Theory of Evolution

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#2164486 20-Jan-2019 23:48

TwoSeven:
Hammerer:

Science is most definitely a belief system! It is built on a number of important coherent beliefs.

Nonsense (from my perspective)

Okay, if science is not a belief system, what word(s) would you use to describe the "coherent beliefs" (to use Hammerer's words) that were laid out earlier?

...or do you not think that the "beliefs" are necessary/useful for application of the scientific method and its results?

KiwiTim

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#2164531 21-Jan-2019 08:37

kingdragonfly: There's no shortage of ideas how life started

https://www.livescience.com/13363-7-theories-origin-life.html

Introduction

Life on Earth began more than 3 billion years ago, evolving from the most basic of microbes into a dazzling array of complexity over time. But how did the first organisms on the only known home to life in the universe develop from the primordial soup?

It started with an electric spark

Molecules of life met on clay

Life began at deep-sea vents

Life had a chilly start

The answer lies in understanding DNA formation

The widely cited Miller-Urey experiments don’t really give us much. They included invalid assumptions of the early Earth’s atmosphere. Miller & Urey assumed the Earth’s atmosphere was composed of reducing gases, when in fact research has indicated that it was most likely composed largely of carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The other issue is that the experiment produced equal quantities of left handed and right handed amino acids. Biological molecules exclusively use left handed forms and the presence of a right handed form disrupts function. I can’t think of any experiments that show how forming biological compounds could preferentially select only left handed forms. This is quite a problem.

I recall school biology textbooks presenting the story of lightning and some, warm pool of pre-biological compounds forming by natural processes, evolving to greater and greater complexity. What happens when you supply energy to some warm pool of biological molecules? It’s like making chicken soup, as heat increases the reaction rate between compounds speeds up, but the overall average molecule size will be driven to some thermodynamically stable equilibrium point, not to ever increasing complexity. If you leave your pot of soup on the stove top too long, the large particles are broken down so that the most thermodynamically stable average particle size is reached.

The “RNA World” hypothesis has been around for a long time. I think it was Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel that came up with it in the late 1960’s. Orgel stated himself, “It may be claimed, without too much exaggeration, that the problem of the origin of life is the problem of the origin of the RNA World”. Orgel writes a candid critique of the problems of the RNA World in “Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of the RNA World”. That theory is far from being solid. If you want a good technical read look here: http://www.d.umn.edu/~pschoff/documents/OrgelRNAWorld.pdf

An example of an origins researcher who abandoned chemical evolution is Dr Dean Kenyon, who spent much of his career researching a naturalistic explanation for the origin of first life. He co-authored "Biochemical Predestination", which became a bestselling advanced-level text on chemical evolution. Despite his years of research on origins, he eventually came to the view that a theory of naturalistic evolution of non-life to life on the early Earth was unsustainable.

I think it was Francis Crick and Fred Hoyle that came up with Panspermia because they could not see a naturalistic pathway to abiogenesis. Hoyle (astronomer) and Wickramasinghe (mathematician) calculated the probability of a very basic cell forming by chance at 1/10^40,000. Compare this to the fact that there is less than 10^80 atoms in the universe. Francis Crick, fully aware of the complexity of biological molecules, could not accept chemical evolution for the origin of first life, which is why he came up with Panspermia, but really that is just pushing the problem off to some other world that we have no evidence of. It’s very unlikely that some dormant, resistant propagules of life could travel through vast regions of space without being destroyed, and it’s very unlikely they would find their way here. Panspermia is not credible, but it’s great for a Sci-Fi movie. But yes, organic carbon containing compounds on asteroids can get here, but that’s not viable propagules of life.

Kingdragonfly, most of the examples you cite above don’t give us any solid proof for abiogenesis. Most of it is wishful thinking. Real science is based on reproducible research that can withstand rigorous testing. If any of your examples above were paradigm shifting examples of the origin of life, they would make global headlines; they would be made into award winning scientific documentaries; most life science degree programs in the world’s best universities would have them as majors or individual subjects within majors. Instead we find this kind of origins research is usually very briefly mentioned in degree programs before the content is moved on to vastly more solid and proven biological theories. That shows the true worth and relevance of origins research so far.

kingdragonfly

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#2164547 21-Jan-2019 09:19

If anyone said they knew all the answers to the origins of life, they'd be lying.

This includes religious leaders.

However science moves forward, while religion stays stuck in the past, anchored to texts hundreds even thousands years old.

The relevance of the origins research is the same as climbing a mountain to see what's there, instead of saying "the Gods live at the top of the mountain; we'll anger them if we look."

The other relevance to the research is the ultimate question: "are we alone in the universe?"

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#2164550 21-Jan-2019 09:21

Batman:

One possible explanation is that aliens have access to dimensions that we have access to, so we can't see them and they either can see us ignore us or can't see us (we are in a higher dimension). I'll try to find a link later

Existence of higher dimensions that we have no access to is irrelevant. If we can't sense them, they're not part of our universe. And, if we can't sense them, they can't change anything in our universe.

KiwiTim

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#2164564 21-Jan-2019 09:48

kingdragonfly: If anyone said they knew all the answers to the origins of life, they'd be lying.

This includes religious leaders.

However science moves forward, while religion stays stuck in the past, anchored to texts hundreds even thousands years old.

The relevance of the origins research is the same as climbing a mountain to see what's there, instead of saying "the Gods live at the top of the mountain; we'll anger them if we look."

The other relevance to the research is the ultimate question: "are we alone in the universe?"

I agree with you there. There are no solid proofs in religion or science on this topic.

I think how one interprets religious texts depends entirely on your perception of their origin. If you can extrapolate from them some relevant truths from the authors' worldview and culture, whether that be insight to the human mind and spirit, accumulated wisdom passed down through many generations , or, if you believe in it, divine inspiration, then they have worth. I'd be the first to admit that religious texts contain multiple myths, exaggerations, inaccuracies and cultural artifacts.

mm1352000

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#2164581 21-Jan-2019 10:06

kingdragonfly: However science moves forward, while religion stays stuck in the past, anchored to texts hundreds even thousands years old.

I wonder: what would a religion that didn't stay "stuck in the past" look like to you? I mean, from the perspective of religions, they have already found ultimate/absolute truth. Where is there to go beyond that?

kingdragonfly: The relevance of the origins research is the same as climbing a mountain to see what's there, instead of saying "the Gods live at the top of the mountain; we'll anger them if we look."

Hmmm. I find it interesting that from the beginning of science to today some of the most influential scientists have been Christian, and that it was their faith/beliefs and wonder that drove them to want to understand the universe. They saw science and Christianity as complementary.

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#2164583 21-Jan-2019 10:12

There is such a thing as overintellectualising a problem. We are here. Therefore, life is possible. Just because monkeys can't figure out how a cell phone works doesn't prove that cell phones can't exist.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

mm1352000

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#2164584 21-Jan-2019 10:13

KiwiTim: That shows the true worth and relevance of origins research so far.

In your opinion, does the lack of a credible naturalistic abiogenesis theory throw any shade on the Theory of Evolution, or do you consider them entirely independently?

KiwiTim

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#2164602 21-Jan-2019 10:30

mm1352000:

KiwiTim: That shows the true worth and relevance of origins research so far.

In your opinion, does the lack of a credible naturalistic abiogenesis theory throw any shade on the Theory of Evolution, or do you consider them entirely independently?

As I explained in my first post, evolutionary theory is made up of different component parts. Each component of the theory must be able to endure rigorous testing and investigations. The failure of one component doesn't mean we cast out the whole theory. If the other components hold up to testing, then we keep them unless something is proven to falsify an individual component.

The lack of credible abiogenesis does not make the findings of the fossil record, biogeography or genetics any less true.

kingdragonfly

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#2164616 21-Jan-2019 10:47

I'm going change tack slightly.

Many may know that medieval Islam saved a lot of knowledge during the European dark ages. Without Islam, the Renaissance would have been much slower, possibly by centuries.

We owe a lot of math to Islam: decimal fractions, the first systematized study of algebra, advances in geometry and trigonometry.

So what happened between the time of medieval Islam, Golden Age of Islam, and now where there are few Muslim Nobel Laureates in sciences, and the IS forbids math, social studies and evolution being taught?

Traditional Islam ulema banned efforts to formulate systematic explanation of natural phenomenon with "natural laws."

It's still claimed scientist formulating "natural laws" are blasphemous because they limit "God's freedom to act" as He wishes: "God sendeth whom He will astray, and guideth whom He will."

Here's a web page called "Why are there so few Muslim Nobel Laureates in sciences?"

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-there-so-few-Muslim-Nobel-Laureates-in-sciences

Obviously this is a very politically charged racially sensitive subject.

TwoSeven

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#2164662 21-Jan-2019 12:36

mm1352000:
TwoSeven:
Hammerer:

Science is most definitely a belief system! It is built on a number of important coherent beliefs.

Nonsense (from my perspective)

Okay, if science is not a belief system, what word(s) would you use to describe the "coherent beliefs" (to use Hammerer's words) that were laid out earlier?

...or do you not think that the "beliefs" are necessary/useful for application of the scientific method and its results?

I would suggest that the scientific method is not a belief system - so I would not go down the path of trying to justify people that think it is.

See an eariler post about the understanding of the word theory vs scientific theory. The point being made is aound the concept of being able to use the correct language with the discipline (and the point I may have made earlier about science not being understood).

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mm1352000

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#2164744 21-Jan-2019 13:32

TwoSeven:
mm1352000:

TwoSeven:
Hammerer:

Science is most definitely a belief system! It is built on a number of important coherent beliefs.

Nonsense (from my perspective)

Okay, if science is not a belief system, what word(s) would you use to describe the "coherent beliefs" (to use Hammerer's words) that were laid out earlier?

...or do you not think that the "beliefs" are necessary/useful for application of the scientific method and its results?

I would suggest that the scientific method is not a belief system - so I would not go down the path of trying to justify people that think it is.

See an eariler post about the understanding of the word theory vs scientific theory. The point being made is aound the concept of being able to use the correct language with the discipline (and the point I may have made earlier about science not being understood).

Okay.

I understand the importance of words, including the earlier example relating to the word theory. Nevertheless, I do think Hammerer has a point. In my opinion there exist what I would describe as assumptions that are implicit in and/or provide a critical underpinning for the scientific method. The study of these assumptions is covered by the philosophy of science. Personally I think it is useful - even important - to identify and acknowledge these assumptions.

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#2165032 21-Jan-2019 21:55

kingdragonfly: We owe a lot of math to Islam: decimal fractions, the first systematized study of algebra, advances in geometry and trigonometry.

We owe all these things to Arab and Persian scholars, not necessarily the religion.

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#2165323 22-Jan-2019 12:46

mm1352000:
Okay.

I understand the importance of words, including the earlier example relating to the word theory. Nevertheless, I do think Hammerer has a point. In my opinion there exist what I would describe as assumptions that are implicit in and/or provide a critical underpinning for the scientific method. The study of these assumptions is covered by the philosophy of science. Personally I think it is useful - even important - to identify and acknowledge these assumptions.

Out of interest, the thought process one is having in the above paragraph is how one would engage in the scientific method.

The actual process (implimentation one might follow) would be relevant to the sub-section of science known as ‘Social Science’.

- So one has now formed an opinion, otherwise known as a conjecture. This is based on incomplete information.

- The next stage on this is to ‘form your question’ around which you need to do some research - both supporting and non-supporting.

- Once you have your question and some research, it is possible to come up with a tentative hypothesis for your question.

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#2165388 22-Jan-2019 14:01

You do know this thread will only end when the aliens turn up

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