What a mistake to imbue science with the majestic ability of explaining all things.
I believe that many folks, afraid to appear ignorant, do just that.
1. Take this as an example: can you name a material cause that generates functioning digital code from physical or chemical precursors?
No...there isn't one.
But, there is one type of cause that has produced this type of information:intelligence, the mind.
a. The reflecting telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico has been used to send a message to any other similar life forms to humans, in outer space. It includes digital formulations of prime numbers.
Intelligence is behind it, aimed at intelligent life....
b. "The creation of information is habitually associated with conscious activity." Quastler," The Emergence of Biological Organization," p.16.
2. This fact has significance when the question of the origin of life is at issue.
Now, that is not the same question as the mechanism of evolution, as stated by Charles Darwin: that is known as biological evolution.
a. There are two distinctly different theories here, Darwinian theories that attempt to account for the origin of new forms of live from preexisting forms....and the subject at hand: the origin of the first life forms.
The first.
3. To be clear, in science, there is no chemical evolutionary process that has been shown to explain the origin of the information in DNA or RNA needed to produce life from simple, preexisting chemicals.
a. Natural selection, random mutations, acting on already existing sections of information-rich DNA does not, in any way, address the question of first-life.
4. Natural selection assumes the existence of living organisms that have the ability to reproduce. But this ability to reproduce in cells depends on information-containing proteins and nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. So....where is the explanation for the origin of these special chemicals, i.e., how has origin-of-life research explained same?
It hasn't.
a. "Pre-biological natural selection is a contradiction in terms."
Theodosius Dobzhansky, Schema-Root news
b. How can there be pre-living things-natural selection, since it needs "information which implies they have to presuppose what is to be explained in the first place."
Christian de Duve, "Blueprint For A Cell," p.187.
5. See where this is going? Science has no answer.
Some scientists are deeply offended by their own puzzlement....take geneticist Richard Lewontin, who remarked equably in The New York Review of Books,: We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories.
We are to put up with sciences unsubstantiated just-so stories because, Lewontin explains, we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door!
a. Wow....quite a scientific outlook, eh? The 'patent absurdity' is far more acceptable
....Really? Anyone care to wear a button with that motto?
How about a tattoo?
6. I hate to rub salt in the wounds....but a steady stream of new research has even cast doubt on the creative power of the mutation and selection mechanism. [Kauffman, "The Origins of Order;" Goodwin, "How the Leopard Changed It's Spots;" Eldredge, "Reinventing Darwin;" Raff, "The Shape of Life," and others....]
Stephen C. Meyer, "Darwin's Doubt."
a. Quite an 'uh, oh' from the science community....some have even retreated this far:
"...just because we don't know how evolution occurred, does not justify doubt about whether it occurred."
Douglas Futuyma, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," p. 8.
Doesn't that sound a lot like faith??? Kind of religion?
So....here's my question: as science has no answers to the questions about the first life....and, seems, is less sanguine about prior explanations....
...do you think this is acceptable:
"Emile Zuckerkandl, biologist (considered one of the founders of the field of molecular evolution), writing in the journal "Gene," he found it difficult to contain his indignation:
"The intellectual virus named 'intelligent design'...the 'creationists'...have decided some years ago...to dress up in academic gear and to present themselves as scholars...laugh off this disguise...Naive members of the public...the wrong-foot...the only foot on which the promoters of intelligent design can get around...guided by a little angel...medieval concept...and intellectually dangerous condition...the divine jumping disease...humanity dug itself into 'faiths' like a blind leech into flesh and won't let go....Feeding like leeches on irrational beliefs....offensive little swarms of insects...."
Leeches? Insects?
Wow.....what's eating him?
I believe that many folks, afraid to appear ignorant, do just that.
1. Take this as an example: can you name a material cause that generates functioning digital code from physical or chemical precursors?
No...there isn't one.
But, there is one type of cause that has produced this type of information:intelligence, the mind.
a. The reflecting telescope in Arecibo, Puerto Rico has been used to send a message to any other similar life forms to humans, in outer space. It includes digital formulations of prime numbers.
Intelligence is behind it, aimed at intelligent life....
b. "The creation of information is habitually associated with conscious activity." Quastler," The Emergence of Biological Organization," p.16.
2. This fact has significance when the question of the origin of life is at issue.
Now, that is not the same question as the mechanism of evolution, as stated by Charles Darwin: that is known as biological evolution.
a. There are two distinctly different theories here, Darwinian theories that attempt to account for the origin of new forms of live from preexisting forms....and the subject at hand: the origin of the first life forms.
The first.
3. To be clear, in science, there is no chemical evolutionary process that has been shown to explain the origin of the information in DNA or RNA needed to produce life from simple, preexisting chemicals.
a. Natural selection, random mutations, acting on already existing sections of information-rich DNA does not, in any way, address the question of first-life.
4. Natural selection assumes the existence of living organisms that have the ability to reproduce. But this ability to reproduce in cells depends on information-containing proteins and nucleic acids, DNA and RNA. So....where is the explanation for the origin of these special chemicals, i.e., how has origin-of-life research explained same?
It hasn't.
a. "Pre-biological natural selection is a contradiction in terms."
Theodosius Dobzhansky, Schema-Root news
b. How can there be pre-living things-natural selection, since it needs "information which implies they have to presuppose what is to be explained in the first place."
Christian de Duve, "Blueprint For A Cell," p.187.
5. See where this is going? Science has no answer.
Some scientists are deeply offended by their own puzzlement....take geneticist Richard Lewontin, who remarked equably in The New York Review of Books,: We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories.
We are to put up with sciences unsubstantiated just-so stories because, Lewontin explains, we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door!
a. Wow....quite a scientific outlook, eh? The 'patent absurdity' is far more acceptable
....Really? Anyone care to wear a button with that motto?
How about a tattoo?
6. I hate to rub salt in the wounds....but a steady stream of new research has even cast doubt on the creative power of the mutation and selection mechanism. [Kauffman, "The Origins of Order;" Goodwin, "How the Leopard Changed It's Spots;" Eldredge, "Reinventing Darwin;" Raff, "The Shape of Life," and others....]
Stephen C. Meyer, "Darwin's Doubt."
a. Quite an 'uh, oh' from the science community....some have even retreated this far:
"...just because we don't know how evolution occurred, does not justify doubt about whether it occurred."
Douglas Futuyma, "Evolution as Fact and Theory," p. 8.
Doesn't that sound a lot like faith??? Kind of religion?
So....here's my question: as science has no answers to the questions about the first life....and, seems, is less sanguine about prior explanations....
...do you think this is acceptable:
"Emile Zuckerkandl, biologist (considered one of the founders of the field of molecular evolution), writing in the journal "Gene," he found it difficult to contain his indignation:
"The intellectual virus named 'intelligent design'...the 'creationists'...have decided some years ago...to dress up in academic gear and to present themselves as scholars...laugh off this disguise...Naive members of the public...the wrong-foot...the only foot on which the promoters of intelligent design can get around...guided by a little angel...medieval concept...and intellectually dangerous condition...the divine jumping disease...humanity dug itself into 'faiths' like a blind leech into flesh and won't let go....Feeding like leeches on irrational beliefs....offensive little swarms of insects...."
Leeches? Insects?
Wow.....what's eating him?
