Modularity, A distinguishing property of life

I said (a statement regarding Ā) wrong. Let me rethink it. Better yet. This is off topic: I'll shut up.Well, not shut up, per se: Mr. Jack said nothing of the sort. He merely said "life was not and now it is. It came into existence." God popping it into existence during those 13.7 billion years isn't ruled out by the statement.Edited by lyx2no, : Negate myselfEdited by lyx2no, : To regate myself.Edited by lyx2no, : Clarity.Edited by lyx2no, : Disable smilies: " Ā)" produces and unintentional winky.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

OMG, I was tired when I wrote that response. It is far from conveying the idea I wanted haha ...I meant it to say that creationists do not propose either evolution or creationism (as the only two options), but rather they propose that the debate is either abiogenesis or Intelligent Design. Obviously, they support the later, and identify the designer as the God of the Bible.Now I understand many creationists such as Hovind propose the false dilemna of evolution/creation, but these people (at least, in my opinion) are not the ones who represent the real creationist position. CMI and AiG are the two organisations who take care not to propose this dilemna. Their tactic is still two fold: they critic evolution, and they promote a young earth perspective.But all this is off topic.

Well actually, didn't he exactly say that ?I mean, he was talking of abiogenesis as an emperical fact, because at some point in time life came to existence., and so abiogenesis did happen.Unless I don't understand the abiogenesis term correctly, but isn't it the origin of life from inanimate matter, excluding any supernatural intelligence ??

Expansion of the universe strongly implies a beginning, otherwise where is it expanding from? A ripple in the water or a tidal wave traveling thousands of miles first had an epicenter. If space-time had a beginning, then matter has a beginning. One has to logically assume the other. You can't have matter without first having space to contain the matter. If you agree with the predominant scientific community that the Bib Bang occurred, then knowing what we know about physics would lead you to a more inescapable conclusion, not just a hunch. RNA-first DNA-first hypothesizers have one thing in common, they hypothesize. There is one thing certain here: That is abiogenesis is no where near fact with the necessary amount of scientific rigor for people to tell me that I'm wrong. I'm not the one wrong here. I'm not saying it didn't happen, I'm saying it has never been proven, so what is the difference a person who believes God did it versus a person who believes nothing did it? It's still faith no matter how you slice it.You believe it happened, the burden therefore lies on you to prove to me that abiogenesis happened. I think you should know before you start on your trek that even the Dictionary is at odds with you.

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"The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher--

The key is in the inherent differences between possessing information and not possessing it; they are not as interchangeable as you suggest here. If you don't have information you always, or at least should always, leave yourself open to the possibility of new information to the contrary. For instance, suppose we look at the tape and don't see any ordering happening; that is a good indication that nothing occurred. However we don't dismiss the possibility of new accurate information that indicates you *did* order a pizza, even if that information indicates something surprising such as you being able to exist in two places at once. In the alternate situation where we have the information that you ordered we can, and indeed must, dismiss new information indicating that you did not order the pizza even though it may be accurate. Instead we must first attack the accuracy of the initial information that you did order the pizza.

Who is using the term as coined by T. H. Huxley in 1870? We've had updates, ya' know.Edited by lyx2no, : Time to wake up yet?

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

But it is a fact. Abiogenesis happened. What is being investigated is the how it happened. The phenomenon is a fact; life exists, abiogenesis occured. How? Well I guess it was either natural chemical reactions of known elements, or, a celestial invisible being waving a magic wand. But the fact remains, abiogenesis occured. If a rock falls are we to either believe god did it, or, nothing did it? Or perhaps gravity did it?When you say the 2 options are gog did it, or nothing did it, what do you mean by nothing? Do you mean it just popped into existance from nothingness?The proof for abiogenesis is that there was no life on this planet at one point, then there is. This is proof that abiogenesis occured. The only thing in question is the method, or the how. No it's not. The study of abiogenesis requires no faith and nothing is claimed without evidence, that is why no one in science has yet to make any final conclusions; the field is still being studied.Claiming god did it is final. It's a conclusion based on no evidence what so ever. There were no experiments, no peer review, no lab work, no supporting evidence, no NOTHING. It is 100% faith.- Oni

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For clarification, I was calling in to question his professed certainty on the subject, none of which he knows empirically. He was using a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. That's not science. He was relying on faith. What then is the difference between his faith and creationists faith?It's disingenuous to speak with certainty on the subject of abiogenesis, especially when it has long been scientifically demonstrated to be false thus far.

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"The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher--

There is no faith involved; it's deductively certain that at some point in history life came form non-life. Because we know there was no life at one time, and there is life now.

I would think if we had the videotape that showed I did not order a pizza at 12 o'clock, it would not be 'absence of information' but rather information that I did not order a pizza.In any case, if you do believe you can't prove a negative, you will have to answer two question:1- Can you prove the following statement: two plus two does not equal 5.2- Can you prove the following statement: you can't prove a negative.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.Edited by slevesque, : No reason given.

Doesn't the scientific field of abiogenesis exclude the option of supernatural intervention A priori, and considers exclusively natural means by which life could arise from non-life.Reading the comments here, it would seem abiogenesis accepts the idea that an intelligence formed life from non-life. Am I missing something ?

"As we know it," sure. This does not mean that spacetime and matter came from nothing whatsoever. In fact your initial statement shows what a violation of logic you went through: "Expansion of the universe strongly implies a beginning, otherwise where is it expanding from?" All our observations up to this point have indicated that things are caused by other things. While possible, it is by no means logically demanded that the Big Bang be caused by nothing at all. The difference is that those who support abiogenesis do so with EVIDENCE to back them up. Sure, they have not proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt, but they do have very strong indications that is how it happened. It is NOT FAITH that drives them to this conclusion, it is examining very real evidence. Someone who believes God did it does so without any good supporting evidence and is in essence talking out of their sphincter.Note that I am not talking about the old theory of bread and cheese spontaneously forming maggots, but rather the concept that the non-living elements spewed out of stars eventually became organized and formed living structures. Yes, the proof is on the proposer and it should be viewed with varying levels of skepticism (note that this never stops). This does not mean that the evidence in support of this concept is the same thing as wild, baseless speculation.

Yes, science excludes the possibility of the supernatural because it's silly. There's nothing special about abiogenesis in this regard. Just as we reject the notion that invisible fairies are pulling the apple that falls from the tree to the ground because its silly, we reject silliness in other areas.

But we do.There was no quarter under my pillow when I went to bed last night. There was a quarter under my pillow when I got up this morning. It is without doubt that a quarter came to be under my pillow during the night. There is nothing in the slightest iffy about it. It is an absolute certainty.However, that my mum put it there can be doubted. There was always my dad, siblings, wider kin, strangers and you-know-who. Edited by lyx2no, : Retitle.

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Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.

How can it be a fact when you don't even know how it happened?Consider this: It is a fact that human beings exist. That's true. We don't know how we came in to being with 100% certainty, but we nonetheless know we exist.Well, we already know matter exists. So abiogenesis IS attempting to answer the "how" question... And that much is NOT a fact. It's a speculation. It basically boils down to a question of the philosophy of science rather than science itself.The only philosophical deduction you are willing to make, since you rule out anything else to the contrary a priori, is that inorganic matter had to have created organic matter. That's not science. That's drawing your own conclusions. No, that does not constitute a fact. That is a logical fallacy. You are relying on speculation and creating your own false dilemma, another logical fallacy. Think about this objectively. You basically can't conceive that anything other than inorganic matter could have produced organic matter. You assume that is true and then hide behind the fact that you don't know how it happened. If you don't know the how part, then you can't claim that is science, as sciences' only goal is to answer the how question.Was gravity not around before Newton? Obviously so. Everybody understood what gravity would do. What he answered was why and how it happened. That's science. Gravity, not nothing. No, because abiogenesis specifically means spontaneous generation. In other words, shit inexplicably happened. Relying on the "God did it" account is stupid, obviously. Because whether or not God ultimately has dominion over all physical affairs doesn't negate any field of science. We already know that is an absurd conclusions. What I'm trying to get people to realize is that their anti-religious, pro-science stance is often not too far off the mark than what they are against. This cannot be if they want to be objective scientists. Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.

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"The problem with Socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money." --Margaret Thatcher--