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The science of abiogenesis is wasting its time. The whole concept can be destroyed using the tiny weapon of highschool science. The proabibilty of even a strand of DNA forming by chance is so infinitesimally small that it doesn't deserve serious consideration. As for a whole cell coming together ... forget it. Sir Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, came to believe that the formation of DNA by chance was impossible. As you would know, the mathematical laws of probability are immutable. In a thousand years time, science will have greatly advanced, but winning the lottery will be just as unlikely as it is now.
Dawkins revealed his abiogenesis desperation when he suggested in an interview with Ben Stein that aliens may have seeded the earth with the first life forms - as did Crick. The fantasy of abiogenesis has evidently evolved into a different fantasy - aliens. This is science?
"Nothing makes sense in biology without evolution." I love this one. The favourite trick of evolution science is the misleading use of the word, "evolution"; to deliberately blur the line between the true and proven aspects of evolution and the unproven aspects of evolution(ie, species-species evolution).
The greatest fallacy in science: micro-evolution + time = macro-evolution (I refuse to use these terms, as they are also deliberately misleading).
I have some knowledge of the fossil record; at least, enough to know that there seems to be ample fossil evidence for intra-species adaption, but very little or nothing in the way of species-species evolution.
In order for the fossil record to support the theory that microbes evolved into humans, what's needed is evidence of species-species evolution. Fossils that indicate only intra-species adaption are irrelevant and useless in this regard, because without species-species evolution, a microbe will remain a microbe.
The following quotes relate specifically to species-species transitionals:
Dawkins - "To put up a single famous fossil like Archaeoptyx panders to a fallacy". A " single" species-species transitional? After alleged billions of years of evoltion, all we've found so far is one transitional?
To make matters even more dubious, even Archaeoptyx isn't accepted as a true transitional by many scientists. So is there even ONE species-species transitional that everyone can agree on?
Steven M. Stanley - "the fossil record does not convincingly document a single transition from one species to another."
There are many other quotes I could use.
Gould and Eldridge became so disillustioned with the lack of species-species fossils that they dreamt up Punctuated Eqilibrium.
Dawkins sounds like he's just about given up on the fossil record when he said "We don't need the fossil record to demonstrate that evolution is a fact."
If evolution is a fact, the fossil record doesn't support it. (Hence the deliberately designed ambiguity of the word "evolution"; they want us to think that intra-species adaption and species-species evolution are one and the same thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is the error that underpins the theory of evolution.)
Thomas the Doubter - "The proabibilty of even a strand of DNA forming by chance is so infinitesimally small"
What is that probability? Please show your work.
It is less than 1 in 10^50, which according to Borel's Law, is in the realm of the impossible. Just ask Crick.
In real science, such as physics and mathematics, probabilities are taken very seriously. Evolution science, on the other hand, doesn't care about mathematical probability because it makes some of it's claims look stupid and unscientific. Hence, Darwinists defer to the Law of Wishful Thinking instead.
Thomas the Doubter - "It is less than 1 in 10^50"
Can you link to the derivation, since I'm pretty sure that number is made up?
-----------------------
Thomas the Doubter - "Just ask Crick"
Crick has been dead for more than a decade. Again, could you link to a derivation?
Thomas the Doubter,
Going back to your reply of 7-21-2016 03:14, I will address some of your points.
"The science of abiogenesis is wasting its time. The whole concept can be destroyed using the tiny weapon of highschool science. The proabibilty of even a strand of DNA forming by chance is so infinitesimally small that it doesn't deserve serious consideration."
So says the guy who knows nothing about the subject! The first thing you should know is that DNA has built-in clues of a long evolutionary history. Unlike your strawman version, which just popped into existence one fine day, real DNA has an evolutionary history. That makes a huge difference in your probability calculation. Do you really believe that a number of Ph.D.s decided to make abiogenesis their life work despite a high school argument that destroys the whole idea?? Wake up and smell the coffee!
"Dawkins revealed his abiogenesis desperation when he suggested in an interview with Ben Stein that aliens may have seeded the earth with the first life forms - as did Crick. The fantasy of abiogenesis has evidently evolved into a different fantasy - aliens. This is science?"
If you knew anything at all about abiogenesis you would know that its investigation does not begin and end with little green men! That's just an interesting speculation on the side.
'"Nothing makes sense in biology without evolution." I love this one.'
It plainly states a fact of life! It is not a trick to mislead anyone. The real problem is your total, clueless confusion concerning the nature of evolution.
"In order for the fossil record to support the theory that microbes evolved into humans, what's needed is evidence of species-species evolution. Fossils that indicate only intra-species adaption are irrelevant and useless in this regard, because without species-species evolution, a microbe will remain a microbe."
Once the major pathways of evolution have been traced in some detail, as is clearly evident in the fossil record, from DNA and other sources, we may infer those smaller changes that haven't been found (for reasons that Gould gave in his Punctuated Equilibrium). One is hardly required to trace evolution from species to species anymore than one is required to trace a forest fire tree to tree. Just follow the smoke and ashes. Be careful of saying what is needed when you know nothing about the subject!
"To make matters even more dubious, even Archaeoptyx isn't accepted as a true transitional by many scientists. So is there even ONE species-species transitional that everyone can agree on?"
I suspect that if we had time to examine the context of the quotes you gave relating to this claim that we would learn something interesting! How does a paleontologist determine if a fossil is an in-line transitional form or just a cousin on a side branch? But it doesn't really matter. The path of evolution is illuminated just as well by these "cousin" fossils. So, your point is totally irrelevant! By the way, a whole bunch of early bird and FEATHERED DINOSAUR fossils have been found in China in recent years. The "missing links" are getting closer and closer together!
"Gould and Eldridge became so disillustioned with the lack of species-species fossils that they dreamt up Punctuated Eqilibrium.
Dawkins sounds like he's just about given up on the fossil record when he said "We don't need the fossil record to demonstrate that evolution is a fact.""
So intellectually dishonest! (Due to ignorance.) Gould and Eldridge were CURIOUS about the STATISTICAL lack of species to species fossils. There never was a TOTAL LACK. Punctuated Equilibrium, far from being ad hoc explanation dreamt up, was a brilliant explanation that has now collected considerable evidence and support! Most biologists now accept punctuated equilibrium. Finally, when Dawkins said that we don't need the fossil record to demonstrate that evolution is a fact, he was merely acknowledging that evolution is also demonstrated by a comparative study of DNA, cytochrome c and certain other molecules, and even by comparative anatomy using cladistics. Your take on Dawkins being ready to give up on the fossil record is TOTALLY WRONGHEADED. Indeed, the fossil record is richer than ever! We can now trace the whale back to a four-legged river animal of a certain mammalian group! And many other examples could be given.
"If evolution is a fact, the fossil record doesn't support it."
As might be expected of someone who is totally clueless about this subject, you are dead wrong here as well. The fossil record has only one, good, sane explanation--that of evolution on a grand scale.
It was pointed out to me by a kind member of this forum that it's impossible for an organism to be more complex than itself. Yes, I can see that that is logical and that I therefore made an illogical suggestion in my initial post.
Anyhow, this got me thinking about the vital role increases in complexity play in evolution. After all, if the first primordial cell evolved into Albert Einstein, then there must have been a whole lot of increased complexity going on along the way (by "increased complexity" I mean the increase in complexity needed for one species to become a different species, which evolution requires).
Now let me get this straight ... According to the theory of evolution, the first cell eventually produced a more complex offspring cell. Okay, but after this it gets a tad confusing: Since the make-up of the offspring is determined by the DNA of the parent, how did the offspring end up more complex than the parent? Pondering this, I could think of only two possibilities, neither of which make any sense to me:
1. The increased complexity of the offspring was contained in the DNA of the parent. This means the parent's DNA is more complex than the parent - which means the parent is more complex than itself.
2. The increased complexity of the offspring wasn't contained in the parent's DNA, so it must have come from the offspring. This means that, after it was born, the offspring somehow made itself more complex - which means the offspring is more complex than itself.
Have I missed something here, or is the theory of evolution dependant on an organism being more complex than itself?
Offspring vary, and natural selection supports new combinations of genes that prove useful. Mutations yielding new genes also accumulate in the general population. Natural selection acting over time can produce a tremendous amont of complexity. Read Richard Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" to experience the power of natural selection.
To put it a more intuitive form, where did all the marvelous forms of dogs come from? Did the original wolf species have all those traits? They were cobbled together over time with the help of new genes, new combinations of existing genes, and a selection process operating on varied offspring.
You are tying yourself into little knots and missing the big picture. The fossil record, DNA, and all of the other evidence that I've mentioned in another post make it clear that evolution is a fact of life!
Dear Greensnake,
When I refer to increase in complexity between parent and offspring, I refer to the added complexity required for one species to evolve into another species, which evolution absolutely requires if a single cell evolved in a human being.
Re the variation in dogs, it's my understanding that the vast array of most modern domestic dogs is a result of using artificial selection to exploit the natural genetic variation inherent in the DNA of the original wolf. A wolf being bred into a sheep dog, for example, is not what I would call an increase in complexity because the DNA of the sheep dog isn't more complex than the DNA of the 'parent' wolf.
Here is where the ambiguous semantics of evolution becomes apparent: In my opinion, a wolf becoming a sheep dog isn't evolution, because these two creatures belong to the same species, they are both dogs. A wolf would have no trouble mating with a sheep dog to produce viable offspring. If a dog is still a dog, it hasn't evolved anywhere .
This is my point: The alleged evolution of a single cell into human being completely depends on one species becoming another species. Wolves becoming sheep dogs isn't an example of one species becoming another species. You could breed dogs for a million years and all your going to get is more dogs. Where is the dog breeder who bred some dogs and came up with a non-dog?
Show me one species turning into another species - that's evolution. Anything less than that doesn't cut it.(Referring to the fossil record won't work because, as Gould, Dawkins and others have poined out, fossil evidence of species-to-species evolution is virtually non-existant).
(I don't use the terms, micro- and macro-evolution because they are deliberately designed to mislead by blurring the crucial line between intra-species variation (wolf-sheep dog) and species-species evolution.)
Dear Thomas the Doubter,
What would be the point of my addressing this argument? You should be attacking the main lines of evidence for evolution instead of weaving doubtful, homespun arguments. Let's get to the core of the matter and not be dancing around the periphery! I will make a few comments, however.
Wolf ancestors producing a sheep dog is an example of a SMALL AMOUNT of evolution. Evolution is still at work even when it is not producing species. Of course it's still a dog! If you want to personally witness 50 million years of evolution, you are going to have to live a long, long time! Get a gym membership and eat right! If you just want to see irrefutable evidence for 50 million years of evolution, there are a lot of places you can look beginning with the fossil record. By the way, artificial selection is the same thing as natural selection except that humans decide who lives and who dies.
"(Referring to the fossil record won't work because, as Gould, Dawkins and others have poined out, fossil evidence of species-to-species evolution is virtually non-existant)." - Thomas the Doubter
Is it really necessary to chart each step, bush by bush, to plot the path of a hillside brush fire? In the fossil record it is hardly necessary to trace the development of each species in order to see the path of evolution!
You (Thomas) have previously spoke about the least complex cell possible. Let's call this cell Alice. While we don't know how much complexity Alice has, let's just say it is A. Alice is the only cell in existence, so the average complexity of life is clearly A/1 = A.
Alice has 100 offspring then dies. Let's say each offspring is randomly up to 1% different than Alice. What is the average complexity of life now? We might be tempted to say that since the changes are random, there are as many offspring who are slightly less complex than Alice as there are ones who are slightly more complex than Alice; so the average complexity should still be A. But this is probably false:
Remember we defined Alice as the least complex possible cell, so any offspring who are less complex than Alice are not cells/alive (by your definition above). Therefore we shouldn't include them in the calculation of the average complexity of lifeforms on Earth. So the average would just be an average of those lifeforms that have the same complexity as Alice and those who are slightly more complex than Alice. You can be sure that this average will always be greater than A.
And let me be clear, I'm not saying this is the source of complexity in life, I'm making a much weaker claim: the mere existence of a minimum in complexity creates a bias in the direction of things becoming more complex. In mathematics this is referred to as a drunkards walk (or a random walk).
I've been careful to make the argument in such a way that we don't need to know what complexity is (I am assuming it is a scalar), but if you want to keep making arguments about complexity, we are going to need to know what it is at some point (a unit for it, like a unit of speed might be mph, but we need one for complexity) so we can verify statements about complexity. Without this it is a rather vague idea that means different things to different people.
If you want to claim (which is often the case from theists) that randomness can not lead to complexity, we will need the units of complexity as mentioned above. But while you are considering what unit to pick, consider this: imagine an room that is empty other than a brand new package of dominoes. Then some jerk comes in and kicks the box of dominoes (or there is an earthquake, or whatever) and they go everywhere. Is the room more or less complex after the dominoes got scattered about randomly?
Are there any creatures with semi evolved body parts present on the parent?
Yes, I've seen one! The other day I saw a man walking down street with one arm on one side and half an arm on the other side. Now I'm a true believer! Evolution Is a fact!
Thomas the Doubter : The proabibilty of even a strand of DNA forming by chance is so infinitesimally small that it doesn't deserve serious consideration. As for a whole cell coming together ... forget it.
From what I have read RNA formed before DNA. The are volumes written about it. Look it up.
@ Thomas the Doubtful. - What is the point of the debate. All you wish to do is chant your mantra (something theists are exceedingly good at) about evolution being wrong. Then you create straw men arguments to support its denial.
Once again Evolution as a theory to explain diversity of life is independent of abiogenesis. No matter how life originated it can diversify. Why is that so hard for you to grasp.
An accepted scientific theory with scores of evidence you will deny in favour of an invisible man in the sky did it because some schizophrenic dude said he spoke to this invisible man.
If you wish to refute the theory of evolution please bring up any study in any reputed scientific journal that corroborates what you have stated. that abiogenesis is the basis for evolution and without it the theory falls apart and so on and forth.
Thomas the Doubter - "life cannot exist without immense complexity"
vs
Thomas the Doubter - "No one knows how much complextiy is required for life"
---------------------------
Thomas the Doubter - "the DNA of the sheep dog isn't more complex than the DNA of the 'parent' wolf."
vs
Thomas the Doubter - "no one can put a number on [complexity], nor units of measurement. I don't know how complexity can be quantified."
Even though the complexity of the simpliest cell that can exist cannot be ascertained, it can be deduced from what is now known of the sophistication of contemporary cells that life cannot exist without immense complexity. In light of this knowledge, to claim that life can exist without immense complexity is to be irrational and unscientific. Such an anti-intellectual claim is no more enlightened than the spontaneous generation superstition of the 19th century.
Forensic science uses DNA comparisons to convict criminals. This means existing DNA can be very precisely "measured" in some sense. I imagine wolf and sheep dog DNA can likewise be "quantified" in some comparative sense. The complexity of an unknown primordial first cell cannot be quantified or measured in any sense because it no longer exists - unlike the cells of living sheep dogs and wolves.
If you were on a beach and saw the sentence "the mathematical laws of probability are immutable" written with sea shells in the sand, would you conclude that it was the result of chance; some fluke of nature?
I seriously have no idea what you mean by complexity, since I have no idea if you are using in a different way that I would since you seem unwilling to define it. I asked you this before to try to help you define it, but maybe you missed it. Could you please try to answer it?
What has more complexity?
1) An (otherwise empty room) with a new box of dominoes.
2) The same room but with the dominoes scattered around randomly (and if you don't like the word random, then pretend someone kicked the box or an earthquake shook it up real good).
---------------
If possible please give us the criteria you used to come to your conclusion (about the dominoes). If possible try to present it in a way where we can calculate the complexity of the room/dominoes (or at least approximate it).
I can't tell which room has more complexity.
Ok, let me pose a couple of different questions: What do you imagine the first life form was like and did it form as a result of chance?
Thomas the Doubter - "I can't tell which room has more complexity."
If you can't tell which has more complexity, in a situation far more simple than a living organism; perhaps you should refrain from making blanket statements about complexity.
-------------------------------------
Thomas the Doubter - "Ok, let me pose a couple of different questions: What do you imagine the first life form was like and did it form as a result of chance?"
I have no idea what the first life form was like.
Was it a result of chance? Maybe a result of the law of large numbers; who knows.
How would you define "simple"? Is this the opposite of "complex"? If so, what do you mean by "complex"?
A set of dominoes has about 30 pieces. A timber wolf's DNA has about 2.7 billion base pairs (http://www.genomesize.com/result_species.php?id=4247). I really thought you were going to give us a mathematical definition of complexity so I was trying to make it easier for you.
Thomas the Doubter,
Going back to your post of 7-21-2016 03:14, I will add some needed scrutiny.
"The science of abiogenesis is wasting its time. The whole concept can be destroyed using the tiny weapon of highschool science. The proabibilty of even a strand of DNA forming by chance is so infinitesimally small that it doesn't deserve serious consideration." - Thomas the Doubter
So says the guy who knows nothing about the subject! The first thing you should know is that DNA has built-in clues of a long evolutionary history. Unlike your strawman version, which just popped into existence one fine day, real DNA has an evolutionary history. That makes a huge difference in your probability calculation. Do you really believe that a number of Ph.D.s decided to make abiogenesis their life work despite a high school argument that destroys the whole idea?? Wake up and smell the coffee!
"Dawkins revealed his abiogenesis desperation when he suggested in an interview with Ben Stein that aliens may have seeded the earth with the first life forms - as did Crick. The fantasy of abiogenesis has evidently evolved into a different fantasy - aliens. This is science?"
If you knew anything at all about abiogenesis you would know that its investigation does not begin and end with little green men! That's just an interesting speculation on the side.
'"Nothing makes sense in biology without evolution." I love this one. ...'
It plainly states a fact of life! It is not a trick to mislead anyone. The real problem is your total, clueless confusion concerning the nature of evolution.
"In order for the fossil record to support the theory that microbes evolved into humans, what's needed is evidence of species-species evolution. Fossils that indicate only intra-species adaption are irrelevant and useless in this regard, because without species-species evolution, a microbe will remain a microbe."
Once the major pathways of evolution have been traced in some detail, as is clearly evident in the fossil record, from DNA and other sources, we may infer those smaller changes that haven't been found (for reasons that Gould gave in his Punctuated Equilibrium). One is hardly required to trace evolution from species to species anymore than one is required to trace a forest fire tree to tree. Just follow the smoke and ashes. Be careful of saying what is needed when you know nothing about the subject!
"To make matters even more dubious, even Archaeoptyx isn't accepted as a true transitional by many scientists. So is there even ONE species-species transitional that everyone can agree on?"
I suspect that if we had time to examine the context of the quotes you gave relating to this claim that we would learn something interesting! How does a paleontologist determine if a fossil is an in-line transitional form or just a cousin on a side branch? But it doesn't really matter. The path of evolution is illuminated just as well by these "cousin" fossils. So, your point is totally irrelevant! By the way, a whole bunch of early bird and FEATHERED DINOSAUR fossils have been found in China in recent years. The "missing links" are getting closer and closer together! You might also be interested in knowing that LIVING SPECIES TO SPECIES examples are known to biologists.
"Gould and Eldridge became so disillustioned with the lack of species-species fossils that they dreamt up Punctuated Eqilibrium.
Dawkins sounds like he's just about given up on the fossil record when he said "We don't need the fossil record to demonstrate that evolution is a fact.""
So intellectually dishonest! (Due to ignorance.) Gould and Eldridge were CURIOUS about the STATISTICAL lack of species to species fossils. There never was a TOTAL LACK. Punctuated Equilibrium, far from being ad hoc explanation dreamt up, was a brilliant explanation that has now collected considerable evidence and support! Most biologists now accept punctuated equilibrium. Finally, when Dawkins said that we don't need the fossil record to demonstrate that evolution is a fact, he was merely acknowledging that evolution is also demonstrated by a comparative study of DNA, cytochrome c and certain other molecules, and even by comparative anatomy using cladistics. Your take on Dawkins being ready to give up on the fossil record is TOTALLY WRONGHEADED. Indeed, the fossil record is richer than ever! We can now trace the whale back to a four-legged river animal of a certain mammalian group! And many other examples could be given.
"If evolution is a fact, the fossil record doesn't support it."
As might be expected of someone who is totally clueless about this subject, you are dead wrong here as well. The fossil record has only one, good, sane explanation--that of evolution on a grand scale.
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