Don't tell me there's no proof for evolution

real: Unless you can give a scenario where creation and geographical distribution are wholly incompatible, then you are grasping at the air.


Funny you should talk about geographical distribution and grasping (for) air. Scientists have recently found fishes in Antarctica that has no hemoglobin, because the waters of Antarctica are rich with oxygen.

Do you know how many ice age changes this planet has gone through?

Interesting article.



for full story see http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanId=sa003&articleId=B7AABF35-E7F2-99DF-309B8CEF02B5C4D7

Shapiro then goes on to document how RNA or another xNA molecule had been thought a possible candidate for this worthy role, and why this too was extraordinarily unlikely.

Not one to give up hope, however, Shapiro spreads the faith that the first life could've jumped started itself WITHOUT the ability to replicate.

Interesting.

Even if the first one succeeded (here we go again), where would the second come from?

( I would also be interested to hear any evolutionist explain how a 'survival advantage' could be conferred on a group of first dozens, then 100's of non-living[/i] chemicals in the ramp-up stages PRIOR to the purported first living cell. )

Evolution can be thought of as a trend towards more complex, statistically improbable, integrations of life substance or even of matter. Not that we know what matter actually is these days outside of an observed effect coming from a centre with us as the observers. Evolution is therefore sometimes called the "integrative tendency".

Its causes and purposes are unknown as those are questions synonymous with the meaning of life itself.

Explaining evolution (the integrative tendency in protoplasm once protoplasm has been jumped started, poofed if you like), by adaptive necessity is arguing in a circle because it not only begs rl's question but it also begs the question of why living protoplasm should maintain itself by a series of more and more complicated and physically more improbable, not to mention wastings of energy, adaptations to the environment.

The "lower" a life form the more there is of it. "Lower" life forms have hardly been left behind. There are millions of "lower" life forms within the territory of a troupe of monkeys which might only consist of a dozen or so organisms. There are myriads of plankton within the reach of a single whale. Every pond contains more life forms than the population of the USA and maybe the world.

Why would smaller numbers be called "higher"?

Is evolution theory merely a piece of arch self-flattery akin to the self-flattery of the industrialists of Victorian England who rushed to embrace Mr Darwin's theory for its guilt assuagement therapy and justification of their murderous capacities in the service of luxury living. It proved their divine right to dominate and exploit. Sanctified it.

Are not "higher" life forms mutants? An accumulation of negative entropy and, as such, a scientific anomaly if not an impossibilty, and leading to a receding series?

The Great Leader has high status in the hierarchy of life as the pinnacle of negative entropy because he has receded to a point the size of his shoes and the proles have low status because they are akin to flies and microbes. He is heterogeneous, differentiated, whilst the proles are homogeneous like primitive cell colonies. He is an individual, proles are an aggregate. (See TV ratings).

To say that a virus becomes immune to an antibiotic is only the same as saying that we become immune to virulent very low level negative entropy carriers. But they do keep coming no matter what we do. If we continue forcing them to adapt one day they will adapt out of our reach on all known form. Are we pushing them into a corner? To prefer the first phrase is a value judgement. It means "I am a human and therefore I am "higher" in the Grand Design.

Yeah well. We'll see about that.

For many years we thought our enemy was a competing system similar to our own. Now we know it was a system having much lower coefficients of negative entropy which turned our own technology against us.

The world only discovered "teeming millions" after religious principles became established. Augustus was always bemoaning the incapacity of citizens to produce children and the Australian aboriginal population is supposed to have been stable for 25,000 years despite ample resources for its number. It is much more unstable now that it has had increased levels of integration forced upon it. Troupes of primitive humans in Europe are supposed never to have seen another human being. And those periods of time are a mere blink of the eye on evolution's time-scale. No teeming millions of monkeys either. And there were trillions upon trillions, unestimable, of "lower" life forms none of which left any fossils. A fly in amber maybe.

Evolution only studies those aspects of the life processes which allow us the indulgence to present ourselves as "higher" and, where possible, in a rosy light.

And in those "lower" life forms there are no malignant growths due to disturbances of the integrative tendencies which we find in the "higher" life forms with increasing frequency.

How can a scientist claim that humans are a "higher" life form than a microbe? That is a religious belief and it runs counter to observed fact. There's no way humans will see the virus off but there's a chance the virus will see us off. There are no observed facts to counter a belief in a Creator. Thus the evolutionist is a die-hard fundamentalist of the worst sort because he's on a narcissism trip which "lower" life forms never undertake on account of the health risks. The "myth" of Narcissus might not be as unscientific as those who deny it might wish.

Thinking one knows anything significant about the 3.5 billion years long processes of life on earth on the basis of some simplified Darwinism, which is itself simple enough, is just about the most arrogant, posturing nit-wittery it is possible to imagine. Trying to perpetuate the idea is obnoxious.

No wonder they primp themselves up and spray their throats with BREATHFRESH before they venture abroad on the off chance of a bit of French kissing.

The "higher" an organism rises in the hierarchy it has itself chosen the orientation of the more procedures it has to submit to to keep up appearences and "hold its dominion" and it soon happens that these appearences and the procedures for keeping them up become so ingrained that they become confused with life itself and, in bad cases, supplant it. The energy required for such activities can only be drawn from "lower" life forms and its expenditure is contrary to that grand principle of evolution of never wasting energy.

As Veblen said- Waste=Status, Use= Odium.

Atom smashers are doing a pretty decent job, considering this kind of science is still in their young stages.

Thanks RL, it was a good article.

It ended with this:

Now, all we're waiting for is for those damn aliens to contact us.

If life was really THAT probable, then we should see LOTS of examples of different kinds of life, most (all but 1) of them without[/i][/u] DNA.

Where are they?

And if the first life did begin as Shapiro proposes (without the ability to replicate) , then how did the second one in the family line arrive?

He proposes (I have to say it) a dead end. Sound familiar?

Sheesh! What earthly use to man or beast is an empty statement like that. It doesn't even mean anything. It's a religious belief. A dogma.

If it comes to a shouting match between dogma's M. Monod's dogma is untried and untested and experimental whereas the Christian dogmas, whilst still to some extent experimental on the fiddly-bits and fine adjustments, have a great deal of experience and success to their name.

It's a fancy way of symbolically wearing your underpants outside your trousers. That's untried and untested as well. At least where I come from.

suspendis rantings notwithstanding, the incredulity shouted out by RL, "where are the non DNA life -forms" is a hoot. Ya cant have it multiple ways RL, and besides Miller and Futuyama have postulated life forms with central ligands that are iron, silica, sulfur or phsophorus based. Just because we dont see lots of them on this planet (with the exception of sulfur ligand extremophiles whoese sructures are "sort of" mercaptan based "DNA's' we may be looking for a long time. But I figure that one example is a start .

Ros, I love it when RL only posts certain chunks of a paper and hopes that hell get away with murder of logic.


Of course , Im still waiting for a decent answer re biogeography and Creation (hopefully evidence driven). Im sure RL will try to dodge off by posing some Creationist dodge in orser that we may be diverted

suspendi

Try to find one, just one piece of evidence to support yer claim. Its total rot. We live in a law driven universe with no need for gods (just devils, from whom you can force your sheep to stay away)

Before I reply fm could you explain why you think my previous post was ranting. Just asserting it is so, so bloody naff, babyish and pathetic. Any silly plonker can shout assertions out. You're supposed to be an educated bloke as I understand things but I'm beginning to have my doubts.

What was it in my post you are taking exception to? Just for once tell us.

Anyway- it's late here.

The evidence is right before your eyes. M Monod has no evidence. He is speculating. Flying by the seat of his underpants.

Answer my question first. Otherwise you are completely pointless.

When are going to post some of your own evidence you hypocritical loser???

Your "force of life" question has been answered in full. You still have not answered CI's question.

It's getting boring waiting for you to support your claims, moreover it's practically murder waiting for you to just define god in your own words.

T
K
One would expect much more from such a "confident" believer.

The synthesis of the various nucleic acids, from peptide nucleics to Ribose nucleics "Could" have all served as a step from a world wherein the problem wasnt necessarilly enzyme transcription , but cell wall mechanics.
RL's arguments (in this rebirth) tend towards irreducible complexity. Wherein, since we struggle with the search for the processof self assembly and ultimately life itself, since we dont have all the answeres , they cant be known

THEREFORE - he must dfault to a god "poof be upon him". Science just keeps plugging on (fully hoping that the pipelines dont get turned off) Weve all seen that article in the NYT (and Science) that "life" will be synthesized within the next year. We are that close to self assemby and metabolim in the lab. Im more concrened that, once we "create" it, will it stay put?

suspendi. Pistols at dawn you blodsinnig Plotz.

Here comes the violence again.

I'm happy to see you had the decency to place bunny-rabbit's ears around the word "could".



Can you get even money that it won't be despite the article you have all seen. Put me down for fifty grand if you can.

If anybody gets close to creating life the NYT won't know about it.

Wilso wrote-



and TKO echoed-



What foolish points to make. They betray a total lack of understanding of this subject from which one might deduce that a similar lack of understanding exists on other matters as well.

God either exists or does not exist. What useful standards can be applied to either argument? One assumes that any standards applied should be valid and their premisses true.

But in either case such requirements are trivial. Nothing else is needed except to state either as an assertion. One might have no view of course but then one bows out of the discussion and goes off to play golf which is a respectable position despite it being of no consequence.

If it is required that either argument must have valid premisses, be universally accepted, indubitable, ineluctable etc then no argument will pass the test. One might even say that no interesting argument for anything can meet such standards and that any argument that purports to do is therefore, logically, uninteresting like the two examples quoted.

But it is possible to say that if we only require the validity, truth and acceptabilty of the premisses to apply to some intended audience then the arguments become satisfactory to either side. Obviously, and the evidence is plentiful, both sets of arguments are not universally persuasive and the effectiveness of the tests for truth and validity will be limited to those for whom the premisses are acceptable.

If there are no consequences resulting from either belief (There is a God or there isn't a God) then the debate is mere arid, abstract sophistry only of interest to those debating. The very fact of the long continuing debate at all levels of society on this dispute is evidence that there are consequences associated with both positions. There is plenty of other concrete evidence as well such as behaviour of millions of people at baptisms, marriages and funerals, in times of catastrophe, in architecture, music and other arts and in the codes of morality clustered around a belief in a God or a belief in no God.

Hence the dispute is political and, like all political issues, it is decided on votes and on perceptions of the utility for human social organisation of either belief.

Social consequences is thus the only game in town and those who refuse to debate those, either because they don't understand them or because they fear to expose themselves to ridicule, are pissing in the wind.

Is it rational, for example, to preach the belief that there is no God without demonstrating why society would not radically change if everyone accepted the argument and that it would change for the better. If one preaches a belief one has a responsibility to consider that everyone would be converted to it.

Those who preach that there is a God, and I am referring now to the Christian God, can point to the progress society has made in that context and can only be declared irrational by those who deny that progress which some, of course, do, although I think they are considered nuts by the movers and shakers on Wall St. The "The End is Nigh" brigade.

The evidence for the Christian God is that our God is accepted by the vast bulk of the population on the grounds that such a God has a proven worth and I would expect that population to be extremely wary of the proposition that there is no God unless it can be brought to believe that such a belief is now in its interests.

The onus is on the atheist to show the population the benefits of his belief because unless he does so he's at the King Lear's who everybody knows was completely barmy and at the mercy of his voracious daughters whose mercy was striking by its absence.

The two quotes are fatuous.

And even fm by saying-



is showing doubts about science unmuzzled. There's trepidation in such a remark which is incoherent to an atheist. An atheist should stride confidently into the future even though he will not define it. His ideal for new life might be a nymphomaniac with 8 pairs of tits who owns a pub. If he can't make some of them tell me what bloody use he is. We will have to hope that his new life is not the size of a flea, breeding exponentially and with a voracious appetite for human blood.

spendi: What foolish points to make. They betray a total lack of understanding of this subject from which one might deduce that a similar lack of understanding exists on other matters as well.

spendi, What subject on this planet do you accept as fact that's not supported by science or philosophy? I'm talking about "most" educated people.

1- That not staying in formal, organised education one moment longer than the law insists upon is a good thing.

2- That working is a waste of time unless you need the money.

3- That God is female.

4- That the Paperwork Party will be our ruinination if it isn't already.

5- That one owes nothing to one's parents and that they owe you everything.

6- That society is changing so fast that those who are "educated", in the sense you suggested, are the dumbest bunch it has ever been my sad duty to have to deal with.

7- That Science is a wonderful thing. It is the "educated" who are muzzling it isn't it.

8- That the Marquis de Sade is the most important figure in Western European literature.

I could offer a good few more but I don't wish to shock you and get your knees knocking.

I have cheated a bit because proper Science would support all those. I was allowing your use of "science" which, obviously, I don't accept seeing as it is something you picked up as a status symbol whilst wiping your arse on a page of Scientific American.

spendi, I'm not shaken up that easily, but your summary only results in big <smiles>. I'm gonna let the other thread participants respond to your list, because I know they can put to rest your idea of what constitutes the "important stuff of life."

That just goes to show what a difficult word "know" is.