[_ Old Earth _] Re: Hello, curious Atheist here!

[felix]

A response to Skeptic to the post 'Hello, curious Atheist here!'

No it isn't, the big bang is based on much more than that. The red shifts of stars are even necessarily relevant as some are blue shifted as well. I encourage you to read a little about some of the primary lines of evidence for the big bang (which are numerous), which includes the prediction of the CMB. This site may help you:

Evidence for the Big Bang

No one denies the expanding universe.

Isa 42:5 Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, ...

Scripture says, it is not a bang. But God stretched it.

I'm confused, can you please explain what you're saying here a bit more clearly for me? I'm having trouble figuring out what it is you're trying to convey and what the point is.

What I am really saying is, we still don't have the technology to measure +/-1 mm accuracy from a distance of 25 million kms, not just optical but also using radio telescopes etc.

These creationist arguments always misrepresent or misunderstand how evolution works. You're ignoring the most important force within evolution; natural selection. Natural selection is certainly not random by any stretch. Natural selection chooses the combinations that work best and allow the next generation to try again.

Your math from this point of your argument on is considerably wrong, and I'll tell you why.

Really, Am I misrepresenting? Let me know what is natural selection for? 'natural selection' is for living organisms not for 'non-living' chemicals. Let me know any living organism that has only one 'base pair' so that natural selection can occur for 2 base pairs and so on.

Hence, all your explanations for evolution are wrong, because until the first living organism, you cannot use natural selection but 'permutation'.

 

[Rhea]

Really, Am I misrepresenting? Let me know what is natural selection for? 'natural selection' is for living organisms not for 'non-living' chemicals. Let me know any living organism that has only one 'base pair' so that natural selection can occur for 2 base pairs and so on.

Hence, all your explanations for evolution are wrong, because until the first living organism, you cannot use natural selection but 'permutation'.

You are incorrect to state that "natural selection" is only true for living (i.e. reproducing, since natural selection doesn't give a care about anything that's not creating more of itself) things.

Natural selection can be broken down to the simplest; the thing that is most stable is most likely to be around to make more.

And experiments (very cool ones) have been done successfully to show that even among chemical reactions, a more stable form will un-make less stable competitors and make more of self. This was a fascinating study showing how "life" and reproduction was not required to see "natural selection" and the chmical compounds themselves were reacting to the conditions of their neighbors to reassemble into the template set by the neighbor.

"Natural selection" requires no goal, no guide, no intelligence. It merely states the obvious; that when things are being formed, the ones that did not break down or die prior to the event are most likely to be the ones making more because they are still around to do it.

 

[felix]

You are incorrect to state that "natural selection" is only true for living (i.e. reproducing, since natural selection doesn't give a care about anything that's not creating more of itself) things.

Natural selection can be broken down to the simplest; the thing that is most stable is most likely to be around to make more.

And experiments (very cool ones) have been done successfully to show that even among chemical reactions, a more stable form will un-make less stable competitors and make more of self. This was a fascinating study showing how "life" and reproduction was not required to see "natural selection" and the chmical compounds themselves were reacting to the conditions of their neighbors to reassemble into the template set by the neighbor.

"Natural selection" requires no goal, no guide, no intelligence. It merely states the obvious; that when things are being formed, the ones that did not break down or die prior to the event are most likely to be the ones making more because they are still around to do it.

So, let me know the natural selection (or) the most stable for base pair of just 1 or any number of your choice. You forgot the fact that all base pairs are stable chemically. So, please define what do you mean by stable.

 

[Rhea]

So, let me know the natural selection (or) the most stable for base pair of just 1 or any number of your choice. You forgot the fact that all base pairs are stable chemically. So, please define what do you mean by stable.

I am not sure what you are asking about in your first sentence. Could you clarify?

"Stable" in chemistry is unlikely to be induced to change by external forces. Stable means not losing electrons to any old ion passing by. Wouldn't it be a drag if our bodies started to volatilize when we walked past the citrus aisle?

 

[felix]

I am not sure what you are asking about in your first sentence. Could you clarify?

"Stable" in chemistry is unlikely to be induced to change by external forces. Stable means not losing electrons to any old ion passing by. Wouldn't it be a drag if our bodies started to volatilize when we walked past the citrus aisle?

What I am really asking is about the first single celled living organism with a base pair reasonable enough for mathematics to allow enough permutations. You can even take the base pair of bacteria in exact sequence but you still can't create life. A bacteria is not just base pairs but it's more complex than a space ship with other tons of parts doing exactly what is designed to do. Until you have the first living organism, you cannot do natural selection as all base pairs are equally stable.

 

[Rhea]

What makes you think "all base pairs are equally stable"? They aren't. can you provide a scientific source that shows how they are, mathematically? And more specifically, what makes you think all combinations of base pairs are equally useful?

Evolution typically succeeds most often (though obviously not always) by the path of duplication followed by specialization.

So one can envision simple combinations of base pairs in various configurations, and the useful ones will generate copies, or the useful ones will tend to be more common, or the useful ones will tend to last longer before being destroyed. By any of those methods, the ones that do something useful will tend to be a part of the "next generation" more often.

I realize that often when talking with non-scientists about evolution they have a very hard time picturing the interim steps. And with religionists in particular they have a VERY hard time picturing unguided results. But a careful and open-minded study of chemical reactions and biological reactions will reveal the inexorable path toward larger populations of successful configurations. Configurations that subsequently undergo duplication followed by specialization that results from mutations to the duplicated bits becoming useful in a new and advantageous way.

Often, this difficulty in picturing non-guided change is manifest in the language that the religionists use, such as "they developed this mutation so that they could..." which shows they are still trapped in an assumption of purposeful mutations. They are not purposeful. They don't change "to do" something. They just change. And sometimes that is handy and they thrive, and sometimes it is not handy and they don't get any opportunitites to spread the bad change, and it goes away quietly.

Snowflakes do not crystallize "in order to" form six sided symmetry. They simply do it as a reaction to chemical and physical forces. The six-sided symmetry is an artifact, not a goal.

You seem very confused about how natural selection works, I'm happy to answer questions, but you should consider starting with the acknowledgment that perhaps you don't understand it all yet, so that your mind will be open to understanding what you have missed. Your claim that "it cannot happen" or "all based pairs are equally stable" will be a curtain between you and the physical truth. You may need to suspend your assumption in order to see something different.

 

[felix]

What makes you think "all base pairs are equally stable"? They aren't. can you provide a scientific source that shows how they are, mathematically? And more specifically, what makes you think all combinations of base pairs are equally useful?

Evolution typically succeeds most often (though obviously not always) by the path of duplication followed by specialization.

So one can envision simple combinations of base pairs in various configurations, and the useful ones will generate copies, or the useful ones will tend to be more common, or the useful ones will tend to last longer before being destroyed. By any of those methods, the ones that do something useful will tend to be a part of the "next generation" more often.

I realize that often when talking with non-scientists about evolution they have a very hard time picturing the interim steps. And with religionists in particular they have a VERY hard time picturing unguided results. But a careful and open-minded study of chemical reactions and biological reactions will reveal the inexorable path toward larger populations of successful configurations. Configurations that subsequently undergo duplication followed by specialization that results from mutations to the duplicated bits becoming useful in a new and advantageous way.

Often, this difficulty in picturing non-guided change is manifest in the language that the religionists use, such as "they developed this mutation so that they could..." which shows they are still trapped in an assumption of purposeful mutations. They are not purposeful. They don't change "to do" something. They just change. And sometimes that is handy and they thrive, and sometimes it is not handy and they don't get any opportunitites to spread the bad change, and it goes away quietly.

Snowflakes do not crystallize "in order to" form six sided symmetry. They simply do it as a reaction to chemical and physical forces. The six-sided symmetry is an artifact, not a goal.

You seem very confused about how natural selection works, I'm happy to answer questions, but you should consider starting with the acknowledgment that perhaps you don't understand it all yet, so that your mind will be open to understanding what you have missed. Your claim that "it cannot happen" or "all based pairs are equally stable" will be a curtain between you and the physical truth. You may need to suspend your assumption in order to see something different.

I told you, I can give you the exact base pair sequence of a bacteria (or) you can even take a dead bacteria for your convenience. The question is, can you bring back to life?

FYI, evolution and natural selection is not for chemicals. It's actually called 'Abiogenesis' or "Primordial soup" theory which does not have any natural selection process. Please read through these theories before posting.

 

[Rhea]

I told you, I can give you the exact base pair sequence of a bacteria (or) you can even take a dead bacteria for your convenience. The question is, can you bring back to life?

Are you trying to say that the first life was a bacteria which formed spontaneously from a chemical soup? Why are you saying that? No scientist believes that was the route. Is that why you're trying to make a question about a full bacteria as the abiogenisis experiment?

I don't believe the "first life" was as complex as a bacteria. Do you think this?

FYI, evolution and natural selection is not for chemicals. It's actually called 'Abiogenesis' or "Primordial soup" theory which does not have any natural selection process. Please read through these theories before posting.

Please have the courtesy to note what I am actually writing, before you offer your sneer. I an very familiar with those terms.

The experiment I was discussing **WAS** about "natural selection" in chemical soup. This is relatively new work, so I can understand why you might not have heard of it.

The experiment was to explore possible mechanisms for abiogenesis searching possible pathways that would involve "natural selection" in abiotic conditions. In other words, would a chemical pathway not only favor one preferred product, but actually change the non-favored products into the favored product by association? The "natural selection" of a pot of chemicals creating a very high yield through a process of one chemical "teaching" another how to change.

It was very interesting and performed very well. What was initially a rare chemical (one that was a precursor to biotic chemicals) became more concentrated as time went on. A VERY cool paper. A very cool paper which showed "natural selection" at work prior to cell formation.

 

[felix]

Are you trying to say that the first life was a bacteria which formed spontaneously from a chemical soup? Why are you saying that? No scientist believes that was the route. Is that why you're trying to make a question about a full bacteria as the abiogenisis experiment?

I don't believe the "first life" was as complex as a bacteria. Do you think this?

I never said bacteria was the first life. Even if you know the exact base pair of the first living organism and even if you construct the components of the first organism, you still cannot make that organism alive. For your convenience, I can give you a dead bacteria just moments ago and your job is just to make it alive. Since it is already evolved and you have your 'final product ready' with all components, all you need to do is just give life to function again.

Please have the courtesy to note what I am actually writing, before you offer your sneer. I an very familiar with those terms.

The experiment I was discussing **WAS** about "natural selection" in chemical soup. This is relatively new work, so I can understand why you might not have heard of it.

The experiment was to explore possible mechanisms for abiogenesis searching possible pathways that would involve "natural selection" in abiotic conditions. In other words, would a chemical pathway not only favor one preferred product, but actually change the non-favored products into the favored product by association? The "natural selection" of a pot of chemicals creating a very high yield through a process of one chemical "teaching" another how to change.

It was very interesting and performed very well. What was initially a rare chemical (one that was a precursor to biotic chemicals) became more concentrated as time went on. A VERY cool paper. A very cool paper which showed "natural selection" at work prior to cell formation.

1. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/natural-selection
2. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIENaturalSelection.shtml
3. http://bioweb.cs.earlham.edu/9-12/evolution/HTML/natural.html

It looks like top Universities don't agree and teach what you are saying on natural-selection. So, either you are lying or they need to learn from you. I believe I am not asking your definition of 'natural-selection' but what Darwin's in Evolutionary theory. Next time when you give definition of 'natural-selection', please quote the source.

 

[Rhea]

I can give you a dead bacteria just moments ago and your job is just to make it alive. Since it is already evolved and you have your 'final product ready' with all components, all you need to do is just give life to function again.

Why would I do this? Why is this "my job"? What are you trying to prove or show?

It looks like top Universities don't agree and teach what you are saying on natural-selection. So, either you are lying or they need to learn from you.

Your links don't work.
And you false dichotomy is a fallacious rebuttal. There is a lot of space between "lying" and "ready to teach universities" But thank you for calling me a "liar" publicly over my post, I understand you and your position better now.

 

[jasoncran]

keep it from being personal. an felix copy and paste what they do say that refutes her claims and then post the link or at least the page address.


i could edit that post and do it, but i am not making the claim.

 

[felix]

Why would I do this? Why is this "my job"? What are you trying to prove or show?

I am trying to prove that even if evolution created an exact organism structure, even if has exact base pair, it will not live. Can you bring a dead man back to life when he is just dead moments? You don't have to wait billions of years for man to evolve but you already have a naturally dead man perfectly built - can you bring him back to life?

Your links don't work.
And you false dichotomy is a fallacious rebuttal. There is a lot of space between "lying" and "ready to teach universities" But thank you for calling me a "liar" publicly over my post, I understand you and your position better now.

I am not sure why the links didn't work when used in bbcode but it's fixed now. I just need a reference for your claim that natural selection in evolution includes non-living chemicals as well.

 

[Boris]

The dictionary.com definition of life is " the condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally. "

I may be ignorant, but has anyone ever produced this outcome in an inorganic product?

I am finding this little debate intriguing, I am not univesity educated, but I do like to think about these things, and challenge myself on my stance on these topics.

please continue

 

[Barbarian]

The OP seems to incorrectly assume that evolutionary theory is about the way life began. Even Darwin just assumed that God did that.

However, there is very good evidence to indicate that life was indeed brought forth from the Earth.

Would you like to see some of it?

 

[Rhea]

I am trying to prove that even if evolution created an exact organism structure, even if has exact base pair, it will not live. Can you bring a dead man back to life when he is just dead moments? You don't have to wait billions of years for man to evolve but you already have a naturally dead man perfectly built - can you bring him back to life?

You question does not follow a logical path in my opinion. You seem to equate life coming from non-life with fixing problems with an immensely complicated life that got broken and died.

As a scientist, I would not approach the problem from that direction because it would not answer my basic questions about how life may have evolved from non-life. The original evolution (or evolutionS, since it is quite possible life evolved several times, but only one survived) was a matter of low-content configurations. Not something at all that still exists today. I would not follow your research route if I wanted to understand the origins of life. It would be very unlikely to yield useful information.

I am not sure why the links didn't work when used in bbcode but it's fixed now. I just need a reference for your claim that natural selection in evolution includes non-living chemicals as well.

I've been looking for an online reference and I regret that I haven't found one yet. I read a lot of scientific journals in their paper form, am interested in the info, and then I recycle the material. So what I learn is not always online. I'll keep looking. You are free to reject the information if you wish.


FYI, you seem to assume I don't have a scientific background, you would be wrong, I do. Including graduate classes in biochemistry.

 

[Rhea]

Here is an article that is similar to the stuydy I read, but is not the same one. The one I read was chemicals even simpler, much simpler, than RNA. But it gives you the idea of where they were looking.

Self-Replicating Molecules

 

[Rhea]

Here is one that is similar to the one I read, but involves more complex chemistry than the one I read.
Self-Replicating Chemicals

Quote from the above article:

But it wasn’t just a bunch of scientist-designed enzymes competing, like a miniature molecular BattleBots sequence. As soon as the replicators got into the broth, they began to change.

"Most of the time they breed true, but sometimes there is a bit flip — a mutation — and it’s a different replicator," explained Joyce.

Most of these mutations went away quickly, but — sound familiar? —
some of the changes ended up being advantageous to the chemicals in replicating better. After 77 doublings of the chemicals, astounding changes had occurred in the molecular broth.

"All the original replicators went extinct and it was the new recombinants that took over," said Joyce. "There wasn’t one winner.
There was a whole cloud of winners, but there were three mutants that arose that pretty much dominated the population."

It turned out that while the scientist-designed enzymes were great at reproducing without competition, when you put them in the big soup mix, a new set of mutants emerged that were better at replicating within the system. It almost worked like an ecosystem, but with just straight chemistry.

 

[felix]

You question does not follow a logical path in my opinion. You seem to equate life coming from non-life with fixing problems with an immensely complicated life that got broken and died.

As a scientist, I would not approach the problem from that direction because it would not answer my basic questions about how life may have evolved from non-life. The original evolution (or evolutionS, since it is quite possible life evolved several times, but only one survived) was a matter of low-content configurations. Not something at all that still exists today. I would not follow your research route if I wanted to understand the origins of life. It would be very unlikely to yield useful information.

That's why, I took a single celled bacteria as an example . I can give you the exact composition of bacteria and the exact base pairs, but you can't bring that bacteria to life.

I've been looking for an online reference and I regret that I haven't found one yet. I read a lot of scientific journals in their paper form, am interested in the info, and then I recycle the material. So what I learn is not always online. I'll keep looking. You are free to reject the information if you wish.


FYI, you seem to assume I don't have a scientific background, you would be wrong, I do. Including graduate classes in biochemistry.

I didn't assume anything. However, many scientists like you believe in something so blindly as a religion without even questioning it. In fact, evolution by itself is a theory and theories are not facts but Science is fact which can be observed and experimented.

 

[felix]

Here is one that is similar to the one I read, but involves more complex chemistry than the one I read.
Self-Replicating Chemicals

Quote from the above article:

Virus is self-replicating but it doesn't have life. Life is completely different. Anything that replicates doesn't mean it has life or life-like. Even a software virus replicates doesn't make it living.

 

[Rhea]

That's why, I took a single celled bacteria as an example . I can give you the exact composition of bacteria and the exact base pairs, but you can't bring that bacteria to life.

I still can't figure why you are claiming that I think I can bring it back to life. So I will have to stop answering this question because you are not hearing my answer, which is, "why are you asking me to prove YOUR experiment? I think y7our experiment is silly and I would never choose it to prove anything." And you keep replying, "see you haven't proven my idea!" I have no intention of proving your idea, I think it is a silly idea.

I didn't assume anything. However, many scientists like you believe in something so blindly as a religion without even questioning it.

This is called an "ad hominem" which is an argument against assumptions of me as a person that you don't even have any evidence to suggest being true. But it is made to discredit what I might say without any evidence that the discrediting is justified. So, kind of like name-calling, "yeah? Well you're a big poopy-face!!"

It turns out that you are incorrect about my ability to believe without questioning, and I've spent a career disproving you. If you are so very wrong about me, how can a person think you would be a better study on any other subjects?

In fact, evolution by itself is a theory and theories are not facts but Science is fact which can be observed and experimented.

I will reply later about how this misstates reality and science pretty severely.

Virus is self-replicating but it doesn't have life. Life is completely different. Anything that replicates doesn't mean it has life or life-like. Even a software virus replicates doesn't make it living.

You have completely missed responding to the point of my post. Yes, I am talking about evolution in non-life chemical compounds. That's right, you got it. Now, about that evolution of chemicals?