What would refute evolution would be things that evolution says cannot be, such as a bat with precisely bird-like through-flow respiration, a dolphin with gills, a mammal bone in precambrian strata, or genetic evidence that humans are most closely related to, say, arthropods, ie no nested homologies of heritable material.

Especially the last. Think about that. If kinds were genuinely distinct, why would they even need to use the same genetic code, let alone be subject to such an obvious nesting of homologies of the stuff that’s passed down -- with observable changes -- from generation to generation. Why?!

Cheers,