veracity of evolution

Biology= the study of life AFTER its conception

I am speaking directly about Darwin's Theory.

1) Life emerged from matter.

2) Life emerged from living processes.

Both are claimed to be facts. I would like to know which of these two are facts or are they both facts, or are neither facts. If either or both of these are facts, I would like to know what makes them facts.

Both of these pertain to Darwin's Theory

Yes, I was debating the above declarations. If anyone wants to comment on them, I would appreciate it.

OK. It is an plausible explanation. I would agree with that also. However, what is considered plausible needs to be defined more precisely. I would say that I have talked to people who do not think it is plausible, and they may represent the majority of the population on earth.

Are you describing this as a well confirmed, theory of what happened in the past and how species evolved? If so, can you give me a brief description of how this was confirmed?

Would you put Relativity and Quantum theories which make no representation of what happened in the past, but are purely predictive in nature, in the same class as theories such as species evolution theories which purport to explain what happened in the past. I realize that they may be both theories, but a theory that is purely predictive to me is completely different than one that suggests something may have happened millions of years ago. How does one distinguish the two, or is it necessary to distinguish the two.

Yes, but the example you gave does not purport to explain who made the shoe, how you purchased it, and what gave you the idea to throw it in the air. The two, for me, are completely different. Now, if you told me that Newton's Law not only predicts that the shoe will fall to the ground and the shoe was purchased at Zappo and was shipped via UPS because UPS was the cheapest way to ship it, then I would have a problem. The former part is predictive and repeatable, the latter part is pure speculation.

Thanks for helping me understand your perspective. I hope I have explained mine clearly even if we may disagree.

Rich

Again as I have pointed out so many times here, what these people are talking about is AFTER the fact. All of this biologic process and function is AFTER life has been given.

They cannot answer the question of the concept of life other than what life is AFTER it is conceived.

Biology= the study of life AFTER its conception

The only answers they have come up with is that life comes from potassium, life comes from the earth matter, and that life comes from the process of life.

We may have to rest our case here as well and call it a day unless they can figure out how to respond sensibly.

Oh and Oden, no no I am not going to say you got OWNED, I was just going to say that when I was in high school taking biology we were clearly taught that it was hypothetical theory. Much more is known today, but nothing that can declare it as a factual process of life.

For me a plausible explanation is different from a fact. Are they the same? The whole discussion began with several forum members declaring evolution as a fact. Which is it? A plausible explanation or a fact?

When you say that evolution is a well confirmed theory, can you define for me how you define evolutionary theory? What I object to is seeing something in a microscope change (I see things change all the time), and then declare this is what happened millions of years ago. So, I would like to know what you mean by evolutionary theory.

And to be explicit, do you believe that Darwin's Theory of the Origin of the Species is a Theory or Fact? I am using your definition of Theory. I do not know yet what your definition of fact is?
Thanks.Rich

The only answer we got to our question was that life comes from potassium, life comes from earth matter, and that life comes from life processes already established.

These are the answers we received to our question.

Pathfinder - Can you please have a look at my post #251 and let me have your comments on it.

I think you are raising a valid phenomenological question. If one considers life not from an objective, biological point of view, but from a subjective, first-personal, 'inside' point of view, then the question of where life (individual identity, the 'self') comes from and goes to, at conception and death respectively, is a mysterious and interesting one. However, as I have explained in post #251, I think it is a separate issue from biological evolution (please study closely my reasons for thinking this). So I think your argument would be more appropriate to the metaphysics forum; I would be happy to discuss it there.

Semantics and linguistic analysis have never been a big interest of mind. So arguing about facts, opinions, beliefs and theories and the differences between them do not hold great interest.

In general a fact is something that can be empirically confirmed and verified independent of any general theory.

Evolution as a theory, ties together the observed facts in the biosphere and in the fossil record as well as observations from genetics, anatomy, physiology and all other major fields of biology. Evolution is THE unifying theory in all of biology. Evolution is not a fact. It represents truth by coherence, consistency, correspondence and consensus but,i t is a theory not a fact.

My larger interest is in distinqhishing the theory of evolution from the metaphysical assertions that people make about the theory. Evolution is a historical process. It can not be demonstrated by laboratory experiment or repeated in its details.

Evolutionary theory properly understood as a scientific theory says nothing about whether the process is "blind and indifferent" or "spirit expressing itself through matter". Assertions such as these are not scientific, they are not part of the theory of evolution, they are metaphysical assumptions or philosophical speculations pure and simple.

Materialists, atheists, and mechanistic determinists like to seize upon evolution as confirming their metaphysical worldviews. It does nothing of the kind. Such metaphysical assertions are mislabeled as science in an effort to use the power of the label "science" to confirm materialist and atheistic "metaphysics".

Life has chemical constituents, just as any other matter in the world does. The major chemical constituents are organic molecules, i.e. carbon/hydrogen - based molecules. The most common atomic elements in living things, by far, are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur, though many others (iron, magnesium, iodine, zinc, sodium, potassium) are known to participate in biological processes.

In other words, the chemical constituents of life have the same old inorganic building blocks as anything else. The carbon in my body's organic molecules is the same carbon that you'll find in graphite. The iron in my hemoglobin is the same you'll find in iron ore. Etc.

So this leads us to the decision point -- do you think that life suddenly *poofed* into existence by the arbitrary assemblage of all this inorganic stuff? If not, then you don't believe in divine creation.

Alternatively, one can surmise that this process happened slowly, over eons, in an environment rife with chemical substrate and full of energy (which is necessary to catalyze reactions) -- and this process took place on a massive scale, i.e. the entire surface of the earth.

The latter explanation sure makes a lot more sense, even if we don't know exactly how it transpired or what the earliest "proto"-life forms looked like.

What we know from experimental evidence is that if you take the inorganic chemical constituents, put them in water, and bombard them with energy, organic molecules are spontaneously generated, even amino acids. For technical reasons (i.e. the microscopic scale and time course of such an experiment), I doubt "life" will ever arise from it. But I think we have a compelling idea of how life came into being.

so then are you admitting to not knowing where life originates and how it actually enters into a life form?

Bceause these other characters are not saying that. they are saying that they know where life comes from and they have us their ansers as ,

1. earth matter
2. potassium
3. life processes.
4. THAT
and you do not want to go to number 4 with us.

They aren't really my field of study so no help there.

Truth isn't affected by what the majority thinks. 1000 years ago all of Europe thought the Sun revolved around the Earth. That didn't make it so.

Genetics and Paleontology. Go to:

www.talkorigins.com

They have a lot of the documented, sourced evidence about this stuff which is too much to be posted here.

Evolution does make predictions though.

Again that's not evolution like I said earlier. Also I won't comment on it since it's not in my field of discipline, and not something I've studied in depth.

[Thank you for at least entertaining the possibility.

Aedes, you do not mix metaphysics with biology because that is the only way you can avoid the dilemma it creates for you.

What you are saying is that you cannot answer the question of how life is spawned into a form.

Whether you attribute that to metaphysical thinking or not you cannot answer the question.

Aedes, you do not mix metaphysics with biology because that is the only way you can avoid the dilemma it creates for you.

my metaphysical assumptions are irrelevant to biology because they create a dilemma for biology that they cannot get around

my metaphysical assumptions are irrelevant to biology because they create a dilemma for biology that they cannot get around.

Life remains a mystery and so does the origin of our existence. In my mind that is true biology.

So, it is possible to have:

3) a Metaphysical model on top of this that attempts to explain life, consciousness, etc.

I think this is very reasonable. Would you agree?

Honestly I think that much skepticism about biological explanation comes from the fact that humans want to be more than mere things. To explain ourselves in rote physical terms seems to some at a metaphysical level to diminish us.

But I feel that it's a perfectly healthy view to think of ourselves as unique, wondrous, and special, irrespective of how we came into being. There are many incongruities in life. It's the price of not being omniscient.