In follow-up work to Miller and Urey’s groundbreaking study look at the synthesis of organic compounds in a primordial environment, it was shown that RNA monomeric bases could form under conditions similar to those of a prehistoric Earth. More recent work has shown how such individual bases, floating in a water environment, could link together into chains. [...] A critical question that remained unanswered, though, was how the ancient RNA enzymes could survive.
Now researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the United Kingdom think they have cracked that puzzle. By placing RNA inside liquid pockets of water encased inside cooling ice, they found that RNA enzymes could function and at the same time escape degradation.
[...]
Thus the origin of life on Earth might not have been in a deep-sea vent or open ocean, but in a cold muddy puddle in the icy north or south, which contained a mix of water and organic byproducts of freed carbon from the Earth’s crust.
[...]
Over time this life form could have built up an arsenal of useful chemicals — evolution at its most basic microscopic form. The most critical developments would have been the creation of a protective phospholipid bilayer, the creation of protein enzymes to offer faster catalysis, and last, but not least, the switch to the more chemically stable DNA. Once a self-replicating RNA-lifeform gained these adaptations, it would at last have been ready to venture into warmer climates and begin to survive and reproduce, capturing the sun’s power to fix energy in carbon-based molecules.From there a long evolutionary road lay ahead, eventually reaching man and our zoological peers in the modern world.
Looks like no ‘creator’ needed after all. Just chemical reactions, evolution and vast, hard for humans to comprehend stretches of time. Parallels Stephen Hawking’s book that shows one wasn’t needed to have created the universe either.
Still waiting on the answer to the eye question.
#221 In a nutshell. The animal kingdom is full of simpler eye structures, all functional, and all capable of refinement. That includes the human eyeball. Things change and adapt and evolve. There is much evidence to support this.
The idea of “irreducible complexity” (the term coined by Michael Behe) means that somehow we could reverse evolution is some meaningful manner. I don’t know how you would do that personally, but that’s the logic.
But the real crux of all this (logical finangelings aside) is this. A scientist isn’t committed to believing in natural selection in the same way a religious fundamentalist is committed to rejecting it.
Science is committed to following the evidence, wherever it leads. For example, Darwin knew his theory was missing a key piece since he didn’t have the fundamental mechanism generational adaptation, but he predicted it would be found eventually. Mendel contributed more evidence and research. Watson and Crick figured out DNA which filled in huge pieces of the theory.
Darwin’s work could have been blown out of the water anytime in the last 150 years but it hasn’t – it is still being used, built upon, and supplies tangible research results. Biblical literalists reject it out of hand because it threatens their personal identity as a believer. The fact that their lifespan is now far longer due to Darwin’s theory and subsequent research is of little consequence to their belief.
In general, a fundamental aspect of science is to be open to the possibility of being wrong. This is something a religious fundamentalist can’t do.
#222 In nutshell its circular reasoning fallacy.
The evidence doesn’t support it at all:
http://christiananswers.net/creation/menu-fossils.html
Evolution is a monument to the lengths men will go to deny God.
The proposition is absurd on the face of it, and becomes even more so as the complexity and diversity of life is considered.
BUT it is an excellent illustration of misdirection…while they have you focused on the superficial resemblance of man and ape, you don’t have the foggiest idea how evolution would apply to insects and plants.
Aw, isn’t that cute? Bible thumpers put bs on the internet, so it must be true.
Alfred,
You have yet to reconcile the concept of omniscience and free will as well as the contradictions you have uttered such as:
[God]He is a learning god.
My God is omniscient, He needn’t predict anything to know what is and will be.
As I said in #187, you fail to grasp the scope and true meaning of omniscience and its implications. If you cannot understand this simple contradiction, how can you possibly hope to understand evolution which requires grasping the time frames involved? A lot can happen in millions of years. If you doubt the veracity of the theories of evolution, which are based on the observable fact that species evolve, how can you possibly accept other scientific theories such as gravity? It boggles the mind. The worry isn’t that you will never understand science or the scientific method; the worry is that you vote.
- It’s not what you know that gets you in trouble. It’s what you know that ain’t so.
#223 Pope Alfred
“Evolution is a monument to the lengths men will go to deny God.”
Religion is a monument to the lengths men will go to deny the results of the scientific method.
#223 Pope Alfred
Yes, I went to your referenced web site.
Among other things I found the following quote:
“There is no scientific proof that life has evolved.”
I searched in vain for an open minded and equal handed reference to the fact that:
“There is no scientific proof that god exists.”
And you accuse the rest of us of bias.
The elephant in the room is the complete and utter inability to observe evolution occurring in the laboratory.
The complete and total lack of transitional life forms between “Biblical kinds”:
11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so.
12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
(Gen 1:11-12 NKJ)
There aren’t “dog-cate” or “human-ape” transitional life forms in nature or the fossil record.
AND the misdirection from the fact insect and plant life cannot be explained by any evolutionary process, leaves one marveling at the level of faith your evolutionists have in a theory that not only lacks any proof, violates the laws of physics so completely that the process cannot be replicated in the laboratory.
#226 As you cannot prove evolution via the scientific method, its not us who denying the method, its you.
It requires faith to believe in evolution, a will suspension of disbelief.
One must ignore reality, physics, and common sense…and believe…somewhere, in a time long ago, things didn’t devolve or break down to their simple constituent parts…oh NO! Then things evolvled….
We can’t find it actually happening in the fossil record…we can’t find it happening in the laboratory…we can’t find it happening in the universe…but that it happened, is without doubt. Otherwise we must believe in God and we know that can’t be true…it implies He might have something to say about my desires…
#227 Nothing wrong with bias, the gent who knows “2+2=4″ is biased against all other answers, and well he should be.
I am certain God exists, no doubt at all, it would be odd indeed if I weren’t biased against untruth:
The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” (Psa 53:1 NKJ)
Common ancestor of Cats and dogs (in fact, most mammals)
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=4B1665EC-E7F2-99DF-332752A3D3E23B03
And plenty of “human-apes” have been found. Here’s a quick rundown
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution
The alleged chain of man charts are examples of circular reasoning fallacy and hasty generalization…and some of those “half apes” had bigger brains than we do today…proof of devolution, not evolution:
http://creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2003/cm08_02_rp.pdf
Since Alfie seems to be fixated on the “absurdity of the evolution of the eye”, maybe he should consult the following reference to read what Darwin actually said on the subject and to learn about subsequent research.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
How about you site a source that’s not a christian/creationist propaganda house?
Can you do better than a PDF leaflet with an obvious agenda?
You have made claims and linked to claims by others and have backed up none of it.
Your “arguments” have done more to highlight your ignorance of science than to prove your point.
From the citationless, non peer reviewed, nonscientific PDF linked to above:
“Humanistic evolutionists, on the other
hand, believe that it is possible that the first life
assembled itself from nonliving molecules
(“spontaneous generation”). They have no proof
for this; in fact it violates all known science.”
See the original blog post.