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Old December 12th, 2002, 07:06 AM
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Default Re: Mod Idea: Simulating surfaces -> Borg Technology -> Twinkie Physics -> Worldviews

Now forces sound more like the Force. I get the idea that the answer for anything dealing with stellar evolution, etc, is "It's always been there." Doesn't sound too scientific (i.e., verifiable) to me. Sounds more like a belief or faith.

No, they sound nothing like the Force. The Force sounds more like religious mumbo-jumbo than any natural laws. Again, give me a time machine, and then we can go back in time until we see if there was a beginning, or if it is continuous. That is really the only way to prove beyond a doubt what happened that long ago in the past.

I defy you to tell me what was in the primordial goo or what the conditions on earth were like. That's unverifiable. To come up with some soup in a laboratory, hook up a spark plug, come out with some amino acids, and then assume that you somehow must have hit on the combination that existed is unscientific. To say, "Well, it must have existed--after all, here we are!" is so far from logic that it's not worth debunking. Also, there is a world of difference between organic molecules and life. The "simplest" cell is orders of magnitudes more complex than the most complex organic molecule. (I know. Given enough time and the random chances of enough of the right molecules landing in the right places in this worldwide primordial goo...)

The "simplest cell" is made of organic molecules. But, the first organism-like things were not full cells.

There is a world of difference between continued production of organic molecules and cellular reproduction.

Not that much of one.

Hume's argument stretches the premises beyond their logical extension, by cleverly wording the design argument. No creationist would say that man's creation and God's creation are like results from like effects. If the universe is without edge and without center (as is commonly said), then God would have created an infinite creation. Man never comes close to infinite creation. In fact, man never comes close to the complexity found in "simple" organisms. Given enough time and chance, though, I'm sure we could come up with something.

A number of your arguments sure sound like the Design Argument to me.

Where did I say this? I'm wondering what allowed intermediate forms to live with partially developed 1) circulatory systems, 2) respiratory systems, 3) transportation systems, 4) digestive systems, etc. For that matter, if the "super-carp" is better, why do we have carp today? If each step up is better by definition, we should have run out of lower forms quite some time ago. The answer, of course, is random chance.

You said it continuously. Not explicitly, but implicitly.

All 4 of those systems exist in ALL LIFEFORMS. Single-celled organisms have all of them. They are not as complex as in animals and such, but they are there. As organisms started becoming multicellular, the cells started to become more specialized. Then, you eventually got macroscopic organisms that have what you would call "1) circulatory systems, 2) respiratory systems, 3) transportation systems, 4) digestive systems". There was never such a thing as a lion with no circulatory system. That is just absurd. All of those became more complex as the organisms became more complex.

Not all carp evolve into other creatures. Only some do. Each step up is not necessarily absolutely better, it is different. Sometimes it is better, sometimes equal, sometimes worse.

First, you missed the point of the question. The entire system needs to be present to function. How did species with one or two parts survive before the rest of the system developed? Random chance saw to it that it all worked out.

THEY DIDNT! All parts evolved simultaneously.

How did it happen that DNA and RNA both happened in the same cell (all surviving cells, actually), with DNA in an incredible double-helix, and DNA unwound itself and unzipped, and an RNA molecule snuggled up to it and made a copy, and the DNA then zipped back up and rewound. Random chance?

The first organisms did not have as complex DNA as exists in the modern day.

Typo. What is so scientific about the idea of hydrogen becoming human? In other words, life from unlife. What about the experiments of Redi and Pasteur? Are they bogus? Or didn't they have enough time (or just bad chance)?

I have already explained how life comes from "unlife", as you put it.

Your verifiable, testable, provable scientific explanations included "random" or "chance" at least ten times. In fact, we're to believe that everything in biological evolution (not to mention planetary, stellar, and elemental evolution) is the amazing result of random chances. I believe in a supernatural (i.e., non-verifiable, non-scientific) miraculous creation of the universe and everything in it. You believe in a materialistic, statistical miracle of such proportions based on so many unverifiable, unsubstantiated assumptions that I'd be ashamed to admit it.

Sigh...
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