Icons of Evolution

That's because there aren't really any problems. Icons of Evolutions, like the rest of Creationist literature, lies somewhere between misunderstanding and inaccuracy, and outright dishonesty.

This is not entirely true, when Miller repeated the experiment in '83 using the combination of gases now believed to be present in the atmosphere of the early Earth he found no evidence of amino acid production. It was only when Bada added iron and carbonate minerals that amino acids were formed. ref

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.

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.

I disagree with Nosy; there is no assumption of natural process. What there is an assumption that the evidence will lead us to the truth of what happened; that, fundamentally, the universe is not lying to us. Despite your claims; there is absolutely no evidence that life cannot form through natural process.More importantly there is absolutely no evidence for any kind of organised intelligence: none, nada, zip; no coherent proposal for identifying such evidence: none, nada, zip; no coherent mechanism or hypothesis for how it was done: none, nada, zip. Might as well put it in the Science books that maybe if on Earth was started by Lister sneezing a billion years in the future and that sneeze falling through a time warp - it makes as much sense.This is why intelligence isn't taken seriously: it's not because of any philosophical or ideological commitment, it's because of a complete lack of a coherent hypothesis let alone evidence.If you could present a scientific model of how intelligence was involved, and provide any evidence to support it, then it'd get a place in the textbooks. But you haven't, and you can't.Edited by Mr Jack, : Better subtitle