Why do people deny evolution?

Ernst Mayr wrote one of the modern foundational texts about evolution . It is an approachable text with a great intro glossary and history of
What Evolution Is. The hows and the ways and the possible why's are intertwined. Maybe you should read some more then your questions wont be ridiculed.

Just for the record, here's why I don’t believe it's 'almost a given'.

The simplest example that illustrates the basic problem of 'accidental life' is to understand what a protein is and how it is made. Search 'life of the cell' on YouTube for visual references to proteins. Without at least some grasp of proteins, a simple explanation is impossible. A protein in biology has little to do with the dietary term 'protein' so don’t think 'the stuff in meat'.

There are thousands of different types of proteins for doing different jobs in a cell. Anything that happens or gets done inside a cell is done either directly or indirectly by a protein. It is the most basic functional unit in a cell.

A protein is a molecular machine. I use the term 'machine' because of its interrelated combination of chemical, electrical and mechanical characteristics and the fact that it is very specific and functional.

A protein is made of amino acids. Amino acids are called the 'building blocks of life' for this reason. Making these 'building blocks' in the lab is as close to creating life as we have come, even though they can also form naturally. This is why one theory of life emerging is called 'protein world' since it seems logical that the 'simpler' protein came before the far more complex cell.

There are hundreds of different amino acids and each one comes in right and left handed versions (mirror images). Proteins only contain 20 of those and all are left handed. This creates a problem for naturally occurring proteins because if you mix in any of the other amino acids, or even a single right handed one of the 20, the protein is broken and will not function. And there is no mechanism in nature to prevent such contamination. But we are not yet to the real reason why biological life had to be designed.

A protein is a very specific chain of ordered amino acids between about 150 and 3500 long, depending on the protein. They do not function in this string form. In order to be functional, they must be 'folded' into a complex physical three dimensional shape, which is another barrier to 'natural' life forming. But we are still not at the crux of the problem.

Let’s say that in spite of the odds, the right order of only the correct amino acids does link up by chance. Let us further say that they accidentally fold into the correct functional configuration. If you are into math, the chances of that happening have been calculated at 1 in 10^77. For perspective, there are about 10^50 atoms in the entire planet of earth. But still, we are not at the bottom of the problem.

Remember that we are only talking about a protein so far. it takes hundreds to thousands of different proteins working in a coordinated fashion to make a single cell function. But for now let's ignore the mathematical improbability of that first protein and the hundreds of others needed.

You have probably noticed that I have not mentioned DNA yet. It is the nature of what DNA is that makes accidental life virtually impossible. Bill Gates compared DNA to a computer operating system, only DNA is far more complicated. It is the most complicated thing we know of and we have only begun to understand just how complex it is.

But it is NOT the complexity itself that explains why it had to be designed. It is the multiple hierarchical levels of symbolic representation in DNA that demands a design. DNA has a LANGUAGE with syntax, words, punctuation, definitions, etc.

Here is the breaking point. It is possible for a human mind to imagine something as complex as a protein forming as a result of naturally occurring chemical processes even if the odds are vanishingly small. Then multiply that by the thousands of protein types needed. Still you could say, well given enough time, multiple universes, etc. it could happen. It sounds desperate to me but You can’t say the odds are zero. I should add that even the 'evolution explains everything' crowd can’t defend this 'Protein World' scenario, so they usually default to something like 'RNA world' as a precursor to first living cell. RNA is basically half of a DNA strand.

But to accept that this happened by random chance you would have to believe the following:

By random linking up of nucleotides (the four molecules that are in DNA), a machine language containing the words, letters, syntax and punctuation necessary for defining all the needed proteins for 'life' came about. Notice that I said 'defining' the proteins, not the proteins themselves or even the amino acids needed to make a protein.

To over simplify, DNA is a ‘recipe', an ordered list of instructions and ingredients on how to build thousands of different proteins. DNA itself cannot do anything with these instructions. In order to be built, the DNA instructions have to be transferred to a Ribosome, which in turn is a very complex protein itself (hopefully you see the chicken and egg problem here).

The Ribosome reads the symbolic list of the recipe and begins gathering the required amino acids called for in the list. It assembles the amino acids into a string in the order specified in the DNA strand sent to it. (in the form of what’s called ‘messenger RNA')

After the amino acids are strung together, Some simpler proteins will spontaneously fold into their final three dimensional shape but most require yet other proteins to actively form them in the correct way. If they are not folded correctly they will not function and are often toxic.

Hopefully you followed that but to summarize, complex combinations of amino acids are possible given enough time and material. The odds are not what I would call possible but you can’t say that a protein by accident is impossible, in spite of its complexity.

What cannot be reasonably believed is that 'nature' took that first accidental protein and then invented a symbolic language (encoded in DNA) that was able to be read and executed by that protein in order to make more proteins.

A protein by accident - maybe.

A symbolic language describing all the needed proteins for life and simultaneously a molecular machine that understands that language and able to build according to the instructions by accident? - Nope.

It is the symbolic nature of DNA's language that required 'design'.

There you go pushing citations again instead of discussing the topic.

If you want to relay information from that text as part of your discussion, feel free.

Citing texts as a substitute for discussion and/or as an excuse to ridicule other posters is a cop out. Either put in the effort to engage in discussion or withhold your ridicule. In fact, you can just withhold your ridicule either way because it contributes nothing positive to any discussion. Anything you can ridicule, you can just explain why it's wrong.

I get really sick of people pushing each other around with ridicule. If you are an authoritarian person who wants to subjugate people to authority instead of explaining things for them to think about for themselves, you deserve subjugation yourself but the problem is that those of us who don't believe in subjugation don't want to hit you back with equal doses of your own medicine because then we would be using violence to achieve mindless authoritarian submission as much as you do.

So you are at an advantage with your lack of morality, but the universe is just and you will ultimately experience everything you do to others, I trust.

Once again, kids, evolution can only take place when life is present. How life originated is no part of evolutionary biology, nor the theory of evolution in any of its permutations. That pathetic dart is just about the only arrow left in the god-botherer quiver.

Right, just because an intelligence had to be behind the design of biological life does not mean he/she/it did anything after that.
But it sure would make me suspicious enough to consider that possibility.

Evidence, slick, without evidence you're just talkin' **** . . . nothing new about that.

Didn’t think you’d read it.
Noth'n new there either.

I did read it slick, and you've still got nothing. Certainly you don't have any evidence.

Counter arguments?
I won’t hold my breath.

Youve come long way. There was one time that you were padlocked to "Design" (I assumed that design means life forms not just an initial chemical reaction)

When you see chemical reactions that result in "rust, pyrite, or crystal structures, did you decide that everything above thos compounds HAD TBE DESIGNED??

Set is right . You should spend as much time on evidence as you do on conclusionary statements.

So farmer didn’t read it either. huh..

'Design' is just a word that implies agency in spontaneous formation.

When you design a cake, for example, your brain is just a bunch of spontaneous chemical reactions that somehow organize themselves in a way that results in your hands writing, "happy birthday" on the cake, but we call that 'design,' because we can relate to the brain as something with personhood beyond just being a clump of neural networks.

Likewise, using the word, 'design' to refer to other process of spontaneous formation allows us to relate to the systems that caused them to form and thus designed them in the process.

You don't like attributing nature to "God," because you want humans to be the supreme beings of the universe, whom you want to be reigned over by scientists, i.e. because you are a scientist and you want to be at the top of the universe.

So, you admit that people do not know about Origin of life.
Scientists use data today to try to explain what happened billions of years ago. They make assumptions. As a result they make an "ass u me".

that is absolute nonsense, and not at all what the people who talk about "intelligent design" mean by the term.

If you mean something by it that doesn't make sense, then you're not using it right, are you?

E.g. let's say someone who really understand 'intelligent design' to refer to an inherent intelligence built into how the universe functions and evolves, but someone hears them use the term and assumes they mean there is some bearded humanoid in another solar system who is designing everything piece by piece using, say, a joystick.

Just because the second person misconstrued the concept of intelligent design doesn't invalidate it as a concept.

What I am trying to explain is that you have to deconstruct the categorical difference between design and spontaneous formation to make sense of what it means for the universe to be intelligently designed.

That requires deconstructing your assumptions that humans are conscious/intentional agents and the non-human universe isn't. Anthrocentrism is bias that is behind humanistic atheism. People assume that God doesn't exist because they can't see how humans are just a manifestation of a fundamental potential that was latent in the universe because the universe contained the latency inherently; and THAT IS DESIGN.

I red it but find it full of conclusion statements not evidence.
Read (please do some reading) about Jeff Bada and his redo of Millers old xperiment in several possible environments

Befor Bda rdi Miller, he "inheritd: Millers notes nd specimen bottles an(With new technology in GC/MS biochemistry. He discovered that Miller had rel"creted at least 24 different amino acids and other biomonomers.

Bada has repeatable experimnts that are aboe to create (in arths early nvironment)
Peptide bonding amino acids that occur in several spwcific wnvironments
1he created a "black smoker" and discovered that in a "saline buffer zone" off the smoker the experiment discovered 22 amino acids and sveral pptide linking monomers

2Metal reacting hydrothermal pools (where the metal reactions occur as oxyhydroxie iron (goethite) tubules and Oxides (Limonite ) and acrbonates (Siderite) . These occur in 3.8 billion year old minor oxygenated "mud puddles of hydrothermal mineral rich water.
A scientist will try his ass off to conduct some repeatable experiments before even suggesting that he knows whats up in the biochemical world.
Bada has not discovered (or his epweriments have not reted some other amino acids and polymerized amino acids. So hes getting up in years (hes about 79 yers old and has a lot left to offer.

The difference between you and rel science is that YOU HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR QUIVER. You dont even have a pln for any xperiments or even better. DO YOU KNOW of anyone out there whose got good repetble evidence that these peptides are pasrt of a cosmic "bar code"

That more or less proves to me that farmer either didn’t read it or did not understand it.
I clearly stated that amino acids had been made in the lab and were naturally occurring as well. This makes up the most of his post, just repeating part of what I said in my argument, while thinking he is refuting my argument. This would indicate that he didn’t actually read it.

The absence of addressing the core argument shows he may not understand it. But The man isn’t stupid so there may be a more sinister reason he just blows it off. I’ve given up reasoning with him.

Listen, clown, do us both a favor and don't address your idiocy to me.

"Made in the lab" involves human intervention. There were no humans back then. However, God was there.

The existence of any putative god is unproven.