Evolution Pros and Cons

[Essay]

Originally Posted by Turtle

Good grief! Allow me to play devil's advocate to borrow a metaphor. This thread is so not Biology already that by the time I finish typing I expect to find it in Silly Claims.

Let's call the spades. This is a science site. Creationism is religion. Questor is a creationist/religionist, not a scientist. Questor is not the poor little lamb here, he is the wolf. Time for the sherpherd's rod & sling.

Yea... and what Galapogos said too. ...but here's my $2's worth.
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Without learning all about thermodynamics (or organic chemistry), can I get you to agree that the origin of life question is very different from the pros and cons of (Darwinian) evolution?

Sure there is an evolution-type process that works for many processes from star formation/death to the origin of life and even language changes; but the evolution of living things based on DNA and the various modifiers, promoters, inhibitors, and switches, and all of the mechanisms for changing expression, from copy number polymorphisms to actual translocation within the genome, and much we don't yet know about, allows for a rich diversity of lifeforms to arise.
...was that really all one sentence? ...sorry....

I think even the focus on Darwin is a bit misleading at times because he didn't know about chromosomes or genes. Molecular biology, cellular biology, embryology, genetics, genomics, and the newer epigenitics sure explain and predict a lot...
...of which I think we would still be aware, even if Darwin had never lived.

...and if you'll forgive the anthropomorphizing, God was very wise and careful in giving us the particular physics and chemistry that makes all this stuff inevitably work so well.
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...and a quick note on entropy:
All that complexity (negative entropy) of developing a living thing is balanced when the thing dies.

In between, while living, the thing generates prodigious amounts of entropy, adding impetus to life's very thermodynamically favorable equation overall. Hence my variation of a favorite quote, "Life is just Nature's Way of turning Light into Heat,"

Life is just God's Way of maximizing Entropy.

~

p.s. ...but let me repeat,
Questor, regardless of their comments on thermodynamics, do you see a problem with the logic of this thermodynamics page on the "refuters" website... the whole "evolution" vs. "origin of life" problem?

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Galapagos

I for one am not going to sit here and respond individually for every large block of quote mined text you can find until you have gone through that entire creationist website(and all the others ones on the internet). In this last text-block, Richard Dawkins was quoted out of context and his explanations overlooked in the same way the Darwin quote earlier was.
I then quickly googled another one of the quotes from the page, to find it belongs to Muslim creationist moron Harun Yahyah. If you are unfamiliar with just how dense Yahyah is, see here.
The dishonesty and shortcomings of the creationist website quoted has been demonstrated repeatedly, and it should not be taken to be a valid source of scientific information. It is a religious conspiracy theorist website and should not be taken seriously

Here is an excellent response to the "improbability of abiogenesis" nonsense spouted by many creationists
:Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations
The talk origins archive is currently down for whatever reason, so that is from google cache.
And again, you would benefit from trying sources like wikipedia first:
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



edit- interesting news article on some recent OOL research:
sciencedaily.com--Origin Of Life On Earth: Simple Fusion To Jump-start Evolution

Thanks dude, I've had the flu or something equally bad fro about a week and a half, my mind feels like it's packed in grease, i was sure I'd read about those things but I wasn't sure where.

Questor, read the damned lies link, it explains most of what i was saying. If you are really interested in know the truth this should make an impression, I know of no creationist stumbling block that isn't easily answered by evolution and abiogenesis. If you know of one please let us know but simply repeating the old tired but easily proved wrong creationist ideas is useless dude.

[Pyrotex]

Originally Posted by questor

Pyro, you used to have my respect. Since you are now a moderator, the fight can no longer be even. You have used your position to insult and demean me on numerous occasions with me being unable to answer in kind or defend myself. I don't need that or your snarky comments. You deliberately attempt to provoke me. Why not argue the issue on the thread or buzz off?

Ques,
Post #47 above was a straight response on the issues of this thread.
And the one that followed was light-hearted and humorous.
C'mon, you know the REAL reason you don't want me around.
I got the "cure" for your "infection".

So, no more horsing around. From now on, my responses will be to the posts and not to you personally. No more mister snarky.

Okay, Skippy?

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by questor

Perhaps a biochemist could shed some light on these observations:
''When it addresses this question, evolutionary theory claims that life started with a cell that formed by chance. …

This observation is incorrect for several reasons.

First, it misidentifies the term biological evolution, which refers to changes in traits of a population of living organisms from one generation to the next, with abiogenesis, which refers to the emergence of life from non-living matter. Theories about evolution don’t address abiogenesis.

Some theories of “prebiotic evolution” address changes in “populations” of chemical systems that are not considered conventionally living, however, so it’s reasonable, I think, to stretch the domain of evolution theories to nearly include abiogenesis. Also, when writing for a scientifically little educated audience, it’s not unreasonable to stretch the domains of scientific disciplines slightly to reduce the number of terms used, and make thus make the material easier to remember – although Darwinism Refuted.com, the source of the quoted text, does not appear to me to have been written with the intention of explaining science, but rather to encourage its rejection.

A more serious error is the suggestion that any well-accepted theories of abiogenesis claim that the first life was a fully formed cell.

All modern theories of abiogenesis of which I’m aware hypothesize that the first cells were preceded by increasingly complex prebiotic chemical mixtures. These theories appear to fall into two major classes: “replication first” and “metabolism first”.

According to the replication first hypothesis, through processes much more disorderly than usual biology, combinations of amino acids formed until, by chance, replicator molecules identical or nearly identical to RNA and their various transcription factories formed. Lacking true cell membranes, these prebiots were not alive by the full modern definition, but were unusual in that they could reproduce, quickly causing the prebiotic molecular ecosystem to be populated with much more similar molecules than before. Being capable of storing and transmitting heritable traits to subsequent generations, the only requisite for the usual definition of evolution, these prebiotic organisms can be considered the beginning of biological evolution. Through selection of RNA, and eventually DNA genes in this population, organisms better adapted to utilizing resources, especially in early history those more metabolically stable and efficient, eventually dominated the ecosystem.

According to the metabolism first hypothesis, the initial disorderly chemical and physical processes resulted in a population dominated not by RNA and the information-storage afforded by it, but by chemical systems that were metabolically stable and self-sustaining. In the competition between increasingly metabolically superior chemical systems, RNA, DNA, and their many transcription factors eventually appeared, giving an overwhelming advantage to chemical systems that had them and resulting in the “extinction” of those that did not.

An interesting feature of a metabolism first model by Robert Shapiro (see “A Simpler Origin for Life” (6/07 Scientific American)) is that it proposes that the cell wall so essential to modern organism was not grown by prebiotic organisms, but that these chemical systems occurred in naturally occurring “containers” such as cavities in rock. The appearance of true cell walls allowed organisms with them to expand into the much larger ecological niches of not-in-cavities-in-rocks, etc.

This was discussed in “The metabolism first model of the origin of life”.

Originally Posted by questor

According to this scenario [“evolution theory”, as defined by the Darwinism Refuted.com author Adnan Oktar], four billion years ago various chemical compounds underwent a reaction in the primordial atmosphere on the earth in which the effects of thunderbolts and atmospheric pressure led to the formation of the first living cell.

As noted above, this is not an accurate description of biological science, because no well-accepted theory suggests that cells formed suddenly from prebiotic chemical compounds and environmental influences.

Originally Posted by questor

The first thing that must be said is that the claim that nonliving materials can come together to form life is an unscientific one that has not been verified by any experiment or observation. Life is only generated from life. Each living cell is formed by the replication of another cell. No one in the world has ever succeeded in forming a living cell by bringing inanimate materials together, not even in the most advanced laboratories.

To the best of my knowledge, it’s true that no one has artificially assembled an entire living biological cell from its constituent non-living material. Though a challenging technological exercise in microscopic construction, there appears little scientific value to be gained in doing so, because, as noted above, no well-accepted biological theory suggests that such a thing has ever occurred.

It is important to most scientific theories of abiogenesis that many molecules, in particular amino acids, were formed by materials and conditions present early in Earth’s history. This has been replicated in labs. The 1952 Miller–Urey experiment is a famous example.

The rest of Oktar’s writing appears to me to be similarly flawed. Based on biographies such as the wikipedia link above and his personal webpage, I’m nearly certain these flaws are intentional, and that he is applying the same rhetorical techniques to scientific ideas with which he wishes people to conclude are false, such as theories of evolutionary biology, that he has applied to history that he wishes people to conclude is false, such as the Holocaust.

Oktar has no scientific education or accomplishments, a history of making inaccurate statement, and even criminal convictions for multiple rapes and blackmail. I don’t believe he is a good or helpful person, or that his writing has positive scientific or social value.

Questor, if you were unaware of Oktar’s history and mislead and confused by his deceptive rhetoric, you have my sympathy. If you sympathize with him or his principles, my feelings toward you are similar to my feelings toward him. Which of these describes you?

[ughaibu]

Originally Posted by questor

If endosymbiosis is a common occurrence there should be numerous new life forms appearing at all times. Would you agree?

If endosymbiotic innovations are common and if endosymbiotic innovations regularly lead to new life forms, then one would expect new life forms to arise regularly.
Anyway, on this apparent doubt that you have about all life arising from single celled organisms, you claim to be non-religious, so presumably your brand of intelligent design doesn't involve any supernatural craftsmen who can produce multi-cellular life out of the blue. How does your theory account for the existence of multi-cellular life?

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by questor

''You're aware of endosymbiosis(?)'' I am now, and the thought occurs to me that this process should be creating new species of life constantly. Or, by using this information new species should be relatively easy to create in the lab. If endosymbiosis is a common occurrence there should be numerous new life forms appearing at all times. Would you agree?

The problem here remains your need to see new species popping up all over the place like popcorn in a hot pot. New species do not pop up over night and when a new species come about it is a slow process and the new species is at first not much different from the parent species. The difference between say a largemouth bass and a small mouth bass wasn't one generation. It was probably thousands of generations of reproductive isolation at any one time the process would have been invisible, at first it would have just seemed to a geographical variation but eventually the differences would pile up until the two fish were different enough to the eye to be called different fish. At some point before that the fish would have been different species. Endosymbiosis wouldn't happen any faster than geographical isolation or regional variation. It would still take many generations of change to come about. When on organism merges with another it doesn't' happen all at once it also happens in stages. Mitochondria were probably either parasites or prey animals long before they became able to live inside a cell, at first they probably just existed and slowly started to resist being expelled by the host by contributing to the host in some way. Eventually hosts that didn't expel the bacteria had an advantage and the relationship started toward being symbiotic.

Endosymbiotic theory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[questor]

Craig, I am aware of the problems with Oktar's motives and lack of scientific training. I do not think he made up all the quotes or questions in his website that I have quoted from. If life was easy to create, it would have happened before now. It could come to pass that man may eventually be able to do so. When that happens all arguments become moot. I posted these quotes to stimulate thought and conversation, not to create enmity--which seems to occur every time a cherished theory comes under scrutiny. This to me is like religion, if you can't test it and can't prove it, why believe it? If we knew the truth unequivocally, we wouldn't be having this discussion. If there can be scientific refutation of the claims made on Oktar's
site, let it happen, you can't argue with the truth. I am not a molecular biochemist, but I am aware that the answer to life itself resides at the particulate level and spontaniety in reactions seldom if ever occurs. There is a reason for everything, so let's find the reason and prove it.

[questor]

It may be propitious for me to explain my position on this thread and my own beliefs. I consider myself non-religious, but I believe there was some type of intelligent presence in the creation of the universe. What this creator was, I have no clue, although I am certain it was not one of the worshipped deities. I have had all the basic science courses including quan and qual, organic and bio chemistries. This does not qualify me as an expert, but it does enable me to examine some disciplines with an eye for for distortion of facts. If something can be proved or disproved, I have no reason to deny the truth. As of yet, the Darwin theory does not answer all questions about origin of species. Will it eventually be vindicated in all its premises? Maybe so, when all the questions are answered with scientific fact, I will then accept the result. I don't know if the quotes from Darwin Refuted
are fact or not. If they are not then some on this site may be able to refute them with science. Debate is frequently the path to truth, it's too bad the search frequently ends up in insults.

[questor]

Some of my problems with evolution and the origin of life:
abiogenesis- experiments have formed organic compounds but not life
what is life? at what particulate level does it exist? molecular? atomic? sub-atomic?
if the sea was the original crucible of life, why did animals need to move to land?
what was the diet of the original one celled animal? There was no other life to eat
if DNA is difficult to produce, how did all the different life forms occur early on?
if DNA is information, how does it arise from no information?
how did sapience arise from non-sapience?
If organisms respond to environmental challenges, how does one explain wings?
how does one explain a brontosaurus, what environmental challenge could create this beast?
what environmental challenge could create the brain of modern man?
What was the impetus for man's brain to become what it is, while our cousins the apes are still apes?
I'm sure there are good answers to these question because we are all here.

[Galapagos]

Interesting read for those following along:
Reducibly Complex Blog Archive Anti-Evolution: It’s the New Intelligent Design

Originally Posted by questor

Some of my problems with evolution and the origin of life:
abiogenesis- experiments have formed organic compounds but not life

We are talking about incredibly complex chemical reactions that only needed to happen once 3.8 billion years ago when nobody was around. Does it really surprise you that in the past 50 years since this field was born that we haven't done this yet? For some reason I doubt you clicked the links before, so here you go again:
Panspermia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Abiogenesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by questor

what is life? at what particulate level does it exist? molecular? atomic? sub-atomic?

Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Emergence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by questor

if the sea was the original crucible of life, why did animals need to move to land?

Organisms fill any niche possible, this has already been covered. http://hypography.com/forums/biology...tml#post249131

Originally Posted by questor

what was the diet of the original one celled animal? There was no other life to eat
if DNA is difficult to produce, how did all the different life forms occur early on?
if DNA is information, how does it arise from no information?

RNA world hypothesis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by questor

how did sapience arise from non-sapience?

A magical disembodied personality used its magical powers to grant magical souls and the whole world was a magical place for everyone! Also, AIDS!
Edge: THE ADJACENT POSSIBLE

Originally Posted by questor

If organisms respond to environmental challenges, how does one explain wings?

Origin of avian flight - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by questor

how does one explain a brontosaurus, what environmental challenge could create this beast?

Cope's rule - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by questor

what environmental challenge could create the brain of modern man?
What was the impetus for man's brain to become what it is, while our cousins the apes are still apes?

Psychological adaptation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by questor

I'm sure there are good answers to these question because we are all here.

And what you have been doing is known as the "Gish Gallop".
Duane Gish - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gish gallop - RationalWiki

Originally Posted by wiki

Gish has been characterized as using a rapid-fire approach during a debate, presenting arguments and changing topics very quickly. Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, has dubbed this approach the "Gish Gallop" and criticized Gish for failing to answer objections raised by his opponents.

The entire relevant science community is in consensus questor. Evolution is a fact, and we all evolved from one or a few common ancestors.
Evidence of common descent - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Continue with your argument from ignorance, but it is quite transparent.
You have not conceded or acknowledged any of the points on which you have been wrong(basically all of them) and no evidence has been good enough for you.
You are also yet to explain the alternate hypothesis or why it is more likely. Care to enlighten us?