Modularity, A distinguishing property of life

This is not what he said, paraphrased or not. Abiogenesis means life from non-life. If at one point there was no life, and at some subsequent point there is, by definition, the life had to have come from "nonlife", thus abiogenesis. Now, the precise method of abiogenesis is being debated and investigated, but unless you can come up with an argument whereby there was no life, but life somehow then caused life...

The way I'm reading what Mr Jack is saying, and I would agree with this is that abiogenesis is akin to evelution in that "Evolution" is a fact, but the Theory of Evolution is still being studied and refined as we get more evidence. In this case "Abiogenesis" is a fact in that there is life here and there was no life at some point. NO matter how you slice it (with the possible exceptions of time travel paradoxes or multiple universes that can be crossed to or from) life came from non-life. Even if God or the supernatural did it, it didn't come from life as we define it.So, abiogenesis is a fact, the Theory of Abiogenesis (the materialistic one) is still being studied and refined.Edited by Perdition, : spelling

What would you call a hunk of radioactive plutonium?

You're right. I let frustration get the better of me.However, Hyroglyphx almost seems to be consciously interpreting things wrong, such as the example of the seed that sits on a shelf and could either be used to grow a plant (alive) or cannot be used in such a way any more(dead) and the fact that you can't tell the difference until you plant them and thus can't tell when death occurred. He simply waved his hand and said the example didn't count. If he can't tell the difference between the living seed and the dead seed, how can he continue to assert that you can tell the difference between living and non-living matter in all cases?

The processes of life and the processes of machines can be compared and similarities can be seen, but conflating the two is a very bad move to make.A machine is something created by an intelligent, living, creature. To date, the only machines we know have are created by man. Life, is not created by anything intelligent, and so cannot be called a machine. The fact that there are similarities is that we often copy living processes in our machine designs. There is no grand conspiracy to hide the designed aspects of life, there are no willfully blinded people who cannot see the overwhelming evidence you profess to have, there is no there there.

What does it say COULD NOT have evolved, and what evidence does it show for this? Is it any better than an argument from incredulity? If so, we have on another thread shown that if you calculate the sheer numbers, the probability of life evolving from non-life approaches 1.

As Mr Jack has said, this is false, and even were it true, would not be a problem for evolution if the environment hadn't significantly changed, the species wouldn't necessarily change either. I don't know what this means, but it sounds like gibberish to me. Science has never shown it's impossible, and in fact, we have seen many instances of information being created. It's not hard, and in fact, happens all the time. Again, false.Self-organization gives us new information if the form of self-organization is imperfect (as DNA replication is). The DNA Information Mystery is only a mystery to creationists and other people who misunderstand the Information Theory. Perhaps you should try and learn what that says as opposed to what creationists say it says. It would be extremely unlikely for a tornado to create a 747, aren't we lucky that that has no bearing on evolution or abiogenesis, or the theory would be dead in the water. Since evolution and abiogenesis aren't random, we have no reason to draw this analogy, isn't that great?! We have torn down another misconception and lie and in the process made evolution even stronger! That was your goal with that gem of a PRATT, right?

What are these explanatory powers? I don't know of any predictions ID makes that can be tested, and I'm not aware of any explanations for phenomenon we see in the world that can't be explained by a purely naturalistic process.I ask again, what is there, either in ID or in your favorite book, that can't be explained by a naturalistic process and why do you think it is the case?Edited by Perdition, : quote

There are many responses that life makes that have no choice behind them. Reflexes are one for humans, but if we get down to lower orders of life...do plants have a choice to follow the sun? Do sea slugs have a choice to contract when touched?

But are those choices or just more reactions to stimuli without the benefit of choice. For example, if a plant is overheating, can it decide "Screw it, I want to be hot!" and keep it's leaves horizontal and continue to receive all the sunlight available? I wouldn't think so. The plant simply reacts to stimuli like a computer reacts when an input is performed.When a doctor hammers on your knee and you get that reflex reaction to kick, can you decide not to kick just to mess with the doctor? If so, that's a very neat trick you have there.Response implies nothing about intent or decision, it mearely means a reaction caused by a stimulus.

I agree with your larger argument, that saying our perceptions are not eprfect begs the question, but I have to disagree with this. The fact that we, as a species, have survived merely shows that our perceptions are adequate for that purpose, not perfect. This, to me, is the crux of the argument. By bringing up the fact that there are phenomena outside our perception, Filameter is implying that perceiving those phenomena would be "better." But if you've ever looked at an infraredscope that shows you the differences in heat, it would be so overwhelming that it would lead to input overload. If we could see different parts of the EM spectrum, such that different temperatures were viewed as different colors, we would lose the colors we see them as now. How can anyone claim that seeing those colors are better than seeing the colors we see now?It could be that our perceptions have perfectly weeded out the unnecessary phenomena and allowed us to see the aspects that really matter. While some people see those "important" aspects imperfectly does not mean that there are not people out there who do see them perfectly.

Yeah, nit-picky, but that's usually all I can comment on here. Exactly. A bat can sense soundwaves in a way much different than us, but were we to have a bat's abilities would it make our lives better? I highly doubt it.

One quibble: Living in space or deep in the ocean is not an evolved ability. If I dumped you in space or in the deep ocean without any technological support, you would die. Period. We have developed technology to overcome our inability to live in areas we have not eveolved to live in. 1) Different environment. Plains vs. jungles.
2) Not all traits that evolve are purely by improved life expectancy. Some of it is sexual selection, which is often a detriment to survival, or plain ol' genetic drift. Perhaps because each increase in ability requires energy to produce the brain regions sufficiently to discern minor differences in smell or color or brightness, etc, which then requires energy to run, and takes up space that could be used for other mental faculties. If you'll notice, animals with the most sensitive sense in one area generally have less acuity in another sense. (Similar to how a person lacking one sense compensate by developing another sense to a higher than normal degree.)We don't need to be able to see like an owl, hear like a bat or smell like a bloodhound, so it is an unnecessary waste of energy to develop the brain regions controlling sight, smell and hearing to those degrees, and doing so would require the space that we currently use to think, reason and imagine or a head shape that would prohibit us being born through the female hip/pelvic structure.