Christianity is false and immoral. (Hitchens)

[Tom]

Cool story, bro. You might as well disagree that circles are round or that squares have corners. It makes as much sense as disagreeing that evolution and abiogenesis are different things.

Really ? Here's something to think about. There's two ways to study the origins of life.

You can try to recreate conditions as they existed and make it happen.

Or you can trace life through history back to the beginning.

Seems to me the 2nd track has a lot of similarites to the study of evolution, maybe with a different goal or focus, but not completely unrelated.

For example, a study of dna is probably gonna be useful for both fields.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

Because the knowledge I've acquired suggests that time passes and events unfold. One after the other.

Sorry, but these two sentences are practically worthless.

That evolution seems to be haapening now, that it seems like it's been happening for a long time, I don't see a reason why it wouldn't start at the beginning. Or have always existed, if there's no beginning.

The mechanism of evolution is generally taken to be natural selection, yes? Natural selection works by the differential survival of individuals with characteristics that respond differently to the selection pressure(s). Good? So. There are two questions that come out of this.

1) What selection pressure is there on a molecule?
2) What could the molecule possibly change to make it better suited to survive in such an environment, if there is such a selection pressure?

 

[Tom]

Sorry, but these two sentences are practically worthless.


The mechanism of evolution is generally taken to be natural selection, yes? Natural selection works by the differential survival of individuals with characteristics that respond differently to the selection pressure(s). Good? So. What selection pressure is there on a molecule?

heat, light, neutrons. btw, are you defining the beginning of life the formation of a molecule ? Not sure if that's adequate.

 

[HumblePie]

Sorry, but these two sentences are practically worthless.


The mechanism of evolution is generally taken to be natural selection, yes? Natural selection works by the differential survival of individuals with characteristics that respond differently to the selection pressure(s). Good? So. There are two questions that come out of this.

1) What selection pressure is there on a molecule?
2) What could the molecule possibly change to make it better suited to survive in such an environment, if there is such a selection pressure?

Natural selection is considered one mechanism. It is not the only one. It is a single part of a whole and there are many, many others. Many we are still finding out about.

 

[Tom]

Sorry, but these two sentences are practically worthless.


The mechanism of evolution is generally taken to be natural selection, yes? Natural selection works by the differential survival of individuals with characteristics that respond differently to the selection pressure(s). Good? So. There are two questions that come out of this.

1) What selection pressure is there on a molecule?
2) What could the molecule possibly change to make it better suited to survive in such an environment, if there is such a selection pressure?

You editted so Im answering again.

1. already answered heat, light, neutrons, cosmic rays.
2. perhaps the "natural selection" is the right molecules at the right place and time.

Seems like there could be lots of natural selection going on at the first moment, and shortly thereafter, unless there's only one possible combination that works.

 

[totalnoob]

Religion is a tool used by mankind to make reasons for things that have no reason.

I like this. 😉

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

You're right that not all beliefs are religious beliefs. I don't believe I said they are, if I did it was a mistake.

You said that the totality of any given person's beliefs can be described as a "religion." Given that persons -- even religious persons -- hold non-religious beliefs, your claim is false. The totality of a give person's beliefs is described as a "worldview," and while some worldviews are religious, others are not.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Really ?

Yes, really.

Here's something to think about. There's two ways to study the origins of life.

You can try to recreate conditions as they existed and make it happen.

Or you can trace life through history back to the beginning.

Seems to me the 2nd track has a lot of similarites to the study of evolution, maybe with a different goal or focus, but not completely unrelated.

That's because you don't understand evolution. Evolution is the study of how life diversifies. Life must already exist for evolution. Evolution doesn't even presuppose that there was a beginning of life. It just says that if there is a population of living organisms, evolution will happen.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

heat, light, neutrons.

I'm calling you out, because you're simply talking out of your ass. Explain how "heat, light, neutrons" exert selection pressures on a molecule.

Do you even know what selection pressures are?

 

[HAL9000]

I like this. 😉

Why thank you.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Because the knowledge I've acquired suggests that time passes and events unfold. One after the other.

That evolution seems to be haapening now, that it seems like it's been happening for a long time, I don't see a reason why it wouldn't start at the beginning. Or have always existed, if there's no beginning.

While that is probably true, evolution does not attempt to say anything about how life got here, only what happened once it did.

Could pre-biotic chemistry have had a selective process working on it that led to life? Yes, in fact I find it likely that there was, but we do not call that evolution because it would have a very different set of rules that it follows from the life that it led to.

Think of it like this, a river certainly has selective pressures on what path it takes, but that doesn’t mean that I can use evolutionary theory to determine what path a new river would take, nor to explain the path that one already takes. It has some common concepts, selective pressures, but those selective pressures are so different as to not be comparable with evolutionary theory.

EDIT: I'm not saying that selective pressures are all there is to evolution, there is a lot more to evolution then selective pressure, I'm just talking about that one example. I think that the idea would also work for all other concepts that make up the theory of evolution, but I have not examined the logic to make sure.

 

[Daedalus685]

There are favourable organizations of atoms and molecules that are more or less stable in different environments. There are certainly environmental factors dictating the make up and stability of a molecule.. Though the preference of a chemical is not in itself evolution. Things break down at different high temperatures than others while at the same time become impossible to react at vastly different lower ones. Pressure, radiation, electron flow, and so on all effect chemical composition. They also provide variation for required changes to occur.

Once more complicated molecules are created, whether by chance or by the settling of the varying environment to a region outside of so called extremes (so called in that what we call extreme is not necessarily outside of the possible conditions for life), they become more susceptible to selective forces as they are, generally, more volatile. With increasing volatility there is increasing diversity and more generational changes to work on when pressured by the equally volatile environment.

If everything were perfectly isotropic from the origin of the universe there would never have been stars, let alone life. We talk about evolution in regards to life only but the increase of universal entropy has come hand in had with an increase in local complexity far before life existed on earth and there is no easily pointed to line between mere lifeless matter and a living thing. This complexity arises and builds upon previous complexity to an extent as increased complexity allows more fluctuations to occur and be acted upon. Fluctuations (on a quantum level) prevented pure isotropy from existing leading to the condensation of early stars, which lead to the fusion of heavier elements from hydrogen, which are no longer able to fuel a star and spread about in their deaths leading to the possibility for us to have ground to stand on, air to stir things around and regulate heat, and generally leave us with an environment suitable for molecular synthesis and 'experimentation'.

A complex environment allows the collection of atoms into large molecules to be possible, but also limited. That they are volatile in a volatile environment is the selective pressures some talk about as it allows certain arrangements to last longer than another and begin to dominate. Given time and the right conditions it does not strike me as any more miraculous that some basic life started to form (and naturally lead to a more complex arrangement) than a galaxy condensing from quantum fluctuation at the time of inflation was. Volatility also allows, given the time scales we are talking about here, the more or less random trial and error of combinations until one begins to sustain itself to the point that most other 'offspring' incorporate it as a beginning, and thus increase the complexity of the next generations. Somewhere in this wonderful display of elegance "life" began, Darwinian evolution took over, humans starting wondering about things, and so on. However, while not the same kind of evolution (no genes are being traded about after all) lifeless things certainly 'evolve'.

It is easy to point to a rock being dead and a human being alive yet comparing a random collection of amino acids and the simplest virus the distinction loses a great deal. Some folks seek a logical beginning because it seems like the thing to occur, but most scientists don't seem to care about it because it is largely unimportant and would be so hard to define in an ever changing system as to be pointless. We have no idea if the universe has a beginning or not, or even if what we call the "universe" isn't some art of a much larger and more complex unseen structure. Hunting for and assigning a beginning is a very human thing to do but it is rather futile given that the universe is not a very human thing and need to be a certain way because it makes us comfortable.

The mechanisms and paradigms that dictate the increasing complexity of this ever changing universe are themselves evolving and changing over time. The time scales between "lifeless" and now are so huge that what works as a perfect mechanism of genetic evolution today in no way applies to when a definition of life may have appeared. To expect such a clear beginning is futile.

Sorry for the wall of text....

 

[wuliheron]

Evolution doesn't define what is and isn't alive. By some accounts a virus is only alive when it inhabits a cell because it can't metabolize, move, or reproduce on its own.

For anyone who might be interested there is a new theory in quantum mechanics called "Quantum Darwinism" that suggests even the laws of physics are the result of evolutionary processes that emerge from the random interactions of quanta. Roll the dice enough times and you'll get the same number several times in a row, but in the case of quanta you get states that can reproduce, mutate, and produce all the physical laws we observe.

It's a naturalist's wet dream and the first experiment done confirmed the theory. We'll just have to wait and see if more evidence can be found.

P.S.- If you are going to debate philosophy and science might I suggest actually learning more of both subjects first?

 

[zsdersw]

Sorry for the wall of text....

Please... don't apologize for that. There's already too much ADD and ADHD in the world. Excellent post, btw.

 

[Lonbjerg]

I would love to see your proof that religion can only end in harm.

One thing and one thing only is illustrated by this diatribe: people scream about that which disagrees with them. There is no other truth.

There is room in the world for people of all religions, including the religions of atheism and agnosticism.

What is harmful, from everyone, are the fundamentalists and extremists. However, those fundamentalists and extremists exist from all factions, INCLUDING atheism and agnosticism.

That's the catch-22: the moment you demonize someone for believing something other than you, you become as bad as the person you're demonizing.

What needs to be done is to curb the fundamentalism and extremism. What a person believes affects no one but himself. The problem only occurs when that person attempts to force his beliefs, whatever they are (Judism, Christianity, Hinduism, Taoism, atheism, etc), on another person.

It is in the forcing where the boundaries of acceptable behavior are broken, not in the believing.

You cannot be a "fanatical" atheist.
Look up the word, before you spread more lies.

 

[Daedalus685]

Evolution doesn't define what is and isn't alive. By some accounts a virus is only alive when it inhabits a cell because it can't metabolize, move, or reproduce on its own.

For anyone who might be interested there is a new theory in quantum mechanics called "Quantum Darwinism" that suggests even the laws of physics are the result of evolutionary processes that emerge from the random interactions of quanta. Roll the dice enough times and you'll get the same number several times in a row, but in the case of quanta you get states that can reproduce, mutate, and produce all the physical laws we observe.

It's a naturalist's wet dream and the first experiment done confirmed the theory. We'll just have to wait and see if more evidence can be found.

P.S.- If you are going to debate philosophy and science might I suggest actually learning more of both subjects first?

I know what evolution defines, I thought I made that clear. My apologies if I did not. It is a logical system for how great changes can accumulate over time and my point was that it has nothing to do with life at all, at least not on the grand scale if attempted to be applied to the origins of life as many seem to insist.

I'm not sure if your post was directed at mine but many other posts seem to be caught up on the beginning, such as the origin of life, and my intention was to show that it is more or less futile to worry about it a point that does not exist. There is no beginning to evolution as it is a description of how the change happens, and there was likely no point one could choose that sufficiently defines when it started to occur. Contrasting how things are to how things may have been before life only works because the gradual changes have been spread out over a few billion years. The beginning is only apparent over this time scale, and is an illusion.

 

[wuliheron]

I'm not sure if your post was directed at mine but many other posts seem to be caught up on the beginning, such as the origin of life, and my intention was to show that it is more or less futile to worry about it a point that does not exist. There is no beginning to evolution as it is a description of how the change happens, and there was likely no point one could choose that sufficiently defines when it started to occur. Contrasting how things are to how things may have been before life only works because the gradual changes have been spread out over a few billion years. The beginning is only apparent over this time scale, and is an illusion.

No, my post was aimed at those people who seem to confuse evolution as the definition of life or somehow unable to explain the big bang.

The irony is that if something like Quantum Darwinism is true, then it could explain everything the creationists have tried to use to argue against evolution and for intelligent design. It would explain exactly why the physical constants are so perfect for life as we know it to emerge, why the big bang occurred, etc. All of these things would be explained as merely extensions of an even more profound evolutionary process occurring and, as such, would also challenge the Christian belief that nature was created expressly for our use and support pantheistic and panentheistic views more.

 

[Lonbjerg]

No, my post was aimed at those people who seem to confuse evolution as the definition of life or somehow unable to explain the big bang.

The irony is that if something like Quantum Darwinism is true, then it could explain everything the creationists have tried to use to argue against evolution and for intelligent design. It would explain exactly why the physical constants are so perfect for life as we know it to emerge, why the big bang occurred, etc. All of these things would be explained as merely extensions of an even more profound evolutionary process occurring and, as such, would also challenge the Christian belief that nature was created expressly for our use and support pantheistic and panentheistic views more.

I can count on one hand the number of religious muppets I have encountered that can tell the difference between "The Big Bang", Abiogensis and Evolution...sad but true.

But I have no count of the reliougs muppets I have encountered that lie their lie into the basis of human rights, freedom of speech, civil rights and gender equality...makes you ponder.

 

[wuliheron]

I can count on one hand the number of religious muppets I have encountered that can tell the difference between "The Big Bang", Abiogensis and Evolution...sad but true.

But I have no count of the reliougs muppets I have encountered that lie their lie into the basis of human rights, freedom of speech, civil rights and gender equality...makes you ponder.

What can you say, individually people are usually pretty bright and personable, but in groups they can be dumber then a bag of rocks and about as social as a rattle snake. Like a herd of buffalo we'll stampede right off that cliff in the name of any ideology whether it be religious, political, or whatever.

 

[Steeplerot]

1) What selection pressure is there on a molecule?
2) What could the molecule possibly change to make it better suited to survive in such an environment, if there is such a selection pressure?

Why do crystals grow in repeating patterns?



No, rocks are not "Alive" but it sure is interesting how they grow sometimes.

Remember: Every snowflake is individual.

Even common water itself is fascinating when left to to "reproduce itself into patterns"

Molecules seem to like finding ways of carrying on their energy through repeating patterns in certain conditions.

Given a few billion years here we are. Bags of thinking "mud" made of cast off starstuff from our sun.
Some elements and atoms have been around so long they have survived a few life cycles of our star! Funky stuff is bound to happen given this amount of time and pressures/chemical reactions over 10s (100s?) of billions of years.

You can trace the very elements we are made of to the rest of the planet biologically, to our solar systems life-cycle chemically, the universe atomically. It's all there in plain sight. (well, you may need a good sized atomic microscope for some of it) 😉

 

[totalnoob]

You cannot be a "fanatical" atheist.
Look up the word, before you spread more lies.

 

[LumbergTech]

as much as that is funny there have been militant atheists....maybe their atheism wasnt so central to why they were being militant...but nonetheless

 

[Matt1970]

You can’t take the bible literally word for word. God was talking to people 2000 years ago who still believed the earth was flat and the sun rose out of the ocean. You are going to tell them that the earth is round, it revolves around a star 93 million miles away and we evolved from apes? You are also going to tell them that we are just one solar system in a galaxy that contains 200 billion stars and that there are billions and billions of galaxies out there? Wouldn’t it be for god to just say I snapped my finger and it all appeared and then turn some water into wine and do a few miracles to convince them? We can’t even convince people today that we landed on the moon.

 

[Lonbjerg]

as much as that is funny there have been militant atheists....maybe their atheism wasnt so central to why they were being militant...but nonetheless

Who?
Are you sure you are not confusing som other form of -ism with atheism?

I know a lot of religious muppet try and turn communism into atheism.

 

[zsdersw]

You can’t take the bible literally word for word. God was talking to people 2000 years ago who still believed the earth was flat and the sun rose out of the ocean. You are going to tell them that the earth is round, it revolves around a star 93 million miles away and we evolved from apes? You are also going to tell them that we are just one solar system in a galaxy that contains 200 billion stars and that there are billions and billions of galaxies out there? Wouldn’t it be for god to just say I snapped my finger and it all appeared and then turn some water into wine and do a few miracles to convince them? We can’t even convince people today that we landed on the moon.

.. says the authors.

I agree we shouldn't take the Bible literally. In fact, I don't think we should take it any more seriously than any other old works of fiction or allegory.