*sigh*
No Granny, in an HONEST discussion, when you say. "Again, Dawkins has never said that we are descended from silicon or sand or any such thing." those words have meaning, that you can't try to weasel out of by saying its old, or by saying that he discussed it but doesn't believe it. That is just pure horseshit debating, and shows just what lengths you will go to to be dishonest.
No. It shows that you have failed, yet again, to understand what is being said. Let's take another look at your original statement;
Bolder-dash writes:
I mean, its not like you would just make up that you know the path of humanity from flecks of sand to Feynman-right?
Pointing out that no-one is claiming to have a complete accounting of abiogenesis is completely relevant in this context. That is your misunderstanding. I am not to blame if you cannot tell the difference between discussing a hypothesis and claiming absolute knowledge.
Of course, I can imagine why you might be confused. In creationist circles, and in much religious discourse in general, claims to certain and absolute knowledge are the usual way of doing things. Science doesn't work like that.
The Selfish Gene is not the "Gospel of Dawkins". The reader is not expected to take every last idea that he mentions as fact.
Further, I fail to see why I should be expected to provide an accounting for outdated ideas which I do not believe. The Cairns-Smith hypothesis is outdated because we have models for organic chemical replicators that do not require silicates in this way. Why on Earth should I be expected to provide exacting proof for something that I do not believe and have never supported?
I think anyone with even a shred of honesty who reads what you wrote, and the evidence I provided which proves you utterly wrong can see the truth.
I am content to let people draw their own conclusions there.
The simple fact is that your original statement was utterly wrong. You mentioned sand. The quotes
you cited do not mention sand. Your original statement implies that we originated from sand. Even if we assume that you meant
clay and not sand, you would still be wrong. The hypothesis is that organic chemistry used inorganic silicate replicators as a kind of scaffold upon which to develop. That doesn't mean we are descended from them. Rather it means that we are descended from the organic chemistry that grew on them. The organic chemistry represents the organism in Cairns-Smith's scenario, not the silicates.
Do I expect you to admit you were wrong, and apologize? Of course not. Because you do not display the character to do so (nor does Huntard).
You are correct. I do not possess the character of someone who would apologise despite not being in error. Strangely, I do not consider this a character flaw.
But when someone writes in a PUBLISHED book, discussing the exact possibility of such a scenario (that you claim they never believed), you do not have the intellectual right to say they 'never said any such thing"..and to call someone a liar!
Actually, I no longer believe that you are lying. I think that you have merely failed to understand what is being said for one reason or another. You replied to Dr A like this;
Dr Adequate writes:
Why are you pretending that Richard Dawkins said that we are "descended from flecks of silicon"?
Bolder-dash writes:
Because that's what he says!
The very quotes that
you cited demonstrate that you were mistaken. Dawkins does not say that we are descended from silicon. He discusses the hypothesis that the first organic replicators used silicate replicators as a medium. He does not say that he considers it fact, he merely floats the idea as an interesting possibility, as we can see here;
Richard Dawkins writes:
The original replicators
may have been a related kind of molecule to DNA, or they
may have been totally different. In the latter case
we might say that their survival machines must have been seized at a later stage by DNA.
If so, the original replicators were utterly destroyed, for no trace of them remains in modern survival machines. Along these lines, A. G. Cairns-Smith has made the intriguing
suggestion that our ancestors, the first replicators,
may have been not organic molecules at all, but inorganic crystals-minerals, little bits of clay.
That doesn't sound like a statement of fact to me. It sounds like what it is, a discussion of a potentially interesting hypothesis.
You even have the temerity to now say, "We are talking about clay not sand!" Were you drinking when you wrote that or is it another case of your English language comprehension skills?
"Clay" and "sand" are not synonyms. They are not the same thing.
Clay - Wikipedia
Sand - Wikipedia
Feel free to educate yourself. The short version is that sand is composed of far larger grains than clay.
Did you see where I wrote the word silicon? Did you see where the articles mention the word silicon? Coincedence???!!!!
Oh bless! Are you really naive enough to imagine that simply because two substances are composed of the same elements, that they must be identical? Do you think that coal is the same as diamond? If so, I have some beautiful and valuable coal rings you might be interested in...
So yea, I may engage Bluejay, when I have more time to consider his points, but that has nothing to do with you, so don't go telling me about not understanding things, or obedient civil discourse and personal abuse. Everything I said to you was taken directly from your choice of debate style. I never begin a conversation with anyone in the rude manner that YOU choose. Sorry if I find it necessary to shove it back in your face.
Given that you think this, I can only conclude that you have failed to grasp just how insulting your behaviour has been in this thread. Right from your first message, you set up various insane strawman versions of the ToE and accused us of believing them. That is insulting. It pisses people off when you do that.
Imagine that I said "Well of course you are a Christian, so you are stupid enough to believe that Jesus was a magic space-alien from the future who could shoot laser beams out of his bum hole." . Wouldn't you be annoyed that I was misrepresenting your beliefs? Wouldn't you be annoyed that I was trying to make you look so stupid? Because that is exactly what you have been doing in this thread, right from the start.
Again, if you are going to characterise other peoples beliefs, you should do so accurately or not at all. Misrepresenting others is a form of insult. Remember that when you look back at this thread.
Mutate and Survive
"A curious aspect of the theory of evolution is that everybody thinks he understands it." - Jacques Monod
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