Hugh Ross

Well, that video was good for a laugh.Ross starts by subtracting 50 million from 3.85 billion, and saying that there was no time at all for life to get started.That reminds me of mathematician Paul Erdos. He used to say that when he was young, the earth was 2 billion years old. And now it is 4 billion years old. So, doing the math, Erdos calculated that he (Erdos) was 2 billion years old.The point is that you cannot subtract like that. Both the 3.85 billion, and the 50 million that Ross uses are estimates. So, when you subtract, the conclusion should that it leaves no time at all, give or take a few million years, for life to develop. And Ross knows that quite well. So the only reasonable conclusion is that Ross is quite deliberately lying (misleading his audience) on this issue. Unfortunately, we see this "lying for Jesus" altogether too often from Christian apologists.So, yes, life did develop fairly rapidly. But there was still lots of time for a possible natural abiogenesis.It's also important to recognize, at this point, that Ross is talking about abiogenesis, and not about evolution. While many evolutionists believe that abiogenesis probably occurred as a natural event, they will also tell you that the issue of the origin of life is far from settled.Next, Ross says something about carbon 12/carbon 13 ratio, and concludes that this rules out prebiotic life. That sounds like more nonsense. Neither life nor prebiotic life (whatever that is) would affect the carbon 12 carbon 13 ratio on earth. Only nuclear events do that. What living things can do, is affect the concentration in biological products. For example, the carbon 14 dating depends on their being nuclear events due to solar radiation that increase the carbon 14 in the atmosphere, and then living things that get their carbon from the air will have more carbon 14 than things where carbon comes from sources other than the air. It seems to me that what Ross is saying about carbon 12/ carbon 13 ratios makes no sense. And Ross is probably presenting that again as a deliberate lie, intended to mislead (more "lying for Jesus").Next he gets onto the chirality question. The important point here is that most of the amino acids and sugars that we find are the products of living organisms. So all it would take is that natural abiogenesis on earth just happened to produce organisms of that chirality early on, and those organisms managed to dominate the biosphere. There isn't anything particularly implausible about that.Sorry, my tolerance for bullshit ran out, so I did not listen to the rest of the video. If he went on to something else, then hopefully somebody with more patience will be able to comment.

I went back and listened to the rest of the video. I was right about the "bullshit" part.Ross says that astro-biologists are looking for evidence of life elsewhere in the cosmos, because they have given up on the possibility that life originated on earth.No, that's wrong. They have not given up on the possiblle origin of life on earth. Research into that continues. People are interested in evidence of life elsewhere, because people have always been interested in evidence of life elsewhere.I guess I have to put that down as more "lying for Jesus."He then mentions that they are looking for organic molecules in dust clouds, because that's the only place that they would find them. Well, that's about right. But it's the only place they would find them, because they are limited to what they can see through their telescopes. If there are earthlike planets, they transmit too little light to be able to detect even that planet, let alone evidence of organic molecules. Ross implies that they look in the dust clouds because that's the only place that life could. No, Ross is completely wrong in that interpretation. Ross is not stupid and not ignorant. He has to know that he is presenting a seriously distorted picture. Put it down to still more "lying for Jesus."Edited by nwr, : fix typo

I followed it. But I did garble some of what I wrote, but thought that minor enough that I did not go back to correct it. That "about 3.85 billion" leaves a lot of leeway.I read other reports that say that life seems to have begun surprising early, perhaps within 100 million years after the earth was cool enough. Ross gets 0 time, and others get 100 million years. There is enough uncertainty in the timings, that one cannot pin it down as precisely as Ross suggests. Here's a report suggesting that the earth might have already been capable of supporting life as early as 4.2 billion years ago. I am not asserting that as correct. I am saying that it illustrates the large amount of uncertainty in the timings. I am confused by what Ross calls "prebiotic life". You seem to be treating that as if only inorganic chemistry was involved. I am assuming that there could be some significant amount of organic chemistry going on, perhaps even something with many of the characteristics of biology, although not enough of them that we would consider it to be life. No webpage found at provided URL: http://scienceweek.com/2005/sw050513-1.htmIt seems to me that Ross is drawing conclusions that are far too strong, given the uncertanties involved.

You have exempted jar from your "fitting in" charge. However, I think that charge rarely fits at all.Christians who are scientists, are studying their science to find out more about what God has created. They have a very real sense that the natural world is the work of God. It qualifies for the expression "the word of God" far more than could mere scriptures. If God chose to use evolution to generate the biological diversity that we see, it is not up to them to question God about doing it the way that he did.I think you will find that, rather than "fitting in," is what motivates them.