Evolution has been Disproven

You have to picture evangelical Christianity as a vast factory continually churning out newly minted uninformed Creationists. While long-timers here have rebutted these kinds of points many times, defender may be seeing them for the first time. He probably only deserves the "Oh, not this garbage again" type of response when he brings it up a second time.What continues to surprise *me* is the consistency with which Creationists like defender reject the various explanations concerning things that are truly superficial or even orthogonal to the debate, such as that abiogenesis and evolution are different, though obviously related, theories, or that abiogenesis and spontaneous generation are not the same thing. If they're going to prove evolution impossible it won't be by refusing to understand the terminology.--Percy

Spontaneous generation is the now abandoned belief that some types of organisms spring not from parents, such as is the case with fish and mammals, but from non-life given the proper conditions. For instance, it was believed that flies came from feces and maggots from spoiled meat.Abiogenesis is the widely held belief that life arose from non-life on the ancient earth by some unknown gradual process somewhere around 3.8 billion years ago. It would be more correct to say that the experiments demonstrated that when properly sterile procedures were employed that spontaneous generation did not occur. It would be incorrect to conclude that the experiments showed that life could *only* arise from life. All it showed was that the conditions thought to give rise to life in reality did not. The Law of Biogenesis is a reply to spontaneous generation, not to abiogenesis. Stating the case in terms of living and non-living matter is so common that it is important to make sure it is understood that there is no physical difference between the matter in a living organism and the matter in a dead organism or some never-alive object. The carbon in a pencil is no different than the carbon in your body, except perhaps there is a higher proportion of ¹⁴C in your body. The oxygen in your lungs and blood stream and cells is no different than the oxygen in the rust on your car.If you're going to draw upon the distinction between living and non-living matter to make your argument, then you're going to have to concede that the non-living oxygen in the air becomes living oxygen once it enters your bloodstream - life from non-life. Obviously this is nonsensical, and it only points out the weakness of the terminology, living versus non-living.The difference between living and non-living matter is that the former is part of a complex set of chemical reactions that in one or more ways and at one or more levels are self-replicating. This tells us that the more relevant question is how the complex set of chemical reactions and biological structures that comprise life came about by natural means. We have only what amounts to speculations at this point, for very little evidence has survived from 3.8 billion years ago.--Percy

This is an opinion often offered here, but it is untrue. Evolutionists *do* believe in abiogenesis, that life arose from non-life, but even if abiogenesis is wrong and the original cell was created by God, evolution still happens. Evolution only requires life capable of reproducing. Most reproductive events are imperfect, meaning the offspring does not inherit genes identical to its parent or parents. And that's all evolution is, descent with modification. This topic is better suited for the [forum=-10] forum. Don't you think this is more of a physics question? You could just as illogically ask, "Cooks cannot answer one very important question: where did life come from?" Many of the forums here are science forums, and this is one of them. If you're trying to make the case that Creationism isn't science, then we agree with you. But if you're instead trying to argue that Creationism is not religion but is science on par with evolution, then arguing from a theistic position works against you.You can argue the point about whether God should be included in science in either the [forum=-6] or [forum=-11] forums.-Percy

Hi Pecos,I see you tried to post the same thing in both Message 80 and Message 82. If you prematurely hit the Submit Reply button, you can still complete the rest of your message by editing it.I'm surprised to see a reply to something I wrote nearly a year and a half a ago, but it's heartening to see that some people take the discussion seriously enough to read the entire thread. You may have misconstrued what I was trying to say. If you check my Message 8 again you'll see that it is a reply to Karl, not to Defender. I was attempting to explain to Karl why EvC Forum will always have new members who know little about evolution. The paragraph from me that you quoted was talking about Creationists who do not believe us when we tell them the actual definitions of scientific terms. It is a common mistake of Creationists to believe that the theory evolution is about the origin of life, but it isn't. Abiogenesis is the study of the origin of life. There's certainly a gray area between life and non-life (i.e., at what point during the process of becoming life should complex chemistry be considered life), but all fields of science blend into other fields at the boundaries. For example, is thermodynamics physics or chemistry? Traditionally it's been chemistry, but now there's quantum thermodynamics, which is definitely physics (physicists are not so far off the mark to say that all science is physics, but that's a separate issue).In other words, I was expressing my inability to understand why many Creationists reject even basic definitions.--Percy

Well, this is a valid concern, but I don't see how very much can be done about it. As long as there are Creationist websites out there spreading misinformation, and as long as there are naive Christians out there willing to read these websites and then march in here as full of indignation as they are of erroneous ideas, the possibility of attitudes like disdain, deprecation and denigration creeping into posts is hard to avoid. The situation is exacerbated when Creationists refuse to accept simple scientific definitions, such as for evolution and abiogenesis. I mean, after defining the terms for someone, what is the proper response to, "No, you're wrong." They *could* look it up, after all, and verify for themselves that you're not lying to them, but that's a rare event. Reject Christianity/religion? That seems like such a strange way of putting it. I'm not an opera lover, but it doesn't seem accurate to say I've rejected opera. By the same reasoning, I'm not Jewish, but I don't feel like I've rejected Judaism. I'm not Moslem, either, but I don't feel like I've rejected the Moslem faith. And so even though I'm not a Christian, I don't feel like I've rejected Christianity. In fact, as a Unitarian I embrace the same holy books, principles and morals as Christianity, and so I feel much more like I've accepted Christianity than rejected it, despite not being a Christian.But I do reject the interpretation of Genesis of the evangelical Christian community.--Percy

Briefly, since this is off topic, I'll consider the three definitions of you found of Unitarian: Organizationally on a national level, the Unitarians merged with the Universalists in the 1950s, but most individual churches went their own way for years. As recently as 20 years ago there was a Unitarian church nearby that I attended. But time fought a gradual war of attrition, and while I'm sure there are still some purely Unitarian churches left in the United States, there are none near me. They are all Unitarian/Universalist churches now, and if you attend a service you'll hear a sermon about the evils of nuclear power, about Greenpeace, about saving the whales, about conserving our environment, but not about God, Jesus and the Bible.Unitarianism used to be the primary refuge for those leaving Judaism, typically because of marriage to a gentile, but I cannot verify whether that is still the case. That your definition fails to mention this strong connection between Unitarianism and Judaism leads me to question it somewhat. At my old church, a large star of David carved from a single piece of wood was prominently displayed behind the pulpit. Until well into adulthood I mistakenly believed that Unitarians were Christians, so I don't think of myself in this way. This probably comes closest to how I think of myself. Of course, Christianity includes acceptance of the trinity, and so I wouldn't normally describe myself as Christian.The description at uua.org makes me want to barf. What a weasely mash of New Age feel-goodism! If there is ever a movement to split the churches again so that the Universalists can take their "whatever you want to believe" approach" and go, I'm all for it.--Percy

I think you may be confusing two different topics of discussion. On the one hand there's the discussion about whether ideas about how life might have begun constitute evidence for evolution. About this we probably all agree: it does not.On the other hand there's the discussion about how life might have arisen naturally given what we already know about life. About this we probably disagree.Speculations about how life might have began do not constitute evidence for evolution. Rather, we accept that evolution has occurred on the basis of real-world evidence, and scientists who work in the area of abiogenesis are attempting to unravel the secrets to the origin of life. There are lots of ideas, but little concrete has been settled at this point.By the way, scientists are not postulating anything circular such as that amino acids came from RNA and RNA came from amino acids. The issue they're studying is which came first. It is understood that if some kind of primitive RNA came first that it would have had to have been composed of amino acids that can arise naturally without RNA. Speculative ideas are expressed in just the way you're complaining about. When scientists aren't certain they'll use phrases like "they believe" or "they think" or "it may be that" and so forth.Your arguments about intelligence being a prerequisite for life are off-topic for this thread, and should probably be raised in a thread in [forum=-10].--Percy

I can believe that it isn't always clear from context whether someone is speaking of biological or chemical evolution, but I don't think this reflects any confusion among evolutionists. There is of course inherent ambiguity at the boundary between non-life and life, but we're not focusing on that issue in this thread, so I don't think confusion between biological and chemical evolution is a particularly significant concern. When discussing abiogenesis, the unmodified use of the term "evolution" means chemical evolution. When discussing the process of changing lifeforms "evolution" means biological evolution. There's a consistent misconstrual on the part of Creationists that evolutionists' emphasis on drawing a clear distinction between abiogenesis and the theory of evolution means that we're reluctant to discuss the issue. Evolutionists will not back away from this distinction because it is real. We can study evolution first hand in the here and now, we can review the history of life as recorded in the fossil record, and so we understand a great deal about evolution.But abiogenesis took place once billions of years ago. We can't study it directly. To evolutionists, abiogenesis is distinct from biological evolution for some very apparent reasons, most prominently that we know so very little about it. Much is informed speculation, and we can't know what principles of evolution apply to abiogenesis. Does population genetics, an area of study within biological evolution, apply to chemical evolution? Is there such a thing as speciation in chemical evolution? Possibly, and possibly not. We simply don't know, and this just by itself makes abiogenesis a separate field of study. Of course, most evolutionists accept both abiogenesis and the theory of evolution. And of course, both evolution and abiogenesis are fields of study within biology.I think better progress might be made if you allow discussion to proceed by getting past the sticking point that evolutionists are trying to pull a fast one on you by keeping abiogenesis and the theory of evolution separate. Once we get into it you might better understand that this isn't the case. I can see where you might perceive some arrogance, but I have to agree with the other evolutionists here that you appear to be making the mistake of assuming that not knowing everything is equivalent to not knowing anything. Evolutionists are trying to describe for you that there are some things that we *do* actually know. You are absolutely correct to point out that experiments in the lab that attempt to replicate events on the early earth are not proof that that's the way things happened, but evolutionists are not offering this evidence in this way. These experiments represent possible avenues that early life might have taken, and as such are only being offered as evidence against your claim that abiogenesis is impossible. I was responding to your impression that there is circularity in the scenario proposed for the origin of RNA. Since you think I was joking you must not have understood what I was saying. As others have already mentioned, some amino acids arise naturally. A primitive RNA composed of these amino acids could evolve (note the implicit modifier "chemically") to produce amino acids that don't normally form naturally by simpler means.--Percy

Stick around a while, you'll get used to it! Briefly again, since this is off-topic, I should have said I do not accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and I do not believe Jesus was the son of God, or even that he was a real person. I'm guessing that you're implying there are sects of Christianity that do not accept the trinity, perhaps you can clarify, but since most people think of Christianity as a Christ-based movement, I don't normally describe myself as a Christian.--Percy

Before you can begin following a chain of logic to reach conclusions, you have to get your facts straight. Whatever strange ideas you have about randomness and facts and the "true form" of the scientific method, they have nothing to do with the actual scientific method used by science. The scientific method involves gathering facts to verify hypotheses. And there are also positive validations. Crash has already explained tentativity, so it is clear he already understands science doesn't prove things. Probably nearly all the science people here understand tentativity. I consider myself a religious person, not at all unusual for us science types. My religious beliefs are based upon faith, while my scientific beliefs are based upon evidence. This last could not possibly be true, because Creationism is not only unsupported by the evidence, it is contradicted by the evidence.The defense of evolution is actually a defense of science education. There would be no debate if it weren't for the efforts of fundamentalist Christians to include unscientific religious beliefs in science classrooms. Science class is for teaching the views of science, not the religious views of fundamentalist Christians.--Percy

Lol! Don't be silly, the scientific methods works fine. How you could convince yourself it doesn't work while typing on an extremely complicated result of the scientific method is beyond me. Your conclusions don't follow from your premise, and your conclusions don't make any sense. Have you never taken a science course that had a laboratory requirement where you performed simple experiments?I think you may be confusing the fact that mistakes can be made while carrying out experiments with evidence for inconstancy of physical laws and natural processes. Anyone would readily grant that human beings make mistakes, but there is virtually no evidence for the inconstancy in the laws governing nature. I'm sorry, Amadameus, but you're wrong. As I just explained once already today in another thread and many times before, I created this site to explore Creationism's claim of scientific status because of the threat it poses to science education. If it were not for the efforts of fundamentalist Christians promoting the teaching of Creationism in science classrooms, this debate wouldn't exist.--Percy