Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

@Leadfoot,

The last time I looked, watches didn't reproduce, and neither do tricorders.

The main reason the "watch" analogy is invalid is because watches (and other inanimate objects) don't reproduce, so you can't possibly use them in any analogy related to evolution.

Basic Requirements of Evolution:
1. Reproduction
2. Variation
3. Selection

And abiogenesis doesn't have to produce complexity, as a matter of fact we wouldn't expect it to, all it has to produce is a molecule which can divide and produce imperfect copies of itself. That covers reproduction and variation, and isn't very complex. All we need after that is selection and all natural environments provide that.

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@Leadfoot,

Proteins are simply molecules. Molecules form other molecules all the time in nature.

Computer programs don't create molecules such as proteins. They simply cause transistors to turn on and off.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

The last time I looked, watches didn't reproduce, and neither do tricorders.

The main reason the "watch" analogy is invalid is because watches (and other inanimate objects) don't reproduce, so you can't possibly use them in any analogy related to evolution.

Basic Requirements of Evolution:
1. Reproduction
2. Variation
3. Selection

And abiogenesis doesn't have to produce complexity, as a matter of fact we wouldn't expect it to, all it has to produce is a molecule which can divide and produce imperfect copies of itself. That covers reproduction and variation, and isn't very complex. All we need after that is selection and all natural environments provide that.

One more time, Evolution has nothing to do with ID. RTFP

Please supply example of 'simple' self reproducing molecule. (That isn't complex) The simplest example of a self reproducing organism is the e-coli bacteria. It is staggeringly complex. There are more instructions in its DNA than there are words in any book you have likely read.

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@Leadfoot,

Oh, you are going to resort to this canard? "You can't throw parts in the air and make a computer." Actually, I can throw transistors in the air and if they could magically connect themselves together I would have a computer very quickly. The problem is that transistors unlike atoms don't connect to each other by just adding some energy. I tell you what. If you give me 1000 simple transistors and 1000 resistors, I guarantee that if I throw them all up in the air I can find instances where they have formed simple NAND, NOT and NOR components which are a basic computer components. I could easily write a program to get an output from those components based on input. Again, you are simply redefining "complex" to meet your conclusion. While it might make you feel good, it shows you don't have logical argument. Perhaps you should stop pulling out idiotic arguments that have been promoted by creationists.

But in the end, computer parts are not proteins. They are manufactured items made from molecules. A computer part can be quite complex in and of itself. I find it interesting that design by an intelligence means I can now hold a computer in my hand that is almost 1,000 times more powerful than the Cray 1 in only 40 years time but intelligent design as you describe it means no design improvements at all over millions of years. That isn't very intelligent on the part of your designer. It's nothing but random noise in DNA as it reproduces itself billions of times a second.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

Please supply example of 'simple' self reproducing molecule

RNA. And it's likely that there are other replicative forms which are even less complex.

But I must admit, nobody has discovered the very first self-replicating molecule yet. As you might expect, it's very difficult to find fossils of molecules. How does the fact that nobody has found an actual imprint of something which is going to be virtually impossible to find (and yet is the only probable natural scientific solution to the problem) of any relevance to the discussion of ID? It's not. You can't possibly deduce the existence of an intelligent designer simply because you don't have evidence of a particular molecule which would have existed over 4 billion years ago. As a matter of fact, you can't deduce the existence of an intelligent designer ever. That's equivalent to magic and science doesn't do magic.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

Leadfoot wrote:
"Please supply example of 'simple' self reproducing molecule"

RNA. And it's likely that there are other replicative forms which are even less complex.

RNA cannot self replicate.

I thought you were going to try to use a virus as an example but a virus needs use the replicating machinery of a host cell in order to reproduce.

On the self replicating molecule, I wasn't requiring you to find an old one. If it's possible to design one that could have been naturally occurring, go ahead and whip one up in the lab. Even without the requirement of being 'naturally occurring', the simplest possible design would be quite complex. It has to be capable of evolving too ya know. I think you underestimate the complexity required.

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@Leadfoot,

So if a molecule uses other molecules in order to replicate then it isn't self replicating?

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@Leadfoot,

No, i've said nothing of the kind. That means that you're peddling a straw man fallacy. It seems your rhetoric collapses in the absence of logical fallacies. If one found a "tricorder" (you really do crack me up), it would at least be recognized as an artificial artifact, something made by man, or a man-like being. That's because we have experience of artifacts, and of men.

You're just trying to shoehorn your god into everything--which is also a rhetorical flaw. Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

...That does not negate the fact of an intelligently designed creation.

Your lack of evidence is precisely the reason your "intelligently designed creation" hypothesis is NOT a fact.

Quote:

You once again turn back to science. You gave up the right to appeal to scientific authority when shortly ago you disavowed any obligation to answer for it's/their shortcomings. If you are unwilling to do that, you lose the right to posit its testimony as evidence. Sorry bout that.

I will provide evidence for whatever claims I make, using whatever resources I choose. You don't make the rules here. The claim I make is that you have no credible evidence for an intelligent designer, which would be entailed by your alleged "fact" that "creation" is intelligently designed. My evidence is the body of posts that you have submitted so far.

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

Quote:
Leadfoot wrote:
"Please supply example of 'simple' self reproducing molecule"

RNA. And it's likely that there are other replicative forms which are even less complex.

RNA cannot self replicate.

"The RNA world refers to the self-replicating ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecules that were precursors to all current life on Earth"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world#Alternative_hypotheses

Leadfoot wrote:

I thought you were going to try to use a virus as an example.

Of course not. Viruses are already much more complex than the simple molecules which must have preceded them.

Leadfoot wrote:

Even without the requirement of being 'naturally occurring', the simplest possible design would be quite complex. It has to be capable of evolving too ya know. I think you underestimate the complexity required.

The first replicative molecules would not have evolved through biological evolution, but through chemical evolution. And they would have been much more dependent on their environment for the energy required to run the system. The environment on the early earth was loaded with organic compounds and lots of energy in various forms. And there's a good chance earth wasn't alone with these conditions. Mars probably had them too.

We can't produce these molecules yet, so if that's your requirement to support my argument then I cannot satisfy you. But for reasonable people seeking to actually understand the world around them, it is not a logical stretch by any means to see how the chemistry of that time might well have produced such molecules. It's far far less of a stretch to get from organic molecules to replicative molecules, than it is to get from the natural world to the supernatural world of an Intelligent Designer.

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

We can't produce these molecules yet, so if that's your requirement to support my argument then I cannot satisfy you. But for reasonable people seeking to actually understand the world around them, it is not a logical stretch by any means to see how the chemistry of that time might well have produced such molecules. It's far far less of a stretch to get from organic molecules to replicative molecules, than it is to get from the natural world to the supernatural world of an Intelligent Designer.

Although the Wiki excerpt states it as fact, RNA world hypothesis is just that, and currently not seen as the most likely route to abiogenesis. But even if we accept that it's possible through the RNA world approach, RNA still involves the same level of information encoding that DNA does. It still requires us to believe that pure chance delivered those millions of bits of information to the RNA strand not to mention the mechanisms required to act upon that code. It's a bridge too far for me.

Your appeal to see chemical evolution as the route to life is the best argument so far but random molecular bonds forming your hypothetical replicating molecule in the early days of earth still seems far beyond the ability of chance. That too is a streatch too far for me. If we can't achieve it in the lab (with the assistance of considerable intelligence) it's pretty hard to see it happening by chance.

But I do appreciate the dilemma that science finds itself in. Science does not have the option to accept any other answer than "If it happened, it had to have a natural cause", no matter how unlikely it may seem. But as a human being, I am not bound by that limitation. I can consider the possibility of intelligent design. Of course just as science often gets it wrong, I could be too.

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@rosborne979,

Thanks for bringing the subject of self replicating molecules and chemical evolution up. I had not given it much thought or at least not nearly as much as more conventional approaches to abiogenesis like 'RNA' world'. But when you think about it, there really isn't much other choice other than chemical evolution How else would life arise in a sterile environment?

The beauty of that theory is just what you pointed out. Plenty of energy sources and raw material to fuel the process. There is still the unlikely hood of it occurring by chance but you can never rule out the possibility given enough time and then as you point out, time can cover up the old traces as well.

The trouble with science is that the methodological approach sometimes makes it myopic. But if you back off and look at it from a wider perspective, the absurdity of it finally dawns on you. The self reproducing molecule would be the perfect Darwinian survival specie. It has no natural enemies, should be perfectly suited for surviving climate changes and has virtually no limit on natural resources or energy. In short, there is absolutely NO REASON FOR IT TO BE EXTINCT! The Earth should be over run with them.

But let's say that some freak occurrence like an ice age, wide scale volcanic activity, etc does wipe it out and some version of it made the leap (no mater how unlikely) to a biological life form before that happened. Because, as you say, it is so relatively simple, there is no reason this chemical/molecular 'life form' should not be emerging ALL THE TIME! If you are correct and it emerged as early as 4 billion years ago, it has had plenty of time to 'evolve' many times over. But where is it? Also as you point out, no reason it wouldn't develop on Mars or other planets. No sign of it there either. On this basis, I'm ready to rule out the self reproducing molecule as the source of abiogenesis.

But backing away still further, I realized there are lots of self reproducing molecules and they are the kind you would expect to arise from natural causes. I deal with them all the time. It's called rust. And of course it's closely related 'specie' corrosion. So you see, if you are right, we didn't evolve from lowly single celled organisms, we came from some specie of rust! :-)

(smiley face included just in case parados took that last bit seriously)

So a question for the "ID deniers". If you can believe in chemical/molecular life forms, why would it be so hard for you to believe in a metaphysical life form evolving from quarks in the heart of some singularity where all the rules are different? I'm just say'n...

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@Leadfoot,

Quote:

In short, there is absolutely NO REASON FOR IT TO BE EXTINCT! The Earth should be over run with them.

Did you bother to think before you said that? A self replicating molecule that is highly dependent on a single environment can not exist outside that environment. Earth would not be overrun with them. That single environment might still contain them but they would be fighting biological competitors that would probably have a distinct advantage.

Quote:

If you are correct and it emerged as early as 4 billion years ago, it has had plenty of time to 'evolve' many times over. But where is it?

Do you understand the meaning of the word evolve? If such a molecule evolved to become DNA then it's evolved descendants have overrun the earth.

Quote:

So a question for the "ID deniers". If you can believe in chemical/molecular life forms, why would it be so hard for you to believe in a metaphysical life form evolving from quarks in the heart of some singularity where all the rules are different? I'm just say'n...

You don't seem to understand the difference between belief and hypothesis.

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@parados,

Right..... A mythical chemical life form that we've never seen any trace of that requires a special, rare, unknown environment that goes away (for totally unknown reasons) and then killed off by biological critters of unknown type. Holy ****, talk about lack of evidence!

Next thing you'll tell me you believe in God :-)

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@Leadfoot,

You don't seem to understand the difference between belief and hypothesis.

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@parados,

You are too Boring 'Rusty'. I wanna hear from somebody capable of intelligently discussing this, like rosborne.

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@Leadfoot,

So you don't listen to yourself?

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@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

The simplest example of a self reproducing organism is the e-coli bacteria. It is staggeringly complex. There are more instructions in its DNA than there are words in any book you have likely read.

You might want to get caught up with science. -

Quote:

a symbiotic bacterium called Carsonella ruddii, which lives off sap-feeding insects, has taken the record for smallest genome with just 159,662 'letters' (or base pairs) of DNA and 182 protein-coding genes. At one-third the size of previously found 'minimal' organisms, it is smaller
than researchers thought they would find.

The Bible has over 800,000 words. Les Miserables has over 600,000 words. War and Peace has over 500,000 words. Moby Dick has over 200,000 Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix has over 250,000 words.

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@parados,

Woo hoo! Congratulations Rusty! He learned how to use Google!!

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Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

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