Hold on...

[The Lorax]

Horizoneast, I'm wondering why you don't listen to these people, at least a little bit. Most everyone is telling you the exact same thing, and hopefully you're not just ignoring or denying it as a matter of pride.

(1) You're (mis)using the term Darwinism in order to sucker people into defending abiogenesis (illustrated below), even if they admit it's just a hypothesis. You asked me earlier how I'd define Darwinism, and I'd define it as Wikipedia does. Wikipedia doesn't mention anything about abiogenesis, but it does mention that "modern creationists use the term Darwinism, often pejoratively. Casting evolution as a doctrine or belief bolsters religiously motivated political arguments to mandate equal time for the teaching of creationism in public schools." Your ears must be burning.

You: Would you call yourself a Darwinist?

Them: What do you mean?

You: Do you support Darwin?

Them: Yeah, sure.

You: Oh! Then you must support abiogenesis as well! But there's no evidence! Zing!!!!

The reason I have avoided using Darwinism is because it is a colloquial word and an ambiguous one. Here are some better words for you, words that can't be twisted. Incidentally, these are the words people have been asking you to use all along:

The Theory of Evolution (TOE) -- If you want to debate evolution, talk about this. Use Wikipedia's definition, or any encyclopedic definition--just don't make one up to suit your arguments.

Naturalism (metaphysical) -- As other users here have correctly flagged you for, you've been conflating Darwinism, TOE, etc, with the metaphysical worldview. Yes, there may be some overlap between them, but if you want to have an adult conversation about it, you'll want to use the appropriate terms. Most of your rants against Darwinism could be more accurately directed at metaphysical naturalism, and you should consider doing this in the future.

(2) I see debates as an opportunity to witness for Christianity. It is not really about "winning" a debate for me; it is more about learning and also showing the other participants, especially non-Christians, that I am knowledgeable and that I can debate with grace. Think about it. If you come off as a petty debater, a bumbling buffoon, a rude blowhard, a sneaky rascal, or a raving lunatic, what does that say about Christianity? You've just reinforced at least one of the negative stereotypes that most atheists hold regarding Christians. The main reason I registered for these forums was to debunk that stereotype, and I hope that's a priority of yours as well.

Now, you addressed my question in your last post to me, but you definitely didn't answer it, so here it is again:

If God created all living creatures in the beginning, we would have fossils of all modern animals--birds, lizards, horses, humans--back in the Cambrian Era.

...But we don't. Not even close.

How do you explain that?

If you are a 6-day creationist, then it follows that all species would emerge at the same time. (Or, if you believe in microevolution, just the major groups. Do you believe in micro?)

You said all "major groups" of organisms were represented. Reptiles weren't. Amphibians weren't. Birds weren't. Mammals weren't. Aren't they "major groups?" Unless you have some wacky definition for "major" or "group", your statement is just plain wrong.

Edited March 3, 2007 by Angry Dragons

[Guest]

Silly Rock, Your Slime is showing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Abiogenesis (Greek a-bio-genesis, "non biological origins") is, in its most general sense, the generation of life from non-living matter.

Horizoneast, I'm wondering why you don't listen to these people, at least a little bit. Most everyone is telling you the exact same thing, and hopefully you're not just ignoring or denying it as a matter of pride.

Puffeth Puffeth Oh Mighty Dragon

"The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts."

"His ways are always grievous; thy judgments are far above out of his sight: as for all his enemies, he puffeth at them." (Psalms 10:4-5)

Love, Joe

[SaturnV]

Do you agree with me that science is agnostic when it comes to God and not atheistic? Would it be fair to state that if God exists and is the creator of all nature as presented in the Judeo-Christian paradigm that He would have created the basic elements of life through organic chemical processes? Has science ever observed pre-biological changes that slowly transformed simple atoms and molecules into complex chemicals resulting in life?

Since science makes no claims about God one way or the other, I suppose it would be correct to call it agnostic by default. If you want to get really picky with your semantics, you could call me an agnostic atheist-I cannot conclusively disprove God's existence, but I believe that there is so little supporting evidence that I accept the null hypothesis.

DNA is an informational code – has science ever observed information arising spontaneously by unguided mechanistic processes? I think there are many scientists who do not believe that cells containing such a complex mathematical code and complex chemical composition could ever have come into existence by some "mindless chemical process".

I already said that DNA could not have been the first genetic code, RNA is the most likely candidate, and that RNA self-assembly has been observed. The "Lipid-World" model I alluded to earlier also states that it is possible the first genetic material was lipid-based, but I have not read enough on that hypothesis to comment on it.

The "How did DNA arise spontaneously" argument has been moot for about as long as I've been alive. It didn't.

SV

As for the complexity we see today, that's generally accepted to be a product of ~3.8 billion years of gradual change due to natural selection. In my personal opinion, that long a timeline not only makes complexity possible, it makes it inevitable.

Your statement above reminds me of the adage - "time is the god of Darwinism"… given enough time the impossible is possible. I would refer you to Dave Scots opening statement to Shapiro's article – your statement above appears to fit the “if we can imagine it happening we can assume it did indeed happen” scenario:

"Scientists in the Origin of Life (OOL) field have been shamelessly promoting and continuing work based on the supposition that if anything has even the tiniest non-zero chance of being physically possible then evolution could have happened that way. This working methodology “if we can imagine it happening we can assume it did indeed happen” isn’t just confined to prebiotic chemistry..."

I know you think that nuclear physics, astrophysics, chemistry, biology, astronomy and a host of other scientific discilplines are all wrong and that the Earth is ony 6000 years old, but I choose to accept the current scientific model of a 4.4 billion year old earth. That amount of time gives more than enough room for evolution to occur and result in the creatures we see today.

As I said earlier, Shapiro is saying that the "RNA-world" model needs to be replaced and that the "metabolism first" model is the best candidate. Scots is mistaking Shapiro's attack on scientists who subscribe to the "RNA-World" model as an attack on the science into the Origin of Life itself. It is not.

From later on in that article:

The hypothesis that life began with RNA was presented as a likely reality, rather than a speculation, in journals, textbooks and the media. Yet the clues I have cited only support the weaker conclusion that RNA preceded DNA and proteins; they provide no information about the origin of life, which may have involved stages prior to the RNA world in which other living entities ruled supreme. Just the same, and despite the difficulties that I will discuss in the next section, perhaps two-thirds of scientists publishing in the origin-of life field (as judged by a count of papers published in 2006 in the journal Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere) still support the idea that life began with the spontaneous formation of RNA or a related self-copying molecule. Confusingly, researchers use the term “RNA World” to refer to both the strong and the weak claims about RNA’s role prior to DNA and proteins. Here, I will use the term “RNA first” for the strong claim that RNA was involved in the origin of life...

...Fortunately, an alternative group of theories that can employ these materials has existed for decades. The theories employ a thermodynamic rather than a genetic definition of life, under a scheme put forth by Carl Sagan in the Encyclopedia Britannica: A localized region which increases in order (decreases in entropy) through cycles driven by an energy flow would be considered alive...

...Systems of the type I have described usually have been classified under the heading “metabolism first,” which implies that they do not contain a mechanism for heredity. In other words, they contain no obvious molecule or structure that allows the information stored in them (their heredity) to be duplicated and passed on to their descendants. However a collection of small items holds the same information as a list that describes the items. For example, my wife gives me a shopping list for the supermarket; the collection of grocery items that I return with contains the same information as the list. Doron Lancet has given the name “compositional genome” to heredity stored in small molecules, rather than a list such as DNA or RNA.

A better saying is that if we can imagine it happening, make a hypothesis about why it would happen, gather evidence about it that supports the hypothesis, we tentatively accept it as being true until better evidence comes along. We've imagined likely scenarios, thrown out the impossible ones (such as DNA arising spontaneously) and have a few different possible explanations for the origin of Life. Time will tell which ones are accepted and which are revised or discarded altogether.

EDIT: The SciAm article I alluded to previously is "The Power of Riboswitches: Discovering relics from a lost world run by RNA molecules may lead to modern tools for fighting disease." It's in the January issue.

Edited March 3, 2007 by SaturnV

[The Lorax]

No Angry – it is not a matter of pride – and I do listen to what others say - it’s simply a matter of scientific integrity. I realize there are many views on evolution within the Christian community. If I understand your position correctly you believe God created the universe in a literal sense at some time in the distant past. You further believe that our planet was designed by God to contain the building blocks of life. I am not sure what you believe after that point and it really doesn’t matter to me which way you are turned on this matter. If you believe in molecule-to-man evolution we may disagree but we both believe “God created”…”in the beginning”. We can debate the merits of common ancestry but I understand your position on the “origin of life’ – it began with God. This is a metaphysical position but one that I think is logical.

This is good to hear. Personally, I'm not sure whether or not abiogenesis occurred or if God directly intervened, but I know it is not beyond God's power to create a universe in which abiogenesis would unfold, and he would know about it. The proximate cause might differ but the ultimate cause, God's Will, would be the same in any case.

Because you believe in the creative power of God I would have no reason to debate abiogenesis with you but the atheist who buys into Darwinism must explain how life came to be in the first place if we are to progress to debating the other concepts presented in the ToE.

I know you are trying to combat the naturalistic worldview here, and I think you've established the point that abiogenesis is not proved, ergo, for atheists, it is a matter of faith. Metaphysical naturalists have faith abiogenesis has occurred, since there is certainly not enough information to prove it happened historically. And I think the atheists here acknowledge this.

BUT

It goes both ways. As a young-Earth creationist, you have to be able to back up your ideology with the same amount of evidence that you are demanding from the atheists. I'd like to see you do this. For starters, you could answer my repeated question about the Cambrian Explosion.

If God created all living creatures in the beginning, we would have fossils of all modern animals--birds, lizards, horses, humans--back in the Cambrian Era.

...But we don't. Not even close.

How do you explain that?

If you are a 6-day creationist, then it follows that all species would emerge at the same time. (Or, if you believe in microevolution, just the major groups. Do you believe in micro?)

You said all "major groups" of organisms were represented. Reptiles weren't. Amphibians weren't. Birds weren't. Mammals weren't. Aren't they "major groups?" Unless you have some wacky definition for "major" or "group", your statement is just plain wrong.

[The Lorax]

While I'm here, I must admit I'm a little impatient with the pace of this debate. Will you ever move past abiogenesis and get to evolution, Horizoneast? And will you ever answer questions about 6-day creationism? (Like the question I've been asking. And, for instance, how you deal with the fact geologists date the Earth to 4.6 billion years, not <10,000.)

Edited March 4, 2007 by Angry Dragons

[The Lorax]

Weren't you the guy who criticized me for “labeling people” a few posts back – why do you label me a “young-Earth creationist” and what exactly do you mean by this term?

It means you are a creationist and you believe the Earth is significantly younger than 4.6 billion years. Unless I'm wrong, you've admitted to both those things. That's very different than applying a label against someone's will, eg, calling people Darwinists after they have repeatedly corrected you. But if you actually disagree with the label I've given you, I will give you the courtesy you haven't given them--I will drop it.

The atheist will need to provide the mechanism that established life on this planet – without life evolution is moot.

This argument is lazy and, above all, false. Evolution would not be "moot." Even if you were to disprove abiogenesis (which you haven't), evolution would be no less true or logical (for instance, God could have created life which evolved thereafter).

The atheist will need to provide...

And what do you need to do, Horizoneast? Do you have any responsibilities in this debate? Or would you like to continue dodging my question?

Since you are being a slippery devil here, I will level with you. I think you are disadvantaged in this debate and you know it. If you weren't, you could answer my question, and you would not be afraid to let go of your stale point about abiogenesis. You're not disadvantaged because you are a bad debater; you are disadvantaged because your position, literal creationism, is at an enormous disadvantage scientifically. To put it simply, it's been proved false.

I'm passing you the potato and I'm eager to see what you will do.

Edited March 4, 2007 by Angry Dragons

[The Lorax]

1) The earth, and for that matter the universe, might have been created "as is". That is, they may appear to be much older than they actually are. One cannot necessarily run the universe' clock backwards indefinitely, or to a supposed big bang, because you cannot prove the clock started at any big bang. The clock may have started ~6500 years ago, with everything "as is", and I challenge you to prove it didn't.

You're right, I couldn't prove this isn't the case. Luckily I don't have to. Science operates under the principle of parsimony, ie, it prefers the simplest answers. The idea that a deity created the universe to LOOK 14 billion-years-old is so unparsimonious that it is not worth a second thought. Just think about how absurd it is. God would have literally had to created light from the stars already en route to Earth in order for us to see them, because they are millions of light years away.

That isn't to say it couldn't be true, it's just so absurd it shouldn't get any more consideration than the idea aliens built the pyramids, but perhaps made them LOOK like they were built by humans.

2) Geologic dating is almost always relative dating. I have shown in the past that there are a number of scenarios where failure to recognize the type of disconformity or non-conformity in a rock formation could lead to completely wrong conclusions about relative age, much less actual age of a formation. I have also shown in the past that certain disconformities and non-conformities cannot be properly identified at all unless there was an eye witness to the event that caused them.

Radioactive decay is perhaps the most predictable chemical process in nature, per time. You know the atomic clock, the most accurate clock in the world? Yeah, it's based on radioactive decay.

It's not like they looked at a single rock to determine the age of the Earth. If this were true, your protest would be more meaningful, WhySoBlind. But they looked at countless specimens from multiple minerals (mainly zircons) and they found the ages agree. Even if you are correct and, for whatever reason, no kind of radiometric dating should be trusted, the dating would not be generally consistent with itself, as geologists have found.

[The Lorax]

I asked you this question three days ago, and I have repeated myself five times.

If God created all living creatures in the beginning, we would have fossils of all modern animals--birds, lizards, horses, humans--back in the Cambrian Era.

...But we don't. Not even close.

How do you explain that?

If you are a 6-day creationist, then it follows that all species would emerge at the same time. (Or, if you believe in microevolution, just the major groups. Do you believe in micro?)

You said all "major groups" of organisms were represented. Reptiles weren't. Amphibians weren't. Birds weren't. Mammals weren't. Aren't they "major groups?" Unless you have some wacky definition for "major" or "group", your statement is just plain wrong.

[Guest]

I asked you this question three days ago, and I have repeated myself five times.

I looked and I looked.

Five times I looked.

Nope! Not a single Bible verse.

Must be "Creation-by-Dragon" by gum!

All Things

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

"The same was in the beginning with God."

"All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:1-3)

Oh, The Light, The Light

"That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

"He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not." (John 1:9-10)

The Power

"But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:" (John 1:12)

That Wonderful Name

"For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." (John 1:17)

"The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:"

"The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:"

"The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." (Numbers 6:24-26)

"And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them" (Numbers 6:27)

Love, Joe

[SaturnV]

SV

Since science makes no claims about God one way or the other, I suppose it would be correct to call it agnostic by default. If you want to get really picky with your semantics, you could call me an agnostic atheist-I cannot conclusively disprove God's existence, but I believe that there is so little supporting evidence that I accept the null hypothesis.

Then we are in agreement - science makes no claims about God one way or the other and should be by default

Edited March 5, 2007 by SaturnV