A Christian reformer?

[The diplomat]

I found the following article about fossilization written by an evolutionists.

http://home.tiac.net/~cri/1998/taphonomy.html

Look at the following paragraph:

"We cannot expect that all or even most of the organisms that have lived on Earth will be represented in the fossil record. On the contrary, only a few, living in favoured environments and possessing hard parts, will have any likelihood of being preserved (a large number of known phyla have no members which possess hard parts, and most phyla have members which possess no hard parts). On top of this, the vast majority of fossils have not been discovered since they have either eroded away previously or remain buried and out of reach. So the fossil record is not a comprehensive record of all life that has existed on Earth. Nor is the rock record a comprehensive record of all environments that have existed. Further, with regard to transitional fossils, is has become apparent in recent years that evolution does not necessarily proceed in a constant, gradual manner over geological time, but can operate rapidly, in isolated populations. Such evolution results in small populations of intermediates separated by very short periods of geological time. such scenarios are unlikely to make it into the fossil record to begin with, let alone survive to be found. Thus preservation of any fossil from a transitional series will be rare."

Isn't this "cheating"? How can evolutionists say that the fossil record supports evolution 100%, and at the same time say "Oh but because of the nature of fossilization, most lifeforms won't be represented and most evolutionary jumps won't be found."?

Also the fossil record seems to contradict the last statement. If fossilization is so rare under normal circumstances, then how come we have found such an extensive fossil record? Would this not indicate that the fossil record is not the result of normal circumstances, but the result of a global (since we found extensive fossils all over the world) and catastrophic event, like a global cataclysm?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The diplomat
I don't reject evolution because of ignorance. I reject evolution because I am not convinced by the research and conclusions of evolutionists.

Yet you continue to misuse the scientific terminology (like "theory") and clearly don't have an accurate picture of what evolutionary theory says. You also misrepresent the fossil record. You also cited fallacious claims as "evidences" against evolution, when simple logic shows they are nothing of the kind. Sorry, but that says ignorance to me.

When I read that scientists believe they have uncovered a new piece of human evolution, and the evidence is only a partial skull, I have difficulty believing the conclusion on such fragmented evidence.

Of course, taken by itself the skull fragment doesn't say much. But it when you insert into the context of the fossil record, it speaks volumes. You're not an anthropologist, so why do you think you're better equiped to dismiss the evidence that trained anthropologists know how to interpret? Seems very arrogant.

I believe variations within a species because it has clearly been observed. The cases of speciation that TalkOrigins mentions, are all minute changes. As MtG said, the time scale is too short to ever observe "significant evolutionary changes".

It's still speciation! Whether or not the changes are small is irrelevant. New species arose. And again, where is the supposed barrier between species that you're claiming? I want to know what rational basis you have for accepting "microevolution" but not macro, considering 100,000 small variations over many generations adds up to BIG changes.

To put is simply: small variations do not neccesarily prove that a fish can evolve into a reptile.

Cumulative small variations plus observed speciation, plus a fossil record showing a clear progression of how creatures evolved indeed proves this is possible. How do you explain the whale with legs? Is that a small variation?

We know from biology and genetics, that organisms have self-repair mechanisms for their DNA. These self-repair mechanisms will tend to prevent deviation in the genetic structure beyond a certain point. This will tend to work against variation to the point of becoming another species.

This is mind-numbingly ignorant of how genetics work. Just what biology teaches you this?

We're talking about inherited genetic variation, which you accept as being true. We're not talking about an organism's DNA being "damaged" and then it repairing itself.

If an organism is born with a genetic variation that helps it survive better in its environment, that organism will (by natural selection) be more successful in spreading its genetic material. Thus the successful genetic trait will be passed on to the next generation, where yet more variations will arise, some of which will help those organisms survive better.

So long as the variation isn't negative, it will survive. You're falling into the old trap that mutations are all negative. This is absolutely false. The quality of a variation depends solely on the environment of the organism. What is a good variation in one environment may be a bad variation in another. Going back to our giraffes, had the longer necked ones come about in an environment where the only foliage was very short bushes, they would not have survived.

Maybe I am a bit confused about what a species is. If the barrier between species is whether or not the two can procreate together, then if I have a child that can't reproduce with other humans, is the child really a new human species? There are humans that are sterile, are they a new human species?

Yes, you're confused.

http://users.rcn.com/jkimball.ma.ultranet/BiologyPages/S/Speciation.html

Not the Miller-Urey experiment! That was proved to be false. They deliberately set up the experiment with the perfect conditions they knew would likely form proteins. We don't know that the conditions in the experiment really were the same as on the primordial Earth. They probably weren't. You can't deliberately manipulate an experiment to get a certain result, and then claim the experiment proves what you were hoping it would prove!

Like hell it was proven to be false! Where do you get this claim? Wells?

http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/icon1millerurey.html

"Finally, the Miller-Urey experiment should still be taught because the basic results are still valid. The experiments show that organic molecules can form under abiotic conditions."

It doesn't matter if the chemical conditions they posited aren't the actual ones that existed, because the point was that organic material arose spontaneously from inorganic material by introducing an electric current. The material they used was reasonable, as we know such material to be present outside of earth (thanks to meteorites).

You said you couldn't believe that organic life could arise from inorganic material. Miller-Urey proves you wrong, and it has been verified in the lab since that time, using different chemicals. We know Miller-Urey's conditions probably aren't accurate, but later experiments using chemicals believed more accurate have produced the same results. The bottom line is that it has been proven that organic proteins, the building blocks of life, can and do arise from inorganic material.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The diplomat
That is not what Occam's razor says. It does not say anything about scientific or supernatural explanations. It simply says,
"one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything". There is nothing there about supernatural or scientific explanations. It simply says not to add unnecessary variables.

If you ask me, I think Occam's razor could support creationism. After all, creationism only has 1 variable, ie God, which is completely sufficient to explain life. Evolution on the other hand, has to involve many many variables that have to fit just right for life to work.

Nuh-uh. Supernatural explanations are NOT simpler than natural ones. Since everyone says God is so complicated he is beyond human understanding, it's funny you'd say he's a simpler explanation! If you reject evolution, then you have to make convoluted, complicated explanations for why everything we see in the fossil records, biology, chemistry, genetics, etc. supports evolution. That's contrary to the razor.

Regardless, this is terrible science. If "we don't know, ergo God" had been used in science, we'd have been stunted to a point that I doubt we'd even be using electricity now, nor having this conversation.

I meant designed for normal circumstances. It is not the organism's fault, if an asteroid slams into it.

Huh? Only a very few species died out because of the hypothetical asteroid. The vast majority died out during the ebb and flow of natural selection. We've seen extinctions all over due to simple failure to compete in their environment.

Of course, I don't reject all natural explanations. A person can have a problem with one particular explanation, while still accepting others. I accept natural explanations that are proven true.

You only reject those you don't like. But it's still an arbitrary rejection. There is more hard scientific evidence for evolution than there is for the theory of gravity, but I don't see you rejecting that. You claim not to reject heliocentrism, but why? By the standards you've given, it's unproven. No one has observed the earth actually revolving around the sun. The Bible explicitely says the sun moves around the earth, so why don't you question this science, too?

Do you reject all food because you don't like one particular food item? No of course. Just because I have a problem with evolution, does not mean that I have to reject all science. I happen to love science.

Specious argument. Science is not about picking and choosing what you like based on personal taste. It's about making evaluations of evidence and accepting the most reasonable conclusion. Why did a world of creationist scientists change, virtually overnight, into evolution-believing scientists? Because the evidence presented to them by Darwin was so conclusive they had no choice. Even Darwin said it was distasteful to think we came from primates, but he acknowledged the evidence was insurmountable for the fact of evolution.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The diplomat
Isn't this "cheating"? How can evolutionists say that the fossil record supports evolution 100%, and at the same time say "Oh but because of the nature of fossilization, most lifeforms won't be represented and most evolutionary jumps won't be found."?

No, it's not cheating. Remember observational inference? The fossils we do have (and we're talking hundreds of thousands, if not millions) tell a very clear picture of evolution. That the record is incomplete is not relevant, since what we have is enough to show evolution to be fact. This is one of the basic mechanisms of science--you don't need the entire spectrum of fossils, just enough to see the pattern. And we have more than enough to make the pattern obvious.

Also the fossil record seems to contradict the last statement. If fossilization is so rare under normal circumstances, then how come we have found such an extensive fossil record? Would this not indicate that the fossil record is not the result of normal circumstances, but the result of a global (since we found extensive fossils all over the world) and catastrophic event, like a global cataclysm?

You seemed to have missed the entire point of the article you cited. The fossil record we have found is extensive, relative to the scientific need to establish a pattern of evidence, but is not extensive relative to the sheer number of organisms that have existed throughout the 3.5 billionish years life has been on the planet. Single-cell organisms and invertebrates encompass a good bulk of those species, and we're not going to find many, if any fossils of those.

No, nothing indicates a global cataclysm. Did you read the links I gave you to the geologic ludicrous of the Flood? A global flood would have produced a fossil record dramatically different than what we see. If all these organisms existed at one time, then the largest ones would be at the bottom, not the top. What we see is opposite of that, and what we see is exactly what one would expect to see from millions upon millions of years of evolution, not a cataclysm.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by monkspider
There are plenty of perfectly good reasons for not accepting the whole of evolutionary theory which have nothing to do with theological beliefs.

Such as?

In order to dismiss the fossil record, observed instances of evolution and the observed mechanism of variation+natural selection, you'd have to given an alternative scientific theory (i.e. non-theological) that explains what we see in these cases. Do you have one? Anyone?

I don't accuse diplomat of being ignorant unfairly or with malice, I state it as an observation based on the things he has posted. He is ignorant of the science of evolution, as are many people. That doesn't denote stupidity, just ignorance.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
We know Miller-Urey's conditions probably aren't accurate, but later experiments using chemicals believed more accurate have produced the same results. The bottom line is that it has been proven that organic proteins, the building blocks of life, can and do arise from inorganic material.

Just because something can happen under perfect idealized conditions, does not mean that it actually did!!!

Furthermore, if you want to say that Life arose on Earth in that way, then the experiment has to at least be close to the conditions on Earth.

"However, at present, the relevance of the experimental results of Miller and Urey are being questioned, since the atmospheric conditions used in the experiment are not thought to accurately reflect those of the early earth."

http://tidepool.st.usm.edu/crswr/millerurey.html

The experiment was flawed because the conditions it used were not just different that on primordial Earth, they were opposite to Earth's early atmosphere.

"There were several problems with the Miller/Urey experiment. First scientists now believe methane and ammonia were not present in the primitive earth’s atmosphere. Hydrogen would also have escaped because of its lightness. The best guess is that earth’s primitive atmosphere contained nitrogen (N2), Carbon dioxide (CO2), water vapor (H2O), and maybe some carbon monoxide (CO). Miller and Urey also used all reducing gases, opposite of oxidizing. It is now believed that the atmosphere was neutral, neither reducing nor oxidizing."

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

Furthermore, the electric discharges were also set up specifically to get the desired results. In nature, you are probably not going to get a low electric discharge of te right voltage and current. On the contrary, most electric discharges in nature (like lightning) would probably be too strong, destroying any molecules that were created.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The diplomat
Just because something can happen under perfect idealized conditions, does not mean that it actually did!!!

BUT IT DOESN'T MEAN IT DIDN'T, EITHER.

Miller-Urey showed that organic material can and will arise from inorganic material, thus any claims that such a thing isn't possible is FALSE. It is POSSIBLE.

Furthermore, if you want to say that Life arose on Earth in that way, then the experiment has to at least be close to the conditions on Earth.

If you want to find the exact way life originated, certainly. But that's not what this is about! It's about finding ONE way in which it could happen! And it's been done many other times since with DIFFERENT chemicals. It shows it is POSSIBLE for life to arise spontaneously.

"However, at present, the relevance of the experimental results of Miller and Urey are being questioned, since the atmospheric conditions used in the experiment are not thought to accurately reflect those of the early earth."

http://tidepool.st.usm.edu/crswr/millerurey.html

The experiment was flawed because the conditions it used were not just different that on primordial Earth, they were opposite to Earth's early atmosphere.

It's IRRELEVANT if the conditions were exact or not. Why can't you see the obvious logical strawman here? The experiment showed just ONE WAY it COULD happen. It shows it is POSSIBLE. So claims it is IMPOSSIBLE are BUNK.

"There were several problems with the Miller/Urey experiment.

Yes, there WERE. I said so. The page I linked to said so. Here, I'll quote the whole damn thing for you, since you apparently don't like to read links:

"The experiment itself
The understanding of the origin of life was largely speculative until the 1920s, when Oparin and Haldane, working independently, proposed a theoretical model for "chemical evolution." The Oparin-Haldane model suggested that under the strongly reducing conditions theorized to have been present in the atmosphere of the early earth (between 4.0 and 3.5 billion years ago), inorganic molecules would spontaneously form organic molecules (simple sugars and amino acids). In 1953, Stanley Miller, along with his graduate advisor Harold Urey, tested this hypothesis by constructing an apparatus that simulated the Oparin-Haldane "early earth." When a gas mixture based on predictions of the early atmosphere was heated and given an electrical charge, organic compounds were formed (Miller, 1953; Miller and Urey, 1959). Thus, the Miller-Urey experiment demonstrated how some biological molecules, such as simple amino acids, could have arisen abiotically, that is through non-biological processes, under conditions thought to be similar to those of the early earth. This experiment provided the structure for later research into the origin of life. Despite many revisions and additions, the Oparin-Haldane scenario remains part of the model in use today. The Miller-Urey experiment is simply a part of the experimental program produced by this paradigm.

Wells boils off
Wells says that the Miller-Urey experiment should not be taught because the experiment used an atmospheric composition that is now known to be incorrect. Wells contends that textbooks don't discuss how the early atmosphere was probably different from the atmosphere hypothesized in the original experiment. Wells then claims that the actual atmosphere of the early earth makes the Miller-Urey type of chemical synthesis impossible, and asserts that the experiment does not work when an updated atmosphere is used. Therefore, textbooks should either discuss the experiment as an historically interesting yet flawed exercise or not discuss it at all. Wells concludes by saying that textbooks should replace their discussions of the Miller-Urey experiment with an "extensive discussion" of all the problems facing research into the origin of life.

These allegations might seem serious; however, Wells's knowledge of prebiotic chemistry is seriously flawed. First, Wells's claim that researchers are ignoring the new atmospheric data, and that experiments like the Miller-Urey experiment fail when the atmospheric composition reflects current theories, is simply false. The current literature shows that scientists working on the origin and early evolution of life are well aware of the current theories of the earth's early atmosphere and have found that the revisions have little effect on the results of various experiments in biochemical synthesis. Despite Wells's claims to the contrary, new experiments since the Miller-Urey ones have achieved similar results using various corrected atmospheric compositions (Figure 1; Rode, 1999; Hanic et al., 2000). Further, although some authors have argued that electrical energy might not have efficiently produced organic molecules in the earth's early atmosphere, other energy sources such as cosmic radiation (e.g., Kobayashi et al., 1998), high temperature impact events (e.g., Miyakawa et al., 2000), and even the action of waves on a beach (Commeyras, et al., 2002) would have been quite effective.

Even if Wells had been correct about the Miller-Urey experiment, he does not explain that our theories about the origin of organic "building blocks" do not depend on that experiment alone (Orgel, 1998a). There are other sources for organic "building blocks," such as meteorites, comets, and hydrothermal vents. All of these alternate sources for organic materials and their synthesis are extensively discussed in the literature about the origin of life, a literature that Wells does not acknowledge. In fact, what is most striking about Wells's extensive reference list is the literature that he has left out. Wells does not mention extraterrestrial sources of organic molecules, which have been widely discussed in the literature since 1961 (see Oró, 1961; Whittet, 1997; Irvine, 1998). Wells apparently missed the vast body of literature on organic compounds in comets (e.g. Oró, 1961; Anders, 1989; Irvine, 1998), carbonaceous meteorites (e.g. Kaplan et al., 1963; Hayes, 1967; Chang, 1994; Maurette, 1998; Cooper et al., 2001), and conditions conducive to the formation of organic compounds that exist in interstellar dust clouds ( Whittet, 1997).

Wells also fails to cite the scientific literature on other terrestrial conditions under which organic compounds could have formed. These non-atmospheric sources include the synthesis of organic compounds in a reducing ocean (e.g., Chang, 1994), at hydrothermal vents (e.g., Andersson, 1999; Ogata et al., 2000), and in volcanic aquifers (Washington, 2000). A cursory review of the literature finds more than 40 papers on terrestrial prebiotic chemical synthesis published since 1997 in the journal Origins of life and the evolution of the biosphere alone. Contrary to Wells's presentation, there appears to be no shortage of potential sources for organic "building blocks" on the early earth.

Instead of discussing this literature, Wells raises a false "controversy" about the low amount of free oxygen in the early atmosphere. Claiming that this precludes the spontaneous origin of life, he concludes that "[d]ogma had taken the place of empirical science" (Wells 2000:18). In truth, nearly all researchers who work on the early atmosphere hold that oxygen was essentially absent during the period in which life originated (Copley, 2001) and therefore oxygen could not have played a role in preventing chemical synthesis. This conclusion is based on many sources of data, not "dogma." Sources of data include fluvial uraninite sand deposits (Rasmussen and Buick, 1999) and banded iron formations (Nunn, 1998; Copley, 2001), which could not have been deposited under oxidizing conditions. Wells also neglects the data from paleosols (ancient soils) which, because they form at the atmosphere-ground interface, are an excellent source to determine atmospheric composition (Holland, 1994). Reduced paleosols suggest that oxygen levels were very low before 2.1 billion years ago (Rye and Holland, 1998). There are also data from mantle chemistry that suggest that oxygen was essentially absent from the earliest atmosphere (Kump et al. 2001). Wells misrepresents the debate as over whether oxygen levels were 5/100 of 1%, which Wells calls "low," or 45/100 of 1%, which Wells calls "significant." But the controversy is really over why it took so long for oxygen levels to start to rise. Current data show that oxygen levels did not start to rise significantly until nearly 1.5 billion years after life originated (Rye and Holland, 1998; Copley, 2001). Wells strategically fails to clarify what he means by "early" when he discusses the amount of oxygen in the "early" atmosphere. In his discussion he cites research about the chemistry of the atmosphere without distinguishing whether the authors are referring to times before, during, or after the period when life is thought to have originated. Nearly all of the papers he cites deal with oxygen levels after 3.0 billion years ago. They are irrelevant, as chemical data suggest that life arose 3.8 billion years ago (Chang, 1994; Orgel, 1998b), well before there was enough free oxygen in the earth's atmosphere to prevent Miller-Urey-type chemical synthesis.

Finally, the Miller-Urey experiment tells us nothing about the other stages in the origin of life, including the formation of a simple genetic code (PNA or "peptide"-based codes and RNA-based codes) or the origin of cellular membranes (liposomes), some of which are discussed in all the textbooks that Wells reviewed. The Miller-Urey experiment only showed one possible route by which the basic components necessary for the origin of life could have been created, not how life came to be. Other theories have been proposed to bridge the gap between the organic "building blocks" and life. The "liposome" theory deals with the origin of cellular membranes, the RNA-world hypothesis deals with the origin of a simple genetic code, and the PNA (peptide-based genetics) theory proposes an even simpler potential genetic code (Rode, 1999). Wells doesn't really mention any of this except to suggest that the "RNA world" hypothesis was proposed to "rescue" the Miller-Urey experiment. No one familiar with the field or the evidence could make such a fatuous and inaccurate statement. The Miller-Urey experiment is not relevant to the RNA world, because RNA was constructed from organic "building blocks" irrespective of how those compounds came into existence (Zubay and Mui, 2001). The evolution of RNA is a wholly different chapter in the story of the origin of life, one to which the validity of the Miller-Urey experiment is irrelevant.

What the textbooks say
All of the textbooks reviewed contain a section on the Miller-Urey experiment. This is not surprising given the experiment's historic role in the understanding of the origin of life. The experiment is usually discussed over a couple of paragraphs (see Figure 2), a small proportion (roughly 20%) of the total discussion of the origin and early evolution of life. Commonly, the first paragraph discusses the Oparin-Haldane scenario, and then a second outlines the Miller-Urey test of that scenario. All textbooks contain either a drawing or a picture of the experimental apparatus and state that it was used to demonstrate that some complex organic molecules (e.g., simple sugars and amino acids, frequently called "building blocks") could have formed spontaneously in the atmosphere of the early earth. Textbooks vary in their descriptions of the atmospheric composition of the early earth. Five books present the strongly reducing atmosphere of the Miller-Urey experiment, whereas the other five mention that the current geochemical evidence points to a slightly reducing atmosphere. All textbooks state that oxygen was essentially absent during the period in which life arose. Four textbooks mention that the experiment has been repeated successfully under updated conditions. Three textbooks also mention the possibility of organic molecules arriving from space or forming at deep-sea hydrothermal vents (Figure 2). No textbook claims that these experiments conclusively show how life originated; and all textbooks state that the results of these experiments are tentative.

It is true that some textbooks do not mention that our knowledge of the composition of the atmosphere has changed. However, this does not mean that textbooks are "misleading" students, because there is more to the origin of life than just the Miller-Urey experiment. Most textbooks already discuss this fact. The textbooks reviewed treat the origin of life with varying levels of detail and length in "Origin of life" or "History of life" chapters. These chapters are from 6 to 24 pages in length. In this relatively short space, it is hard for a textbook, particularly for an introductory class like high school biology, to address all of the details and intricacies of origin-of-life research that Wells seems to demand. Nearly all texts begin their origin of life sections with a brief description of the origin of the universe and the solar system; a couple of books use a discussion of Pasteur and spontaneous generation instead (and one discusses both). Two textbooks discuss how life might be defined. Nearly all textbooks open their discussion of the origin of life with qualifications about how the study of the origin of life is largely hypothetical and that there is much about it that we do not know.

Wells's evaluation
As we will see in his treatment of the other "icons," Wells's criteria for judging textbooks stack the deck against them, ensuring failure. No textbook receives better than a D for this "icon" in Wells's evaluation, and 6 of the 10 receive an F. This is largely a result of the construction of the grading criteria. Under Wells's criteria (Wells 2000:251-252), any textbook containing a picture of the Miller-Urey apparatus could receive no better than a C, unless the caption of the picture explicitly says that the experiment is irrelevant, in which case the book would receive a B. Therefore, the use of a picture is the major deciding factor on which Wells evaluated the books, for it decides the grade irrespective of the information contained in the text! A grade of D is given even if the text explicitly points out that the experiment used an incorrect atmosphere, as long as it shows a picture. Wells pillories Miller and Levine for exactly that, complaining that they bury the correction in the text. This is absurd: almost all textbooks contain pictures of experimental apparatus for any experiment they discuss. It is the text that is important pedagogically, not the pictures. Wells's criteria would require that even the intelligent design "textbook" Of Pandas and People would receive a C for its treatment of the Miller-Urey experiment.

In order to receive an A, a textbook must first omit the picture of the Miller-Urey apparatus (or state explicitly in the caption that it was a failure), discuss the experiment, but then state that it is irrelevant to the origin of life. This type of textbook would be not only scientifically inaccurate but pedagogically deficient.

Why we should still teach Miller-Urey
The Miller-Urey experiment represents one of the research programs spawned by the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis. Even though details of our model for the origin of life have changed, this has not affected the basic scenario of Oparin-Haldane. The first stage in the origin of life was chemical evolution. This involves the formation of organic compounds from inorganic molecules already present in the atmosphere and in the water of the early earth. This spontaneous organization of chemicals was spawned by some external energy source. Lightning (as Oparin and Haldane thought), proton radiation, ultraviolet radiation, and geothermal or impact-generated heat are all possibilities.

The Miller-Urey experiment represents a major advance in the study of the origin of life. In fact, it marks the beginning of experimental research into the origin of life. Before Miller-Urey, the study of the origin of life was merely theoretical. With the advent of "spark experiments" such as Miller conducted, our understanding of the origin of life gained its first experimental program. Therefore, the Miller-Urey experiment is important from an historical perspective alone. Presenting history is good pedagogy because students understand scientific theories better through narratives. The importance of the experiment is more than just historical, however. The apparatus Miller and Urey designed became the basis for many subsequent "spark experiments" and laid a groundwork that is still in use today. Thus it is also a good teaching example because it shows how experimental science works. It teaches students how scientists use experiments to test ideas about prehistoric, unobserved events such as the origin of life. It is also an interesting experiment that is simple enough for most students to grasp. It tested a hypothesis, was reproduced by other researchers, and provided new information that led to the advancement of scientific understanding of the origin of life. This is the kind of "good science" that we want to teach students.

Finally, the Miller-Urey experiment should still be taught because the basic results are still valid. The experiments show that organic molecules can form under abiotic conditions. Later experiments have used more accurate atmospheric compositions and achieved similar results. Even though origin-of-life research has moved beyond Miller and Urey, their experiments should be taught. We still teach Newton even though we have moved beyond his work in our knowledge of planetary mechanics. Regardless of whether any of our current theories about the origin of life turn out to be completely accurate, we currently have models for the processes and a research program that works at testing the models."

You're still sidestepping the issue, which is that organic material arose from inorganic, showing it is possible. Miller-Urey isn't the only experiment done in this regard, it was simply the first, albeit most "primitive." And its ultimate conclusions are rock solid. You can try to quibble with the experiment all you want, but the fact that organic material arose from inorganic material is all that matters here!

Furthermore, the electric discharges were also set up specifically to get the desired results. In nature, you are probably not going to get a low electric discharge of te right voltage and current. On the contrary, most electric discharges in nature (like lightning) would probably be too strong, destroying any molecules that were created.

Probably? Says you. But so what about probablity? We're talking possible, and low-level electric discharges are certainly possible. A million high-level charges could have destroyed all the molecules around them, but get just a couple low-level ones that do what Miller-Urey did, and we're in business.

Did I mention yet that the point is that it has been proven possible for organic material to arise from inorganic material?

[Berzerker]

Boris -

The material they used was reasonable, as we know such material to be present outside of earth (thanks to meteorites).

Which wouldn't tell us much if a chunk of Earth ejected in an ancient collision returned one day as a meteorite.

The Bible explicitely says the sun moves around the earth, so why don't you question this science, too?

Aside from the fact the sun does move around the Earth from a practical, astronomical perspective of an earthling, where does the Bible say this? I can't remember the verse, but the Bible says "God hung the earth on nothing" and another verse (I believe these are in proverbs or psalms) says "God yoked the Earth to the Sun". Quite amazing information, wouldn't you say?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Boris -
Which wouldn't tell us much if a chunk of Earth ejected in an ancient collision returned one day as a meteorite.

I sincerely doubt all of the meteorites that have fallen to earth are from earth. Regardless, we know from basic chemistry and physics that certain elements are going to be present throughout the universe.

Aside from the fact the sun does move around the Earth from a practical, astronomical perspective of an earthling, where does the Bible say this? I can't remember the verse, but the Bible says "God hung the earth on nothing" and another verse (I believe these are in proverbs or psalms) says "God yoked the Earth to the Sun". Quite amazing information, wouldn't you say?

Joshua 10 and Habbakuk both refer to the sun being made to stand still in the heavens on a special occasion. The only way the sun could stand still relative to the earth is if the sun revolves around the earth. The Bible also makes repeated reference to the "foundations of the Earth," indicating the earth is a fixed object which does not move. Job also says that earth and the evens are on fixed pillars that tremble when God gets angry.

I'd also point out the Bible says in Leviticus that bats are birds. Do you accept the Biblical view that bats are part of the bird family, or the scientific view that bats are mammals?

[Neutrino]

Actually, there is evidence that giraffes' long necks were the product of "runaway sexual selection." Most likely it was a combination of natural selection and sexual selection, though.

Will post a more in-depth reply later from a biological PoV (just took a grad-lvl Evolution class last semester) and will try to prove/disprove some pts.

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
It's IRRELEVANT if the conditions were exact or not. Why can't you see the obvious logical strawman here? The experiment showed just ONE WAY it COULD happen. It shows it is POSSIBLE. So claims it is IMPOSSIBLE are BUNK.

You are missing my point. Of course, organic material can result from inorganic under the right conditions. That it is possible is not surprising to me.

A far more interesting question to me is, did it actually happen in nature?

After all, if it never happened that way in nature, what does it matter that it is possible?

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by The diplomat


You are missing my point. Of course, organic material can result from inorganic under the right conditions. That it is possible is not surprising to me.

A far more interesting question to me is, did it actually happen in nature?

After all, if it never happened that way in nature, what does it matter that it is possible?

How do you know it never happened that way? If it has been shown it is possible, then the burden of proof is on you to show that's not what happened.

If we know it's possible, then we once again go back to the razor. Since we know abiogenesis is possible under certain conditions--and has been shown in laboratory experiments to occur in chemical conditions similar to that of the primordial earth (we're not talking Miller-Urey here, but later, more accurate experiments)--then it is quite rational to conclude that this was how life started (or similar to it), as opposed to an untestable, unprovable, unfounded assumption that the cause was supernatural.

If you're going to claim the supernatural explanation is better, I suggest you get cracking on proving supernatural occurences actually can happen. We have proven abiogenesis can happen. Nobody has ever found empirical proof of the supernatural.

[Jon Miller]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov

If you're going to claim the supernatural explanation is better, I suggest you get cracking on proving supernatural occurences actually can happen. We have proven abiogenesis can happen. Nobody has ever found empirical proof of the supernatural.

the supernatural is out of the realm of science

there is no way to get empirical proof of the supernatural

therefore what you are asking for is nonsense

Jon Miller

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Jon Miller


the supernatural is out of the realm of science

there is no way to get empirical proof of the supernatural

therefore what you are asking for is nonsense

Jon Miller

Wait, I'm asserting life arose through natural processes which have been empirically proven to occur.

He's asserting they arose because a supernatural being who is omnipotent and omniscient snapped his fingers and created it all. He is then saying that everything in the fossil, geologic, genetic and biological records that shows evolution to be true is, for some reason, false and that speciation doesn't occur, despite it having been observed, and despite his having given no logical reason as to how the small variations he admits happen can't add up to big variations.

So who is talking nonsense here?

The fact that supernatural claims cannot be tested are precisely why they should not be assumed. What is nonsense is claiming supernatural explanations are necessary for things for which a natural explanation is evident.

[Jon Miller]

the supernatural cannot be judged by science (fundamentally)

therefore they cannot be judged against becuase of that

there are a lot of claims that cannot be tested by science but that are undoubtedly true

when he starts talking about the validity of evolution, then he starts going against science

Jon Miller
(as far as it goes, evolution is not that great of theory compared to the ones we have in physics, but it is science, while the supernatural is not)