Terrible news for the Creation Science museum (and Republicans)

Cypress said:
Yes, there is a record of ancient single celled archaeon, cyanobacteria, and prokaryotes in Earth's fossil record. This is corroborated in some cases by isotopic data

It is shocking that anyone who wants to be taken seriously in a discussion of life's origins would be oblivious to that scientific fact.
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So, it’s a ‘fact’ that these organisms self organized from organic compounds?
 
Into the Night said:
Irrelevant. Age does not affect a philosophical argument.
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Falsification is an element of scientific practice, but your worship of Karl Popper's criteria of demarcation does not reflect the reality of how professional science is practiced.

Popper had a misplaced impression of a triumphant progression of science based on the relentless falsification of bogus theories to shrink the scope of our ignorance.

That is not the way it works.

Scientific progress would be at a virtual standstill if we took Karl Popper literally at his word.

We did not throw out Newton's theories of gravitation because the phenomena of dark energy seemed to contradict Newtonian mechanics.

We are not going to discard the theory of general relativity because we discovered it does not work at quantum scales.

Science is going to progress by inference to the best explanation as much as it does by Popper's philosophy of science.
 
Cypress said:
I see how you shifted the goal posts rather than admit you were unaware of that an ancient fossil record of bacteria exist in the geologic record.
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Granted.

As you have yet to prove that abiogenesis is a ‘fact’. I’ve literally never heard of such a claim.
 
Darth Omar said:
Granted.

As you have yet to prove that abiogenesis is a ‘fact’. I’ve literally never heard of such a claim.
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I believe I either said, or directly implied, it is a scientific fact.

Science cannot accept supernatural explanations.

It cannot be proven that abiogenesis was a providential miracle. Maybe it was.

But that is the realm of theology.

The fact that all cells, all DNA molecules, all genes, all proteins, all amino acids are all constructed from a few basic elements found widely in the environment - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus -- indicates scientifically that life arose from a pre-biotic soup of inert chemicals.

That is abiogenesis. There is no other way scientifically to read those facts.

Even the cop out of saying life was seeded from another planet cannot escape the conclusion that life emerged from the complex organization of very basic and common chemicals. At the elemental and atomic level, there is nothing exotic about life. Atomically, it is made up of the same stuff the universe is.

The question is, we do not know what the chemical or physical mechanism is that kick started biological emergence.
 
Cypress said:
I believe I either said, or directly implied, it is a scientific fact.

Science cannot accept supernatural explanations.

It cannot be proven that abiogenesis was a providential miracle. Maybe it was.

But that is the realm of theology.

The fact that all cells, all DNA molecules, all genes, all proteins, all amino acids are all constructed from a few basic elements found widely in the environment - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus -- indicates scientifically that life arose from a pre-biotic soup of inert chemicals.

That is abiogenesis. There is no other way scientifically to read those facts.

Even the cop out of saying life was seeded from another planet cannot escape the conclusion that life emerged from the complex organization of very basic and common chemicals. At the elemental and atomic level, there is nothing exotic about life. Atomically, it is made up of the same stuff the universe is.

The question is, we do not know what the chemical or physical mechanism is that kick started biological emergence.
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Well, at least you backed off the ‘fact’ bit.

Right: science operates in such a way as it *excludes* certain influences at the outset. Which is all well and good as far as it goes and I’m not arguing to change it.

But, it also means science can be ‘blinded’ by it own commitment to philosophical naturalism. And in the instance of abiogenesis it could keep is from discovering the truth.

Regarding the notion that there is ‘nothing exotic about life on the atomic level’: you keep making the same mistake. Life is absolutely ‘exotic’ in the sense that it ALWAYS operates according to an informational code in either DNA or RNA.

Furthermore, the existence of this code *cannot* be explained as a mere consequence of matter and natural laws. Or natural selection.
 
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AProudLefty said:
Natural selection is not random. Life is "organized" through natural selection.
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I know what it means lol. And I know that it works—on already existent organisms. I’m skeptical about some of it’s purported ‘creative powers’ but NS is definitely a thing.

My comment was in reference to abiogenesis.
 
Darth Omar said:
I know what it means lol. And I know that it works—on already existent organisms. I’m skeptical about some of it’s purported ‘creative powers’ but NS is definitely a thing.

My comment was in reference to abiogenesis.
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Well the processes in abiogenesis might not have been so random either. ;)
 
AProudLefty said:
Neither is invoking God. ;)

Though I do agree with you on the possibility of an intelligent agent, whatever it is. Intelligence doesn't imply self-awareness.
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Please expand upon that point in relation to the creation of our universe. :)

Panentheism and pantheism imply intelligence. I lean toward ill-defined panentheism.

A dog is intelligent and not necessarily self-aware.
 
Dutch Uncle said:
Please expand upon that point in relation to the creation of our universe. :)

Panentheism and pantheism imply intelligence. I lean toward ill-defined panentheism.

A dog is intelligent and not necessarily self-aware.
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I wouldn't use the term "creation". But I have always floated the ideas of patterns that have always existed. For example, the structures of molecules and atoms. How they are arranged. That's mathematical and doesn't change. It is just there.

Does math exist or is it a human invention? That's the question. :thinking:
 
AProudLefty said:
Neither is invoking God. ;)

Though I do agree with you on the possibility of an intelligent agent, whatever it is. Intelligence doesn't imply self-awareness.
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I’d say that possibility is quite distinct.

My prior point was that science [since it precludes things like intelligent agents ‘monkeying’ with things] is necessarily blind to that prospect. It’s a kind of self-imposed blindness, in a sense.

Not sure how/why a non-self aware [non-sentient?] intelligence would fit it into it.

OTOH, what could happen—and it’s already happening, is some people look at what science says or can’t say about it, and infer to an intelligent agency acting on nature.

It’s not a scientific conclusion—but science is limited. It wouldn’t even be necessarily theological but it certainly has theological implications.
 
AProudLefty said:
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The human brain is another area where strictly scientific answers are lacking.

Let me give your buddy in the video some help before he gets too far down the rabbit hole lol: math is a consequence of *mind* and mind isn’t explicable in terms of matter and natural law.

And it’s no coincidence that ‘math works’.
 
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