Creation vs. Evolution

[H2Andy]

watches don't have DNA

if there is a God, you need to look to DNA to find him

as someone said earlier, evolution is not about the creation of life. it is about the evolution of life once it is already created

for that reason, and at its most basic, God and evolution are not mutually exclusive

(for the record, I don't believe in God. i am simply recongizing that evolution does not preclude the existence of one)

 

[MikeFerrara]

You don't think that if the pin found the hole, one iteration might land on the pin with sufficient force to drive it into the hole? I sure do.

No, I don't. I intentionally started with pins that are bigger than the holes in order to make a point.

You say you added it, but it might have just been a feature of the environment the parts were being shaken in. You are providing design where there is none. Sure you could *intentionally* add this to the experiment, but it is not necessary that there be intention for that force to be prevalent.

This is the whole basis of the book.

Read it, and when you better understand what's going on, then we can talk again.

Let me ask you this.

Do you believe that a wolf can evolve into a dog? Or that a big dog can evolve into a small dog?

I'm probably a little rusty but remember a little about statistics and probability. The point I was trying to make is that if it's impossible (the pin is bigger than the hole requireing something that isn't there be added to get them together) the probability is zero. That makes all the calculations easy.

As it relates to the genisis of life, the questions is, what other forces or ingredients are required beyond what's in the list of chemicals. If the process could and did happen naturally, ok. If we know what that process is, we shouldn't need to rely on probability, we should just be able to make it happen to demonstrate that we know what the ingredients and the process are. I don't believe you can throw a bunch of parts in a bunch of bags and jumble it all up and make a watch but we can make one.

I certainly believe that species change. We can see that much with animal breeding, hybred plants, ect. How far can that process go in how much time? I don't know, but the scope of the question we've been discussing in this thread is a little broader than that. Hasn't the question become, did (or could) it all happen without a creator? Maybe abiogenesis isn't part of the theory of evolution but it seems a key part of are discussion here.

 

[lamont]

It is a simple concept but...after 17 years of engineering experience in various manufacturing related areas, my money says you can't throw a bunch of watch parts up in the air or put them in a bag and shake them and end up with a watch, regardless of how many billions of years you allow for the process. The simple reason is that there are aspects of the assembly process not accounted for by a list of parts.

A watch is too complicated. Lets take something easier. Take a piece of metal (any metal) and put a hole in it. Take another and make a pin out of it. Size the pin for a press fit into the hole. Now put the two pieces in a bag and shake it or throw them into the air for 5, 10 or 20 billion years and see if a pin ever gets pressed into the hole. Put a bunch of those parts in a bag and shake it. I bet they abrade to dust before any pins get pressed into any holes.

I think we really do need a watch maker to end up with a watch.

You are still missing the damn point.

First of all evolution can't make anything that can't be randomly assembled. It isn't going to be able to manufacture anything short of evolving beings that can understand manufacturing. By picking an object like a watch which requires manufacturing as your analogy, of course you can conclude that there must be a manufacturer.

Second of all evolution goes in short steps and there must be intermediate steps along the way which are evolutionarily favorable. So, on the road to evolving an eye you start with single-celled light patches. Organisms with them can respond to their environment better and survive better than organisms without them. There's no corresponding selection for a fraction of watch. You don't have a corresponding process where once you assemble two parts correctly that configuration is evolutionarily favorable and it replicates until the two correctly assembled parts are ubiquitously found (enhacing the probability that randomly you'll get a third piece assembled, etc).

Once life/DNA has figured out a piece of the puzzle it replicates like crazy which makes it more likely that it figures out the next piece of the puzzle and builds on what happened randomly before.

 

[lamont]

What's special about the watch (or lots of other gismos that we could use) is the assembly process and tooling. I tried to use an example that would be clear and simple. The press fit pin. Without sufficient force applied to the pin, it just can't go in the hole no matter how long you wait. It's just physics. The force needed to drive the pin into the hole is necessary but doesn't show up in the list of parts. Time doesn't eliminate the need for sufficient force. We started without putting a source for the force into the bag. Hey, I made a rhyme! Anyway, we don't need millions of parts or millions of years to show that it's physically impossible to get that pin into the hole without sufficient force.

And you've just proven that evolution (random mutation and natural selection) will never put together a watch. I agree completely. Zero relevance to evolution.

 

[Warthaug]

As it relates to the genisis of life, the questions is, what other forces or ingredients are required beyond what's in the list of chemicals. If the process could and did happen naturally, ok. If we know what that process is, we shouldn't need to rely on probability, we should just be able to make it happen to demonstrate that we know what the ingredients and the process are.

We can, and do, make the initial 4 steps occur. The problem with the remainder of the process is scale and time - scale in that life formed within the volume of the earths ocean; something we as humans lack access to, and time - the process took hundreds of millions of years, which is unobservable to us.

The irony is that the very thing you ask for - to produce life via abiotic methods in the time/volume of a lab, would effectively disprove our existing tholes of abiogenesis. The existing models of abiogenesis pretty much dictate that the later stages of life's development occurred slowly.

Or in other words, you're asking us to disprove our own theories in order to "prove" those theories.

I don't believe you can throw a bunch of parts in a bunch of bags and jumble it all up and make a watch but we can make one.

But life isn't a watch. Watches lack heredity, selection, self-organization, and self-assembly. Life, and the molecules which make up life, have these characteristics. Another way of thinking about it is that the pieces which make up the watch are fixed, the pieces which make up life are variable. So your watch can never be made abiogenically because the pieces don't fit without some assembly tools. With the formation of life the pieces will fit, because the pieces will change to fit one another. Granted, the first "watch" you get out of isn't going to be all that grand, but once formed the watch will continue to evolve - maybe even into a rolex

Bryan

 

[Soggy]

No, I don't. I intentionally started with pins that are bigger than the holes in order to make a point.

Of course you can't combine parts that won't fit together. Certain chemical compounds can occur, and others can't. I'm not trying to get you to allow for a square peg to fit into a round hole. It's acknowledging that the round peg might end up in the round hole by chance after they are thrown up in the air together a bazillion times.

I certainly believe that species change. We can see that much with animal breeding, hybred plants, ect. How far can that process go in how much time?

I'm glad I have gotten you to accept evolution. Maybe we can move on now.
DNA is the only thing that matters. A little chance, a lot of change, it's all the same. The only difference is time and cumulative selection.

Hasn't the question become, did (or could) it all happen without a creator? Maybe abiogenesis isn't part of the theory of evolution but it seems a key part of are discussion here.

We aren't arguing the existence of a deity. We're arguing the requirement for said deity to be involved in the evolution of species and the simple fact, it is not.

 

[H2Andy]

And you've just proven that evolution (random mutation and natural selection) will never put together a watch. I agree completely. Zero relevance to evolution.

as i said earlier, watches don't have DNA

 

[lamont]

ok, so take a few shovels full of whatever stuff you want and bring it to life. A single cell would be impressive but it would be really great if we could bring your creation into the conversation and get it's perspective on all this.

It took a billion years, its a bit more difficult than that.

One of the big problem is that DNA was so remarkably successful that it obliterated all intermediate forms so we're left with only the end product of evolution. One of the exciting prospects about looking for organic molecules and life on other planets in our solar system (like Mars and Europa) are that we might find life in the beginning or intermediate stages of evolution because the process should run slower there. That could help fill the gaps in our understanding of how DNA evolved.

 

[MikeFerrara]

watches don't have DNA

No they don't. I don't know who picked that analogy but it isn't one that I would have picked. LOL

if there is a God, you need to look to DNA to find him

I'm not convinced that this has been demonstrated.

as someone said earlier, evolution is not about the creation of life. it is about the evolution of life once it is already created

The genesis of life might be a seperate study from evolution but it is part of a case for creation without a creator.

for that reason, and at its most basic, God and evolution are not mutually exclusive

(for the record, I don't believe in God. i am simply recongizing that evolution does not preclude the existence of one)

I have to agree that evolution and God are not mutually exclusive. I do believe in God and I believe He did the creating but I don't know exactly how he did it.

Is the glass part full or part empty? As much as science shows how much we know, it shows how we don't know. It shows what we can't do maybe better than it shows what we can. We still can't cure the common cold...along with a whole host of far more nasty diseases. We can make sure that everyone eats, has shelter or can get through a day without being brutalized. Little has changed over the eons except that we have larger numbers of people starving and being killed and we can watch it all on TV. Every day there are about a thousand experts on TV explaining what is happening and why but nobody has any power to do anything about it. I think, depending on your point of view that it showes one of a couple of things. Either we really need God or we need a whole bunch of evolution in a hurry.

 

[MikeFerrara]

And you've just proven that evolution (random mutation and natural selection) will never put together a watch. I agree completely. Zero relevance to evolution.

I agree. I didn't bring up the watch. Soggy did. I just ran with it. LOL