Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 60 (9209 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: Skylink
Post Volume: Total: 919,483 Year: 6,740/9,624 Month: 80/238 Week: 80/22 Day: 21/14 Hour: 1/0


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   Nature belongs to ID
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(5)
Message 31 of 146 (661588)
05-08-2012 10:45 AM
Reply to: Message 18 by Vanessa
05-07-2012 6:55 PM


Welcome to EvC, Vanessa. I assume you want your posts challenged, so I'm just gonna go right for it.
From Message 1
If ID is to succeeds it must lay claim Nature. Nature is God's work and ID is a champion for God. By calling its opponent Naturalism, ID is giving credence to an explanation that is not a natural process. Call it what it is - Car Crash Evolution. I believe this will pique the public's interest and allow ID to better explain itself.
If ID becomes a natural process, then it wouldn't be a champion for God anymore, no?
From Message 11
First I apologise for not knowing how to copy and paste quotes in those very useful boxes - I hope to figure it out soon.
Type [qs]shaded quotes are easy[/qs] or [quote]quotes are easy[/quote] into the submission box and it will become:
shaded quotes are easy
or
quote:
quotes are easy
There's a "Peek" button at the bottom right that will show you the code that people submitted and there's a preview button next to the "Submit" button where you post that will allow you to make sure it looks right before you post it.
qs stands for quote shaded, and those are typically used for quotes from the message you're replying to. Regular quotes are typically used for quoting stuff outside that message, from other posters or other websites. But its whatever.
Evolution as explained by Naturalism claims to show how 'Nature did it' . And this is where I take exception. Nature does not develop life by arbitrary events but through systems and processes, whether it is seed to sapling to mighty oak, caterpillar to pupal to butterfly, egg to chick to eagle.
One thing I'd like to point out is that all your examples are Eukaryotes. +-- clicky (I don't know how much bology you know)
Most of the life on this planet is not eukaryotic and is, instead, much simpler. Early life, too, was much simpler. So, looking at a very complex process like the development of a eukaryotic organism isn't a good comparison to how nature would have devolped life.
Given your observation, though, that nature develops things through systems and processes, it follows that the emergence of life itself would follow some complex system/process. At that point, however, we're getting more into chemistry than biology.
We live within profoundly complex and layered systems of life, yet we choose to explain this incredible tapestry as the result of accident - cosmic or chromosomal.
Depends on how you look at it and how you're using the word "accident". I could argue this one either way.
On one hand, if the universe is completely deterministic, then nothing is an accident because everything that happens is a result of the immediatly previous state of affairs. In this sense, mutations aren't "random" in that they don't result from the conditions of the previous state, but they are still random with respect to the phenotype and the environment.
On the other hand, given the state of affairs of my car flying down the highway and that bug flying towards the ground, I could still say that it was an "accident" that it smashed into my windshield. I didn't mean to hit it, and there was no planning on me hitting it.
So, in the former sense, an evolutionary explanation is not an accident but in the latter sense it is. Does that make sense?
The birth of a child, from conception through gestation until the baby's first cry demonstrates the wondrous hand of God for the faithful, and the intelligibility of Nature for the sceptical - both sides are satisfied. I believe the true explanation for life on Earth will not require a leap of faith for the faithful nor a loss of reason for the rational.
So, given the right conditions and environment of a fertilized egg implanted into the wall of the uterus, could you agree that it is an inevitability that the baby will gestate?
In a similiar sense, the emergence of life could be seen as an inevitability given the right conditions and environment. In that sense, it wouldn't be some miraculous thing that required your incredulous approach.
We know that nature makes things with complex processess and that given certain conditions things will inevitably fall into place, I don't see any reason to suppose this same thing won't apply to the emergence of life, itself.
From Message 17:
My first argument is against the title of 'Naturalism' to explain a process that has little of anything to do with Nature. Nature does not develop life through accident - an egg is fertilised by a sperm and implants itself in the wall of the uterus where a complex process kicks in to develop the baby.
Hopefully, from my explanation above, you can see how and why the above statement could be improved. There's not necessarily the dichotomy between an "accident" and "that complex process", and neither must they be mutually exclusive.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 18 by Vanessa, posted 05-07-2012 6:55 PM Vanessa has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 44 by Vanessa, posted 05-09-2012 10:52 AM New Cat's Eye has replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 43 of 146 (661688)
05-09-2012 10:43 AM
Reply to: Message 39 by Percy
05-09-2012 7:34 AM


Within biology mutations are random with respect to fitness, and that's all that matters. I agree they're not random with regard to the laws of chemistry and physics, but it doesn't seem relevant.
I think it becomes relevant when your opponent is talking about the emergence of life and its evolution as some random cosmic accident with such a low probability that it must have been guided.
Pointing out that the laws of physics and chemistry contrain the possibilities eliminates a lot of that improbability and can show that its not necessarily so miraculous afterall.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 39 by Percy, posted 05-09-2012 7:34 AM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


(4)
Message 46 of 146 (661697)
05-09-2012 11:28 AM
Reply to: Message 44 by Vanessa
05-09-2012 10:52 AM


Re: Thank you
First, thank you for the instructions on using quotes!
Second, I am on holiday using my husband's IPad, which takes too long to type. Also I prefer to be out seeing the sights.
You're welcome. Don't waste your time on vacation posting here. I'd rather have your full participation anyways.
You argue that life was much simpler when it first formed. I think you mean that it wouldn't have been too difficult to happen. But that presupposes we know what life is.
Not necessarily. We don't have to know everything to know some things. We can know that life was simpler when it emerged without being able to define life down to the gnat's ass.
We don't {know what life is}.
But we have a pretty good idea. And there's good theories on how abiogenesis might have occured.
From the wiki page on abiogenesis:
quote:
  • Some theorists suggest that the atmosphere of the early Earth may have been chemically reducing in nature, composed primarily of methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water (H2O), hydrogen sulfide (H2S), carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon monoxide (CO), and phosphate (PO43-), with molecular oxygen (O2) and ozone (O3) either rare or absent.
  • In such a reducing atmosphere, electrical activity can catalyze the creation of certain basic small molecules (monomers) of life, such as amino acids. This was demonstrated in the Miller—Urey experiment by Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey in 1953.
  • Phospholipids (of an appropriate length) can form lipid bilayers, a basic component of the cell membrane.
  • A fundamental question is about the nature of the first self-replicating molecule. Since replication is accomplished in modern cells through the cooperative action of proteins and nucleic acids, the major schools of thought about how the process originated can be broadly classified as "proteins first" and "nucleic acids first".
  • The principal thrust of the "nucleic acids first" argument is as follows:
    1. The polymerization of nucleotides into random RNA molecules might have resulted in self-replicating ribozymes (RNA world hypothesis)
    2. Selection pressures for catalytic efficiency and diversity might have resulted in ribozymes which catalyse peptidyl transfer (hence formation of small proteins), since oligopeptides complex with RNA to form better catalysts. The first ribosome might have been created by such a process, resulting in more prevalent protein synthesis.
    3. Synthesized proteins might then outcompete ribozymes in catalytic ability, and therefore become the dominant biopolymer, relegating nucleic acids to their modern use, predominantly as a carrier of genomic information.

I did not say the universe is completely deterministic. Does anyone?
I didn't mean to imply that you had, I was just providing a conditional statement. Some people do hold the universe to be completely deterministic.
Man has the gift of self determination. Everyone knows that.
Nobody knows that And even self determination could be pre-determined.
The argument against a designed intelligent universe, but definition, must claim that it arose by fortuitous accident. By accident I mean no intention, no plan, like a car hurtling through a copse of trees, it will gather leaves, smash it's windscreen, puncture a tire - all arbitrary. I believe that is the position of current evolutionary theory.
Yes, it was an accident in the sense that it wasn't planned.
The gestation of a baby once embedded in the uterine wall is only possible because a system of growth predates the egg's arrival. I argue it is the same for life on Earth, a system of development is in place before the first cells on Earth first formed.
Obviously, the Earth had to be able to support the emergence of life before life emerged. But that just pushes the same quesiton of design back in time.
I hold up Nature as evidence. Nature develops life through predetermined systems. You say it isn't necessary, do you have an example do support this claim?
Wait, what am I saying isn't necessary?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 44 by Vanessa, posted 05-09-2012 10:52 AM Vanessa has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024