Evolution is not Abiogenesis

Though some may, I don’t think every creationist claims that evolution isn’t true because it doesn’t incorporate how life started, I think many (such as myself) claim that evolution, that is ~all claims about evolution~ are less factual/believable THAN THEY WOULD OTHERWISE BE if evolution had more scientific facts about naturalistic origins of life.I’ll gladly stand corrected if anyone can prove me wrong, but the adamant separation of evolution from abiogenesis seems to be a very recent occurrence only. I know of no evidence that indicates that any scientist from the early/mid 20th century had any reason to separate them. At that time, the simplest forms of life were thought to be simple lumps of protoplasm, and the primordial soup formation of life from non-life was thought to be an evolutionary process that was just around the corner from being solved. It has only been in the last few decades that science has learned that a naturalistic, evolutionary formation of life from non-life is speculative and loaded with gaps, and cannot come close to fulfilling the criteria that science has set for ID to become science. That is the reason there is so much recent effort to separate evolution from abiogenesis. Again, if anyone can show me authentic documentation from as late as 1953 (the date of the Miller/Urey experiment) that shows scientists falling all over themselves to separate evolution from abiogeneis as they are today, then I stand corrected. But I won’t be holding my breath.Now, to repeat this question; I can’t say that it would be affected, and don’t claim that it would be. But the reason I don’t mind seeing that question asked is because I never see the following question being answered by evolutionists;How would any study of ID be affected if the designer was;*The Christian God
*The Flying Spaghetti Monster
*Allah
*Spacemen from another planet
*Any other ideaAfter all, this statement is always made, and agreed to, by evolutionists; (from another thread)

quote:

---

Until Intelligent Design presents the Designer and the method/model used by that Designer to influence evolution it should only be mocked, condemned, disparaged, challenged, questioned and illuminated as the con job it really is.

---

How would ID be affected? Put-downs of ID aren’t an answer, any more than put downs of evolution are an answer to your question. Can anyone explain the evolutionist double standard to me?

The two claims are perfectly comparable. Evolutionists claim that evolution doesn't need to identify origins of life, and IDists claim that ID doesn't have to identify the designer. If one is true, the other is true. If one is false, the other is false. Evolutionists claim that one is true, and the other is false. It's a double standard - I can't make it any clearer than that. No, it's only your assertion, if you can't show how the study of ID would be affected if the designer was God, or space aliens. Yes I know, the "list of requirements", a list that no other scientific study has ever been required to pass before it became science. If one scientific study has to pass a list of requirements, and another scientific study (such as the SETI Institute) does not, then we have still another double standard.

No, just addressing double standards. I leave the hysterical cries that studying ID equals hog-tying and dragging atheists into church to others. Well I'm asking it now. Am I somehow too late? Just like abiogenesis is presented as a wink wink nudge nudge attempt to declare that there is no God, and that we'll somehow figure out naturalistic abiogenesis, if given enough time and public money? And it can't do that with abiogenesis, and that's why references to, and even entire threads are started, to shout over and over and over again that evolution and abiogenesis dont' have a thing in the world to do with each other. And in year one of those 150 years, it didn't have a list of requirements to pass. That doesn't have one thing to do with this thread's topic. But I know you'll get a whole list of pretty green dots for saying it. It doesn't have anything to do with amounts of evidence. Even if the amounts of evidence are lopsided, the double standards still exist. Unless of course, you can show how ID would be affected depending on who the designer is. I'm still waiting.

Because it's already in the public realm of science, and is of great interest to atheists. 93% of the National Academy of Sciences are atheists. They are in control of science. Uh no, the one I started didn't have a thing to do with a separation of evolution and abiogenesis. It's not hard to conceive at all if it's part of science, is of great interest to atheists, and was not required to pass entrance tests to become science. And even more amusingly, 'Origin of Species' was NOT peer reviewed material, something that's always required of ID! Still another double standard. No, that was a different discussion, it much more directly compared abiogenesis and ID than this thread does, and your personal opinions/summarizations of what I actually said mean little. I'd rather you didn't post something completely off topic and get this thread closed down. I'd rather you or anyone would answer two simple questions I've posed above, once again they are;1) How would studies of ID be affected depending on the identity of the designer, and
2) Where is documentation that shows that the scientific community was trying to separate evolution from abiogenesis before 1953?Question 1 mirrors the question that's the topic of the thread, and question 2 is also very much on-topic.

You seem confident that they’re going to do that, in spite of the recently discovered complexity of the simplest forms of life. I’m not saying they absolutely won’t, (intelligent designers, whether they’re scientists or God, can do amazing things) but it won’t make much difference to what I feel about evolution, or fundamental Christianity. Just because scientists finally figure out a way to create life doesn’t automatically mean life happened naturalistically.But your question goes both ways, would what you feel about religion or evolution change if ID proponents get on a roll with a lot of peer reviewed papers? If the scientific peer reviewers had no choice but to take them seriously, or risk an obvious exposure of being biased? After all, many feel they're already doing that, and the number of those who feel that way may be increasing. Yes it does — I appreciate your honesty. I don’t claim a major victory because you said it, it just shows that there is some disagreement among evolutionists about what ID is, how it is defined, how serious a threat it could be to current scientific studies. It could make a difference in future court cases, when ID is painted as strictly religious by only some evolutionists, not all.

ID is always accused of not being science, because it's claimed by evolutionists that it isn’t testable, repeatable, observable, falsifiable, and several other things. But many things that it can do as defined by its prominent proponents like Behe and Dembski can meet some of that criteria to a better extent than a few current scientific disciplines do, such as the SETI Institute.The list from your link;

quote:

---

Ask a Question
Do Background Research
Construct a Hypothesis
Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
Communicate Your Results

---

This seems to be one of many 'scientific method' lists, and is subjective in how it’s applied. SETI hasn’t yet gotten past number 2, yet there are always rationalizations about how it is still science. ID in some cases does them all, and is still not accepted as science. It wasn’t the same. Those were simpler times, it didn’t have to face costly court battles to be accepted as science. It was hotly contested by a large percentage of the population to be sure, but it wasn’t kept from public scientific inquiry like ID is today. As evolutionists constantly claim, the Discovery Institute or any private organization is free to study ID on its own all it wants, but in this day and age, it isn’t as simple as it was back then. The Discovery Institute may be making more progress on it than is being publicly disclosed right now. Current science does the same thing. It begins with an assumption that there can’t be a creator. They take some evidence, disregard other evidence, and construct an argument that cannot include a creator. ID would not change its method of study. It is a materialistic study that is defined, and not just any religious zealot isn't automatically authorized to define it. Behe and Dembski aren't zealots.But what we’re seeing evidence of is that today’s accepted scientific study has changed according to the faith (atheism) of the majority of its advocates. Edited by marc9000, : No reason given.

Irrelevant. We’re comparing IDENTITIES, of life’s origins, and of a designer. Agreed. The steps/requirements of following the scientific method aren’t working for it. Still largely irrelevant though. It makes a claim that we may be able to identify evidence of that designer, without necessarily identifying the designer. It’s the same as if a person buys an old house, with the intention of gutting it and rebuilding it, taking note of its design along the way. He doesn’t necessarily know, or care, who the original designer was. You never really addressed the ~identity~ issue, but you still insist there is no double standard in my analyzation of that issue. If you and I were having this face-off in a court, I think I’d win. (unless of course, the judge was the honorable John Q. Jones) Future ID case judges may not be just like him.

Not really, because you don’t show enough knowledge of what ID actually is. Motivation of a designer isn’t formally involved. If a diverse group of scientists are studying for signs of intelligence in nature, and they form personal opinions of the designers motivation, that’s their own personal business. But the entire group of scientists aren’t going to be in enough of an agreement about motivation to settle on a criteria to study it, or identify the designer. IMO there would be far more diversity in this regard among ID scientists that there currently is in evolutionary scientists about atheism. Some claims that are made about evolution can be more acceptable/factual than others. 'Change over time' is more factual than is common ancestry/common descent. As more and more conclusions are drawn about what evolution is, what it has done, more and more philosophy creeps in.

Haha, I really have no opinion on it. I'm wondering what this threads opening poster thinks about your link!

I don’t see why that explanation has to be given. The current scientific community doesn’t legitimately distinguish between the simplest forms of life and evolution, and as has been learned only recently, the simplest forms of life are very complex. As you can see by the two messages before yours (127 & 128)t he evolutionists have been very confusing about those two separate phenomena in this thread alone. I wonder if the threads starter will respond to that? Which people like Behe and Dembski readily do. The study of ID accepts and works with the more basic claims of evolution, as do I as a religious person. (for example, I don't believe Noah's arc held hundreds of different breeds of dogs) Since most anti religious/ anti ID people believe in common descent, they're relying on the first single celled organism as a beginning for their belief in evolution. Since they're so faithful/committed to that organism, they should be more faithful/committed to its origin. Does that make sense?

Why sure, just as soon as you and all your theistic evolutionist companions explain how your common ancestor does not boil down to atheism. "Eternal", you may have found the correct word! And you are trapped in an atheist box, you believe everything has to fit in one time, and three space dimensions. That all of reality has to fit within human understanding. That humans are tops in intelligence, that humans are gods. Not all judges/juries are atheists, or ACLU bought and paid for theistic evolutionists. In future ID trials you could be disappointed.

To clarify; If a designer is so important to ID proponents that their studies of evidence for it can't be separated from it, isn't the common ancestor that is equally important to evolutionists so important to them that they can't be separated from it as well?

Atheists don't believe in a common ancestor? How else would they believe life started?

The attempt to do just that is made by ID’s top theorists. But there is a difference in what we can understand about the supernatural v what we can understand about prehistoric humans. There’s nothing wrong, or religious, about disregarding technique or intent of the supernatural, and focusing on only the design itself, or maybe a time sequence of the design. From Darwin’s time through the mid 20th century, evolution’s starting point, the simplest forms of life, were thought to be pretty simple. Today, we know they’re not simple. They consist of information, complexity, order. As the scientific community tries to come up with some kind of hypothesis/theory for the development of the common ancestor that they claim all life on earth shares, they look for it to develop gradually, slowly, change over time, just like evolution. That’s what I mean when I say they don’t legitimately try to distinguish between the two, between evolution and abiogenesis. But as we see by this thread, it flip flops according to the argument. This thread’s intention was to show that they’re not related. In response to me, Taq says they are. Lucky for evolutionists that all this isn’t taken to court and examined and hammered on like ID was at Dover. Taq elaborated it for me. Well that’s pretty cool, if only ID were allowed to do changeable switchables like that! ID is so often accused of wishing to explain all of biology with supernatural action. I read your paragraph to contain two messages; 1) it could have been an acceptance that ID can accept some of the more non controversial aspects of evolution, or 2)it could have been sarcasm that ID refuses to do that. I covered them both with that simple statement. The fact is, ID does accept a LOT about evolution. It just doesn’t automatically accept naturalism when naturalism doesn’t seem capable of doing mathematically impossible things, mainly concerning the origins of life. It's not always two very different theories at all - ID harmonizes with evolution in many instances. ID usually supplements evolution, it doesn’t always compete with it. The only thing it competes with is atheism. Evolutionists seldom see that, they're stopped short by their own impatience and anger. I’m saying the common ancestor that evolution claims all life on earth descended from is very important to evolutionists. Every bit as important as any designer would be to an ID proponent.

You’re making it too complicated, it’s really quite simple. For ID, the designer is a big deal. For evolution, the common ancestor is a big deal. Both big deals can be shelved, and study about their existence (or actions) can be shelved. Both can, or neither can.