Theory of Evolution

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Mad Scientist
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# 2168555 27-Jan-2019 18:20

KiwiTim:
Rikkitic:

KiwiTim:

Why should it happen when we are here to observe it? When you multiply these probabilities by all the other tiny probabilities that came together to bring us into existence, it starts to stack up to the point where random chance for all of this looks increasingly absurd and illogical.

How can you state random chance for it is absurd and illogical? On what basis do you make that judgement? What do you have to compare it to? Are you the universal arbiter of how random chance is allowed to work? This doesn't make sense. The Universe couldn't care less whether we are here to observe it or not. It would still carry on the same without us. If it actually is infinite, or even close, every random chance there is will occur regardless of how you feel about it.

I go back to my silly example of a planet with oceans of Coca-cola and continents of marshmallow. Given an infinite amount of time and all the matter in the universe, this perhaps could happen, but I imagine nobody here would ever think it would happen. Why is that? Why do we think this is an absurd improbability (one that will never happen by random processes)? Because we each have a personal perception of how things happen in the natural world, or have knowledge from others to explain why things happen as they do. We simply do not expect oceans of Coke to form based on what we know about chemistry.

We know how probabilities multiply, we know something about thermodynamics, chemistry and biology. You have to follow the evidence or the lack of evidence. Of course, how an individual human perceives reality, the universe, the processes that drive the universe, has no effect on those realities/physical laws/processes. That is a given, but we have to follow the evidence, or lack of evidence where it leads, and absurdly improbable events are not likely to happen. If we wish to assume that everything is possible just because of the size and age of the universe, then we have to include really crazy ideas like the coke ocean, or raining cats and dogs, or moons made of cheese. As far as we know,everything is not possible; physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology constrain events within certain parameters. We have nothing suggesting abiogenesis is within those parameters.

If I dump a load of building supplies on some land, nobody would expect them to self assemble into a house. Why is that? What we know about thermodynamics and entropy suggest it would not happen. I could repeatedly dump those materials onto the site, and maybe they could form some rough hollow structure by chance, but it won't be stable and it won't be a house as we know it. You can take practical examples from the natural world to understand whether something is practically probable or improbable. Of course I'm not a universal arbiter of how random chance works, but everything absurdly improbable is not possible. Find me a moon made of cheese and you might change my mind.

Nevermind that I'm still waiting for my sewage pond which has all the ingredients to form coca cola, to become coca cola, but I would like to point out a popular theory on where ingredients for matter came from. Check out the quantum something from nothing theory. One explanation of what happened before the big bang.

Involuntary autocorrect in operation on mobile device. Apologies in advance.

tdgeek

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# 2168556 27-Jan-2019 18:23

KiwiTim:

I could go through point by point and refute his arguments, but it's not worth my time. This kind of fundamentalist creationism nonsense gives fuel to the atheist movement that promote abiogenesis, which, as I have already explained, has no solid scientific ground to stand on.

So, Ken Ham is a bible creationist, and he is wrong. But abiogenesis is also wrong? So life was not created by God, nor was it created by science?

tdgeek

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# 2168558 27-Jan-2019 18:26

Dratsab:

KiwiTim: Boy, Ken Ham really is an idiot. He is a perfect example of why a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible is totally absurd. Ken, why would you expect the worldview of a people in the bronze age to accurately represent scientific truth as we know it today? What truths biblical authors express in their writings will be embedded within their culture's norms, their communities' teachings and world view (what I call cultural artifacts). Filter that out, and you are left with the true inspirational meaning found within the Bible. The Bible is not a scientific encyclopedia or an accurate record of world history (although some accurately dated historical events are found within it). An analogy I like to make is, if a five year old child was to express their understanding of some natural phenomena, lets say, why precipitation occurs, would we expect this to be an accurate and complete explanation of the phenomena? Of course not! There may be some element of truth in the child's description, but there will be a considerable portion of that description that comes straight out of the child's imagination. So it is with some of the content in the Bible; embedded in a common bronze age worldview, including myths, stories and superstitions.

I could go through point by point and refute his arguments, but it's not worth my time. This kind of fundamentalist creationism nonsense gives fuel to the atheist movement that promote abiogenesis, which, as I have already explained, has no solid scientific ground to stand on.

It's interesting you bring up worldview, because if we place it against a previous statement you've made regarding the moon/sun size comparisons, we see that you've imposed a worldview which attributes the currently similar sizes of both bodies in the sky to design. The moon is in fact moving away from our planet, albeit very slowly (~3.78cm/annum), and has been moving away away since it was created. There's lots of articles available to read about this. Current belief (not fact) in scientific circles is that the moon was only about 22,500km away from earth when first formed through a collision with a Mars-sized planet. At that distance the moon would have been absolutely gigantic in the night sky.

Over the millennia since then the moon has slowly moved away from earth and slowed our planets rotation down from an estimated 5 hour 'day' to the 24 hour 'day' we know now. The theory contends that over many more millennia the moon will have moved away to such a point that it takes 47 'days' to circle the earth and the earth will have slowed down to a point where it takes 47 'days' to rotate once - at this point both bodies will permanently present only one face to each other. The moon will also appear quite small in the night sky.

Over the length of recorded human experience, nothing appears to have changed in regards to the sun and moon distances vs apparent size in the sky but it has. We simply haven't been around and been observant long enough to have recorded changes. I would argue this is testament to our short amount of time here (relatively speaking) as a species capable of recorded observation as opposed to any design.

KiwiTim: There are too many coincidences that need to occur in a very long string of exceedingly small probabilities to come up with life, this planet, this solar system, this universe just by pure natural random processes at work. A very simple observation: why should the moon and the sun be the same approximate size in the sky to an observer on the earth? The Earth-Moon distance, the Earth-Sun distance, the Sun diameter and Moon diameter have to be carefully coordinated to enable this. To me that seems like a small signature of design that is obvious to us all.

Only one +1 is allowed. Ive seen what you post many times on docos.

KiwiTim

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# 2168595 27-Jan-2019 19:35

tdgeek:

KiwiTim:

I could go through point by point and refute his arguments, but it's not worth my time. This kind of fundamentalist creationism nonsense gives fuel to the atheist movement that promote abiogenesis, which, as I have already explained, has no solid scientific ground to stand on.

So, Ken Ham is a bible creationist, and he is wrong. But abiogenesis is also wrong? So life was not created by God, nor was it created by science?

Don't ya love mysteries! I didn't say it was not created by God, but I did say it happened as the fossil record would suggest. Ken Ham is in fairy land.

KiwiTim

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# 2168598 27-Jan-2019 19:41

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Batman:
KiwiTim:

Nevermind that I'm still waiting for my sewage pond which has all the ingredients to form coca cola, to become coca cola, but I would like to point out a popular theory on where ingredients for matter came from. Check out the quantum something from nothing theory. One explanation of what happened before the big bang.

I guess that is why I stopped drinking coke thirty years ago. That explains the colour, and maybe the flavour.

kingdragonfly

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# 2169125 28-Jan-2019 17:23

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2019/01/apollo-astronauts-may-have-brought-a-piece-of-ancient-earth-back-from-the-moon/

Apollo Astronauts May Have Brought A Piece Of Ancient Earth Back From The Moon

A re-analysis of lunar materials collected during the Apollo 14 mission has resulted in a rather astonishing conclusion: One of the rocks brought back appears to contain a small chunk of Earth dating back some four billion years. Incredibly, it’s now amongst the oldest terrestrial rocks known to exist.

New research published this week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters is claiming that a rock fragment embedded within lunar sample 14321 — a 900g rock known as Big Bertha — is of terrestrial origin. The fragment likely reached the Moon’s surface after an asteroid or comet smashed into the Earth, flinging debris into space.

The lead authors of the new study, Jeremy Bellucci from the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Alexander Nemchin from Curtin University in Australia, say this happened around four billion years ago during the Hadean Eon — a time when the fledgling Earth was regularly struck by large objects.

Big Bertha was collected by NASA astronauts Alan Shepard and Edgar Mitchell in 1971 during the Apollo 14 million to the Fra Mauro formation. This rock, along with other lunar samples, are stored at the Lunar Curation Facility at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Sample 14321 is special in that it’s a clast-rich, crystalline matrix breccia.

“In layman’s terms it means this is a rock made from a jumble of previously existing rocks and rock fragments, as well as melt and impactor material formed during a large impact or series of impacts on the Moon,” James Day, a professor at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography who wasn’t involved with the new study, told Gizmodo.

“The sample has been described as a ‘treasure trove’, containing a multitude of clasts of rocks.”

Lunar sample 14321 with an arrow indicating the location of the apparent Earth fragment. (Image: USRA/NASA)
Katie Robinson, a postdoctoral fellow at the LPI-JSC Center for Lunar Science and Exploration and a co-author of the new study, said sample 14321 has been recognised as being unusual for a long time — and only now are we appreciating how unusual it really is.

Packed within this lunar breccia is a 2g felsite clast — fine-grained volcanic rock — containing felsite fragments, including quartz, feldspar and zircon. These materials are commonly found on Earth, but are very uncommon on the Moon. And indeed, a chemical analysis of the sample suggests it formed under terrestrial, rather than lunar, conditions.

“What we did was use the composition of minerals in the fragment to show it formed under conditions that only occur on Earth,” Robinson told Gizmodo.

“For example, the composition of certain minerals are sensitive to temperature and pressure; they contain more or less of various elements if they crystalise in hot or cool, and/or deep or shallow environments. Other minerals can indicate if the rock formed in the presence of lots of oxygen, or in a very oxygen-poor environment.

“Our data shows that this fragment formed in a higher pressure, more oxygen-rich, and lower temperature environment than occurs on the Moon. Essentially, it had to come from an Earth-like environment.”

The Moon just happened to have an Earth-like environment next door in the form of the Earth.

That an ancient asteroid strike could have thrown chunks of terrestrial debris into space and onto the Moon’s surface is not a ridiculous idea. Back during the Hadean, asteroids regularly produced craters thousands of kilometres in diameter. Impacts of this magnitude were capable of pulling out materials from deep within the Earth’s surface. The apparent terrestrial fragment found within Big Bertha formed around 20km below the Earth’s surface — a depth not out of reach for these ancient asteroids.
...

tdgeek

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# 2169181 28-Jan-2019 19:11

I don't get that. Theia collided with Earth about that time. The Moon is Theia and the Earth as the fragments coalesced into the Moon. I can't see how it is surprising as the Moon is inert, no rotation, no wind, it just sits there, inert, so its bound to have Earth as part of its accessible makeup. Or am I missing something?

There will be parts of Theia on Earth but thats long gone form tectonic movement, the turning over of magma and erosion.

kingdragonfly

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# 2169310 28-Jan-2019 20:34

Yep, that's pretty much it. It was announced this month.

With all the activity on Earth, it's pretty much guaranteed we'll never find a four billion year old Earth rock here.

Just more good proof the Earth is older than 6,000 years.

Fred99

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# 2169341 28-Jan-2019 22:21

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kingdragonfly:

Just more good proof the Earth is older than 6,000 years.

That's the beauty of having an omniscient creator. Makes rock <6000 years ago, tricks you into thinking it's older.

mm1352000

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# 2169343 28-Jan-2019 22:37

Fred99:

kingdragonfly:

Just more good proof the Earth is older than 6,000 years.

That's the beauty of having an omniscient creator. Makes rock <6000 years ago, tricks you into thinking it's older.

I suspect most of the people who think that the earth is ~6000 years old prefer to doubt the dating methods. But I'm sure you know that.

Batman

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# 2169349 28-Jan-2019 22:48

mm1352000:

Fred99:

kingdragonfly:

Just more good proof the Earth is older than 6,000 years.

That's the beauty of having an omniscient creator. Makes rock <6000 years ago, tricks you into thinking it's older.

I suspect most of the people who think that the earth is ~6000 years old prefer to doubt the dating methods. But I'm sure you know that.

no way. the easiest method is for our alien to install an update patch to the matrix simulation at around 4000BC/BCE.

Involuntary autocorrect in operation on mobile device. Apologies in advance.

Sidestep

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# 2169388 29-Jan-2019 05:44

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KiwiTim:

If I dump a load of building supplies on some land, nobody would expect them to self assemble into a house. Why is that? What we know about thermodynamics and entropy suggest it would not happen. I could repeatedly dump those materials onto the site, and maybe they could form some rough hollow structure by chance, but it won't be stable and it won't be a house as we know it. You can take practical examples from the natural world to understand whether something is practically probable or improbable. Of course I'm not a universal arbiter of how random chance works, but everything absurdly improbable is not possible. Find me a moon made of cheese and you might change my mind.

Hey! You might find this interesting, it goes against what we understand of entropy and thermodynamics and is so improbable as to seem impossible but:
- I've found a planet where loads of building materials dumped on land often assemble into houses...

It all happens within a thin chemically reactive film covering a rocky, water covered planet bathed in the radiation of a G-type star..

Not only that.. but on this planet many of the ingredients for coke and marshmallow form spontaneously - the assembly of complex molecules from Carbon Hydrogen and Oxygen driven by a certain frequency of radiation from the star. They and the minerals involved separate and recombine through a massively unlikely transport mechanism.. yet apparently Coke's created at 700,000,000 litres per planetary rotation (very unlikely to create oceans, but a lake is possible), Marshmallow's appearing at 300,000 kg per rotation.. certainly the odds of a marshmallow island in the coke lake have improved..

Now - this is the clincher - the planet's producing cheese at 55,000 tonnes per rotation, and in the past 40 solar revolutions has ejected 10,000,000 Kg of random materiel (including a small amount of cheese) into planetary orbit.. It appears the odds of a (small) moon of cheese have increased exponentially..

The whole process appears to be an very unlikely side effect of an extremely unlikely cascading electro-chemical reaction that appears to have begun in a puddle 4 billion of the planet's revolutions around the star ago.

I'm not sure what to call this process yet.. I'm thinking the 'butterfly effect' sounds right.. And to increase the odds of a planet with an actual sea of coke, marshmallow islands and a cheese moon, I think we should collect reacting samples of this electro-chemical process and use them to seed perhaps 40 billion similar planets..

frankv

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# 2169390 29-Jan-2019 07:15

KiwiTim:

If I dump a load of building supplies on some land, nobody would expect them to self assemble into a house.

Right... but your building materials aren't alive. One of the features of life is the ability to extract energy from the environment and use that to alter the environment.

If you put a live monkey amongst your building materials, it will build a rudimentary house.

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# 2169394 29-Jan-2019 07:22

tdgeek:

I can't see how it is surprising as the Moon is inert, no rotation, no wind

The moon rotates once per orbit around Earth. There being no atmosphere, there is obviously no wind.

tdgeek

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# 2169404 29-Jan-2019 07:56

frankv:

tdgeek:

I can't see how it is surprising as the Moon is inert, no rotation, no wind

The moon rotates once per orbit around Earth. There being no atmosphere, there is obviously no wind.

If you choose part of what I said, you end up with the wrong sentence. I did not say its surprising that the Moon has no wind

I said "The Moon is Theia and the Earth as the fragments coalesced into the Moon. I can't see how it is surprising as the Moon is inert, no rotation, no wind, it just sits there, inert"

I.e. It is not surprising that parts of The Earth are on the Moon as the Moon is inert, no rotation, no wind i.e. it will be undisturbed, a comma after the word surprising should have been there though

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