Apostle claims,
quote:
Two time Nobel Prize winner, Ilya Prigogine stated that life could never have been formed by chance. "The statistical probability that organix (sic) structures and the most precisely harmonized reactions that typify living organisms would be generated by accident, is zero."
Once again 'chance' and 'accident' are set up as the creaky straw men who have to stand in unsteadily for anything actually resembling evolutionary theory. I should have known you took inspiration from that expert on misrepresenting science and history, Phillip Johnson.
Chance alone counts for absolutely nothing in Nature. No one on this board has ever claimed that the ur-cell, or proto-replicators, or any other plausible precursor to biological life, popped up by accident. In the creationist's rush to hide the holes in his own, ahem, theory, he needs to rewrite the claims of evolutionary theory. This deception speaks for itself.
Your essay seems to assert that experiments conducted fifty years ago constitute the cutting edge of scientific endeavor. It might help to become acquainted with the subject of
autocatalysis. Revolutionary work in biochemistry is being done not by the obscurantists at the Discovery Institute, but by researchers who are exploring the way networks of molecules catalyze their own reactions. In short, proto-life could have metabolized itself. This has nothing to do with ‘accidents,’ it deals with statistical models of biochemistry. Is it possible, complexity researcher Stuart Kauffman asks, that life is not a wild improbability, as creationists like to claim? Could it be that the probability of some molecule catalyzing some reaction is so great that autocatalysis (and hence the emergence of order and life) is practically guaranteed?
Your essay has to be updated to take into consideration the advances that have been made since the 1950’s. You’ve knocked down the straw man of Chance, now deal with the reality of evolutionary theory as it currently stands.
regards,
Esteban Hambre
This message has been edited by MrHambre, 07-26-2004 04:54 PM
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