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| Author | Topic: Modularity, A distinguishing property of life | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Phage0070 Inactive Member |
We can see the pieces, and how they fit together. We just have not managed to put them together ourselves, and we are working on it. Sheesh, slave-driver...
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Hyroglyphx Member (Idle past 113 days)  Posts: 5140 From: Austin, TX Joined: |
Either nothing created everything, or nothing created God and God created everything. What more can be deduced? You still have that age old chicken-egg problem. Which came first? "The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher--
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Mr Jack Member  Posts: 3475 From: Leicester, England Joined: |
Wrong. Abiogenesis is an empirical fact. We know that there was no life 13.7 billion years ago, and no life on Earth 4.5 billion years ago. We also know there is life on Earth now. Thus, by simple deduction, at some point in the last 13.7 billion years life formed from non-life - abiogenesis - further, given the remarkable unlikelihood of life surviving to cross space and seed earth, it's most likely to have formed on Earth in the last 4.5 billion years.
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Phage0070 Inactive Member |
WRONG. You assume that at some point there was nothing, from which came everything. We have not established that there was nothing at any point, so using it as a starting point is a huge assuption. Even *if* we had established such a thing, the question you stated is *not* a "chicken-egg" situation at all. That sort of problem assumes that we have observed both chickens and eggs, and that they are objectively related. In this case it would be more of a rock-unicorn situation: We observe the rock to exist, and have no proof of the existence of the unicorn much less any particular relation of the unicorn to the rock. We know the rock exists, and assuming we knew that it did not exist at a prior time we could conclude it came into existence at some point in the interim. The unicorn is no more or less likely to enter into our conclusion than the concept a god did it.
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onifre Member  Posts: 4488 From: Dark Side of the Moon Joined: Member Rating: 9.8 |
You went from talking about abiogenesis to the big bang. Are you saying that abiogenesis is something coming from nothing...? Well wasn't there a planet? With elements? Wouldn't that be something?
Reptiles used eggs long before the chicken evolved, so I would say the egg, according to the fossil record, came first. - Oni Petition to Bailout Comedy The Laugh Factory is imploring Congress to immediately fund what owner Jamie Masada calls an "Economic Cheer-Up." If Congress fails to act quickly, the Laugh Factory comedians are planning to march to Washington and plea to President Obama.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 584 days)  Posts: 1456 Joined: |
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slevesque Member (Idle past 584 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
I can prove I did not buy a pizza yesterday (joking) On a more serious note, what are you proposing here ? That evolution is not theoretically falsifiable ? (I mean, if there is no way to prove evolution could not have done it, then evolution isn't falsifiable ...)
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lyx2no Member (Idle past 660 days)  Posts: 1277 From: A vast, undifferentiated plane. Joined: |
However, this would still not wholesale abolish evolutionary theory. What ever new theory comes into play will have to include all the natural history currently known, and there is a pant load of evidentiary fossil remains that very strongly suggest that the vast majority of life on Earth has followed a course of gradual change. How one adds the new observation that baboons, at the very least, are able to violate the random mutation and natural selection parts — IOW, all of it — would be difficult, to say the least. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.
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Teapots&unicorns Member (Idle past 831 days)  Posts: 178 Joined: |
Of course, this would not prove creationism/ID, it would merely introduce a 3rd theory to the table- something that creationists fear because it defeats their "1 or the other" argument.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 584 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Ok I'll make a negative statement that is more precise: I did not buy a pizza yesterday at 12h at Domino's pizza, 1273 Cartier street, Montreal, Quebec. I could prove this negative, simply by watching the security camera. Or by asking the person who worked there at that hour, etc. In the same way I could prove that there are no monkeys in my closet, by opening my closet and showing that there are none. Although it is more difficult to prove a negative, it is a common myth to say that 'you can't prove a negative'. In regards to the topic at hand. ''Mutation+natural selection could not have produced the genetic diversity we see'' is a statement that could be proven thru population genetics and genetic theory. Because of this, the theory that 'mutation+natural selection produced the genetic diversity we see today' is a valid scientific theory because it can be falsified.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 584 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
It is not: either evolution is true or creationism/ID is true.
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Phage0070 Inactive Member |
Security camera footage can be doctored; sufficiently expert tampering would not be detectable. The person who was working there at that hour could be lying because you bribed them, or they might simply be mistaken. You CANNOT prove that you did not order that pizza.
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slevesque Member (Idle past 584 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
This argument-type can be used for anything. I mean, in the same way, I could say: 'Barack Obama said ''I have a dog'' on live TV' (a positive statement) and then, as proof, show you a tape of it. But you could say: you can't prove it, since maybe you tampered that tape to make him say that; see, you can't prove a positive. And then I would bring to you 100 people who saw it live, and have them tell you that Barack Obama did say 'I have a dog' on live tv. But you could say: maybe you bribed all these people so that they told me this, you still can't prove a positive. If your argument was valid, you could not prove either a positive nor a negative. In any case, we can see it in another way: suppose A and not-A, two opposite statements. If I falsify A, then automatically I prove not-A (by the law of non-contradiction) Example: A - My car is blue. If I falsify A, then it proves not-A. If I prove not-A, then it falsifies A. If I prove A, then it falsifies not-A. But if I falsify not-A, it does not prove A. Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.
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Granny Magda Member  Posts: 2204 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 9.8 |
quote: I'm afraid that you are mistaken. T&U's assessment of YEc is accurate. Your definition is so inaccurate as to be effectively unrecognisable. I have never heard a YEC say anything along the lines of "life made itself". If you can provide evidence of any YEC saying anything to that effect, I would be interested to see it. As for "intelligence made life", you are on safer ground. However, in my experience, YECs are not shy about identifying the proposed source of this "intelligence"; the god of the Bible. They at least tend to be honest about this aspect of their beliefs (unlike their ID cousins) and openly promote Yaweh as their creator-of-choice. They tend not to use weasel words such as "intelligent designer". They usually just credit God as the creator. If you doubt me, here are some definitions of YEC from around the web;
Okay? quote: Let's be quite clear; this attitude is not so much part of the ideology of YECs, it is more of a debating tactic. Woefully short of positive evidence in favour of creaton (they are short of evidence because no such evidence exists), YECs are reduced to attacking evolution and hoping that YEC philosophy will thus win out by default. It is a sad and sorry tactic, one which you yourself have dismantled to reveal the fallacy within. Proving evolution wrong does nothing to prove creation true, but that doesn't stop dishonest scumbags like Kent Hovind trying to use the tactic anyway, as in this video; Hovind is very clearly aware of the fallacious nature of his argument. He just doesn't seem to care enough to stop employing the fallacy. Presumably he figures that "lying for Jesus" is OK just as long as he saves a soul or two. It's not just Hovind either. The false dichotomy argument is a mainstay of creationist polemic. I lose count of the number of times I've seen it employed, here at EvC and elsewhere. The majority of creationists using the fallacy don't realise that it is fallacious; the rest just don't care. Mutate and Survive Edited by Granny Magda, : Rephrase for clarity "The Bible is like a person, and if you torture it long enough, you can get it to say almost anything you'd like it to say." -- Rev. Dr. Francis H. Wade
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Hyroglyphx Member (Idle past 113 days) Posts: 5140 From: Austin, TX Joined: |
I'm sorry but this flies in the face of all scientific inquiry, Mr. Jack. Let me paraphrase what you just said: No life was on the Earth a really time ago, but now there is life. So therefore life just popped into existence all by itself, regardless of whether or not it's been scientifically demonstrated. There is nothing else to surmise because there couldn't possibly be any other explanation I'm willing to entertain. It goes against my deepest philosophical views. The end. There is nothing beyond speculation pointing to abiogenesis. If you reduce life and matter down fraction by fraction, eventually you run in to nothing creating something. Everything we know, empirically, is that such a notion is an absurdity. There is no truth beyond the theoretical stage. I'm sure you're gonna tell me all about the Miller-Urey experiment, and we'll go back and forth for several rounds until I'm bored with repeating myself. Is it impossible for me to believe? No, not necessarily. Could there be any other explanation besides things just popping in to existence besides something supernatural? Sure, why not. My issue is the certainty you are speaking with. You don't know what happened, least of all empirically. Nobody does at this point. This is ALL speculation from the scientific community. Good for them for trying to figure out, I hardily commend that. That doesn't mean that abiogenesis is a FACT, as you assert, because it is anything but a fact. At some point you still have the timeless chicken/egg problem. The most honest answer is, we're not exactly sure, so don't sell me a philosophical agenda when science, true unbiased science, has no agenda
Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given. "The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher--
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