Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvenoy · 06-15-2002, 12:14 PM

"First of all, the chart incorrectly misrepresents creationist's views. Secondly, creationist views are not relevant to this particular thread."

Hmm. Interesting if not weird double negitive, here.

I'm still waiting for the point of the discussion. Thus far, I fail to see where all this is going.

doov, the grammer nazi.

Ragnarok · 06-15-2002, 01:18 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Duvenoy:
Exactly. Their survival rate would be 0. A great many of the vent animals feed on bactera.

There's also hot springs to consider. Some, if not all, contain algas that thrive in near boiling water.

Wouldn't it be fascinating to find abiogenesis happening in the field rather than to merely create it in the lab?

And what if some of these organisms are surviving?

doov

Just a quick question. Is anyone doing a relatively large scale (tons of sterile water/chemicals, etc...) experiment to see if abiogenesis can occur in the lab today. I've heard about many experiments in the past where small vials of basic elements were irradiated or subjected to high voltage for a few weeks generating amino acids. Is anybody doing anything BIG to see if they can make basic life? I know "you need millions of years", etc... But maybe you don't. Maybe, as has been suggested here you need only a relatively large volume of water and chemicals and some energy. The reason we don't see new abiogenesis today being that every time it happens the existing life has it for lunch. In a sterile environment this wouldn't happen. Just a thought.

lpetrich · 06-15-2002, 02:38 PM

You'd likely need to circulate that mixture through a big pile of powdered rock, but the principle is correct.

And even if one does not get an organism out of that, even a very simple one, one may get an insight as to what sort of chemistry would go in early-Earth hot springs and the like in the absence of eaters of organic molecules.

Arch Stanton · 06-15-2002, 02:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by randman:
First of all, the chart incorrectly misrepresents creationist's views

In future we'll try to correctly misrepresent creationists' views.

Arch.

Sauron · 06-15-2002, 04:52 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by randman:

"He has admitted to using his own definitions here, and his one scientific reference is this out-of-context quote from Coyne.

When challenged to bring the entire quote from Coyne, randman has never done so. For good reason, obviously."

Both are false accusations, and I am not surprised.

Both are true, actually.

Here is where you admitted to using your own definitions. Last post, bottom of the thread:
<a href="http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9504&perpage=10&display =&pagenumber=7" target="_blank">http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9504&perpage=10&display =&pagenumber=7</a>

And here is where Jerry Smith and I point out to you that private definitions are non-standard, ad do not map to scientific definitions:

<a href="http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9504&perpage=10&display =&pagenumber=8" target="_blank">http://www.christianforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9504&perpage=10&display =&pagenumber=8</a>

You're busted, randman.

Quote:

And here Evolutionists appear to need to rely on false accusations and lies, which doesn't apeak highly of them having real data to back up their claims.

Oh, there's some lying going on around here, Randman. But you're the one doing it.

Quote:

Tell me something btw. Just how is Coyne's quote out of context?

Because you make it seem that he believes in the medieval context of spontaneous generation - which he does not. No one has believed that for centuries. Yet your selective quotation of his work leaves the reader with the wrong impression.

And the fact that you have never provided the full, in-context quotation demonstrates that you *know* this. With the full quote available, your little dog-and-pony show would be over in a New York minute. That's why you avoid the full, in-context quotation.

Smart move on your part. Keeps your argument alive for a few more posts, I suppose.

Dr Rick · 06-15-2002, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Rimstalker:
randman is obviously trying to show that "evolutionists" "believe" in a theory positing that living creatures, like flies, are produced from decaying biomass, like rotting meat. However, the quote uses "spontaneous generation" only in the most literal sense of the words, and is not a reference to the above mentioned Medieval theory. Trying to use the former meaning in the later quote is mere equivocation made possible by more out-of-context quotation.

That's exactly what he is trying to do:

Quote:

Randman excreted this on a Christian board today:
Sponteneous generation was a theory, or beleif, that was unsupported by the facts and illogical. In my view, abiogensis is not only the same thing, it is basically making the same underlying assumptions that the expanded version made. It is not a scientific or logical belief in my view, but is held onto for only one purpose, to deny the Creator. It is not based in facts. It's relevance is to show the state of mind of evolutionist scientists, to show thier lack of
objectivity.

Randman is dishonest as he attempts to equate the falsified belief of "spontaneous generation" with abiogenesis, as they are clearly not the same in this context. Professor Coyne was not referring to the old beliefs of "spontaneous generation" in the quote Randman used.

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]

Automaton · 06-15-2002, 06:22 PM

I have the 1990 edition of World Book with me right now. Under Spontaneous Generation, the first and second paragraphs are about the historical theory with worms and maggots appearing from rotten meat, and its subsequent disproof in the mid 1800's. Then the third paragraph states:

Quote:

During the 1900's, laboratory experiments showed that many of the molecules found in living organisms can be synthesized (produced artificially). But no experiment has generated an organism capable of reproducing itself.
-Caroline M. Pond

Which is exactly what the most modern version states. Is randman claiming that in 1994, it suddenly changed completely, only to be rectified back to normal condition some time later?

randman likes to call other people what he is. A liar.

Viti · 06-15-2002, 08:51 PM

randman...I am not nearly as educated as many here, so I rarely post but this seems so simple to me that I don't grasp your constant hostility toward it.

The theory of abiogenesis (NOT evolution) is quite simple and straightforward. Everything on the planet, including living organisms, is composed of some combination of these elements

<a href="http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/periodic_table/table.html" target="_blank">http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/periodic_table/table.html</a>

Note there is no special "life" element. Anyway, under some set of conditions, some of these elements combined to produce a simple form of life (I don't know if it was like a virus, or bacteria and don't care). We cannot recreate the conditions yet because of the millions of combinations of various factors such as heat, pressure, concentrations, state of the elements etc.

Now, why do you consider this utter lunacy, yet talking snakes, demon possession, and a supernatural deity that refuses to reveal itself are to be accepted without question? You make no sense

edited because I can't find a small enough image

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: LadyShea ]

lpetrich · 06-15-2002, 09:46 PM

I will concede that the origin of life is an unsolved problem. But there's been some interesting progress in working backward from the structure of present-day organisms.

The first self-reproducing system would have to be something like a bacterium, because a virus depends on another organism's genetic apparatus to reproduce. Thus, one cannot have viruses before bacteria.

But even the "simplest" of bacteria is a formidably complicated system, and the next question is how simple can a system be and still self-reproduce?

The favorite speculation is the "RNA world", in which RNA served as both genetic-information storage and catalyst. Proteins developed originally as cofactors or helpers of RNA enzymes, then the RNA dropped out of most of the original enzymes -- but not all of them! DNA also evolved, as a modification of RNA for master-copy duty.

However, there is still a gap between the RNA world and known prebiotic chemistry. Most of that world can be made without much trouble in prebiotic-chemistry experiments -- except for the ribose part of RNA.

So the RNA of the RNA world may have taken over from some other kind of self-reproducing molecule -- but what?

lpetrich · 06-15-2002, 10:32 PM

Spontaneous generation of "lower" organisms was a very common belief before the last few centuries, when it was discredited by various experiments.

One early-modern view (Alexander Ross) was:

Quote:

So may he (Sir Thomas Browne) doubt whether in cheese and timber worms are generated; or if beetles and wasps in cows' dung; or if butterflies, locusts, grasshoppers, shell-fish, snails, eels, and such like, be procreated of putrefied matter, which is apt to receive the form of that creature to which it is by formative power disposed. To question this is to question reason, sense and experience. If he doubts of this let him go to Egypt, and there he will find the fields swarming with mice, begot of the mud of Nylus, to the great calamity of the inhabitants.

Or Jan Baptista van Helmont (1577-1644):

Quote:

When water from the purest spring is placed in a flask steeped in leavening fumes, it putrefies, engendering maggots. The fumes which rise from the bottom of a swamp produce frogs, ants, leeches, and vegetation. . .Carve an indentation in a brick, fill it with crushed basil, and cover the brick with another, so that the indentation is completely sealed. Expose the two bricks to sunlight, and you will find that within a few days, fumes from the basil, acting as a leavening agent, will have transformed the vegetable matter into veritable scorpions.

Or his recipe for making mice:

Quote:

for if you press a piece of underwear soiled with sweat together with some wheat in an open mouth jar, after about 21 days the odor changes and the ferment coming out of the underwear and penetrating through the husks of the wheat, changes the wheat into mice. But what is more remarkable is that mice of both sexes emerge (from the wheat) and these mice successfully reproduce with mice born naturally from parents� But what is even more remarkable is that the mice which came out were not small mice� but fully grown.

What do you think was really happening?

Hint: consider Francesco Redi's test of whether rotting meat really spotaneously generates maggots (fly larvae).

[ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: lpetrich ]

06-15-2002, 08:51 PM	#38
Viti Contributor Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Down South Posts: 12,879	randman...I am not nearly as educated as many here, so I rarely post but this seems so simple to me that I don't grasp your constant hostility toward it. The theory of abiogenesis (NOT evolution) is quite simple and straightforward. Everything on the planet, including living organisms, is composed of some combination of these elements <a href="http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/periodic_table/table.html" target="_blank">http://ull.chemistry.uakron.edu/periodic_table/table.html</a> Note there is no special "life" element. Anyway, under some set of conditions, some of these elements combined to produce a simple form of life (I don't know if it was like a virus, or bacteria and don't care). We cannot recreate the conditions yet because of the millions of combinations of various factors such as heat, pressure, concentrations, state of the elements etc. Now, why do you consider this utter lunacy, yet talking snakes, demon possession, and a supernatural deity that refuses to reveal itself are to be accepted without question? You make no sense edited because I can't find a small enough image [ June 15, 2002: Message edited by: LadyShea ]</p>

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

06-15-2002, 12:14 PM	#31
Duvenoy Veteran Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Just another hick from the sticks. Posts: 1,108	"First of all, the chart incorrectly misrepresents creationist's views. Secondly, creationist views are not relevant to this particular thread." Hmm. Interesting if not weird double negitive, here. I'm still waiting for the point of the discussion. Thus far, I fail to see where all this is going. doov, the grammer nazi.

06-15-2002, 02:38 PM	#33
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	You'd likely need to circulate that mixture through a big pile of powdered rock, but the principle is correct. And even if one does not get an organism out of that, even a very simple one, one may get an insight as to what sort of chemistry would go in early-Earth hot springs and the like in the absence of eaters of organic molecules.

06-15-2002, 09:46 PM	#39
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	I will concede that the origin of life is an unsolved problem. But there's been some interesting progress in working backward from the structure of present-day organisms. The first self-reproducing system would have to be something like a bacterium, because a virus depends on another organism's genetic apparatus to reproduce. Thus, one cannot have viruses before bacteria. But even the "simplest" of bacteria is a formidably complicated system, and the next question is how simple can a system be and still self-reproduce? The favorite speculation is the "RNA world", in which RNA served as both genetic-information storage and catalyst. Proteins developed originally as cofactors or helpers of RNA enzymes, then the RNA dropped out of most of the original enzymes -- but not all of them! DNA also evolved, as a modification of RNA for master-copy duty. However, there is still a gap between the RNA world and known prebiotic chemistry. Most of that world can be made without much trouble in prebiotic-chemistry experiments -- except for the ribose part of RNA. So the RNA of the RNA world may have taken over from some other kind of self-reproducing molecule -- but what?

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.