Of COURSE a complex molecule, like DNA, wouldn't spontaneously assemble itself from an elemental soup. But I can add aluminum 2 quartz and make an alluminosillicate compound, then add something else, then something else - see what happens and add something else...

The issue is...what does science prove or disprove. there is no evidence that one molecule of protein has ever been created or could be created due to natural processes...on their own.

Hi MM, et al.

Since you started your other thread, I'll just not "disrupt" that one. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/pfft.gif" alt="" />


I was trying to remember the details of that famous lab experiment in which organic gases in a round, glass container - gases similar to those found in the atmospheres of planets in our very own solar system (that revolves around the sun, that is) - were subjected to electric charges mimicing electrostatic charges (lighting) also known to be present on those very same planets. You've probably seen the pictures - the interior surface of the glass globe turned scummy brown after a pretty short while. The brown stuff? Amino acids, I recall. But I wasn't sure that's what they were or if I was remembering the experiment correctly - it's been quite a long time ago.

Enter Google.

Searching for "create + amino" yielded quite a bit of "non- evidence". Try it yourself. Here's the very first hit:
NASA Scientists Create Amino Acids in Deep-Space-Like Environment

This isn't even the experiment I was trying to recall.

MM - again, making absolute statements is your Achilles Heel. This detracts from your credibility. Measured statements, at least acknowledging that there is little absoluteness, are far more honest. For example, instead of proclaiming "Evolutionary scientists are beginning to doubt.....", it's far more credible to state, "Some self proclaimed evolutionary scientists are disagreeing with the overwhelming majority of real evolutionary scientists....."

See the difference?

WAT

He was smart enough to know that if you start with inert gases like nitrogen and carbon dioxide, they won't react.

Why not say "self proclaimed evolutionary scientists" believe in evolution? Because all evolutionary scientists are self proclaimed, arent they?? This does not make sense.

My simple hypothesis is this. Although I believe in God as stated in the Bible and the events thereto... isn't it possible that a tornado could go through a junkyard and assemble a functional 747? Sure.. it is rediculously far-fetched. Mathematically impossible... blah blah.
but... if it happened tomorrow.... how many people would be in the bandwagon of "look what god did!!!"
and how many would be in the bandwagon of "random event"

Nice try, MM, but no cigar.


I doubt he thought that. Last time I checked the periodic table, nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen were not inert gases.

Inset gases have full outer electron shells and thus, cannot normally react chemically. Carbon dioxide is a compound, thus using the term "inert" with refernece is non-sensical.

But I'll spot you this oversight, not being an educated scientist.

Let me help you. What you mean to argue is that for Stanley's experiment to replicate what could have happened on earth, one needs to assume that oxygen was not present in sufficient quantities to disrupt the chemical reaction. But you might thus incorrectly follow (minor premise, major conclusion) that since everybody KNOWS that oxygen has always been around on this rock, therefore evolution COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED!!!!

Regardless, you do stand corrected that your earlier "no evidence" claim regarding naturally occurring amino acids is wrong, right?

WAT

I'm confused with what random events and tornadoes assembling 747's have to do with evolution. Darwin's theory of evolution is that evolutionary change is not random-it's predictable (the opposite of random), because it follows predictable laws. Any inheritable characteristic that enhances an organism's chance of survival will increase in a population; any inheritable characteristic that decreases an organisms chance of survival will decrease in a population. Any inheritable characteristic that enhances an organism's chance of reproductive success will increase in a population; any inheritable characteristic that decreases an organism's chance of reproductive success will decrease in a population. You may or may not believe that's true, but you can hardly call it random. The hallmark of a tenable theory is that it generates hypotheses that can be tested, i.e, that it helps scientists make predictions. Evolutionary theory has been doing that for well over a hundred years now. You can believe Darwin, you can disbelieve him, I don't care. But for someone to assume that he was talking about random processes when he was doing just the opposite simply mystifies me.

Okay...a brief blurb on Evolution...while I continue to compile the new marriage thread...

Evolution theory has splintered into several groups, as it tries to combat its weaknesses.

1. The first theory, the original theory, was random chance. A lot of scientists on the evolutionary side have left this theory, due to the findings that show that it is just impossible for life to have been created thru random chance. A couple reasons....well, first, check this out:

If we took all of the carbon in the universe and placed it on Earth, allowed it to chemically react at the fastest rate possible, and did so for a billion years, the odds of creating just ONE functional protein molecule would be one chance in a 10 with 60 zeros after it.

Wow. Takes a lot of faith to believe in something with odds that bad!! Odds like that are called a statistical impossibility. But, instead of all of those zeros, lets use those odds to get a real picture of just how crazy random theory is.

The possibility of linking together just one hundred amino acids to create one protein molecule by chance is the same as a blindfolded man finding one marked grain of sand somewhere in the Sahara Desert...and doing so not just once, but three times.

Sir Frederick Hoyle stated that the probability of random chance occuring and producing ONE protein molecule is the same as a tornado going thru a junkyard and and accidentally assembling a functional Boeing 747.

Basically, the odds are ZERO for random chance!!

2. The next theory in the evolutionary realm is what is called chemical affinity. In this, scientists state that amino acids must have some kind of affinity or attraction to spontaneously link up to create the protein molecules that life is made of. It is called Biochemical Predestination. With computer modeling of all of the known protein sequences, scientists (including the man that was the proponent of this theory) have repudiated it. Amino acids were found not to have this affinity.

3. The next is self-ordering tendencies. Which in big dictionary, scientific terms, is called the Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics theory. It basically says that if energy is passed thru a system at a high enough rate, the system will become unstable and rearrange itself into an alternate and somewhat more complicated form.

This theory uses water draining out of a bathtub as an example. As the bathtub drains, it just has molecules randomly dropping down the drain. But toward the end of the draining, the exit becomes much more orderly as the molecules spontaneously form a vortex.

The problem is even the author of this theory admits that there is a huge gap between the ordering of water molecules in the bathtub scenario, and the higly complex orderign of amino acids to create life.

Basically, in order to understand what is going on here...you have to see that where this ordering goes on in nature, it is at a low level of complexity. Water molecules coming to order in the vortex is like writing "Darwin is a man," "Darwin is a man," "Darwin is a man" over and over again in a blank book. What life requires, the complexity of life requires, is not just order. In the book example, life requires a complexity where the order is of such magnitude that the book is filled with meaningful sentences that tell a story.

Again, even the proponent of this theory admits the HUGE gaps in proving it.

4. Some scientists believe life was seeded from space. First off, this theory is great in that it shows that scientists are now coming around to believe that there is no way life could have been created on this earth thru prebiology evolution. So they have to look to space now for the answers. This is where they speculate that life was planted here by asteroids or something like that.

Now first off, the question is...if life was on that asteroid, then how did it get there? How was that life made? Even if it was from a planet made up of all the right materials, that planet is still subkect to the same probablities we discussed above in random ordering of amino acids. It is just as statistically impossible there, as it is here.

The second thing is this. Even if an asteroid did bring the amino acids here...we still have to get them assembled here...into life. And we talked about that above.

5. Some have hypothesized about vents in the ocean. These vents and the material that they belch out, is said to provide the building blocks for life. And while the events do provide a source of energy for this process, this theory still does not address how you assemble these acids into the right sequence with the right connections. Which was discussed above.

6. Another theory is that life formed in clay, where the environment is supposed to be condusive for life to form. While the clay is better than water in proiding a condusive environment, we still go back to the orderign and sequencing problems above. How is the clay going to impart order and sequencing on these molecules in order to create the proteins needed for life? All the clay can impart is repetitive information...just like the book scenario listed above.

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Many scientists now are admitting that they are at a dead end right now in this line. Here is a quote from one of the proponents of these theories (Klaus Dose), about the current state of the evolutionary scinetific theories:


Quote:
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More than thirty years of experimentation on the origin of life in the fields of chemical and molecular evolution have led to a better perception of the immensity of the problem of the origin of life on Earth rather than to its solution. At present, all discussions on principle theories and experiments in the field either end in a stalemate or in a confession of ignorance.


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Wow!! And that is from a proponent of evolutionary thought...not a creationist!!

Here's another proponent (Crick):
Quote:
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Every time I write a paper on the origin of life, I swear I will never write another one, because there is too much speculation running after too few facts.


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So, if natural scientific laws cant explain the origin of life, then what is the answer??? An Intelligent Designer!! And the way you realize that the overwhelming evidence points to a Creator is using the scientific method of using analogies from things we know in order to understand things we dont.

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The Analogical Method says this: "If the analogy of two phenomena be very close and striking, while, at the same time, the cause of one is very obvious, it becomes scarcely possible to refuse to admit the action of an analogous cause on the other, though not so obvious itself."

So using this Analogical Method, we then look at the origin of life. If the only time we see written information, on paper or a cave wall, is when there is intelligence behind it, then wouldnt that be true in nature also?? DNA is nothing but encoded, written information. We use a 26 letter alphabet. DNA uses a 4 letter chemical alphabet. These letters combine in many ways to make words, sentences and paragraphs. These paragraphs are all of the information that guide the cell in its forming and functioning.

So, when we see written languafe, we can infer that it has intelligence behind it. Legitimately, just like science does i nother areas, we can use the Analogical Method in order to that the written information in DNA had an intelligent cause. So, the question of the origin of life now moves from "what" caused it, to "Who" caused it. As Carl Sagan once said, the receipt of one message fro mspace would be enough to prove intelligent life in space. And if that single message is enough for us to conclude that there is life in space, then what about the VAST amounts of info in the DNA of plants and animals?? Each cell in the human body contains more information than all thrity volumes of an encylopedia.

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In order for evolutionists to keep the Creator out of the origin of life, they have to find a way for life to be created in a way to provide this information, these volumes of written information, randomly. They have not done so.

But, the evidence overwhelmingly points that there has to be a Creator for these things to exist.