education of evolution vs. creationism

Originally posted by KellyJay
From Dawkins book

"The combination lock on my bicycle has 4,096 different positions. Every one of these is equally 'improbable' in the sense that, if you spin the wheels at random, every one of the 4,096 positions is equally unlikely to turn up. I can spin the wheels at random, look at whatever number is displayed and exclaim with hindsight: 'How amazing ...[text shortened]... at not only allows for
the proper combination but also allow it to flourish too.
Kelly

You seem to be using Dawkins' example of the combination lock to support your argument against the origin of life which, incidentally, I find quite ironic.

Your point being, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that for life to form on earth it would require the right materials in the right quantities at the right time. These don't seem to be particularly difficult conditions to fulfil considering this ambition was undertaken in 1953 by Messrs Miller and Urey and after only a week saw amino acids form, the building blocks of protein.

This result is made all the more astonishing by the crudeness of the experiment. If it was this easy to generate the building blocks of nucleic acids, sugars, lipids, and amino acids in a laboratory with only water, methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and some electricity then why is it so hard to imagine life forming from a much more complex system?

Finally, earth was a lot less hospitable in its early history and only after many millions of years did plants produce sufficient oxygen enabling more complex species to evolve. Life didn't develop in an ideal environment but rather created one.

Originally posted by Green Paladin
You seem to be using Dawkins' example of the combination lock to support your argument against the origin of life which, incidentally, I find quite ironic.

Your point being, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that for life to form on earth it would require the right materials in the right quantities at the right time. These don't seem to be particul ...[text shortened]... mplex species to evolve. Life didn't develop in an ideal environment but rather created one.

Within your own post you have inadvertently pointed out the weakness which represented the poison pill to Miller and Urey's controlled experiment. No matter what way you slice it, that is true irony.

Care to elaborate?

Originally posted by KellyJay
You found one? I don't think so, you may say there is life here, but
beyond that the question is how did it get here.
Kelly

"We found one" being a figure of speech for "life appeared". It's not strictly speaking a combination lock either, you know.

Originally posted by mtthw
"We found one" being a figure of speech for "life appeared". It's not strictly speaking a combination lock either, you know.

Yea, life is here, how it got here is the quesiton.
Kelly

Originally posted by Green Paladin
You seem to be using Dawkins' example of the combination lock to support your argument against the origin of life which, incidentally, I find quite ironic.

Your point being, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that for life to form on earth it would require the right materials in the right quantities at the right time. These don't seem to be particul ...[text shortened]... mplex species to evolve. Life didn't develop in an ideal environment but rather created one.

I beg to differ they are a very difficult things, have you seen anyone
yet even with intent, put forward a means to build life from completely
non-living material? You want to suggest it can happen just because
you see amino acids that were both right and left handed?
Kelly

Originally posted by twhitehead
1. There is no scientific controversy.

Then what is it you guys ( ... and the scientific community, including the creationists) are involved in ?

Originally posted by twhitehead
You are using a strawman. You are refuting something that the poster has not (as yet) claimed.

Do you accept or deny his actual post:
[b]But a lot of small changes, over millions of years, can become pretty significant.

Do you deny that small changes can become significant? If so, present an argument.(not a strawman).
If you do agree with it, ...[text shortened]... icant a change is possible and how significant a change is not possible and what the barrier is.[/b]

The barriier is odds can you get here from there?

Unlike the card trick where we can figure out how many possible out
comes there are in a card deck once we suffle them, then say "Wow,
we beat the odds after we suffle them because they are in some
order!" That is not the same thing as saying, I'm going to suffle them
and predict all 52 cards in the order they are going to be in, and get it
right. Having life already here is 1/1 we can see we are living
creatures ourselves, but that does not mean that because of that it
automatically means life just sprang from non-life and grow into the
variety we see today over time. Suggesting it is not only likely but the
only likely way is a belief on your part or anyone else' who makes
such a claim.
Kelly

Originally posted by Green Paladin
Care to elaborate?

Pay special attention to the words "controlled" and "experiment" and then juxtapose those words with such phrases as "hostile environment" and etc. Within a very short amount of time, the significance should be clear.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Pay special attention to the words "controlled" and "experiment" and then juxtapose those words with such phrases as "hostile environment" and etc. Within a very short amount of time, the significance should be clear.

Where do you see the phrase "hostile environment?"

The scientific method requires the experiment to be controlled. Your conditions for the validity of an experiment seem to be that they should exactly replicate the environment which they represent. I don't think Miller or Urey had a spare earth, billions of years old, out back.

Originally posted by Green Paladin
Where do you see the phrase "hostile environment?"

The scientific method requires the experiment to be controlled. Your conditions for the validity of an experiment seem to be that they should exactly replicate the environment which they represent. I don't think Miller or Urey had a spare earth, billions of years old, out back.

I don't "see" the phrase; the most rudimentary understanding of the primordial soup's supposed state should suffice in providing that level of clarity.

And, just for giggles, here's the first hit on Google for "primordial soup." Note the problems it lists for M/U's experiment in the 'real world.'
http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/primordials.htm

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
And, just for giggles, here's the first hit on Google for "primordial soup." Note the problems it lists for M/U's experiment in the 'real world.'
http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/primordials.htm

You're right, this is funny. Check out their link:

http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/creation.htm

Apart from being a completely biased view (there are no problems listed only evidence), there is a representation of the Creation of Adam, painted by the screaming queen, Michelangelo!

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
And, just for giggles, here's the first hit on Google for "primordial soup." Note the problems it lists for M/U's experiment in the 'real world.'
http://leiwenwu.tripod.com/primordials.htm

One and three have been thoroughly disproven, two is irrelevant and four is only the blanket assertion, quite without proof, of the author.

The Urey-Millar expt could not be conducted nowadays except in controlled conditions - the environment is too oxidising due to all the plants pumping out oxygen and the system would quickly be overrun with bacteria anyway - both things which wouldn't have happened 4 billion years ago.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm going to suffle them
and predict all 52 cards in the order they are going to be in, and get it
right.

That's not the way that evolution works though. Abiogenesis was likely an evolutionary process of sorts and would ot have worked way either.

You know all this though Kelly.