Scientific Evidence for Universal Common Descent

[Subduction Zone]

OK, so instead of saying you believe in evolution, it might be better to say that you believe the theory of evolution.

No, in the sciences when evidence is overwhelming one accepts theories as correct. Tell me, do you believe in gravity?

 

[YoursTrue]

You are making a gross error here. There is no "believing in evolution". One simply has to accept the evidence if one is honest. You are talking about another subject altogether here. We know that evolution occurred regardless of whether the first life arose from abiogenesis, was planted by aliens, or magically poofed into existence. Szostak is talking about one of the last problems of abiogenesis.

Again, I will tell you what I told Jim. More or less.
It's not that you "believe in evolution," but rather you believe evolution is how the various forms of life came about. Would you say that is a better way of describing your acceptance of the theory of evolution?
Most people believe (include in that word 'know') that the Empire State Building is designed and built by people, but in contrast to the idea that there is a designer higher than the life form, you believe (or know) that these life forms developed by mutations and changes without a designer, is that a fair assessment of what you believe?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Again, I will tell you what I told Jim. More or less.
It's not that you "believe in evolution," but rather you believe evolution is how the various forms of life came about. Would you say that is a better way of describing your acceptance of the theory of evolution?
Most people believe (include in that word 'know') that the Empire State Building is designed and built by people, but in contrast to the idea that there is a designer higher than the life form, you believe (or know) that these life forms developed by mutations and changes without a designer, is that a fair assessment of what you believe?

No, there is a difference between mere belief and knowledge. Creationist often make that error. They think that one "belief" is just as good as another, but accepting evolution is not based upon belief. I am not going to make your error and use the word "believe" when it is something testable and verifiable. In other words we know.

And by the way, ducking a question is a way of admitting that you are wrong. Do you belief in gravity?

 

[YoursTrue]

If you believe the Adam and Eve myth you are a creationist. There never was only one man and one woman. A YEC obviously is the most deluded, but YEC's are not much better. There there are those that believe in "intelligent design" though those are usually creationists as well though it does get a bit fuzzy. For example Behe, a creationist darling, accepts common descent and evolution. He simply claims that God had to have a hand in it, even though all of his "proofs" have been refuted.

The point is that where life came from should not be a religious belief. There is no need for religion there and it will lead to incorrect beliefs.

Do you believe there could have been one gene as the beginning of life, emerging from non-life, as Dr. Szostak says, from a chemical matter to a biological one? It had to start somewhere, didn't it?
You say creationist evolutionists have ideas that get a little fuzzy. You don't think evolutionists' ideas get a little fuzzy? Allow me to say that I have enjoyed these conversations and looking into what highly educated evolutionists say about the subject.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Fine details? You think that figuring how something goes from non-life to life is a "fine detail"?????

The subject of the post was the knowing the identity of the first living thing and not about the mechanism for its existence. Please. It is late and I am not interested in bait and switch straw man arguments. Knowing the identity of the first organism would be interesting, but is a fine detail that is not required to accept theory.

I can tell you this -- assuredly, although neither you nor I were there when the foundation for Paris was laid, it was planned and laid by human beings.[/QUOTE]All the evidence I have for the construction of structures and cities points to human creators and so I would conclude that Paris was built by humans too.

No fantastic deduction there. Similarly, although I might not know the name of the builder of a house I pass by, but again -- most assuredly we can reason, and understand that it didn't just come about by itself.[/QUOTE]While you are missing the point I was making that knowing the identity of the builder is a fine detail that is not required to no about city building nor accept the building of Paris, I see where you are trying to go.

It does not follow from the fact that humans design and build things, that the natural world was designed and built by a human or any being. This is a very old argument called the "watchmaker argument" and has long been refuted. If you assume that a watch you find on the beach has a watchmaker, as you walk on, what if you find a child's toy. Then there must be a toy maker as well. Extend that to nature and we would have to have a life maker, a sand maker, an ocean maker, etc. Just because a watch and nature have something in common does not mean they have all things in common.

 

[YoursTrue]

No, there is a difference between mere belief and knowledge. Creationist often make that error. They think that one "belief" is just as good as another, but accepting evolution is not based upon belief. I am not going to make your error and use the word "believe" when it is something testable and verifiable. In other words we know.

And by the way, ducking a question is a way of admitting that you are wrong. Do you belief in gravity?

Gravity is a word and, I suppose, an idea that explains why things stay on the ground and don't float around as one might on the moon. I believe gravity exists. I also believe that snow flakes can fall, as the saying goes, to the ground, or on cars, mountains, and so forth.
The amazing part is that no one has seen the emergence of a dinosaur into a bird.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Do you believe there could have been one gene as the beginning of life, emerging from non-life, as Dr. Szostak says, from a chemical matter to a biological one? It had to start somewhere, didn't it?
You say creationist evolutionists have ideas that get a little fuzzy. You don't think evolutionists' ideas get a little fuzzy? Allow me to say that I have enjoyed these conversations and looking into what highly educated evolutionists say about the subject.

I cannot speak for Subduction Zone, but when he says that creationist ideas get a little fuzzy, I get the image of a 9 inch paint roller with a nap about three miles deep.

 

[YoursTrue]

The subject of the post was the knowing the identity of the first living thing and not about the mechanism for its existence. Please. It is late and I am not interested in bait and switch straw man arguments. Knowing the identity of the first organism would be interesting, but is a fine detail that is not required to accept theory.

I can tell you this -- assuredly, although neither you nor I were there when the foundation for Paris was laid, it was planned and laid by human beings.

All the evidence I have for the construction of structures and cities points to human creators and so I would conclude that Paris was built by humans too.

No fantastic deduction there. Similarly, although I might not know the name of the builder of a house I pass by, but again -- most assuredly we can reason, and understand that it didn't just come about by itself.[/QUOTE]While you are missing the point I was making that knowing the identity of the builder is a fine detail that is not required to no about city building nor accept the building of Paris, I see where you are trying to go.

It does not follow from the fact that humans design and build things, that the natural world was designed and built by a human or any being. This is a very old argument called the "watchmaker argument" and has long been refuted. If you assume that a watch you find on the beach has a watchmaker, as you walk on, what if you find a child's toy. Then there must be a toy maker as well. Extend that to nature and we would have to have a life maker, a sand maker, an ocean maker, etc. Just because a watch and nature have something in common does not mean they have all things in common.[/QUOTE]
I'm glad you can understand that buildings have human designers, roads have engineers and people to lay down the asphalt, Rome had human builders, so did Paris. And toys have toymakers.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Gravity is a word and, I suppose, an idea that explains why things stay on the ground and don't float around as one might on the moon. I believe gravity exists. I also believe that snow flakes can fall, as the saying goes, to the ground, or on cars, mountains, and so forth.
The amazing part is that no one has seen the emergence of a dinosaur into a bird.

You believe in something no one has seen, but do not believe in something no one has seen? My nap metaphor may have missed the mark in the depth of the nap. That is some fuzzy idea.

 

[YoursTrue]

I have seen some Christians that believed that Miller's experiment was the only positive one in all of abiogenesis, when it was only the first successful experiment of many. And if they do acknowledge Miller's success they try to change the goal of the experiment. They seem to have a "non one inch" mindset often. Take this thread for example. The OP has been given endless evidence for universal common descent and yet he can't get himself to admit to any of it.

Why do you keep going back to the OP, when the thread has taken on a life of its own? Kind of, more or less, so to speak. Almost as in mutation, evolution. What was the OP's question, anyway?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Do you believe there could have been one gene as the beginning of life, emerging from non-life, as Dr. Szostak says, from a chemical matter to a biological one? It had to start somewhere, didn't it?
You say creationist evolutionists have ideas that get a little fuzzy. You don't think evolutionists' ideas get a little fuzzy? Allow me to say that I have enjoyed these conversations and looking into what highly educated evolutionists say about the subject.

Yes, the boundaries in evolution are bound to be fuzzy. And how do you think that life would have had to have started if it started naturally?

 

[Subduction Zone]

Why do you keep going back to the OP, when the thread has taken on a life of its own? Kind of, more or less, so to speak. Almost as in mutation, evolution. What was the OP's question, anyway?

We can go back to abiogenesis if you like. Unlike the theory of evolution there are still some serious questions there. Evolution is pretty much a done deal. I have no problem discussing abiogenesis if people realize this.

Before I go back do you realize that evolution does not depend upon the source of first life?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

I'm glad you can understand that buildings have human designers, roads have engineers and people to lay down the asphalt, Rome had human builders, so did Paris. And toys have toymakers.

At the risk of breaking the rules, I removed the part of your post that was quoting my post, but left looking like your words. I have done that too.

It is good to have your agreement on understanding that human constructs have human designers and builders. Since we can go no further with this, it will have to stand alone as a sign of our mutual agreement.

 

[Subduction Zone]

Gravity is a word and, I suppose, an idea that explains why things stay on the ground and don't float around as one might on the moon. I believe gravity exists. I also believe that snow flakes can fall, as the saying goes, to the ground, or on cars, mountains, and so forth.
The amazing part is that no one has seen the emergence of a dinosaur into a bird.

Strange, I know that gravity exists. There is a world of difference between knowledge and belief.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

OK, so instead of saying you believe in evolution, it might be better to say that you believe the theory of evolution.

Accepting the theory of evolution would be the most logical and rational way to state it, since this leaves open the possibility that it could be rejected with the acquisition of new data and is not some immutable revealed truth.

 

[YoursTrue]

You believe in something no one has seen, but do not believe in something no one has seen? My nap metaphor may have missed the mark in the depth of the nap. That is some fuzzy idea.

As many pointed out, something keeps the apple from going up to the sky. I believe that force (not made by men) is called gravity. And something keeps men bouncing on the ground in the moon, keeps them also floating in spaceships. I suppose that scientists can determine how fast a spaceship can go because of what they understand to be gravity or magnetic force in conjunction with the thrust of the ship. Spaceships have makers, by the way.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Fine details? You think that figuring how something goes from non-life to life is a "fine detail"????? I can tell you this -- assuredly, although neither you nor I were there when the foundation for Paris was laid, it was planned and laid by human beings. No fantastic deduction there. Similarly, although I might not know the name of the builder of a house I pass by, but again -- most assuredly we can reason, and understand that it didn't just come about by itself.

On what basis is your assurance of the planing and construction of Paris by humans based. You did not see it. No living human saw it. How do you know it was not always there? How do you know that it was not built by birds? Aliens? The ghost of alien Bigfoot? Fairies? The Invisible Pink Unicorn? Thor? Or God?

What if I knew nothing of construction, history or how cities came to be. On what basis do you claim that it was built by people? How would you demonstrate to me that Paris was built by people in the past?

 

[Dan From Smithville]

As many pointed out, something keeps the apple from going up to the sky. I believe that force (not made by men) is called gravity. And something keeps men bouncing on the ground in the moon, keeps them also floating in spaceships. I suppose that scientists can determine how fast a spaceship can go because of what they understand to be gravity or magnetic force in conjunction with the thrust of the ship. Spaceships have makers, by the way.

What if it is something pushing things down rather than pulling things down? Are there experiments about something we cannot see that allow us to see what our eyes cannot?

As far as I know, they are human makers, but rabbits have been to Mars. Hmph! We beat you.

 

[YoursTrue]

Strange, I know that gravity exists. There is a world of difference between knowledge and belief.

Gravity is a word to describe a force that is still being explored, isn't it? I know that if someone is threatening to jump off a building, he is risking his health or life.

 

[Dan From Smithville]

Fine details? You think that figuring how something goes from non-life to life is a "fine detail"????? I can tell you this -- assuredly, although neither you nor I were there when the foundation for Paris was laid, it was planned and laid by human beings. No fantastic deduction there. Similarly, although I might not know the name of the builder of a house I pass by, but again -- most assuredly we can reason, and understand that it didn't just come about by itself.

Some people claim that Paris is over 2,000 years old. Since, I know of no humans that can live that long, how do we know that it was built and by people? That whole "starting as a fishing village" thing could be a myth.