The Dude wrote:But common ancestry is acceptable... I hope.
It's hard to dispute the common ancestrey of Apes and humans especially after that PBS special. That said, I do wonder just how far back the common ancestry has been proved? Do we have any evidence that life arose multiple times, or is every living thing related to Adam the bacterium who was alone? Did others like him independently start up and then die? Is it so improbable for Adam the bacterium to have existed that no others came about?
The evidence for common ancestry is so strong that if you tried to claim some organism came about through a completely novel incidence of life, the burden would be 100% on you to support the claim. The fact that I can routinely take mammalian genes, put them into bacteria (with the addition of a bit of bacterial code so the bacteria "knows" this is a gene and not garbage), and the bacteria will produce mammalian proteins from those genes, is a good indication that the basic machinery of life is common across all known organisms. If it's the same on Mars, then it would indicate martian life and earth life share a common ancestry. If it's the same on Alpha Centauri, then I guess we just proved panspermia. Right now there is no evidence that life arose multiple times -- it was probably an extremely lucky on-time event, of the sort creationists routinely present as strawman versions of evolution. Nevertheless, it could have happened a few times early on, but only one form survived and that's what we see today.
"And yet another little spot is smoothed out of the echo chamber wall..." Bond
Chap wrote: let us hope that dartagnan will be busy enough in coming months so that, in spite of himself, he learns the virtues of concision in on-line communication.
I've noticed that he does have a tendency to puke up a large load of bile when he posts, and it seems like only a large pile will do; otherwise, you're simply not "adding anything to the discussion."
Clearly, he's never heard that it's quality, not quantity, that counts. Or maybe he has heard it, and actually thinks he's producing quality. Wouldn't that be funny? I've never seen anyone else use so many words to say practically nothing.
It is to laugh.
And I notice that he still hasn't actually addressed the topic of this thread, other than to implicitly demonstrate it.
God belief is for people who don't want to live life on the universe's terms.
dartagnan wrote: EA: You are either an idiot or a liar dart, because ABC doesn't = 123, which was proved in journal Z written in 1964! Did you read that dart? Didn't think so!
Hmmm. It appears one of my posts was swallowed up.
Kevin, you wrote:
Tarski's belief that life could have originated by complex chemical reactions is interesting, but there are experts who would probably consider this nothing more than wishful thinking. Leslie E. Orgel is the distinguished Oxford Chemist who wrote in a 1994 issue of Scientific American,
"It is extremely improbable that proteins and nucleic acids, both of which are structurally complex, arose spontaneously in the same place at the same time. Yet it also seems impossible to have one without the other. And so, at first glance, one might have to conclude that life could never, in fact, have originated by chemical means."
As it turns out, this quote is taken out of context. Orgel wrote this to argue that his problem "at first glance" isn't a problem at all. He argues precisely the opposite of the position you cited him as expert support of. The paper that this quote is taken from concerns Orgel supporting a means by which life could develop from complex prebiotic chemical reactions. This isn't some random, obscure journal that argues against Orgel's position. This is the paper Orgel wrote that you quoted from. You ommitted material to disingenuously imply he supports a position he does not. This is either a function of incompetence or dishonesty. I strongly suspect you had not read the original material and just repeated someone's (and antievolutionist's) quotemine, but that only makes it secondhand. Other arguments of yours have been responded to, by myself and others. I simply saw a massive list of quotes, some of which are blatantly disingenuous or misused, and figured I'd call you on it. There are scholars who deny evolution like there are scholars who think the Book of Mormon is an ancient Mesoamerican document, but the fact that Micheal Behe exists doesn't change the fact that Orgel does not think what you claim.