ryanm wrote:
"George" wrote in message
...

yes a religion without a leader, dogma, sacraments, tenants,scripture ,
or need to enlist others
sounds just like a religion

Actually, I'll have to disagree with you here. Science *does* have it's
leaders, dogma, sacraments, tenants, scripture, and a need to enlist others.
It *is* a religion, even though it may try not to be.


the essential differences:


Science: open to testing; all 'tenets' subject to change *in principle* and
*by definition*

Religion: not, not, and not.




--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

WillStG wrote:
Steven Sullivan

Magnetism and gravity are *forces* in the sense you are talking about.
Love has never been observed to be

So you do not consider sociology science? Or Psychology?

Sociology, maybe, psychology yes. Either way, no scientist in
either field would conflate the 'force' of love with things like
gravitation, electromagnetism, etc. in anything but a metaphorical
way.


People require
love, even plants require love, love can heal, lack of love can make a child
sick. Like I said, if you have not observed that love is a real force you are
a **** poor observer of the Universe. ****, even plants and horses respond to
love.

cue Twilight Zone theme


Is that really representative of the depth of your exposure to the broad
spectrum of spiritual phenomena in human history? I suggest you read
"Autobiography of a Yogi" by Parmahansa Yogananda.

Been there, done that.

How about Catholic Saints
who lived merely on communion wafers for over 30 years, or who experience the
stigmata, how about visions shared by hundreds of people, how about a person
clinically dead who has an out-of-body experince, visiting a friend who tells
her she can't go, and when the person is revived the friend it turns out
dreamed the entire conversation they had?
How about the Tibetan Buddhist Monks
who manifest grains of scarlet rice when they chant? I know a woman who had
Jesus walk her to school every day when she was 5 and who had visions of
crucified Roman Soldiers as a child in England. I know a Japanese man who
became a Pentacostal in post-war Japan after he met Jesus in a vision of Holy
Fire where a loud voice ordered him to get on his knees. Very very wimpy
examples you give, so you can more easily dismiss them.

How *about* them? Given what I've said about proof, do you expect such anecdotes
to carry any evidentiary weight with me?

Conclusions drawn from experience aren't inherently reasonable or correct.
Experience can be misinterpreted. Optical illusions present a simple
example.

I consider the documentation of near death out of body experiences credible
because I have experienced that while fully awake and not "near death". I'm
not really interested in that kind of thing now, but when I am calm and lying
in bed sometimes I still see with my eyes closed. My late Mother after doing
certain mystical practices for a year had a vision of a Golden Cadusus while
doing Tai Chi, everything else disappeared. I sang three songs once with a
female voice singing harmony that was not from any corporal person in the van I
was in, the driver and codriver to my surprise had heard it as well. Yeah, I
made very sure that no one sleeping in the van was singing. I heard that voice
manifestation sing with me again while standing alone at a train station a few
days later. When I was in the Rockies and praying about my impending marriage
and wondering about my ability to commit, a voice inside my head that I have
only heard twice in my life asked me in the depths of my prayer "Don't you want
her?" Later I found out my Parents had met in the Rockies, but that was just
interesting, not spiritual per se. When I first went chanting at 13 with my
friend Maile, Teacher Sai gave me a Plumeria Lei on Sunset Beach in Hawaii, and
I have smelled the smell of those flowers at various times in my life far far
from where those Island flowers grow. I could go on, but suffice to say my
various limitations as a person notwithstanding, God and spirituality have been
real enough to me.

Key words 'enough to you'. SOme of use have more rigorous standards of proof.

This assumes that all things that
'love' can interect similarly simply by virtue of being able to love.
But what if the God of Love has other attributes that complicate the
interaction? Two stations can both be sending, but what if one
isn't capable of receiving on the wavelenght of the other?

Of course receptivity matters, sure love can be blocked. And if you are
negative and narrow minded you will compromise your ability to receive love
from the people around you who love you too, from your family as well as from
God, your Guardian Angels and anyone else visible or invisible who might have
an interest in your welfare. So open your mind, for Love's sake, OK?


Look, Will, you and I don't even speak the same language. You speak a sort
of best-sellerese, composed of self-help, spiritualist, and new age
jargon that as often as not involves, from my POV, a deeply
repellant *******ization of terms with real scientific definitions
(e.g., 'force', 'energy', 'vibration', etc.) Your beliefs seem to
me little better than superstitions, representing exactly
zero advance over the ignorance of our tribal ancestors, who at least
had an excuse for it: they didn't know any better.

And frankly, the more you describe your beliefs, the
less I respect them. So let's stop here.





--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Bob Cain wrote:
WillStG wrote:



Rationalizations and excuses Steve. I call bull****. I think you're just
comfortable and lazy.

Christ, you are an asshole. What's that you were griping
about the other day when something a whole lot less toxic
than that was aimed at you?

'S okay, I've just written Will off too in my last reply to
him. He seems fully as hopeless to me as I apparently
do him. It's clear we don't speak the same language.


--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Bob Cain wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:

The lack of evidnece rarely exists in a vaccuum.
The presence of evidence to the contrary, in addition to the lack of
evidence for the claim itself, carries weight in science.

There's an old and iron clad adage among scientists that the
absence of evidence should _never_ be construed as evidence
of absence.

I'm afraid, Bob, that that's a popular misconception. When a claim is
made but the evidence is not forthcoming, you can bet your life
that the 'absence of evidence' will weigh quite heavily indeed
among scientists. Just ask the guys who claimed they'd
achieved cold fusion. ;




--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

An awful lot of what is commonly thought of as altruism is simply reciprocal
aid, which can be beneficial to both parties. The guy who keeps his own rice
to himself, and the guy who keeps his own beans to himself, are less likely
to leave many progeny than the guys who say, "I'll trade you half of my rice
for half of your beans" and "Done deal. You're my pal." Those guys get the
complete protein, and Bob's your uncle.

Often reciprocal actions are delayed or simply vaguely expected; the old
hippie ethos of "do something good today, and sometime next year somebody
will do something good for you" is actually a fairly realistic model of
successful societies. In the long run, cooperating societies survive, on
their own merits, better than non-cooperating ones. The nasty part comes
when they cooperate at exterminating some other tribe.

Hell, even the anti-social types are social types, or we wouldn't have
"organized crime".

Peace,
Paul

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...

THis bears no realtion to science as it is practiced. No scientist can
get away with just stamping his feet and proclaiming, 'well, I just refuse
to accept your assumptions' without explaining on what grounds.

On the grounds that there is no direct evidence to support it.
Assumptions should be supportable with more than just more theories. If you
assume that variation and selection is capable of morphing one species into
another, then sure, it starts to sound plausible. But the assumption is just
a theory. What assumptions does *that* theory depend on? And what
assumptions are *those* theories dependant on? And where do you draw the
line before asking for something with at least the consistancy of jello, if
not even more solid?

The theory of evolution generally concerns what happens AFTER life arose.
Creationists often conflate the evolution with biogenesis, for some
reason.

That's why I said "the theory of evolution as the origin of the
species".

You mean why *haven't* we done that. I would suppose it's because we
haven't gotten the conditions right. Is that unreasonable?

Sounds like a cop out to me. What more do you need, you have the
formula, right? It's taught in elementary schools as Truth (tm), don't you
think we should be able to reproduce it in a lab?

Whereas you seem to say we should trust that 'god did it' when we
haven't gotten something figured out yet.

I dunno about you, but it seems FAR more reasonable to me to
'trust' that a billion years of natural 'experimentation'
led to the origin of life, than to conclude from 50 years of
inconclusive lab work, that 'god did it'.

Now, I didn't say that. I say question everything and accept nothing as
true until you see conclusive evidence, otherwise call it what it is: faith.
To me both sides are equal. I see no upside to putting your faith in either
position, so it's six of one, half-dozen of the other. However, the problem
with most arguments for the evolution side is that they only take each
situation on it's own merits. That is both a strength and a weakness. If I
*were* to conclude that "god did it", it wouldn't be simply because recent
work is inconclusive, it would be because of a lot of other observations
which were also either inconclusive or completely unexplainable, *all* of
which are easily accounted for by intelligent design. So on it's own merits,
inconclusivity does not even *suggest* the existence of god, but if an
entire field is inconclusive even if you accept their basic assumptions and
there is a single theory which explains all of it if you accept a single
assumption, that theory starts to look more probable (I know, it's full of
holes also, but I'm just playing devil's advocate here).

Surely you are aware that the tendancy towards entropy does not hold
for an open system -- that is, one where there is input of energy?
e.g., from the sun or geothermal sources?

First, you only address the 2nd law and ignore the other two points,
lack of observability and a reasonable assuredness that the conditions
theorized did not exist. Second, these self-organizing molecules could not
have had the capacity to utilize this energy prior to the later stages of
prebiotic "life", so for a system with energy added but without the capacity
to utilize this energy, the energy added is irrelevant. Of course there is
always a counter argument, for example (I'll save you the trouble g), the
wave motion on a primeval beach contributes the necessary energy to account
for organization on a very small scale, and the fact that the 2nd law
doesn't disallow smaller sub-systems tending towards organization within a
larger system tending towards disorder, but in general I cannot completely
ignore the fact that it is a system tending toward organization on a rather
large scale (although admittedly small in comparison to the universe), which
*should* be tending towards disorganization, that is apparently driven only
by an unknown, mysterious force that was, in previous times, referred to as
"elan vital". Semantics of the 2nd law aside, where is the "spark of life?"

Yeah, liike....for the last 3 billion years, and uncounted millions of
species generated in that time.

I object to your use of the word "generated". There is no evidence of
"evolution" (natural selection/variation) causing drastic enough change to
explain the abundance of species on the Earth. Especially given the time
frame.

What happens then is we laugh at your straw man.

Then I'll stop talking and eagerly await your explanation of where the
"life" comes in. At what point does it cease to be a collection of
"successful" molecules and become a "living" thing? And what force caused
such a transition?

ATPases are a huge family of (surprise!) evolutionarily related molecules.
There's really no other plausible way to explain the relatedness of
ATPases at the molecular level across species, *except* by evolution.

Or design. You keep leaving that one out. A basic flaw common to most
"scientists" (and I quote that simply because some of it doesn't really
resemble science, although I'm not pointing at you with that comment), is
that they reject the possibility that their assumptions are wrong. If your
basic assumption is that biogenesis is the explanation for the origin of
life, and then you write a paper based on that assumption, it should hardly
be a surprise that the paper supports biogenesis as the origin of life.

Do you have *any idea* what you're talking about in biology or are you
jsut
tossing out stuff you half-remember from creationist the books you've
read?
Have you run this by any biochemists, molecular evolutionary biologists,
protein scientists, perused any papers like this one to see what the
current state of knowledge is?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=15037234

See what I mean? I'm not discounting his observations, but any
*conclusions* he might draw regarding evolutionary events in our common
ancestors would be biased by the basic assumption that biogenesis is even
possible and that we actually *have* common ancestors. I could only read the
abstract, unfortunately, because I'm not a subscriber. It sounded
frustratingly interesting, though, since it was out of reach.

And can you explain why *not knowing how an enzyme works* would
necessarily
invalidate the idea taht , however, it worked, it likely *evolved*
to work that way?

Because without understanding the mechanism itself, we can never
understand how the mechanism came to be, we can only see it as it exists
today. You are again making assumptions which must be accepted without any
real evidence. Even if it did "evolve" (read: was selected for), that
doesn't mean that it sheds any light on the origin of the species, because,
as you noted earlier, natural selection and biogenesis are two completely
different subjects entirely, despite many scientists desire to claim that
one is proof of the other. One is fact, the other is theory.

Do you understand the extreme explanatory power of
evolution, indeed, that biology would make NO SENSE without it?

I understand the *desire* to use natural selection mislabeled as
evolution to explain many things which we don't understand. I, for one, am
not uncomfortable with being unable to explain some things, so removing all
untestable assumptions and starting over doesn't bother me.

And what, pray tell, took us there if , IYO, evolution did not?
More importantly, what is the *evidence* for your countertheory?

My evidence is everything that you can't explain if I take away your
basic assumption that we evolved from a random mix of chemicals filtered
across a primeval beach. Actually. forget about that the origin of life for
a moment and prove that evolution works starting right now, today, and then
we'll be getting somewhere. And I don't mean simple natural selection, I
mean proof that a monkey can evolve into a man, or that any species can
evolve into any other species (and I don't mean subspecies variations, like
different breeds of dogs). I know that gravity is true because stuff falls
down. I know that natural selection is true because I can observe it at work
in localized animal populations and in differentiation between distant
populations of the same species. Evolution and biogenesis, OTOH, have to be
taken on faith or not at all at this time.

Gee someone should have told these guys that:
http://www.ees.lanl.gov/protocells/
d'ya think 'god did it' holds any water with them?

Someone should tell these guys that zero-point field propulsion doesn't
work:

http://www.gctspace.com/main.html

If either of them had actually done it, we would've heard by now. Don't
take this to mean I think they should quit trying, I just think you
shouldn't present a theory as true until all assumptions have been replaced
by testable, observable facts. In the absence of those facts, a theory is
simply not true. If I want to prove gravity, all I have to do is drop
something. If you want to prove evolution, show me an animal that has been
observed evolving into a different animal, either by direct observation or
by fossil and/or genetic evidence. Otherwise, it is no more true than
creationism, which is not at all.

ryanm

"Bob Cain" wrote in message
...

The boundry is not a sharp one if there even is one. It was
evolution all the way down. Or it was design all the way
up. :-)

Not necessarily. Do you discount the possibility that god created
*life*, and then set evolution into motion? Does it have to be all or
nothing? I'm just asking, not saying that I believe that.

ryanm

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...

Any panspermia/extraterrestrial origin theory merely
begs the question of how the life-from-elsewhere arose.

True, but it opens the possibility of a much larger time frame and
significantly different conditions, which makes it much more plausible.

Incidentally, on the panspermia front, there is a whack job that I ran
into in one of these kinds of discussions who had done an incredible amount
of research on a particular mushroom. This particular mushroom has some very
odd properties that are pretty interesting, if you can get past the alien
conspiracy/tinfoil helmet part of it. Apparently, this mushroom releases
spores that are so tiny, light weight, and appropriately shaped that they
are capable of finding their way to the upper atmosphere through some trick
of brownian motion. Apparently they have actually been measured to some
degree at insanely high altitudes (although I don't have any references). So
the theory is that these spores float around in the upper atmosphere until
they get hit by an errant, accelerated particle of some kind, which launches
them out into space. Now, these spores also happen to be just the right
shape and hardness that they can survive extremely high or low temperatures,
such that they can survive a trip through space. They also happen to be just
the right color so that the UV in space doesn't cause them any problems. It
seems that the Earth is currently firing millions of these things out into
space every year. At any rate, I think you see where this is going. The guy
thinks that life on earth was either began by spores like this traveling
from distant planets, or that the mushroom itself is some form of
intelligent life that spreads by this method. Like I said, he's a whack job,
but sometimes whack jobs do surprisingly thorough research. I'll look around
for the link, if nothing else it's pretty entertaining.

ryanm

In article , Steven Sullivan
wrote:

Jay Kadis wrote:
In article ,
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Bob Cain wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:


[snip]

The brain itself is probably such a system. I love the idea
that if the brain was simple enough to be understood it
would be too simple to be up to the task.

The perspective problem seems real to me: how to study
consciousness by means *other than* consciousness itself?


This is at the center of the problem: the frame of reference issue. Our
inability to get outside of our neuronal processing system affects our
interpretation of what is observable. The issue then becomes one of
philosophy
and not science. So in essence these are scientifically meaningless
questions:
we cannot make independent observations of ourselves.

Well, let's not be hasty. We certainly can glean psychological
data from scientific obervation. It's just that a reductionist
dissection of *consciousness* is going to be difficult if not
impossible to fully achieve.


There's relevence of the Heisenberg principle here, in that we are the system to
be measured and we are doing the measurment. That confounds the problem of the
measurement changing the measured quantity. I spent 12+ years working in basic
neurology research in cellular physiology with isolated brain slice experiments
before I decided the likelihood of decyphering the underlying basis of the
higher functions of the nervous system was poor, given our current technological
abilities. I still think there may be a basic fallacy in our attempts to
understand the link between physiology and consciousness: that being that we are
capable of fully understanding ourselves. The philosophy of science was the
last undergraduate course I took. It was interesting being the only scientist
in the class. Sort of like having this discussion here...

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x

In article , Steven Sullivan
wrote:

ryanm wrote:
"George" wrote in message
...

yes a religion without a leader, dogma, sacraments, tenants,scripture ,
or need to enlist others
sounds just like a religion

Actually, I'll have to disagree with you here. Science *does* have it's
leaders, dogma, sacraments, tenants, scripture, and a need to enlist others.
It *is* a religion, even though it may try not to be.


the essential differences:


Science: open to testing; all 'tenets' subject to change *in principle* and
*by definition*

Religion: not, not, and not.


Religion is founded on proof by assertion. Science is simply a framework for
assembling observations into a coherent story, one which changes as more
observations are made. It only appears to be a religion if you don't really
understand it.

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x

In article , Bob Cain
wrote:

Steven Sullivan wrote:

Luckily, I can find out what we don't know far more easily,
and accurately, by consulting scientists, rather than
Usenet. I would ask taht the 'but we don't know ' crowd
do the same, rather than relying on what they *think* we
don't know.

Holding ourselves a bit above the fray here, aren't we?
That's never a persuasive argument.


Bob


But asking defenders of a position to do some research is pretty persuasive.
Claims have been made here that "we don't know" without finding out if someone
else out there actually DOES know. And that turns out to be a daunting
undertaking. How many evolutionary biochemists do we have here?

-Jay
--
x------- Jay Kadis ------- x---- Jay's Attic Studio ------x
x Lecturer, Audio Engineer x Dexter Records x
x CCRMA, Stanford University x http://www.offbeats.com/ x
x-------- http://ccrma-www.stanford.edu/~jay/ ----------x

Jay Kadis wrote:

How many evolutionary biochemists do we have here?

In theory, each and every one of us, whether we know it or not. g

(Except for Will Miho, who knows better.)

--
ha

And we might be unsmart enough to miss that _it's all alive_. I hold the
opinion that what we do not know vastly exceeds what we do know, even
allowing for what we _think_ we know. g


Precisly the reason why these discussions are not really making a difference
factually..only in exploring the possibilities of thinking and perception.


John A. Chiara
SOS Recording Studio
Live Sound Inc.
Albany, NY
www.sosrecording.net
518-449-1637

ryanm wrote:

"Bob Cain" wrote in message
...

The boundry is not a sharp one if there even is one. It was
evolution all the way down. Or it was design all the way
up. :-)


Not necessarily. Do you discount the possibility that god created
*life*, and then set evolution into motion? Does it have to be all or
nothing? I'm just asking, not saying that I believe that.


I don't discount it, but reading "The Spark of Life" I more
than ever get the feeling that even basic chemical
properties were set up with intent to make this particular
evolution not just possible but certain. So where does this
process really start?

What I am discounting, just for the purpose of this
sub-discussion, is all the various infinite universe,
multiverse or other bases for providing a reason for the
above based on an exhaustive parallel search of an infinite
(or even enormously large) set.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

ryanm wrote:

At any rate, I think you see where this is going. The guy
thinks that life on earth was either began by spores like this traveling
from distant planets, or that the mushroom itself is some form of
intelligent life that spreads by this method. Like I said, he's a whack job,
but sometimes whack jobs do surprisingly thorough research. I'll look around
for the link, if nothing else it's pretty entertaining.

Whoa! Shades of Terrence McKenna, which brings us around to
another not so popular discussion that we had here. :-)

I would love to get your reference to this.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

Blind Joni wrote:
And we might be unsmart enough to miss that _it's all alive_. I hold the
opinion that what we do not know vastly exceeds what we do know, even
allowing for what we _think_ we know. g


Precisly the reason why these discussions are not really making a difference
factually..only in exploring the possibilities of thinking and perception.


Ah, like fiction!

It's all the same!


--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Bob Cain wrote:
Steven Sullivan wrote:

Luckily, I can find out what we don't know far more easily,
and accurately, by consulting scientists, rather than
Usenet. I would ask taht the 'but we don't know ' crowd
do the same, rather than relying on what they *think* we
don't know.

Holding ourselves a bit above the fray here, aren't we?
That's never a persuasive argument.


Do you deny that some people *can* and *do* know more than
other people?

If you dont' know what we *do* know, how can you pronounce on
what we *don't* know?


--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

hank alrich wrote:
Jay Kadis wrote:

How many evolutionary biochemists do we have here?

In theory, each and every one of us, whether we know it or not. g


the test tube does not equal the biochemist.


--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Steven Sullivan wrote:

Gee someone should have told these guys that:

http://www.ees.lanl.gov/protocells/

d'ya think 'god did it' holds any water with them?

Steven, why do you have to be so snide? You could present
the knowledge you have without the need to put others down
for not having it and it might even find a warmer reception.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

ryanm wrote:
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...

Any panspermia/extraterrestrial origin theory merely
begs the question of how the life-from-elsewhere arose.

True, but it opens the possibility of a much larger time frame and
significantly different conditions, which makes it much more plausible.

Agreed, *so long* as it's demonstrated that life can survive space
travel...and the journey's still out on whether any asteroids actually
harbor fossils.

shape and hardness that they can survive extremely high or low temperatures,
such that they can survive a trip through space.

How has this been determined? HAve these fungi been taken into space on shuttle
missions and such?





--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Bob Cain wrote:
Chris Hornbeck wrote:

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 20:16:50 -0800, Bob Cain
wrote:


Good thing genetic science is showing a choke point in the human
population.


Wouldn't you love to know how narrow it really was? Two,
maybe? :-)


About 70,000 years ago our line went through a genetic bottleneck
of probably less than a thousand population.

Wow. Think of the selective pressure that left that group
remaining!

It could have been just luck, especially if a natural disaster
was involved. Selective pressure would then act on the
survivors, but there's no 'selection' going on when,
say, a tree falls on one person but not another. ;




--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 22:39:26 -0800, Bob Cain
wrote:

About 70,000 years ago our line went through a genetic bottleneck
of probably less than a thousand population.

Wow. Think of the selective pressure that left that group
remaining! Maybe we need another. It sure isn't out of the
question.

Some folks think it was related to a big volcano (in the
Indonesian archipelago?) 64,000 years ago. We'll have better
answers soon, as DNA distribution work proceeds for other
species.

Are we as vulnerable now as then? Our huge population argues
against it, but....

And, we're now perfectly capable of doing it to ourselves.

Chris Hornbeck

ryanm wrote:
"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...

THis bears no realtion to science as it is practiced. No scientist can
get away with just stamping his feet and proclaiming, 'well, I just refuse
to accept your assumptions' without explaining on what grounds.

On the grounds that there is no direct evidence to support it.

What constitutes , for you , direct evidence of past events?

Assumptions should be supportable with more than just more theories. If you
assume that variation and selection is capable of morphing one species into
another, then sure, it starts to sound plausible. But the assumption is just
a theory.

Actually, speciation has been *observed*. If you'd actually visited taht
talkorigins.org site that I've already linked to , you'd know that.
Nevertheless, it would not be necessary for speciation to be directly
observed in order for it to be plausible, given other lines of
evidence. Simialrly, no one has to see a mountain form before
their eyeys to infer the causes of mountain-forming.

What assumptions does *that* theory depend on? And what
assumptions are *those* theories dependant on? And where do you draw the
line before asking for something with at least the consistancy of jello, if
not even more solid?

First, I would ask that you actually *know* what 'assumptions' have been
made, and why. That you *know* what a theory is in science.


The theory of evolution generally concerns what happens AFTER life arose.
Creationists often conflate the evolution with biogenesis, for some
reason.

That's why I said "the theory of evolution as the origin of the
species".

A phrase that makes no sense. I'ts like saying, the theory of erosion as
the the origin of the earth.

You mean why *haven't* we done that. I would suppose it's because we
haven't gotten the conditions right. Is that unreasonable?

Sounds like a cop out to me. What more do you need, you have the
formula, right?

The 'formula' for *what*?

It's taught in elementary schools as Truth (tm), don't you
think we should be able to reproduce it in a lab?

I have no idea what you're talking about. No elementary school
I know teaches a 'formula' for generating life from nonlife.

Whereas you seem to say we should trust that 'god did it' when we
haven't gotten something figured out yet.

I dunno about you, but it seems FAR more reasonable to me to
'trust' that a billion years of natural 'experimentation'
led to the origin of life, than to conclude from 50 years of
inconclusive lab work, that 'god did it'.

Now, I didn't say that. I say question everything and accept nothing as
true until you see conclusive evidence, otherwise call it what it is: faith.

Science goes you one better, then. It says: accept nothing as true, except
provisionally. The 'truth' of the model will rest on its ability to explain
the data and withstand testing.

By that standard, some models of the natural world are more true than others.


I see no upside to putting your faith in either
position, so it's six of one, half-dozen of the other.

I don't think you really understand one side of the debate.

However, the problem
with most arguments for the evolution side is that they only take each
situation on it's own merits. That is both a strength and a weakness. If I
*were* to conclude that "god did it", it wouldn't be simply because recent
work is inconclusive, it would be because of a lot of other observations
which were also either inconclusive or completely unexplainable, *all* of
which are easily accounted for by intelligent design.

Great, taht's what I want to hear. And those are?

So on it's own merits,
inconclusivity does not even *suggest* the existence of god, but if an
entire field is inconclusive even if you accept their basic assumptions and
there is a single theory which explains all of it if you accept a single
assumption, that theory starts to look more probable (I know, it's full of
holes also, but I'm just playing devil's advocate here).

If its full of holes, then that 'single theory' doesn't explain all of it,
does it, *and* it requires an extra (and rather whopping) assumption.


Surely you are aware that the tendancy towards entropy does not hold
for an open system -- that is, one where there is input of energy?
e.g., from the sun or geothermal sources?

First, you only address the 2nd law and ignore the other two points,
lack of observability and a reasonable assuredness that the conditions
theorized did not exist.

I have dealt with them. The first is not a necessary impediment to science,
and the second assumes that *your* standard and criteria for reasonableness, rather
than science's is paramount.

Second, these self-organizing molecules could not
have had the capacity to utilize this energy prior to the later stages of
prebiotic "life", so for a system with energy added but without the capacity
to utilize this energy, the energy added is irrelevant.

Utter nonsense! We're talking about chemical reactions that require
input of energy -- certainly NOT necessarily ATP-driven reactions.
ORder arises in molecules that aren't 'alive' even today.

Of course there is
always a counter argument, for example (I'll save you the trouble g), the
wave motion on a primeval beach contributes the necessary energy to account
for organization on a very small scale, and the fact that the 2nd law
doesn't disallow smaller sub-systems tending towards organization within a
larger system tending towards disorder

Indeed. The earth is msot assuredly NOT a closed 'subsystem'. Far more than
jsut the origin of life would be impacted, if it were.


, but in general I cannot completely
ignore the fact that it is a system tending toward organization on a rather
large scale (although admittedly small in comparison to the universe), which
*should* be tending towards disorganization, that is apparently driven only
by an unknown, mysterious force that was, in previous times, referred to as
"elan vital".
Semantics of the 2nd law aside, where is the "spark of life?"

LOL. Are you seriously reviving 'vitalism'? I reject your assumptions.

Look, reread that Bada book, read the talk.origins FAQs, read whatever
it takes to advance your knowledge beyond the early 1900's. And for
heaven's sake stop parroting these creationist strawmen.


Yeah, liike....for the last 3 billion years, and uncounted millions of
species generated in that time.

I object to your use of the word "generated". There is no evidence of
"evolution" (natural selection/variation) causing drastic enough change to
explain the abundance of species on the Earth. Especially given the time
frame.

There's tons of evidence. You have a lot of reading to do, get to it.

What happens then is we laugh at your straw man.

Then I'll stop talking and eagerly await your explanation of where the
"life" comes in. At what point does it cease to be a collection of
"successful" molecules and become a "living" thing? And what force caused
such a transition?

It does not require me to *answer* questions that are so far unanswered,
but are being investigated by scientific methods, for your arguments
to be straw men. I await evidence that you have actually read beyond
creationist literature.


ATPases are a huge family of (surprise!) evolutionarily related molecules.
There's really no other plausible way to explain the relatedness of
ATPases at the molecular level across species, *except* by evolution.

Or design. You keep leaving that one out.

So, ATPase sequences -- and sequences generally, including those that
*have no function* -- are *designed* to *mimic* the pattern than would
arise if they're related by evolution? This is akin to the old argument that
says fossils were put in the ground to *test our faith*.


A basic flaw common to most
"scientists" (and I quote that simply because some of it doesn't really
resemble science, although I'm not pointing at you with that comment),
is
that they reject the possibility that their assumptions are wrong.

More evidnece that you don't know what science is, much less what
it isn't.

If your
basic assumption is that biogenesis is the explanation for the origin of
life, and then you write a paper based on that assumption, it should hardly
be a surprise that the paper supports biogenesis as the origin of life.

Perhaps you can explain how the 'assumption' fo design could be tested
scientifically. Or why scientists shoudl entertain taht 'assumption',
given the curioius examples of 'design' found in nature, e.g.

http://www.freewebs.com/oolon/SMOGGM.htm


Do you have *any idea* what you're talking about in biology or are you
jsut
tossing out stuff you half-remember from creationist the books you've
read?
Have you run this by any biochemists, molecular evolutionary biologists,
protein scientists, perused any papers like this one to see what the
current state of knowledge is?


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=15037234

See what I mean? I'm not discounting his observations,

'His?

but any
*conclusions* he might draw regarding evolutionary events in our common
ancestors would be biased by the basic assumption that biogenesis is even
possible and that we actually *have* common ancestors.

Those 'assumptions' are based on reason and evidence. Please, go do your
reading, for heaven's sake.

I could only read the
abstract, unfortunately, because I'm not a subscriber. It sounded
frustratingly interesting, though, since it was out of reach.

Should be availabel through your local university library.
The point is, there's plenty out there like it (clickingon
'related aricles', for example, pulls up over a hundred papers).
Do you really believe scientists are simply whistling in the dark
about this whole 'evolution' thing? That it's a house of cards
that's built on a 'tissue of lies', rather than a robust
theory that has withstood experimental test? Do you think it's
some sort of Enron-like scam?


And can you explain why *not knowing how an enzyme works* would
necessarily
invalidate the idea taht , however, it worked, it likely *evolved*
to work that way?

Because without understanding the mechanism itself, we can never
understand how the mechanism came to be, we can only see it as it exists
today. You are again making assumptions which must be accepted without any
real evidence. Even if it did "evolve" (read: was selected for), that
doesn't mean that it sheds any light on the origin of the species, because,
as you noted earlier, natural selection and biogenesis are two completely
different subjects entirely, despite many scientists desire to claim that
one is proof of the other. One is fact, the other is theory.

Biogenesis is proof an natural selection? Or vice versa? Who
says that?

*Molecular* evidence for evolution does not require complete knowledge of
function. Sorry, but it's true. Please read up on methods for inferring
phylogeny from sequence.

Do you understand the extreme explanatory power of
evolution, indeed, that biology would make NO SENSE without it?

I understand the *desire* to use natural selection mislabeled as
evolution to explain many things which we don't understand.

No one mislabels natural selection as evolution, except people who
don't understand either. Please read up on evolution. 'Science On
Trial' by DOuglas Futuyma is a good, nontechnical place to start.

I, for one, am
not uncomfortable with being unable to explain some things, so removing all
untestable assumptions and starting over doesn't bother me.

Your own arguments rest on a tissue of bad assumptions and
poor understanding of the concepts involved. Start there.
Skepticism based on poor understanding of what one is being
skeptical of, is not tenable.

And what, pray tell, took us there if , IYO, evolution did not?
More importantly, what is the *evidence* for your countertheory?

My evidence is everything that you can't explain if I take away your
basic assumption that we evolved from a random mix of chemicals filtered
across a primeval beach.

Done. What evidence remains that *evolution* has not occured since life
originated (however it originated)?

Actually. forget about that the origin of life for
a moment and prove that evolution works starting right now, today,

Done. See talk.origins for an overview.

and then
we'll be getting somewhere. And I don't mean simple natural selection, I
mean proof that a monkey can evolve into a man

No one says 'monkeys evolved into men', except people who dont' know what
they're talking about.


, or that any species can
evolve into any other species (and I don't mean subspecies variations, like
different breeds of dogs).

Done. See talk.origins for an overview.

I know that gravity is true because stuff falls
down.

By your own logic, all you know is that stuff falls down. Are you
skeptical of the theory of gravitation?

I know that natural selection is true because I can observe it at work
in localized animal populations and in differentiation between distant
populations of the same species. Evolution and biogenesis, OTOH, have to be
taken on faith or not at all at this time.

Wrong.

Gee someone should have told these guys that:
http://www.ees.lanl.gov/protocells/
d'ya think 'god did it' holds any water with them?

Someone should tell these guys that zero-point field propulsion doesn't
work:

http://www.gctspace.com/main.html

Yes, someone should. Do you imagine that the the link I psoted was to a bunch
of cranks?

If either of them had actually done it, we would've heard by now.

Did you even *read* the link I posted? And the associated abstract?
No one has claimed to ahve 'done it' there. But it woudl be a fine place
to start your education as to the scientific bases for the 'assumptions'
you find so objectionable.

Don't
take this to mean I think they should quit trying, I just think you
shouldn't present a theory as true until all assumptions have been replaced
by testable, observable facts. In the absence of those facts, a theory is
simply not true. If I want to prove gravity, all I have to do is drop
something.

That proves taht things fall. Does it 'prove' that our concept of gravity
is correct?

If you want to prove evolution, show me an animal that has been
observed evolving into a different animal, either by direct observation or
by fossil and/or genetic evidence.

Done and done, dozens of times over. See the talk.origins overview.

Otherwise, it is no more true than
creationism, which is not at all.




--

-S.

"They've got God on their side. All we've got is science and reason."
-- Dawn Hulsey, Talent Director

Who the **** are you people and why, after two weeks away from this group, are
you still talking about this bull****?


Get over it or take it somewhere else.

At least keep this hosre**** out of here.

Jesus****!




searching for peace, love and quality footwear
guido

http://www.guidotoons.com
http://www.theloniousmoog.com
http://www.luckymanclark.com

(hank alrich)

Jay Kadis wrote:

How many evolutionary biochemists do we have here?

In theory, each and every one of us, whether we know it or not. g

(Except for Will Miho, who knows better.)

The problem with specialized knowledge is you know more and more about
less and less. Most scientists spend years studying something extremely small,
like the mitochrodrial DNA of a tse-tse fly, and that kind of narrow viewing of
"fact" is required for their PHD's. This accounts for a resultant narrow
mindset and POV in many cases, IMHO. A little inter-discliplinary dialogue
between say, biologists and physicists and theoretical Mathemeticians might
lead to broader thinking. Maybe a Multi-discliplinary discussion involving Art
and Religion would help too.

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

Bob Cain wrote:

Les Cargill wrote:


No, if an individual organism tends to adapt to foster
more sucessful collective strategies with others of
its kind, all the benefeits and priveleges of
reproductive success accrue.

But within that group, individuals should arise which can
benefit by eschewing the altruism and taking advantage of
that of the others.

Depends on the species. My understanding is that most
species will ostracize "sociopaths" pretty quickly.

Ostracism is nature's way of saying "no progeny for you".

There are no babies in Rand novels

These individuals will be more
successful at survival and breeding than those who
capitulate to the needs of others.

Maybe in terms of survival, but not necessarily in
terms of breeding. If the dominant mode of a species
which depends on some measure of protection for
young gets too "individualistic", they'll die out.

A dynamic balance has to be acheived, dependent on
what sort of animal it is.

It would seem that this
process would be the stronger and in the long run erode
altruistic behavior of a group that started with it.


Exactly. Other groups without those deviations will
be more sucessful. Again, depends on the phenotype,
the gestation/maturity curve of the species and the
external conditions changes.

Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

--
Les Cargill

Chris Hornbeck

Some other related lines survived until about 30,000 years ago,
notably in Europe, China, and Indonesia. But all of us alive
now are very closely related.

Related according to DNA, to one original genetic Mother. So the argument
would be was she the first woman, "Eve" so to speak, or is it just all other
lines died out? So far, no evidence of other bloodlines has been found. Maybe
the children of "Lilith" weren't very hardy, or maybe Lilith is a myth...

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

"WillStG" wrote in message
...
(hank alrich)

Jay Kadis wrote:

How many evolutionary biochemists do we have here?

In theory, each and every one of us, whether we know it or not. g

(Except for Will Miho, who knows better.)

The problem with specialized knowledge is you know more and more
about
less and less. Most scientists spend years studying something extremely
small,
like the mitochrodrial DNA of a tse-tse fly, and that kind of narrow
viewing of
"fact" is required for their PHD's. This accounts for a resultant narrow
mindset and POV in many cases, IMHO. A little inter-discliplinary
dialogue
between say, biologists and physicists and theoretical Mathemeticians
might
lead to broader thinking. Maybe a Multi-discliplinary discussion
involving Art
and Religion would help too.

and others don't study anything at all
they just accept the God myth and then shut down
george


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steve

In court as well as science evidence is 'weighted', sources are
considered and supporting facts are tested. Without a method to classify
and process evidence would be chaos.

Of course, who suggested anything different? But despite human shortcomings
eyewitness testimony is still indisputibly a form of "proof", of course with
the attendent credibility of the witness and the circumstances of their
observations taken into account.

It is intellectually dishonest to just make a blanket judgement that all
people who bear witness to having experienced spiritual phenomena are not
credible witnesses, and that is not a form of "proof".

Well, I'm not a theorist, but I would say you might be mis-applying
Occam. Just as people once believed earth was the center of the universe
because it made the most sense.

Until Astronomical phenomena was observed that the theory "the Earth is
the center of the universe" was insufficient to explain. So another explanation
was needed. Out of body near death experiences with correlating knowledge
beyond the location of the physical body is not explainable with the theory
that consciousness is limited to chemical reactions within the brain. The
explanation that the spiritual body can travel separately from the physical
body is the simplest to account of the phenomena, and countless people in
history, and religious history, have given witness to this being true
experientially.

You keep using string theory to suggest
proof of other dimensions, but in fact its just a high level exercise to
create GUT. It may well be true, but we're a long way from a practical
means of testing it.

Yes, but that it is mathematically *possible* means saying "there is
nothing to suggest" is incorrect. Technologically theory may be as far as we
can get, utilizing say 5th dimensional forces and properties may not be
possible within the mechanic confines of a 3 dimensional plane. But we can
conceive of it, and we can do the math. That's at least circumstantial
evidence, and shows our minds are also not limited to 3 dimensions either.
Well, some of our minds anyway.

Fine, I'm not a speed typist, so I try to be concise, I know it sounds
like I'm lecturing, but I'm not that way in conversation.

Hey, tell me about it... g

The problem I have with explanations like yours, is they defy logic. It
doesn't matter how many agree with it, it doesn't stand on it's own. You
resort to self supporting "facts", that can't be independently verified.

You keep saying that, but out of body near death experiences people have
had has been extensively researched and verified, people accurately reported
they saw and heard away from their body while "dead". Tell me your simpler
explanation for that. And you cannot give a simpler, more logical explanation
for the many varieties of spiritual phenomena people have personally
experienced either.

All these "spiritual" theories have the same thing in common, they can't
be proven with any outside means. Which leads to the conclusion they are
internal events created by ourselves, not some external force. Religion
routinely takes advantage of these experiences and brainwashes its
subjects to believe its rules have to be followed.

You can prove what is true or not *by your own personal experience*.
People who tell you you NOT to trust your own experiences on such matters are
insecure, bigoted or have their own agendas to advance. The point is after
all, not to merely beleive what someone else says is true, but to find out by
your personal experience. Just research the matter the same way you might to
learn how to make a record, and try a few things. There is so much going on
right now it hard _not_ to experience anything if you are even remotely
interested. The way I see it, the Spirit will work where ever it even sees a
crack it can get into.

I don't know of any reason nature gave us this ability for these
experiences, other than for us to bond at a level that allows large
societies to function. Going back to Occam, isn't this the simplest
explanation?

There is too much phenomena, the mechanics of which cannot be explained by
human need.

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

"George Gleason"

and others don't study anything at all
they just accept the God myth and then shut down

And then years later after "waking up" to having been abused by their
Church in some manner they become militant Atheists and declare God never
existed? Is that it George?

Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Off the Morning Show! & sleepin' In... / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

In article ,
ospam (WillStG) wrote:

"George Gleason"

and others don't study anything at all
they just accept the God myth and then shut down

And then years later after "waking up" to having been abused by their
Church in some manner they become militant Atheists and declare God never
existed? Is that it George?


More like spend years being indoctrinated then finally develop clear
thinking, open eyes and the ability to no longer be held captive by
God's wrath
one finally sees the world the way it is , not the way the god boys want
it to be
George

Precisly the reason why these discussions are not really making a
difference
factually..only in exploring the possibilities of thinking and perception.


Ah, like fiction!

It's all the same!

Well, could be fiction..could be science we don't understand yet...could be a
lot of things..but worth fighting over..I think not.


John A. Chiara
SOS Recording Studio
Live Sound Inc.
Albany, NY
www.sosrecording.net
518-449-1637

The problem with specialized knowledge is you know more and more about
less and less.

A perfect definition of many of my engineering friends!! they seem to think
that because they can run a turbine design program they can run a band.


John A. Chiara
SOS Recording Studio
Live Sound Inc.
Albany, NY
www.sosrecording.net
518-449-1637

and others don't study anything at all
they just accept the God myth and then shut down

And then years later after "waking up" to having been abused by their
Church in some manner they become militant Atheists and declare God never
existed? Is that it George?

sounds logical..g


John A. Chiara
SOS Recording Studio
Live Sound Inc.
Albany, NY
www.sosrecording.net
518-449-1637

"Bob Cain" wrote in message
...

I don't discount it, but reading "The Spark of Life" I more
than ever get the feeling that even basic chemical
properties were set up with intent to make this particular
evolution not just possible but certain. So where does this
process really start?

That's the catch, isn't it? If it started at the beginning, i.e., it's
inherent in the very nature of the Universe and works all the way down to
the smallest components, it kind points to design, doesn't it? But at the
same time, it flies in the face of all the available religous scripture that
explains the same processes. Not that that's a problem for me.

What I am discounting, just for the purpose of this
sub-discussion, is all the various infinite universe,
multiverse or other bases for providing a reason for the
above based on an exhaustive parallel search of an infinite
(or even enormously large) set.

I happen to agree with you. Chance just isn't a sufficient answer for
me, not even if I accepted that there were infinite iterations before this
universe that had a chance to set the organizing principles of this one in
order. When it comes down to it, my final opinion isn't very scientific: I
just don't buy it.

ryanm

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...

Agreed, *so long* as it's demonstrated that life can survive space
travel...and the journey's still out on whether any asteroids actually
harbor fossils.

Heh... you'll have to define "life" before that can be demonstrated. Do
you mean life as we know it, or any kind of life that could exist in the
universe which may have brought the organizing force which drove biogenesis,
which may or may not be recognizable as life to us today? You see the
problem there?

How has this been determined? HAve these fungi been taken into space on
shuttle
missions and such?

Like I said, the guy was a whack job. I'll have to find the link, if
only for the entertainment value.

ryanm

"Steven Sullivan" wrote in message
...

Do you deny that some people *can* and *do* know more than
other people?

If you dont' know what we *do* know, how can you pronounce on
what we *don't* know?

I think his problem is with your assumption that you *do* know more than
anyone else. I'll grant you that I don't have a degree in biochemistry. But
at the same time it's irrelevant. Be a scientist and address the questions
and answers on their own merits rather than questioning the credentials of
the person who put them forth. What difference does it make if I ask you a
question or if Einstein asked you the same question? The answer is still the
same, right?

ryanm

Bob Cain wrote:

Les Cargill wrote:


No, if an individual organism tends to adapt to foster
more sucessful collective strategies with others of
its kind, all the benefeits and priveleges of
reproductive success accrue.

But within that group, individuals should arise which can
benefit by eschewing the altruism and taking advantage of
that of the others. These individuals will be more
successful at survival and breeding than those who
capitulate to the needs of others. It would seem that this
process would be the stronger and in the long run erode
altruistic behavior of a group that started with it.

Interesting thought, but most animals living in groups have methods of
dealing with those members who would take advantage of weaker members
and threaten to disrupt the group dynamics. There's usually a strong
hierarchy that doesn't take well independent behavior outside group
norms. Its especially prominent in primates, who we share a lot of
similar group behaviors.

In many groups, males can only breed by working themselves up the
hierarchy by following group norms.

"Blind Joni" wrote in message
...
and others don't study anything at all
they just accept the God myth and then shut down

And then years later after "waking up" to having been abused by their
Church in some manner they become militant Atheists and declare God never
existed? Is that it George?

sounds logical..g


Logical and Faith do not seem to walk the same path
and please point out how I have been "Militant"
I have never made any attemt to alter your private following of your faith
just the opposite is true, Time and Time again I have encouraged you to
embrace your myth
though what your demonstrating your getting from it so far does not seem
to be making you a more loving accepting person
george


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"Blind Joni" wrote in message
...
Precisly the reason why these discussions are not really making a
difference
factually..only in exploring the possibilities of thinking and
perception.


Ah, like fiction!

It's all the same!

Well, could be fiction..could be science we don't understand yet...could
be a
lot of things..but worth fighting over..I think not.

exactly why the God myth should not be invoked to Bless our warrior
conquests
My God myth is better than your god myth is not reason to bomb foriegn lands
regardless if it is the taliban or GW Bush and company doing the bombing
George


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