Evolution? How?

That's a ridiculous analogy. A computer, to begin with, is inorganic and it's evolution is dependent on human minds for development. I know, God-given minds, but that will only be valid if a diety did indeed assemble us. Back to square one.

If there is a Great Mover, to believe its' form of intelligence is anything like ours is the ultimate egoism.

RexRed wrote:

Who created the "words" that make up DNA? Who spoke these "words" into being?

This is an excellent point, Rex.

Intelligible language does not assemble itself.

Computer code does not assemble itself. Ask a programmer if you don't believe it.

Does anyone seriously think that the genetic code could have simply assembled itself?

"Faith is believing in what you know isn't so"
Mark Twain

Quote:

Scientific Laws, Hypotheses, and Theories

Lay people often misinterpret the language used by scientists. And for that reason, they sometimes draw the wrong conclusions as to what the scientific terms mean.

Three such terms that are often used interchangeably are "scientific law," "hypothesis," and "theory."

In layman's terms, if something is said to be "just a theory," it usually means that it is a mere guess, or is unproved. It might even lack credibility. But in scientific terms, a theory implies that something has been proven and is generally accepted as being true.

Here is what each of these terms means to a scientist:

Scientific Law: This is a statement of fact meant to explain, in concise terms, an action or set of actions. It is generally accepted to be true and univseral, and can sometimes be expressed in terms of a single mathematical equation. Scientific laws are similar to mathematical postulates. They don't really need any complex external proofs; they are accepted at face value based upon the fact that they have always been observed to be true.

Some scientific laws, or laws of nature, include the law of gravity, the law of thermodynamics, and Hook's law of elasticity.

Hypothesis: This is an educated guess based upon observation. It is a rational explanation of a single event or phenomenon based upon what is observed, but which has not been proved. Most hypotheses can be supported or refuted by experimentation or continued observation.

Theory: A theory is more like a scientific law than a hypothesis. A theory is an explanation of a set of related observations or events based upon proven hypotheses and verified multiple times by detached groups of researchers. One scientist cannot create a theory; he can only create a hypothesis.

In general, both a scientific theory and a scientific law are accepted to be true by the scientific community as a whole. Both are used to make predictions of events. Both are used to advance technology.

The biggest difference between a law and a theory is that a theory is much more complex and dynamic. A law governs a single action, whereas a theory explains a whole series of related phenomena.

An analogy can be made using a slingshot and an automobile.

A scientific law is like a slingshot. A slingshot has but one moving part--the rubber band. If you put a rock in it and draw it back, the rock will fly out at a predictable speed, depending upon the distance the band is drawn back.

An automobile has many moving parts, all working in unison to perform the chore of transporting someone from one point to another point. An automobile is a complex piece of machinery. Sometimes, improvements are made to one or more component parts. A new set of spark plugs that are composed of a better alloy that can withstand heat better, for example, might replace the existing set. But the function of the automobile as a whole remains unchanged.

A theory is like the automobile. Components of it can be changed or improved upon, without changing the overall truth of the theory as a whole.

Some scientific theories include the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and the quantum theory. All of these theories are well documented and proved beyond reasonable doubt. Yet scientists continue to tinker with the component hypotheses of each theory in an attempt to make them more elegant and concise, or to make them more all-encompassing. Theories can be tweaked, but they are seldom, if ever, entirely replaced.

Now, Scott, demonstrate objectively and in academically sound, forensically valid manner that religious faith, particularly the fundamentalist Christian faith concept you apparently endorse, be differentiable from superstition.

Does anyone seriously think that the genetic code could have simply assembled itself?

The discovery of the structure of DNA by Francis Crick and James Watson in 1953 extended the study of evolution to the most fundamental level. The sequence of the chemical bases in DNA both specifies the order of amino acids in proteins and determines which proteins are synthesized in which cells. In this way, DNA is the ultimate source of both change and continuity in evolution. The modification of DNA through occasional changes or rearrangements in the base sequences underlies the emergence of new traits, and thus of new species, in evolution. At the same time, all organisms use the same molecular codes to translate DNA base sequences into protein amino acid sequences. This uniformity in the genetic code is powerful evidence for the interrelatedness of living things, suggesting that all organisms presently alive share a common ancestor that can be traced back to the origins of life on earth.

One common misconception among students is that individual organisms change their characteristics in response to the environment. In other words, students often think that the environment acts on individual organisms to generate physical characteristics that can then be passed on genetically to offspring. But selection can work only on the genetic variation that already is present in any new generation, and genetic variation occurs randomly, not in response to the needs of a population or organism. In this sense, as Francois Jacob has written, evolution is a "tinkerer, not an engineer."2 Evolution does not design new organisms; rather, new organisms emerge from the inherent genetic variation that occurs in organisms.

Genetic variation is random, but natural selection is not. Natural selection tests the combinations of genes represented in the members of a species and allows to proliferate those that confer the greatest ability to survive and reproduce. In this sense, evolution is not the simple product of random chance.

Real wrote:

Does anyone seriously think that the genetic code could have simply assembled itself?

Yes.

Then what assembled the thing that assembled DNA? What "created" the conditions for chaos?

You mean what created the Big Bang?

Then it is only natural to further assume that we are assembled for a spiritual or divine purpose.

RexRed wrote:

Then it is only natural to further assume that we are assembled for a spiritual or divine purpose.

That is assumption without proof, however, and is therefore scientifically baseless and scientifically worthless.

What you are stating clearly is, you cannot understand how it happened, so there must be some kind of higher power than you that caused it to happen. It is a disingenious argument. I thought I'd just like to point that out. It's not an argument. It's just a statement, unless you want to turn it into an argument.

If we take your logic even further, we come to a dilemma. Who created God? What created God? Something must have created God, because everything must have a beginning, right?

No, what you are saying is, something very smart came out of something very dumb...

What your trying to do is to go so far back into the unknown where we don't have, or maybe can't possibly have any information. You then arbitrarily, without any evidence, attribute all the origins to some human-like God that some scientifically ignorant people created thousands of years ago.

You don't know what happened in the beginning. Science doesn't know. You have no evidence to support anything you talk about. Without evidence your words are as useless as my nipples.

RexRed wrote:

No, what you are saying is, something very smart came out of something very dumb...

I said nothing of the very sort. Only you used the words, dumb and smart.

Scott777ab, thank you for displaying one of the many techniques used by Creationists, mainly the "lying out of omission".

You used the Wikipedia Theory article, which stated:

Quote:

In order to prove your point. However, just below that paragraph is the following:

Quote:

In science, a theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise verified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists, "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theory which explains why the apple behaves so is the current theory of gravitation.

Oh. What's that?

It follows from this that for scientists, "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition.

Therefore, scientific theory can be fact. I love it how you complain about how talk7200 twists the meaning of scripture to support his views, yet you do the same with articles that don't quite support your ideas.

Can you say, hypocrite?

Vulgarity doesn't make your position any more credible either.

When you conclude there was a big bang and NOTHING before that, you are an idiot.