A Designer Consistent with the Physical Evidence

This is the first time that I have come across this site. I have had a brief look at the posts on this thread and see a lot of pontificating about semantics and definitions. So in response lets look at some facts.
As the Topic is:- A Designer Consistent with the Physical Evidence
Lets have a look at what evidence is out there.
It's hard to choose where to start because there is so much evidence!!!!
So I'll just jump in at the deep end and suggest that you threaders/posters (or whatever your called) consider the massive and irrefutable evidence for design.
By the way I believe the creator/designer is the God of the Bible but that is a different subject to the scope of this thread, so I will keep this post relevant to the abovementioned topic.Refer to the following site to verify any facts about the biochemistry:-
Just a moment...This is a paper about "Anatomy of a proficient enzyme: The structure of orotidine 5′-monophosphate decarboxylase in the presence and absence of a potential transition state analog" written in 1998.
In a nutshell the reaction acceleration brought about by this enzyme is vital in protein synthesis for the assembly of DNA and RNA. Without this enzyme to speed up the reaction time it would take in excess of 75 MILLION YEARS for a single molecule of DNA or RNA to synthesise. It really makes you wonder how any form of life was able to pass on to the next generation it's DNA blueprint before this very complex enzyme came into existence, which itself is synthesised through complex chemical instructions that are themselves written on the DNA. Another chicken and the egg problem for evolutionists.The above reaction acceleration pales into insignificance when in 2003 Biochemist Richard Wolfenden et al discovered a phosphatase enzyme described in the paper titled "The rate of hydrolysis of phosphomonoester dianions and the exceptional catalytic proficiencies of protein and inositol phosphatases" this can be found at:- Just a moment...Quote from the abstract of this paper:- "Most enzyme reactions proceed with k cat/K m values in the neighborhood of 107 M−1⋅s−1 and appear to be similarly efficient according to that criterion. However, to assess the proficiency of an enzyme as a catalyst, and its corresponding affinity for the altered substrate in the transition state, it is necessary to compare k cat/K m with the rate constant of the corresponding reaction under the same conditions in the absence of a catalyst. In contrast to the relatively narrow range of values of k cat/K m observed for enzyme catalyzed reaction rates, the rates of these uncatalyzed reactions span a range of at least 19 orders of magnitude. Thus, differences in enzyme proficiency tend to reflect differences in the rates of the uncatalyzed reactions rather than the catalyzed reactions, and enzymes differ greatly from one another in their prowess as catalysts. Enzymes that catalyze the slowest reactions are of practical interest, in that they offer sensitive targets for inhibition by transition-state analogues. Their mechanisms of action are also particularly challenging to rationalize."
and at the end of the Results and Discussion part of this paper:-
"Among enzymes of this latter type, a high value of k cat (1.5 104 s−1) has been recorded for a human protein tyrosine phosphatase (PTP; EC 3.1.3.48), acting on a model peptide through a phosphorylated cysteine residue as an intermediate. Comparison with the present rate constant for spontaneous hydrolysis of the phenyl phosphate dianion indicates that PTP enhances the rate of hydrolysis of phosphorylated tyrosine residues by ≈17 orders of magnitude."This enzyme permits reactions required to allow both regulatory and communication channels within a cell to take place in a hundredth of a second. The amazing part is that without this complex enzyme operating in the right place at the right time, these reactions which are essential for the cell to function would take 1 TRILLION YEARS. Without design from an unimaginably superior intelligence, it is inconceivable that there were a series of small mutational steps that led to the writing of the information on the DNA that is required to build this complex enzyme, because the cell would have long disappeared before it was able to function prior to the enzyme.
Another chicken and egg problem.
If you don't believe me then take a look at:-
Biocompare: The Buyer's Guide for Life Scientists
A quote from this article by Richard Wolfenden
"Without catalysts, there would be no life at all, from microbes to humans,"
Wolfenden states "It makes you wonder how natural selection operated in such a way as to produce a protein that got off the ground as a primitive catalyst for such an extraordinarily slow reaction." As Dr Jonathan Sarfati correctly points out in his 2008 book "By Design". "Natural selection could not have been operational until there was life, while as Wolfenden says, life could not have functioned without these enzymes to speed up vital reactions enormously."So to me a mere individual in country NSW Australia, it seems very clear that a Designer Consistent with the Physical Evidence is evident by these two enzymes alone without proceeding to the vast amount of other scientific evidence for complex and brilliant design that is evident to everyone, or should I say, should be evident to everyone, but unfortunately many have been deceived by the continual bombardment of evolutionaty propaganda.
You wanted facts, perhaps any evolutionists out there would like to explain how these complex enzymes came into existence by random accident, chance and time?
Jon TBy the way the spelling above is Australian English, there will be differences in some words for any US readers.

Thanks for your welcome anglagard.The point of the examples that I chose is that the sheer time required for a cell to complete vital reactions for it's survival are far too great without the enzymes being in existence to speed things up to a massive degree!

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Your statement:-
....."cites two papers that are 'interpreted to mean' that enzymes can't develop naturally due to that old improbability problem".....

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It seems that you missed the point when you imply that this is a probability matter. I will try to explain this as simply as possible for you.
The time needed for essential chemical reactions to occur within the cell is far too great without the enzyme. Take just one of many examples of this, the synthesis of uridine 59-phosphate and uridine 5′-phosphate that is an essential precursor needed in the cells construction of DNA and RNA molecules. The point here is that without DNA or RNA, there can be no cell replication of heritable characteristics, which by definition precludes natural selection from occurring at all. The only result is that the hypothetical organism dies with no offspring if it could even be described as being alive and able to function without the ability to synthesise DNA or RNA. Life ends. No possible path for evolution.

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Your statement:-
....."As to Just a moment... why didn't the authors clearly state this 'proves' any purported 'god of the gaps.?' All I see is an examination of a complex biochemical reaction".....

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The aim of this research wasn't to prove or disprove "any purported 'god of the gaps." as you put it but rather it was about determining the molecular structure of orotidine 5′-monophosphate decarboxylase and how it reacts with proteins as a functioning free and inhibited enzyme.
Of particular note is the amazing degree to which this enzyme accelerates reactions within the cell through, among other processes the enzymatic decarboxylation of OMP. The time difference between with the enzyme of 18 msec and without the enzyme 78 million years would, I should think provide good cause for any reasonable person to reflect on how fortunate it is that this enzyme does in fact exist. More importantly it had to exist right from the first time that DNA and RNA existed.
You rightly point out that the enzyme reaction is complex !!!

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Your statement:-
....."Strange that the real scientific community, as opposed to the proven (in the legal sense) liars at AIG, ICR, and the DI, has found none of this "massive and irrefutable evidence".....

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Your attack on the abovementioned Creationist Organisations just shows your prejudice and worldview. If you are going to criticise, then please be a lot more specific than this unsubstantiated accusation. There are many well respected mainstream scientists all over the world that carry out very good peer reviewed and published science, who work for National Governments, Industry and Private Research Organisations, and also contribute to Creationist Organisations such as the ones that you denigrate above.See below,
taken from the peer reviewed and published paper from "real scientists",:-Orotidine 5*-phosphate decarboxylase produces the largest rate enhancement that has been reported for any enzyme. The crystal structure of the recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae enzyme has been determined in the absence and presence of the proposed transition state analog 6-hydroxyuridine 5*-phosphate, at a resolution of 2.1 and 2.4 , respectively. Orotidine 5*-phosphate decarboxylase folds as a TIM-barrel with the ligand binding site near the open end of the barrel. The binding of 6-hydroxyuridine 5*-phosphate is accompanied by protein loop movements that envelop the ligand almost completely, forming numerous favorable interactions with the phosphoryl group, the ribofuranosyl group, and the pyrimidine ring. Lysine-93 appears to be anchored in such a way as to optimize electrostatic interactions with developing negative charge at C-6 of the pyrimidine ring, and to donate the proton that replaces the carboxylate group at C-6 of the product. In addition, H-bonds from the active site to O-2 and O-4 help to delocalize negative charge in the transition state. Interactions between the enzyme and the phosphoribosyl group anchor the pyrimidine within the active site, helping to explain the phosphoribosyl groups remarkably large contribution to catalysis despite its distance from the site of decarboxylation. Orotidine 59-phosphate decarboxylase (ODCase) (EC 4.1.1.23) is responsible for de novo synthesis of uridine 59-phosphate, an essential precursor ofRNAand DNA. In neutral solution, orotidine 59-monophosphate (OMP) undergoes spontaneous decarboxylation to uridine 59-phosphate with a half-time of 78 million years (1). At the ODCase active site, the same reaction proceeds with a half-time of 18 msec (2). Comparison of kcatyKm with knon indicates that ODCase surpasses other enzymes in its proficiencyi as a catalyst, achieving a remarkable affinity for the altered substrate in the transition state (1). In addition to surmounting this formidable kinetic barrier, the ODCase reaction is of special interest in view of its lack of precedent in biological chemistry. The substrate is devoid of an effective repository for the negative charge that is generated at C-6 when CO2 is eliminated, yet the enzyme functions without metals or other cofactors. Enzymatic decarboxylation of OMP is also remarkable in the importance (for catalysis) of a seemingly irrelevant part of the substrate. By its presence, the 59-phosphoryl group contributes a factor of '108-fold to kcatyKm, in spite of its considerable distance from the site of chemical transformation of the substrate (3). As a first step toward understanding these unusual properties, we have investigated the crystal structure of recombinant Saccharomyces cerevisiae ODCase alone and in complex with a postulated transition state analogue, 6-hydroxyuridine 59- phosphate (BMP) (Ki 5 9 3 10212 M (4).

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Your statement:-
....."As to the abstract linked to through Just a moment... there is no mention or inference that:
quote:The amazing part is that without this complex enzyme operating in the right place at the right time, these reactions which are essential for the cell to function would take 1 TRILLION YEARS. Without design from an unimaginably superior intelligence, it is inconceivable that there were a series of small mutational steps that led to the writing of the information on the DNA that is required to build this complex enzyme, because the cell would have long disappeared before it was able to function prior to the enzyme".....

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Well you should really brush up on your chemistry a bit more is all that I can say to this.
For your information a trillion years is expressed as 10 to the 18th power usually as an order of magnitude which in this case is 18.
The facts are there, clear for all to see, I already quoted parts of the document to assist informed understanding of the issue,
so again see my previous:- Quote from the abstract of this paper:-
"Most enzyme reactions proceed with k cat/K m values in the neighborhood of 107 M−1⋅s−1 and appear to be similarly efficient according to that criterion. However, to assess the proficiency of an enzyme as a catalyst, and its corresponding affinity for the altered substrate in the transition state, it is necessary to compare k cat/K m with the rate constant of the corresponding reaction under the same conditions in the absence of a catalyst. In contrast to the relatively narrow range of values of k cat/K m observed for enzyme catalyzed reaction rates, the rates of these uncatalyzed reactions span a range of at least 19 orders of magnitude. Thus, differences in enzyme proficiency tend to reflect differences in the rates of the uncatalyzed reactions rather than the catalyzed reactions, and enzymes differ greatly from one another in their prowess as catalysts. Enzymes that catalyze the slowest reactions are of practical interest, in that they offer sensitive targets for inhibition by transition-state analogues. Their mechanisms of action are also particularly challenging to rationalize."
I hope that pointing this out, will clarify this for you.

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Your statement:-
....."If you don't believe me then take a look at:-
Biocompare: The Buyer's Guide for Life Scientists
A quote from this article by Richard Wolfenden
This is not a peer reviewed article, it is a post".....

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Who ever said that this was peer reviewed, it is in fact a news article and it was never represented as anything other than an article. But who cares about being pedantic all the time. This nit-picking is ridiculous, the fact is that Richard Wolfenden is publicly quoted in this article as saying:-
"It makes you wonder how natural selection operated in such a way as to produce a protein that got off the ground as a primitive catalyst for such an extraordinarily slow reaction."

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The entire article is shown below for your convenience; the implications for living organisms, if these enzymes did not exist.
In short we wouldn't exist!!! The link to the site is at the bottom.

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Without Enzyme Catalyst, Slowest Known Biological Reaction Takes 1 Trillion Years
Source: University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Monday, May 05, 2003All biological reactions within human cells depend on enzymes. Their power as catalysts enables biological reactions to occur usually in milliseconds. But how slowly would these reactions proceed spontaneously, in the absence of enzymes - minutes, hours, days? And why even pose the question?One scientist who studies these issues is Dr. Richard Wolfenden, Alumni distinguished professor of biochemistry and biophysics and chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 1998, he reported a biological transformation deemed "absolutely essential" in creating the building blocks of DNA and RNA would take 78 million years in water."Now we've found one that's 10,000 times slower than that," Wolfenden said. "Its half-time - the time it takes for half the substance to be consumed - is 1 trillion years, 100 times longer than the lifetime of the universe. Enzymes can make this reaction happen in 10 milliseconds."Wolfenden, along with co-authors Chetan Lad and Nicholas H. Williams of Sheffield University in England, published a report of their new findings April 29 in the online "early edition" of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Print publication is slated for May 13.The report highlights the catalytic power of phosphatase enzymes to tremendously enhance the transformation rate in water of a specific group of biochemicals: phosphate monoesters. Protein phosphatase enzymes acting on these monoesters help regulate the molecular cross-talk within human cells, the cell signaling pathways and biochemical switches involved in health and disease."We have esters floating around in our cells with all kinds of functions," Wolfenden said. "Every aspect of cell signaling follows the action of the type of phosphatase enzyme that breaks down phosphate monoesters. Other phosphatases highlighted in the study for their catalytic power help mobilize carbohydrates from animal starch and play a role in transmission of hormonal signals."As to the uncatalyzed phosphate monoester reaction of 1 trillion years, "This number puts us way beyond the known universe in terms of slowness," he said. "(The enzyme reaction) is 21 orders of magnitude faster than the uncatalyzed case. And the largest we knew about previously was 18. We've approached scales than nobody can grasp."Why would we want to know the rate of a biological reaction in the absence of an enzyme?That information would allow biologists to appreciate what natural selection has accomplished over the millennia in the evolution of enzymes as prolific catalysts, Wolfenden said. It also would enable scientists to compare enzymes with artificial catalysts produced in the laboratory."Without catalysts, there would be no life at all, from microbes to humans," he said. "It makes you wonder how natural selection operated in such a way as to produce a protein that got off the ground as a primitive catalyst for such an extraordinarily slow reaction." Experimental methods used to observe very slow reactions can generate important information for drug design."Enzymes that do a prodigious job of catalysis are, hands-down, the most sensitive targets for drug development," Wolfenden said."The enzymes we studied in this report are fascinating because they exceed all other known enzymes in their power as catalysts. We've only begun to understand how to speed up reactions with chemical catalysts, and no one has even come within shouting distance of producing their catalytic power."Wolfenden's research on enzyme mechanisms and water affinities of biological compounds has exerted major influences in these areas. His research also has influenced rational drug design; findings from his laboratory helped spur development of ACE inhibitor drugs, now widely used to treat hypertension and stroke.Support for this research came from the National Institute of General Medicine, a component of the National Institutes of Health.University of North Carolina School of Medicine
The above article can be found at:-
Biocompare: The Buyer's Guide for Life Scientists

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Your statement:-
....."Here is a post that refutes your interpretation of your citations.
Page not found · GitHub Pages
It is based upon: Aharoni A, et al. Nat Genet. 2005 Jan;37(1):73-6.
This post shows that enzymes, similarly to the genetic code which controls their production, includes inadvertent minor other expressions that will be selected for under environmental pressure. Incredulity upon the part of the anti-science crowd does not preclude this simple fact that has been shown experimentally in thousands of cases".....

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The above article at pandasthumb.org is irrelevant to this matter as there simply could be no enzymes acting on protein reactions and enzyme and protein synthesis if the instructions for their formulation encoded on the DNA to be transcribed/decoded/mobilised by the RNA, mRNA and tRNA respectively was going to take millions of years, this argument misses the point entirely. And who are the "anti-science crowd", this childish form of derogatory comment really doesn't progress a reasoned scientific debate; I once again must conclude that you must resort to this type of underhand attack, because you feel that you are standing on very shaky ground in respect of your belief system.

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Your Statement:-
....."So to me as a mere librarian in West Texas, it seems very clear that your entire argument is of the usual form, 'life is improbable' which is easily refuted by the fact natural selection, be it upon enzymes or organisms, is not a random process".....

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This is a fairly meaningless statement, you make an incorrect assumption about the thrust of my entire argument, and then neatly pigeon hole me as being "of the usual form, 'life is improbable'. If this post of yours is an indication of the standard of debate here, there really is precious little point in continuing.
Again you miss the point entirely, I will try to explain again though I am getting tired of the no holes barred nit-picking approach that you present.
Natural selection is only possible, whether random or otherwise if, a beneficial mutative advantage within a species can be conferred onto subsequent generations within that species. The mechanism by which the naturally selected advantage is passed to the offspring is encoded within the DNA molecule in the reproductive cells of either parent organism. If the reaction time for the synthesis of elemental building blocks for the DNA and RNA takes millions to billions of years without the enzymes being present, then natural selection just ain't gonna happen. The point being that the highly complex molecular folding and synthesis pathway that must be exactly followed in order to even assemble one of these enzymes must by real scientific definition have been there right from the beginning of the existence of the the DNA and RNA molecules. In a word simultaneous.

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Your statement:-
....."The fact that evolution is not the action of random processes has been explained in this forum, and in any decent scientific text that covers evolution, countless times.
It is incumbent upon you to learn what the actual scientists have discovered before proclaiming as infallible, such easily refuted and 'so-called' evidence to the contrary".....

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This attack is not really worthy of a response. The facts are the same.
The way that each person interprets those facts is where the problems begin.
It really comes down to how each individual looks at the world.
What I mean by that is simply that it is the biases, prejudices or pre-suppositions that are really at the heart of the way that each person interprets the world around them. Whether a person is a Creationist an Evolutionist or a Monty Pythonist, it is their overall worldview that will dictate the way that they interpret the world. So the question is not whether a person is biased but rather what is the best bias to be biased by to form an accurate understanding of the world around them.Some see the handiwork of God because they believe that God exists and yet others just see a random collection of matter and energy with no particular purpose because they dont believe in God, but have instead put their belief in another religion atheism or agnosticism, though they usually dont recognize that their beliefs constitute a religion.It is abundantly clear that many people are just not aware of the huge amount of logical, scientific evidence for the existence of a supreme creative genius designer of the cosmos, one who I believe is Jesus Christ.The sad truth is that many people have put their faith in the evolution religion because many falsely assume that evolution has been proven by science which is not the case at all.
One could be forgiven though for thinking that evolution was a fact, from the continual bombardment of evolutionary propaganda in the media and education systems within western culture at the present time.
The fact is, that nothing could be further from the truth, there is very little and arguably none, actual physical evidence indicating that evolution has occurred at all. (By evolution I mean Darwinian evolution, the assumed process by which all species of life have come to exist here on earth, after the assumed existence of the first living cell had somehow come into existence by chance).Edited by Admin, : Replace long divider lines with horizontal rule.

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Hi Percy,fair enough!
Whatever convention that you wish to employ to express it, a trillion years is a very long time to wait for DNA to synthesise.Cheers,
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

HI & Thanks Bio-molecularTony of 77 Posts, my apologies for not getting back to you sooner.In response to your post, I think that there are physical things that show evidence of the existence of God.
I haven't had the time to thoroughly look at all the previous arguments along this thread, but I will try and catch up as time allows.
As previously mentioned, it really comes down to ones worldview as to how data is interpreted.
I believe that there is a wealth of factual evidence in existence that very much indicates the existence of God.
Unfortunately, it also appears to me that many people have been de-calibrated in the way that they perceive the world around them.
I use the term de-calibrated because it sort of gets my meaning across. The saying that some people can't see the wood for the trees is another way of expressing this concept and I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but rather as a statement that badly describes what is occurring and probably is in need of a better analogy.There has been a loss of understanding within individual people to some degree about matters of perception; ironically in western cultures this has accelerated since the massive increase in knowledge and technology that has occurred in the last 50 years.Consequently, I could make a list of evidences of A Designer Consistent with the Physical Evidence, that I believe are very good examples, but which in all honesty wouldn't impress many people at all, simply because they are not seeing the facts in the same way that I am.I would expect that a range of reasons would be expressed as to why my evidences would be seen as nothing extraordinary at all, and many will more than likely just take them for granted, or explain them all away as just more intelligent design arguments that are not worth thinking about for no particular reason other than a label has been affixed namely ID, and the most common knee-jerk reaction protocol is to dismiss without further thought.The taking things for granted is a real concern. Things like the common statement, in evolutionary propaganda that life began. I have yet to see any compelling explanation as to how this incredibly complex feat just happened from the evolutionary camp. Indeed with all our knowledge and technology, utilising controlled environments etc.. this feat has not been replicated and I very much doubt that it ever will be replicated.
But many still hold that given just two things, time and chance, life can spontaneously arise.Even the theoretical primitive evolutionary first cell could not have been "Simple", though this is the usual way that it is portrayed, no doubt to make it easier to swallow.For the first cell to have been able to survive in the theoretical primordial conditions and for it to be able to reproduce itself, it is very clear that using the word "Simple" to describe the first cell is an outright act of ignorance, based more on the principles of circular reasoning than on good science.It has been shown that even the simplest of stand alone organisms must have in excess of 375 protein coding genes and 43 RNA coding genes all having correct chirality and which comprise of about half a million bases.
It just isn't going to happen by itself, no matter how much time you throw at it.It must always be remembered that all you have is time and chance to create the first cell, nothing else qualifies.
Many evolutionist wrongly include natural selection with time and chance to create the first life, but before you can have natural selection operating reproduction must already be occurring.But for the record, I will name a few so that I hopefully keep my post somewhere in the general direction of being relevant to the title.* the seemingly fortuitous location of our solar system within the galaxy.
* the seemingly fortuitous location of our planet within the solar system.
* the seemingly fortuitous physical distance of the Earth from the Sun, making liquid water possible on Earth.
* the seemingly fortuitous physical properties of Carbon.
* the seemingly fortuitous physical storage capacity of DNA.Extremely dense information capacity doesn't do it justice.
* the seemingly fortuitous reaction acceleration properties of many enzymes discovered in living cells.
* the seemingly fortuitously efficient ATP Synthase Electric Motor in nearly all living cells. Spins at 10,000 RPM.
* the seemingly fortuitous properties of light, whereby photons are directed to P680 chlorophyll to knock out electrons
* the seemingly fortuitous physical properties of Ca & Mn that allow the storage of 4 photons for photosynthesis.
* the seemingly fortuitous refractive indices of Calcite & Chitin, essential parts of highly complex trilobite eyes.
* the seemingly fortuitous physical properties of Oxygen as Ozone, providing a radiation shield for Earth.There are thousands of other examples, but these should be enough to get the point across. I hope.
Cheers,
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Hi DevilsAdvocate,thanks for your response. My apologies for being too long winded, I'll try and keep it brief.

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DevilsAdvocate writes:-
....."Yes, true with cellular organisms that exist today (and probably the last billion years). I am still uncertain whether this enzyme is necessary for all types of synthesis of DNA/RNA or just de novo type synthesis, I am still researching this. Perhaps a microbiology or similarly related researcher can help us out on this (I will continue to research this through this weekend)".....

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All types of DNA/RNA synthesis known to occur.

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DevilsAdvocate writes:-
....."However, how do we know that this enzymic reactionary pathway did not evolve from simpler type reactions along with the evolution of DNA based life from RNA and even simpler self-replication organic molecular based life? I don't see anything preventing this? Do you?".....

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Obviously, there is no absolute way to prove or disprove anything that supposedly happened in the distant past, because there is no way of testing physical specimens that we don't possess. There is however no particularly compelling reason that suggests that the supposed first forms of life as seen in the fossil record and determined to be so by evolutionary scientists, should be interpreted as possessing any characteristics that would lead one to the conclusion that the DNA/RNA is substantially different from that found in present day cells.
Really, the argument that early life was simple and modern life is complex has it's origins in evolutionary belief, rather than in the testable and repeatable realm of empirical science. It is a form of circular reasoning that is not supported by the evidence at hand. For example so called early primitive aquatic creatures known to us today as the Trilobites had extraordinarily complex compound eyes, arguably among the most complex eyes of any creature that has ever lived. This does not fit well with the traditional simple to complex rhetoric that evolution is known for.

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DevilsAdvocate writes:-
....."True, present day organisms rely on cellular reproduction by means of DNA/RNA replication however the more simple viruses can replicate with the help of host cells by means of just a strand of RNA and a protein coat. So we have present day examples of how rather simple organic molecules can self-replicate. In addition scientists have been able to replicate RNA that can on its own self-replicate ad infinitim without any help from other enzymes or cellular components and which give an insight of how complex DNA based life could later evolve as shown here:
The Immortal Molecule: Scripps Research Scientists Develop First Examples of RNA that Replicates Itself Indefinitely Without Any Help from Biology".....

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This research though interesting is certainly not an accurate representation of the pre-biotic world with all it's hostilities to the formation of complex protein chains by themselves. The experiments conditions were carefully controlled, so that real world type hostile reactions did not occur or contaminate the homo-chiral amino acid type sub-unit building blocks. It is unreasonable to make the massive jump from a highly controlled invitro experiment to an assertion that actual self replicating life forms could have arisen in the same way. The complex nucleotide chains that are necessary to make this experiment work could not have existed freely in a contaminated atmosphere, let alone in water as the chains would be broken down within nanoseconds upon exposure to the realistic environment, furthermore it is a huge leap of faith to get from these chemicals to an actual living life form capable of self reproduction.

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DevilsAdvocate writes:-
....."I disagree, why could early life not have been RNA based and later developed into the more complex DNA based life we see today? This is just another attempt for IDers (like Behe) to have "irreducible complexity" bought off by the scientific community. Just like at Dover, scientists have explained that natural selection allows less complex intermediate forms of cellular structures and processes i.e. RNA and other simple enzymes which themselves have vital and profitable functions in themselves and which are able to evolve into more complex cellular structures and processes i.e. DNA, as natural selection allows"......

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Well if what you say is true, then arguably it shouldn't be too difficult to provide a real world example, given the billions of fossils specimens that are now housed in research institutions around the globe and the huge range of life still surviving and being meticulously studied on this little planet of ours hurtling through space as we write.By the way I am not an I.D'er per se, but I most certainly am a Creationist, lock, stock and barrel. Boots and all!!!My apologies for getting long winded again, I started off short and to the point, and just got out of hand from there, then remembered and pulled myself back into line for a succinct finish.Edited by Admin, : Replace asterisks with horizontal rule.

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Hi onifre,thanks for your interest. As it is very late here at the moment I will just answer your first question for now.* the seemingly fortuitous location of our solar system within the galaxy. You are correct about making a point for life existing here on Earth.
The most obvious answer to this is temperature and all that follows from that.
* The temperature of the planet is crucial for liquid water to exist. Incidentally, earth is the only place known in the universe where liquid water exists. Liquid water is essential for life on Earth.Further, there are a great deal of other factors that automatically follow from the distance between the Earth and the Sun, eg.
* proximity to solar flares,
* radiation flux across the frequency spectrum,
* gravitational effects directly proportional to the distance to the Sun,
* duration of orbit around the Sun. 1 year,
* shape of orbit around the Sun, combined with earth's axial tilt to provide four seasons per annum.I'm hoping that you are starting to get the picture about design.I don't understand how you make the jump to the question that you posit, "does this mean that every other solar system in our galaxy was NOT designed since they don't hold life?"
My answer to this is simply, we do not know whether other planets orbiting stars do have or don't have life, we can only speculate about this. I don't see any logical reason why you would assume from my brief one line mention of the seemingly fortuitous location of our solar system within the galaxy, that as a consequence of that statement, you ask the question does this mean that every other solar system in our galaxy was not designed.I have to get some sleep, it's 5:08 am Sunday morning. Bye for now.

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Hi Admin,
thanks for the tip,
I just saw the link about dBCodes On and used it for my previous response.
I'll continue to utilise this method as it sure beats the other ungainly method that I was using.
Bye from Australia,
I'm tired!

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

You are right here of course, I made the above statement not expecting that any example would be provided, either of the first cells or any descendant that operated with a totally RNA based chemical operating system. After all if the RNA world hypothesis was credible, and against all odds life came into existence in the hostile chemical soup environment proposed by RNA world supporters, though usually this is played down, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect that their would be some traces of larger hard descendants of this type of operating system left either in the fossil record or the living world today.
The point is that the hypothetical 'RNA world' initially proposed by Crick is just about dead in the water, (metaphorically speaking), because of the major chemistry hurdles that this hypothesis must explain, which it hasn't, even come close to doing.Questions like how does each amino acid become activated to enable bonding to other amino acids to form a protein. Where does the hypothetical RNA based living organism get its cellular energy from as obviously ATP and GTP cannot be players at this level. To then just simply say that the fundamental laws of chemistry provide this energy is not understanding the complexity of the situation, even at the pre-supposed "simple cell" level that you are talking about. If you follow the line of reasoning displayed in this video, (which incidentally makes a lot of unsubstantiated and convenient assumptions about chemical conditions on earth in the distant past), then you may as well say crystals that form out of aqueous solution provide an explanation for abio-genesis, which is obviously absurd. This is just another natural selection of the gaps type argument, usually promoted by Darwinian evolutionists that hinges on circular reasoning and really proves nothing about the actual origin of life. The specificity of the chemistry needed to combine the correct amino acids to form the proteins required for life is not addressed. How those proteins acquired the information necessary to reproduce a functioning self replicating organism is not addressed either, this is just smoke and mirrors again. Besides which there are far more ways for complex polymers to break down in a chemically contaminated environment than there are ways for them to form.
You may think that the CDK007 video is plausible, I don't.

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Hi onifre, by the way, no I'm not an insurance salesman are you? All of creation displays design, it is profoundly obvious everywhere, whether a person is able to comprehend that fact and see the design really depends on their worldview, nothing more and nothing less.
The tiny number of examples that I provided in relation to the location of Earth within the Solar system will either be recognized as evidence of a designer or regarded as nothing particularly unexpected depending on the philosophical position that the observer takes. It's as simple as that! There really is no point in continuing, because this is where the barrier to understanding each others position lies. And the barrier is philosophic in nature not scientific in nature.
I can say that the likelihood or probability of ALL of the conditions that we find here on Earth that make life possible, to have arisen by sheer random chance AT THE SAME TIME is vanishingly small, to the point that in other fields of science it would be deemed as being so improbable as to be to all intents and purposes impossible,However,on the other hand I expect from the position it would appear that you are talking from, you will most likely reply with something along the lines that everything is possible so this massive confluence of favourable conditions had to happen somewhere, and this just happens to be one of those instances. A just so happenstance scenario. As you would be able to see from my response above, I believe that the evidence for design is profoundly obvious everywhere to a person with a compatible world view, which in my case is Biblical Christianity. Consequence, the logic is coherent!
After all, if the universe and everything in it was created by Jesus Christ as described in the Bible, then it would surely be reasonable to expect that design would be evident.It is only if you have, for example a prior commitment to a materialist philosophy that precludes by definition any agent of creation outside that materialist philosophy, that you will have a great deal of trouble with my explanation for design and bio-genesis.So well done onifre!
I think that you at least in principle have a fundamental grasp of where I am coming from, though I fully understand that you cannot understand why I believe that Jesus Christ of the Bible is the Designer and Creator of everything.

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Well I'm glad that we agree on that!
It needs to be pointed out though, and I know that you will object, that we ALL have an a priori agenda through which we interpret information from anywhere. The fact is that you also hold to a priori assumptions about this subject. Perhaps you would like to elaborate on what your assumptions are. This is a good example of circular reasoning. This logic is fatally flawed no matter how you look at it.
You are saying that because life is here, it doesn't matter that the likelihood of non directed biogenesis occurring ever is as good as impossible, because hey, what do you know life exists, so undirected biogenesis must have happenned.
This is in fact an a priori position that you have adopted, though I doubt that you will recognise it for what it is. I don't recall ever saying to anyone that it is only biogenesis that was created out of nothing by the action of God.
I do recall stating that I believe that ALL of creation ie. EVERYTHING and that includes Black Holes etc. was created by the action of God. Now I would have to consider myself a Creationist, no doubt about it! So why do you make this baseless accusation that Creationists hang on this point as their only argument for a designer.
Surely the very short list that I posted last night (Australian time), that listed for example that the distances between some bodies in our Solar system as evidence of design. I could add to that list for hours, take the distance between the Earth and the Moon as another evidence of brilliant mathematical balance and design, which also provides a multitude of benefits for life on this planet, both in a biological sense and in a practical sense for things such as tidal movements of the oceans to name just one. This also raises the point of multiple design facets of the created objects of the universe, the design that I see as being so evident, also has multiple applications that make the likelihood of them arising by chance even more minuscule. The fact that the design factors often cross a broad range of unrelated applications is further evidence. I think that you have completely missed the point again.
Oh and the Cell is just one tiny area, (excuse the pun), that could be looked at with regard to design.
The fact that we are thinking humans beings discussing this subject whilst we live on this little planet tends to assist the discussion into the area of Biology to look at some big questions of all time like; How did life begin?
I think that this is because it is an area that we both physically can relate to, there is plenty of living organic material around to look at for real scientific study, and there is an enormous amount of real quantifiable information stored in every biological organism that isn't found in rocks or within material of a non living origin.
In stark contrast it is very difficult for your average researcher to study a black hole, likewise the Sun or other stars, galaxies etc.
The idea that you can objectively study how cosmic forces that acted creatively to form the cosmos in the distant past is just plain unscientific. Sure you can think up theories and you can adjust and calibrate your figures till it all looks very pretty, but in the end it is just a lot of surmising, conjecture and straight-out guesswork that has been formulated according to the particular worldview of the one/body conducting or the one/body financing the study.So contrary to your assertion that I present a "god of the gaps position" rather I would respond to you that as more is known about the amazing complexities of life, our understanding of the amazing design features and built in redundancy protections push the equation in the other direction. I put it to you that the sheer quantity of design features, engineering principles, exquisite uses of the laws of nature and comprehensive back up systems that are only recently being discovered make it harder to swallow the same old Darwinian story as each year goes by.
As an example of the Laws of nature such as those that govern van der Waals (vdW) forces that allow Geckos to run across ceilings without falling to the ground.
See:- Just a moment... for Evidence for vdW in Gecko setae
The authors are evolutionists, but the facts are still the facts, it's just the interpretation that differs.Cheers,
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

It would appear to be you who has failed to recognize the situation as it stands.
The point that I am making is not one of irreducible complexity.
It is really just an issue of time which brings strongly into play entropy that would work against enzyme complexity if any examples could be provided that substantiate the view that the enzymes are the end product of a gradual increase in information, which is what your a priori belief system demands if I have correctly perceived the place that you are coming from.
Biophysicist Dr L Spetner from Johns Hopkins University supports the concept that increasing complexity is not shown to occur.
Or as you have brought Behe into the debate then have a look at Behe's work on Plasmodium falciparum (in his book,'The Edge of evolution') mutating for anti-biotic resistance, and humans mutating to reduce susceptibility to this parasite, the salient point being that these examples are brought about by a net loss of complexity and prescriptive information in both species though to a lesser degree in the human population. So again as is usually the case, a loss of information and complexity has in fact provided a situation that is naturally selected as beneficial to each organism from environmental pressure. This is all heading in the wrong direction for Darwinian Evolution.

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

But don't you see, no I guess you don't, that the argument that you are presenting here is nothing more than just another case of circular reasoning after the fact.
What I mean by that is this:- and please correct me if I am wrong, but I get from your statement above that:-
BECAUSE we are here and BECAUSE we have the beautifully designed and highly complex DNA/RNA systems operating perfectly, then of necessity there MUST have been BILLIONS of years between that period and the first hard-body-part fossils, so THEREFORE we find no evidence in the world today of RNA based life because it was out-competed a long time ago.You obviously have an a priori commitment to the idea that life has evolved from simple to complex, so your worldview is revealed here by the circular reasoning displayed, in this instance. You are full of compliments this evening!
Get over it, the fundamental laws of chemistry always apply, the point that I was making is that the fundamental laws of chemistry do not provide a solution to the problem of where the cellular energy came from, not how the mechanics of it operated.
What makes you think that Creationists aren't scientists? I have never watched the Discovery Channel nor do I wish to.
Your preconceptions and prejudices are very clear, without good basis perhaps but at least they are clear!!! Evolutionary propaganda often understates the difficulty of a naturalistic origin of life. Production of traces of ‘building blocks’ is commonly equated with proving that they could have built up the required complicated molecules under natural conditions. The instability of ‘building blocks’ in non-biotic environments is usually glossed over.The RNA/DNA base cytosine is not produced in spark discharge experiments. The proposed prebiotic productions are chemically unrealistic because the alleged precursors are unlikely to be concentrated enough, and they would undergo side reactions with other organic compounds, or hydrolyse. Cytosine itself is too unstable to accumulate over alleged geological ‘deep time’, as its half life for deamination is 340 years at 25C.
No one disputes the existence of living organisms on earth, and that cells indeed are capable of using simple building blocks to generate the required complex biochemicals at the necessary time, location and concentration. The question is whether the massive co-ordination of the metabolic processes which perform such feats could have arisen without intelligent guidance and driven by only statistical and thermodynamic constraints.
Even if we granted that the ‘building blocks’ were available, it does not follow that they could actually build anything. For example, under plausible prebiotic conditions, the tendency is for biological macromolecules to break apart into the ‘building blocks’, not the other way round.8 Also, the ‘building blocks’ are likely to react in the wrong ways with other ‘building blocks’, for example, sugars and other carbonyl (>C=O) compounds react destructively with amino acids and other amino (—NH2) compounds, to form imines (>C=N), a common cause of browning in foods.Furthermore, some of the building blocks are very unstable. A good example is ribose, which is obviously essential for RNA, and hence for the RNA-world hypothesis of the origin of life. A team including the famous evolutionary origin-of-life pioneer Stanley Miller, in PNAS, found that the half life (t) of ribose is only 44 years at pH 7.0 (neutral) and 0C. It’s even worse at high temperatures73 minutes at pH 7.0 and 100C.11 This is a major hurdle for hydrothermal theories of the origin of life. Miller, in another PNAS paper, has also pointed out that the RNA bases are destroyed very quickly in water at 100Cadenine and guanine have half lives of about a year, uracil about 12 years, and cytosine only 19 days.Most researchers avoid such hurdles with the following methodology: find a trace of compound X in a spark discharge experiment, claim ‘see, X can be produced under realistic primitive-earth conditions’. Then they obtain pure, homochiral, concentrated X from an industrial synthetic chemicals company, react it to form traces of the more complex compound Y. Typically, the process is repeated to form traces of Z from purified Y, and so on. In short, the evolutionists’ simulations have an unacceptable level of intelligent interference.But if you think that is unreasonable, lay out your logic please...The remainder of your post doesn't warrant response as all it amounts to is the usual caustic derogatory rhetoric that for some reason flows so effortlessly from people who one would have hoped would know better.Cheers.
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

The Number of stars ? who really knows, if I stick within commonly accepted bounds then I'd guess somewhere above about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 give or take half a dozen zero's or so as far as current astrophysics goes. As for planets it's really anyone's guess but possibly some where between as many planets as stars and between 1 to 5 orders of magnitude more than that figure, would be my wild stab in the dark. What do you reckon ?I wondered how long it would be before someone trotted out the old anthropomorphic argument. Not impressed!
No need to wonder anymore, you got the prize.Of course you aren't even slightly impressed, it goes with your a priori position, you know how it goes, here we are in no particular part of the galaxy in no particu...etc. etc. so obviously you are not in the slighest bit surprised about anything as trivial as the millions of complex factors that make this little planet Earth suitable for life, because it goes with the territory that you have chosen to believe.I really can't agree with your final statement that the nature of the Universe itself means that there is no evidence for design. I'd be interested to hear what you call "the nature of the Universe" and why those reason preclude design. Please enlighten me .....Cheers,
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

Fair call, it was not however my intention to pass this off as my own work, it was just an oversight, my error.
And before you imply otherwise, no I haven't made this type of oversight before. I have just checked my posts, in all other cases I have quoted my reference source.Cheers,
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20

The point here that I was making is that the direction of ordered complexity required for the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis to hold water is upward, ie. with regard to the alleged results of the hypothesis, the alleged evolution of species from microbes to humans over vast time.The strange thing is that the overwhelming body of actually TESTABLE real physical evidence is that ordered complexity is heading downhill ie. ordered complexity is in fact shown to be decreasing through the action of DNA copying mistakes in the DNA information of living species.
No new information being written, just information being broken, jumbled with the consequence being that the meaning lost.To elaborate for you, consider the following letter sequence:-
"jedpTus rmathefoionhatwj aitustumheinreisgtone ecaeI ustblb", it doesn't actually mean anything does it.
"The information that was there is gone because I just jumbled it up".
The preceding sentence that coded to have meaning is now meaningless, the information is lost, even though in this particular instance all the letters are still there, they are not going to reassemble themselves to the sequence that once again reads, "The information that was there is gone because I just jumbled it up".The same principle applies in respect to information on the DNA code.
I was merely indicating that this can be beneficial to a specie even though ordered complexity in the DNA that codes for a particular trait has been lost. This is natural selection at work.
Of course the opposite is true to, whereby the copying error in the DNA disadvantages the organism and it is selected against.
Either way a portion of the information coding for ordered complexity in the DNA is lost, it's gone.This loss of information coding for ordered complexity is not what one would expect to see, if Darwinian evolution was the correct mechanism by which the diversity of species originated, because the information coding for ordered complexity is heading in the wrong direction. Nothing more, nothing less. If the theoretical result of the actions of the Darwinian evolutionary hypothesis are not those that have brought about increasing ordered complexity, then the theory provides no explanation as to how so called higher life forms came in to existence from the assumed first "primitive cell".
Natural selection is occurring, without doubt but natural selection decreases ordered complexity, so that the inevitable result over enough time will be,
I suggest to exponentially accelerate the breakdown of previously efficiently functioning cellular mechanisms as ordered genetically coded information is lost over generations. As the proportion of copying errors in a species population increases, the likelihood of those errors to express and cause constructional and bio-chemical damage is increased. This may explain why many new diseases, deformities and other types of organism damage are appearing in comparison to a lesser increase per species population in the past.
One thing is for sure, the loss of coded genetic information occurring through copying errors and likely other mechanisms within the DNA strands is not consistent with Darwinian evolution !BTW Work commitments may keep me away for a while, but I will get back to all in good time.Cheers,
NanoGecko

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For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Romans 1:20