Icons of Evolution

Hey beretta, thanks for your reply.First of all, this one doesn't seem to be related to evolution, but rather to abiogenesis, but fine let's go with this one for now.I was taught in school that this experiment was designed to test if life could arise in simple conditions, not specifically conditions of an early earth, but simple conditions, and it seems to have done that.It would indeed be a shame if it was taught like you said it was in the schools, but as I have said, I never was taught it in that way, in fact in the way I was taught it, it is completely true.Now, even if life could not have originated in this way on earth, that doesn't mean evolution is wrong, since that comes only into play after life starts.Let me state again that if it is indeed taught that this is an experiment to show that life could arise on an early earth, I am against that. If however it is taught that this was an experiment to show that the building blocks of life could arise in a simple environment, well, that is nothing short of the truth, now is it.

Hi Huntard, Simple conditions for what other reason than to convey the impression that life could have started all by itself. The simple conditions originally chosen were said to simulate conditions on an early earth. The reducing atmospheric conditions were actually chosen specifically because it is and was known that organic synthesis cannot take place in the presence of oxygen.
Oparin and Haldane hypothesized in the 1920’s that chemicals produced in the atmosphere dissolved in the primordial seas to form a ”hot dilute soup’ from which the first living cells emerged. It remained an untested hypothesis until the 1950’s when Miller and Urey did their experiment. The experiment generated huge excitement in the scientific world and soon found its way into high school and bio text as evidence that science had demonstrated the first step in the origin of life.
For what reason would such an experiment be done and placed in the section on evolution in the text books except to convey the impression that life on earth could have occurred without any intelligent input? But what is the point unless it was to convey the impression as stated above. Maybe you had a more awake teacher that didn’t press the point but I’m sure you absorbed it nonetheless.
If the point was not to prove that life could have arisen on earth by chance then why, when they realized that the early earth couldn’t have had a reducing atmosphere did they test again with more appropriate conditions for an early earth? Well evolution really does need a starting point if it’s going to be our alternate creation story as much as evolutionists protest. If everything is pure chemistry then pure chemistry must be able to get the thing started. But since origin of life research is really hitting a lot of snags, evolutionists like to distance themselves from its failures and pretend that it has nothing to do with evolution per se, though it obviously does or like I say, that experiment wouldn’t keep popping up in text book sections on ”evolution’. Good well then you must have some people that agree with you since I see that in two textbooks that I have looked through now, the Miller urey experiment seems to have been dropped. It’s still in some of them but it’s good that some have finally removed it after more than 50 years of misleading people by its implications.

One thing I forgot to mention in my post is that I never had a textbook on evolution to begin with, I had a textbook on biology, and you can hardly deny this is part of Biology.The way this got explained to me is like this was a hypothesis on how life could have started. I was also told we didnt yet know exactly how this happened on earth, but that there were more experiments being done to test this. Now, I never studied biology any further then that, so I never got to read about these further experiments.I am also not an "evolutionist" I don't care if evolution is true or not, but everything I've come across so far seems to support it. I've read up on wells' book on the talkorigins site, seems pretty damning to me. Dont worry, I'll also read Answers in Genesis on the subject and see which one has the strongest case.

Not in my bio textbook. And mine was written by biologists for college students. It was in its own section, and guess what, they mentioned the other experiments as well, saying that the Miller-Urey was not as precise. But guess what, other experiments did, indeed, create amino acids.We have one from 1961, using a different atmosphere (this one HCN, NH3 in a water solution). A key find here was the nucleotide base adenine, a base used in DNA and RNA.In an improvement upon the Miller-Urey experiment, Jeffrey Bada changed their atmosphere to include iron and carbonate materials (given that carbon dioxide and nitrogen destroy amino acids, but the earth may have had large amounts of iron and carbonates readily available and these counter the effect of nitrites). The result--far more amino acids than Miller-Urey.In 2006, a new experiment shows how the earth may have been covered by an organic haze which can be created through a wide range of methane and carbon dioxide concentrations.As to the early atmosphere. Here's what we think it may have been. There were probably less reducing molecules present than in Miller-Urey. Plus, volcanic eruptions would release carbon dioxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide. What happens when you mix all this together? More diverse molecules than what Miller-Urey achieved.You also keep on harping about oxygen and how it destroys organic compounds. Well, you're right, it does. However, that's not the whole story. Oxygen was a very, very minor component of the atmosphere--not until roughly 2.7 bya to 2.2 bya do we see oxygen being produced and added to the atmoshphere in great numbers. Free oxygen (as in O2), on earth, is produced by photosynthesis, which only living organisms are capabable of. It is O2 which destroys organic compounds. So in order for there to be enough oxygen to destroy life, life already has to exist! Furthermore, the paper responsible for the creationist attack suggests nothing of that sort. Instead, it suggests that photosynthetic organisms formed earlier (about 3.7 bya instead of 3.5 bya, and this may indeed push the first life forms further back (just so you know, we have fossils dated to 3.8 bya)In another blow against creationist misinformation, my own university (University of Colorado-Boulder) and the University of Waterloo performed simulations that suggest that the early atmosphere was up to 40% hydrogen (H2). This atmosphere is far, far more friendly to the creation of organic compounds and the building blocks of life. That's just it. Evolution isn't an alternate creation story. It can't, and doesn't, say how life started on earth. And as everyone here keeps saying (and you keep on missing), if god created the first organisms, if comets and meteorites brought the first building blocks, if life formed on earth, or any other method, the end-result is the same. Evolution only acts upon life. It does not act upon non-reproducing non-living things. It is the change between two generations of one species. Evolution can show us how the daughter species formed from the parent, but it cannot show us how the first species ever formed. So quit conflating abiogenesis (which is the domain of biochemistry) and evolution (which is the domain of biology).

Wrong. Milley and Urey used the conditions they did because that's was the contemporary thinking on what the composition of the atmosphere was on the early Earth. Turns out they were wrong. Not that it matters: since then the ease of creating organic molecules by undirected inorganic processes has been demonstrated time and again - not only in the lab, but by observation of the real world. We have no interest in "our creation story", "alternative" or otherwise. We just follow where the evidence leads. Really, that is all there is to it.

So tell me, how do they suggest the left and right handed forms got separated so that life was formed from left handed amino acids only?
Remember no intelligence was around to separate them out.
Also how many of the 20 amino acids did they actually manage to produce? So in other words you know what would be required if life had to somehow get started on its own and between thinking and probably and according to necessity if abiogenesis is factual, people decide what must have been around?If the difference between amino acids and life is like the difference between random letters (with probably a lot missing)and Shakespeare,do you imagine that nature alone could manage to put together the code that directs the formation of the protein molecules that are necessary for cellular function and function?Is it at all possible that intelligence might have been required to put all the left handed amino acids together in meaningful sequences?

Organic molecules but not amino-acids?No matter what can be done in a lab, it nonetheless requires intelligence and specific conditions and the products have to be kept isolated so that they won't be destroyed. Does this show that life could have formed on its own in an early atmosphere no matter what it was? And again what about the left and right handed amino acids that form when conditions are just right?I would think that to be more honest we should admit our ignorance rather than continue to give the misleading impression that the Urey Miller experiment shows how life's building blocks could have originated on an early earth leading potentially to organization of early life forms.Both sides, pros and cons would be more honest.Of course if we want to create the impression that life could easily have originated without any outside help then we should keep it presented just the way it is.

All you would need to have the 'handiness' of the amino acids is to have that version of the self replication molecule be formed first, or at least a version of it that was more successful than the other 'twist'. That would basically 'eat up' all the raw materials in time.

Well it is and it isn't since no-one knows whether it could conceivably have happened at all despite all the wishful thinking that goes on. My problem with it is only that it is one-sided and is attempting to create an impression that may be completely unfounded.Why the whole picture can't be presented warts and all to keep the record straight is beyond me unless it is the impression that is all important. There again is the impression you are left with -there are a few minor hiccups but more experiments are being done (which should sort the whole mess out.) Instead of the question did it or didn't it happen due to natural processes -you are getting the it did but we're just not sure about all the details as yet.There's a big difference. Try reading Well's response to his critics on the Discovery Institute website -an article entitled "Critics Rave over Icons of Evolution". Critics Rave Over Icons of Evolution | Discovery Institute

Amino acids are organic molecules. This isn't so; amino acids have been observed to have formed, and remained formed, in interstellar matter (i.e. comets, interstellar dust, etc.). It isn't the case amino acids only form under lab conditions. What about it? Firstly, there's no a priori reason to believe that just because the majority of amino acids (of those capable of chirality) used in extant life have the same chirality that the very first life also had specified chirality. Secondly, there are a number of means by which amino acids can be preferentially sorted by chirality; noteably simple clay will do it. Miller & Urey's experiment and subsequent research shows, beyond reasonable doubt, that inorganic processes can and do form organic molecules and together with the best evidence we have of early Earth conditions that there were organic molecules formed on the early Earth. It does not show that this potentially leads to the organisation of early life forms.Can you give me a specific example of where such a "misleading impression" has been given? Everytime I've seen the Urey-Miller experiment explained in a textbook it has been clearly described what it does and doesn't show; and that the conditions used in the experiment were different to those now thought likely for the early Earth. It's also been clearly explained that we just don't know how life first formed. Better texts have gone on to discuss some of the more promising ideas on how it did happen.

Why should we read anything at the Discovery Institute website, or if we did, why should we believe a word of it?They are committed to being anti-science and anti-evolution, and have a very poor record of accuracy.From the wiki article:

Their real goal seems to be destroying evolution, along with any science which disagrees with their fundamantalist beliefs. From the Wedge Document:

How are they going to get a theistic science? The only way they will be able to do that is through an increasingly theocratic government. (The last time we had that it was called the Dark Ages.)No, I see no reason to read anything the Discovery Institute says, nor to believe it if I did.

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Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge.

Well, it seems that nature prefers lefties. In lab conditions equal amounts or so of both hands are made. In nature, it's been found that the inorganic production of amino acids does favor left-handedness. So long as you have more left-hands than right-hands, you're good. Scientific tentativeness bites you in the butt again. We don't decide what the actual atmosphere was. We let the evidence show us. It is this evidence that tells us there was extremely little oxygen until 2.7 bya. It is this evidence that tells us there were probably less reducing compounds in the atmosphere than thought during the 1950s. This evidence then allows us to create more accurate simulations and experiments, like the ones showing that the early atmosphere may indeed have been 40% H2.Which actually brings up a great point. This in itself shows how science is amenable to change due to improved evidence or better analyses of existing evidence. We know that the Miller-Urey atmosphere (which was based off of work done in the 20s and 30s) is wrong. We now have a better idea of what it actually was like, and our knowledge continues to improve. But we will never know, with 100% certainty, what the atmosphere 4 billion years ago was like. However, I'd say its a fair bet we'll get to within 95% certainty.Creationism, on the other hand, would stick with the Miller-Urey experiment no matter what changes in the picture come around (oh wait, they do). So much of creationist talking points has been refuted to the point that even AiG tells people not to use certain arguments, and yet people still do--like yourself.Your statement also displays the vast gulf between real science and creationism. Science doesn't decide a priorily what the past was like. We know what's needed for life to form from inorganic processes. However, if the evidence shows us that life could not have been created on earth, that earth had to have been seeded in some manner, we'll accept that.Creationism, however, does start out with an a priori decision about the past. It must conform to some version of the bible or some reality that can be reconciled with the bible. So even if the evidence shows something else, you stick with the original program.Now for the kicker. You're trying to show that science is a conspiracy, a hidden (to you not so hidden) religion promoting its own atheistic world vision (or is that ray?). So if science is trying to play a shell game here, consider this. Why, since the Miller-Urey experiments were so succesful at showing that organic compounds can form from inorganic material, since the Miller-Urey experiments showed that it could have happened in an early earth atmosphere, would science then make it more difficult for organic compounds to form? Shouldn't science be showing how easy it was, how simple it was for life to form on earth? What happens instead? Evidence is released suggesting that the Miller-Urey experiment was too good, that it didn't properly emulate the early atmosphere, which was less-friendly to the formation of organic compounds. Granted, abiogenesis is one of the fastest moving fields out there, so we are learning a lot in short amount of time, but your conspiracy ideas are rather full of bullshit I think.One final note--all your questions can be answered if you go to wikipedia. Try doing some actual research before making yourself look stupid.

I can has references plz? Thx.

Yes but organic molecules are not all amino acids so if you are talking about making amino acids (which is what we specifically need) then let’s specify whether he got amino acids or just arbitrary organic molecules which would not help in the production of life and specifically proteins. . and so? On earth they need help to prevent interfering cross reactions from wiping them out. Long wavelength UV light must be excluded since it quickly degrades amino acids. Miller experiments invariably produce non biological substances that degrade amino acids into non-biologically relevant compounds. In short they need ”profoundly informative intervention’ by an intelligent agent to overcome the randomising influences of natural chemical processes. That’s right. Each protein found in the cell comprises a long and definitely arranged sequence of amino acids and the function of each depends on the specific sequencing which determines the complex 3-d shape that the chain adopts and that shape in turn determines what hand in glove fit occurs with other molecules enabling it to catalyse specific reactions or build specific structures in the cell. It’s like the sequencing of letters and words in a sentence - it has to have a meaningful sequence which in turn is directed by the information -the set of biochemical instructions -encoded on the DNA molecule. There we go, the philosophical assumption again. It did happen without intelligent intervention, we know it did -all by itself -we just haven’t worked out exactly how.That’s exactly the impression that every text book leaves - and that’s my point.

Anti-evolution certainly but anti-science? Most assuredly not. Actually they are not so much anti-evolution as they are ”anti the evolutionary philosophy holding a monopoly over science’ and refusing to allow any criticism or any competing viewpoint to have its say. Well that’s the pot calling the kettle black -the main critics are like the people at the NSCE and they are the ones creating misleading impressions using rhetoric, intentional ambiguity and misrepresented evidence. I’ve listened to Eugenie Scott and Dawkins and have noted the ambiguity when they use the word ”evolution’ meaning the variation that does occur in life and then by extension expect you to believe the BIG claim that macroevolution occurs from a common ancestor by extrapolation. I've heard Eugenie Scott saying that even if Haeckel did 'fudge' his drawings somewhat, so what, the overall impression is still correct. In other words a little bit of dishonesty has given the correct impression so it doesn't really matter. Actually Haeckel did deceive with his drawings and gave the incorrect impression -lying intentionally cannot be good for anyone. The Discovery institute is exposing deceit. They are serving a worthwhile purpose. They are making an effort to explain why there is a controversy and what it actually entails. If you don’t like what they do it’s only because you prefer evolution to continue to hold an undeserved and unopposed monopoly over science. No, actually they are bringing controversial issues out into the open, explaining what is wrong with evolutionary ”science’ and opposing the deception that has already been propogated on the masses using philosophical assumptions that override evidential science. They are allowing the educated public to see both sides instead of the one side that has held sway over science for far too long without any real competition. It’s actually good for everyone though some obviously are finding it too challenging and prefer to live in the past and remain stuck in their rut.
If evolution is everything it is cracked up to be then it should have no reason to fear the competition. It should welcome criticism with anticipation of truth overcoming fiction. Those of us that support the Discovery Institute’s aims welcome the challenge and have no reason to fear the truth.
Good honest open debate is good for everyone -dogmatic ”science’ is good for nobody. Yes the devotees of evolution are upset. There is also a wide spectrum of people criticizing the one sided dogmatic teaching of evolution. Their real goal is opposing the philosophical dogmatic assumptions of evolution -they have no argument with real science -the evidential stuff. A little opposition to those of the evolution religion that say there is no need of intelligence, there is no God (or none that does or has done anything worth noting.) is a good thing.If evolution is true, then it has nothing to fear. We are now in the dark ages with the tyranny of evolutionary belief holding their concept of reality as the truth and forcing it unopposed down everybody’s throat in the educational system. It’s belief system infiltrates society at every level and dominates our culture.If it's true, we don’t mind -if it's not, we do mind. It is truth that is of ultimate importance, not any particular belief system.