Many religious groups have lobbied at great expense to have Intelligent Design brought into schools, or at least have the theory of Evolution evaluated critically by students.
Too much time is spent attempting to debunk every single "breakthrough" made by paleontologists, who simply close ranks and ridicule any objective outsiders.
In the same vein I believe there is too much money and effort spent on trying to convince people of the literal truth of the bible, even with the best intentions we can lose sight of better arguments, the metaphorical "lower hanging fruits".
My view is that the whole evolution Vs Creation debate is a distraction from the bigger issue:
Genesis Vs Abiogenesis.
Specifically the genesis of life on Earth (the Creation of the Earth and the Heavens is a topic for another time).
We all know the the biblical text of the book of Genesis. Some believe it to be literally true, others believe it to be non-literal to varying degrees. But one thing religious people can agree on is that without God, there is no life.
"And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. "
Genesis 2:7
God created a man from the materials and elements present in the crust of the Earth and breathed life into the body.
Lets look at the scientific side of the story.
A scientist would tell you that life on Earth is billions of years old. Some tube-like formations in rock might be evidence for the earliest microbial life, but the best evidence we have is that the first known life forms are something called cyanobacteria. A type of microorganism that is still in existence today.
These organisms are about 2 microns across. They have DNA, the complex double helix structure that is present in all known life. We can measure the complexity of a DNA strand by counting it's base-pairs. These are complimentary molecules which bind together two strands of the DNA's double helix. A far more complex life form such as a human being has billions of base pairs. How many would you expect the earliest form of life to have? 10? 50?
Wrong, cyanobacteria are known to have over a thousand base pairs.
If these are truly the earliest life forms, it should follow evolutionary theory that they are the simplest conceivable life.
The Darwinists tell us that nothing that small would leave evidence, which is a basic admission that this gap will NEVER be filled. I guess they are relying on "good faith" (irony anyone?) that these supposed, simpler organisms predate the cyanobacteria.
But this is just scratching the surface.
Darwinists have absolutely no idea about the origins of life. You see, evolution is the origin of species. It requires as a premise that life already exists.
Abiogenesis is the science of the origins of life.
How in a Godless world do we go from Earth and water to life? How does the first body get built, and who breathes the life into it?
This is where you really start to see a lot of hand-waving and stuttering. There are actually dozens of hypotheses, I use that word because they are too vague to be considered theories or even scientific models.
One of the more famous hypotheses, dating back to the 20s, is the primordial soup hypothesis, the idea that simply mixing all the ingredients for life together and stimulating it with an external energy source, life would organise itself by random chance. But even in this contrived environment, the only result were amino acids.
These acids are critical to life and occur in metabolic processes. But they are simple molecules, orders of magnitude more simple than the structure of DNA. Additionally, even if DNA were to be created by random processes, this is like creating the mind without a body. The DNA is instructions for the development of a living organism. It still needs to exist within an organic cell of some kind.
Other ideas range from the Clay "theory", to the RNA World "theory", or my personal favourite "panspermia" (or as I like to call it, the "alien-of-the-gaps theory"). Some of these are pretty whacky so I won't go into details, but if you are really interested I link to an article at the bottom.
While paleontologists and geneticists have bit into evolution like a dog with bone and refused to let it go, no one can agree on abiogenesis. Having a dozen or more hypotheses shows that they simply cannot provide any kind of evidence and are simply changing their ideas when one doesn't work out. Some of the same ideas from a hundred years ago, or the some newer ideas from the 70s still get bandied about as if they are solid scientific facts supported by evidence, but there is no a shred of paleontological, genetic, or experimental evidence for any of them.
The bottom line is that science has not discovered a means by which life can arise from non-living material.
But open a science text book and what do you see? References to the primordial soup! An outdated idea that is not even taken seriously by evolutionary biologists anymore. This is what needs to be removed from biology textbooks. It is NOT a scientific fact, it is NOT EVEN a theory! The text books should state the truth:
There is no scientific explanation for the origins of life on Earth.
(It's not even a controversial statement.)
Lobbyists take note.
additional reading:
OFfC wrote: "Having a dozen or more hypotheses shows that they simply cannot provide any kind of evidence and are simply changing their ideas when one doesn't work out."
ReplyDeleteHaving many different hypotheses is how science work, it's a part of the scientific process. That we have many of them only means that we're in the beginning of the process and are currently weeding out the less successful explanations.
Despite your misrepresentations and disingenuous backstabbing of evolutionary scientists, you are correct that the theory of biological evolution is a separate discipline from the origin of life itself.
Therefore it makes perfect sense to accept the theory of evolution based on all its evidence, and still believe in God.
In other words, they are using a shotgun approach, that's a kind of tactic you see more in marketing than science. Which immediately raises my suspicions.
ReplyDeleteHow is not knowing how life started a problem? The very reason we have science is to find what we are ignorant of and try to find the answers. Why do you criticize scientists for trying to figure out how life started?
ReplyDeleteI did not criticise any scientists in this blog.
ReplyDeleteCheck this video out( The Cell part 3: The spark of life (BBC T.V. )shown on 12 MAY 2001). Its a factual understanding of what scientists, such as George Church, and others, are doing at Harvard medical school.
ReplyDeleteGeorge Church is a real Scientist doing real research into the origins of the cell. Others such as Jack Szostackis doing research into the structure of cell membranes and is synthesizing long chain fatty acids to self replicate. These form what is thought to be the early precursors of cell membranes.
Modern cell membranes consist of a phosphipid bilayer with the lipids always on the inside and the phosphate heads on the facing the opposite direction.
Try googling such things and you may learn something. Better still invest in a good biology textbook such as principles of anatomy and physiology by Tortora and Derrickson. Then turn to the pages marked the chemical level of organisation then proceed to the cellular level of organisation.
I suggest you actually research the subject of abiogenesis before making broad sweeping statements that abiogenesis will never be observed or proven.
There are real scientists out there doing the research who understand the subject very well.
You may want to try reading another book besides the Bible.
Best wishes Judge Edward Bromley circa 1612 ( the withces nightmare)
None of those resources suggest an actual testable model for a living cell to form from non-living ingredients. There can be a million instances of self replicating organic cells spontaneously forming in contrived circumstances, these cells still aren't alive. There's no good model to suggest how we go from organic cells to an actual life-form and no observation of this process either in a lab or in nature.
ReplyDelete'We can measure the complexity by counting up it's base-pairs'? What on earth are you going on about? Epulopiscium fishelsoni has close to a trillion base pairs, are these single celled Prokaryotes then more complex than Homo Sapiens with three billion base pairs? (J Bacteriol, 1991). Quantity does not always equal quality I'm afraid.
ReplyDeleteDo you have empirical evidence that suggest how life originated? Great, neither do we, we cannot go back in time and see these events happening so we infer them and falsify them with the best techniques we have.
'Who breathes the life into it'? A priori, you're begging the question now by asserting already that you're correct.
'How does the first body get built'? Again, A priori, you're assuming it was 'built'.
'It requires as a premise that life already exists.' Well yes, of course we assume that life already existed, but to take your example we already have evidence of organisms existing 3.5 Billion years ago in stromatolites (Schopf, 2002). Our inferences are made based on present evidence that we have.
'I use that word because they are too vague to be considered theories or even scientific models.' Vague? I think your use of the word 'vague' is vague, please lay down what 'hypothesis' in particular you are talking about and how you think it's vague.
'One of the more famous hypotheses, dating back to the 20s, is the primordial soup hypothesis, the idea that simply mixing all the ingredients for life together and stimulating it with an external energy source, life would organise itself by random chance.' First of all you're completely misrepresenting the Miller-Urey experiment here. Their aim was not so much to create life (depending on your definition), but to create the basic building blocks present in modern life forms. In this they succeeded by creating amino acids in an artificial environment.
'These acids are critical to life and occur in metabolic processes. But they are simple molecules, orders of magnitude more simple than the structure of DNA. Additionally, even if DNA were to be created by random processes, this is like creating the mind without a body. The DNA is instructions for the development of a living organism. It still needs to exist within an organic cell of some kind.' No one is saying that these structures were DNA based, the most successful experiments have lent more towards RNA based life forms. However you're correct, these basic monomers would need to form into Polypeptide chains in order for it to be of any particular use, and what's more they would need some form of Pre-Biotic cell structure. This is a problem for the theory of Abiogenesis.
The 'Clay Theory' and the 'RNA World Theory' aren't standalone theories, in fact they help to explain each other. Panspermia is not a highly esteemed theory, and it's use is complicated, however I do not hold much stock in this particular theory.
In this article you neglected to address pretty much all modern work in Abiogenesis. Not once did you mention Sydney Altman, Carl Wose and Kevin Maher & David Stevenson (not to mention countless others).
In short, I didn't find your article very convincing, you have a number of misconceptions that I would suggest addressing before continuing on the topic.
- Joshua
The term "built" is not a priori since it can imply both the bottom up or top down method.
ReplyDeleteBuilt: 'the past tense and past participle of build.'
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thefreedictionary.com/built
Built implies an external catalyst for the 'building' process to take place. It also implies that the thing being built is specified. Specification (in the thing being built i.e. the organism) in this sense is an assumption on your part i.e. if it was built there must have been a builder. Whether it is 'bottom up' or 'top down' still implies a builder & specification. So again I say, A priori, you are already assuming it was 'built' and by definition that it had a 'builder'.
- Joshua
"Built implies an external catalyst for the 'building' process to take place. It also implies that the thing being built is specified. "
ReplyDeleteThere are many definitions of the word "build" or "built" not all require a builder and you certainly can't say my usage of the word automatically implies creation from an entity rather than creation from environment. If you believe that is implicit, then that is only within your own mind I'm afraid.
"In other words, they are using a shotgun approach, that's a kind of tactic you see more in marketing than science. Which immediately raises my suspicions."
ReplyDeleteNo it isn't. See scientists don't have the luxury of pretending that a book written by ancient humans that has shown to be wrong again and again gives them the answer. No. They have to consider many possible mechanisms. So long as the hypothesis has some basis in natural phenomenon, and has anplausable mechanism of action why would they reject a hypothesis out of hand?
What you assert makes no sense.