Magical gawds make everything so simple.You YEC'ists are such a hoot. In just a few thousand years, there are 37k different types of beetles?it gets convoluted because you make things up about what I said and pretend I said it.......the scientific process of evolution worked the same way before the flood and after the flood.......there are fossils in the ground because creatures died before the flood, just like they did after the flood......as I have already said, we have 37k different species of beetle because of evolution, but neither beetles or humans evolved from pond sludge......these are all things I have said before......they directly contradict what you have just claimed I said......apparently, that makes you either an idiot or a liar......Your story gets more convoluted with every tidbit.
Ok, since you seem too embarrassed to just spell out your position, am I now to assume that god put all the fossilized creatures on earth, and THEN they evolved? But not into another species? So no species is the ancestor of another?
Did the gods somehow work overtime to magically *poof* those into existence?
inaccurate.....I see no reason to assume it took thousands of years......
Question about Noah.
- Thread starter Taz
- Start date
Taz
Gold Member
- Jul 8, 2014
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I never said anything was proven. The primordial soup thing is the leading THEORY. I also think that it's possible that life may have arrived on asteroids... But I see zero proof for everything being poofed into existence because I don't live in a fantasy world like you do. I prefer a reality based life, to living in a dreamworld.so let me see if I have this straight......I admit I believe in stuff that cannot be proven, you deny believing in stuff that cannot be proven, but believe it HAS been proven when it hasn't, and you think that I am the idiot?......It's ok, we're pretty much done here, you admitted that you believe in stuff without a single ******* shred of proof (and you call ME an idiot, how ironic). Proof which you don't have for this either. Total fantasy world. Have fun.it gets convoluted because you make things up about what I said and pretend I said it.......the scientific process of evolution worked the same way before the flood and after the flood.......there are fossils in the ground because creatures died before the flood, just like they did after the flood......as I have already said, we have 37k different species of beetle because of evolution, but neither beetles or humans evolved from pond sludge......these are all things I have said before......they directly contradict what you have just claimed I said......apparently, that makes you either an idiot or a liar......Your story gets more convoluted with every tidbit.
Ok, since you seem too embarrassed to just spell out your position, am I now to assume that god put all the fossilized creatures on earth, and THEN they evolved? But not into another species? So no species is the ancestor of another?
PostmodernProph
....fully immersed....
don't blame God for making you simple.......it was just random chance......Magical gawds make everything so simple.You YEC'ists are such a hoot. In just a few thousand years, there are 37k different types of beetles?it gets convoluted because you make things up about what I said and pretend I said it.......the scientific process of evolution worked the same way before the flood and after the flood.......there are fossils in the ground because creatures died before the flood, just like they did after the flood......as I have already said, we have 37k different species of beetle because of evolution, but neither beetles or humans evolved from pond sludge......these are all things I have said before......they directly contradict what you have just claimed I said......apparently, that makes you either an idiot or a liar......Your story gets more convoluted with every tidbit.
Ok, since you seem too embarrassed to just spell out your position, am I now to assume that god put all the fossilized creatures on earth, and THEN they evolved? But not into another species? So no species is the ancestor of another?
Did the gods somehow work overtime to magically *poof* those into existence?
inaccurate.....I see no reason to assume it took thousands of years......
PostmodernProph
....fully immersed....
Oh my. You self-hating YEC'ists do have this need to invoke your gods as agents of your self-hate.don't blame God for making you simple.......it was just random chance......Magical gawds make everything so simple.You YEC'ists are such a hoot. In just a few thousand years, there are 37k different types of beetles?it gets convoluted because you make things up about what I said and pretend I said it.......the scientific process of evolution worked the same way before the flood and after the flood.......there are fossils in the ground because creatures died before the flood, just like they did after the flood......as I have already said, we have 37k different species of beetle because of evolution, but neither beetles or humans evolved from pond sludge......these are all things I have said before......they directly contradict what you have just claimed I said......apparently, that makes you either an idiot or a liar......Your story gets more convoluted with every tidbit.
Ok, since you seem too embarrassed to just spell out your position, am I now to assume that god put all the fossilized creatures on earth, and THEN they evolved? But not into another species? So no species is the ancestor of another?
Did the gods somehow work overtime to magically *poof* those into existence?
inaccurate.....I see no reason to assume it took thousands of years......
Ark tales and fables problems.
The Irish Ram
LITTLE GIRL / Ram Tough
Actually, if you believe in soup, you've got nothing. Primordial soup never existed. There is 0 proof of your magic soup.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
Last edited:
PostmodernProph
....fully immersed....
Actually, if you believe in soup, you've got nothing. Primordial soup never existed. There is 0 proof of your magic soup.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
that's not fair...all it takes is mud and lightning.......it happens every time we have a thunderstorm, right?.......
Yours is an impossibly stupid understanding of early earth history or the biological sciences. However, as you attempt to defend your YEC'ist views of a 6,000 year old earth, absurdities that only religious fundamentalists can accept are your only choices.Actually, if you believe in soup, you've got nothing. Primordial soup never existed. There is 0 proof of your magic soup.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
that's not fair...all it takes is mud and lightning.......it happens every time we have a thunderstorm, right?.......
The Irish Ram
LITTLE GIRL / Ram Tough
It's not my understanding Hollie, it's SCIENCE!
the_human_being
Gold Member
- Sep 8, 2014
- 15,277
- 2,747
- 290
Magical gawds make everything so simple.You YEC'ists are such a hoot. In just a few thousand years, there are 37k different types of beetles?it gets convoluted because you make things up about what I said and pretend I said it.......the scientific process of evolution worked the same way before the flood and after the flood.......there are fossils in the ground because creatures died before the flood, just like they did after the flood......as I have already said, we have 37k different species of beetle because of evolution, but neither beetles or humans evolved from pond sludge......these are all things I have said before......they directly contradict what you have just claimed I said......apparently, that makes you either an idiot or a liar......Your story gets more convoluted with every tidbit.
Ok, since you seem too embarrassed to just spell out your position, am I now to assume that god put all the fossilized creatures on earth, and THEN they evolved? But not into another species? So no species is the ancestor of another?
Did the gods somehow work overtime to magically *poof* those into existence?
inaccurate.....I see no reason to assume it took thousands of years......
The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." Sounds like someone knew you even before you were knit in your mother's womb.
I'm afraid you're just another dishonest fundamentalist hack.Actually, if you believe in soup, you've got nothing. Primordial soup never existed. There is 0 proof of your magic soup.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
It's unfortunate that you alleged Christians are so intent on trying to force your beliefs on others that you don't care a whit about honesty, integrity or facts.
Your phony "quote" referencing Francis Crick is a staple among the worst of the lies and falsehoods that are maintained by christian charlatans and fundie creation ministries.
So congratulations. You have chosen to be an accomplice to fraud, so you're as much a liar and a fraud as the fundie creation ministries you promote with your fraud.
Actually, if you believe in soup, you've got nothing. Primordial soup never existed. There is 0 proof of your magic soup.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
Quote Mine Project Miscellaneous
Quote #74
"An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that, in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle." (Francis Crick, Life Itself, Its Origin and Nature, 1981, p. 88)
Again there is an unmarked deletion, this time at the end, following right after "miracle,":
" . . . so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. But this should not be taken to imply that there are good reasons to believe that it could not have started on the earth by a perfectly reasonable sequence of fairly ordinary chemical reactions. The plain fact is that the time available was too long, the many microenvironments on the earth's surface too diverse, the various chemical possibilities too numerous and our own knowledge and imagination too feeble to allow us to be able to unravel exactly how it might or might not have happened such a long time ago, especially as we have no experimental evidence from that era to check our ideas against."
Crick's book is about his proposition that life on Earth may have been the result of "directed panspermia." It should be noted that, in the book, he assumes that the aliens who he posits might be "seeding" the universe are, themselves, the product of evolution. In this quote, Crick is simply pointing out how, in the absence of evidence, the appearance of life on Earth might seem like a miracle. But he specifically admits that abiogenesis may have occurred on Earth as a result of ordinary chemical processes that require no resort to outside intelligence. Leaving out that part of it, by cutting off what immediately follows, is deeply dishonest.
- J. (catshark) Pieret
Crick's book is about his proposition that life on Earth may have been the result of "directed panspermia." It should be noted that, in the book, he assumes that the aliens who he posits might be "seeding" the universe are, themselves, the product of evolution. In this quote, Crick is simply pointing out how, in the absence of evidence, the appearance of life on Earth might seem like a miracle. But he specifically admits that abiogenesis may have occurred on Earth as a result of ordinary chemical processes that require no resort to outside intelligence. Leaving out that part of it, by cutting off what immediately follows, is deeply dishonest.
- J. (catshark) Pieret
Actually, if you believe in soup, you've got nothing. Primordial soup never existed. There is 0 proof of your magic soup.
In fact, the odds of even one little bacterium being produced in primordial soup are greater than you and your entire extended family winning the lottery every week, for 1 million years.
Mathematician Hoyle a strict materialist, did the math. Mathematicians agree that if the likely hood of an event reaches 10 to the 50th power, it is an impossibility. He calculated the probably of life originating in soup at 10 to the 40,000 power.
Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize in Biology:
"An honest man, armed with the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to be satisfied to get in going"
AND, this is how badly they want you to believe it anyway. This is what George Wald, Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate had to say about spontaneous generation:
"One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneity generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are-- as a result, I believe of spontaneous generation.
Wald went on to explain his ridiculous statement:
"When it comes to the origin of life there are only 2 possibilities: Creation, or spontaneous generation. There is no third way.
Spontaneous generation was disproved one hundred years ago, but that leads us to only one other conclusion, that of supernatural creation. WE CANNOT ACCEPT THAT ON PHILOSOPHICAL GROUNDS; THEREFORE, WE CHOOSE TO BELIEVE THE IMPOSSIBLE: THAT LIFE AROSE SPONTANEOUSLY BY CHANCE.
Science knows better, they just don't want you to know better.
Hey,good for you Irish Ram. You're phony "quote" of Wald's work is yet another fraud and a lie.
You're two for two. You should be so proud.
Your "quote" is one I recognized immediately as another fraud perpetrated by Christian extremists.
Quote Mine Project Assorted Quotes
Mars Hill Ministry: The Origin of Life --The "Hardware"; The Journey: Spontaneous Generation; and True News: The Origin of Life - Evolution’s Dilemma.
It should first be noted that, while Wald uses the term "spontaneous generation" throughout the article, he is not really concerned with the historic notion "that life arises regularly from the nonliving: worms from mud, maggots from decaying meat, mice from refuse of various kinds" that was shown to be untenable by Francesco Redi, Lazzaro Spallanzani and Louis Pasteur. Although he gives an account of Redi's, Spallanzani's and Pasteur's work, his real concern is "how organisms may have arisen spontaneously under different conditions [than exist in the present] in some former period, granted that they do so no longer." In short, he is speaking about what we would now call "abiogenesis."
The source of the above quote is an article Wald wrote, entitled "The Origin of Life," that appeared in the August 1954 issue of Scientific American (vol. 191), on pages 44-53. This is the same article that was ultimately the source of Quote Mine #57.
As was the case with Quote Mine # 57, the creationists have frequently mangled the citation in passing around the quote. The "Journey" site above gives the source as "George Wald, 'The Origin of Life,' Scientific American, 191:48, May 1954" as does The Triunity Report: The Origin of Life and The Suppression of Truth. Another site, Adventist Review: The Simple Cell?, gives it as "Scientific American, May 1954." The latter site goes on to merge this quote mine with a variation on Quote Mine #57, which itself was a paraphrase of what Wald said that bore little resemblance to his actual point, thus creating a true paragon of misinformation.
Unlike Quote Mine #57, however, the actual words attributed to Wald do appear in his article, on page 46. Immediately following on the two sentences above is a third that, together, form a complete paragraph that reads:
One has only to contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet here we are -- as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation. It will help to digress for a moment to ask what one means by "impossible." [Emphasis added.]
Wald then goes on to discuss probability, beginning with the simple-to-calculate cases of coin tosses and dice, where the possible number of outcomes are known. He continues:
When one has no means of estimating the probability beforehand, it must be determined by counting the fraction of successes in a large number of trials.
Our everyday concept of what is impossible, possible or certain derives from our experience: the number of trials that may be encompassed within the space of a human lifetime, or at most within recorded human history. In this colloquial, practical sense I concede the spontaneous origin of life to be "impossible." It is impossible as we judge events in the scale of human experience.
We shall see that this is not a very meaningful concession; For one thing, the time with which our problem is concerned is geological time, and the whole extent of human history is trivial in the balance.
Wald then discusses the fact that highly improbable things can happen but that, as a result of the skeptical attitude of persons of good judgment, "events which are merely very extraordinary acquire the reputation of never having occurred at all." But Wald calls scientists the "[l]east skeptical" of all "judicious persons" because "cautious as they are, [they] know very well what strange things are possible." Wald's example for this, the possibility that a table will spontaneously rise into the air if "the molecules of which the table is composed, ordinarily in random motion in all directions, should happen by chance to move in the same direction," neatly anticipates Fred Hoyle's "Tornado in a Junkyard" argument. Therefore, according to Wald, "it does not mean much to say that a very improbable event has never been observed."
More importantly, though:
When we consider the spontaneous origin of a living organism, this is not an event that need happen again and again. It is perhaps enough for it to happen once. The probability with which we: are concerned is of a special kind; it is the probability that an event occur at least once. To this type of probability a fundamentally important thing happens as one increases the number of trials. However improbable the event in a single trial, it becomes increasingly probable as the trials are multiplied. Eventually the event becomes virtually inevitable.
Wald gives the following example:
Wald gives the following example:
Consider a reasonably improbable event, the chance of which is 1/1,000. The chance that this will not occur in one trial is 999/1,000. The chance that it won't occur in 1,000 trials is 999/1,000 multiplied together 1,000 times. This fraction comes out to be 37/100. The chance that it will happen at least once in 1,000 trials is therefore one minus this number -- 63/100 -- a little better than three chances out of five. One thousand trials have transformed this from a highly improbable to a highly probable event. In 10,000 trials the chance that this event will occur at least once comes out to be 19,999/20,000. It is now almost inevitable.
Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.
It is now clear why the quote miners omitted the sentence following the snippet they appropriated. Including it might have tipped off the people the quote is intended to impress that they are being mislead. And if they went and actually looked at the article, they would find that Wald was not saying that a naturalistic origin of life is impossible but was, instead, engaged in a bit of rhetorical flourish, leading up to his conclusion that:
The important point is that since the origin of life belongs in the category of at-least-once phenomena, time is on its side. However improbable we regard this event, or any of the steps which it involves, given enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once. And for life as we know it, with its capacity for growth and reproduction, once may be enough.
In short, Wald's conclusion in the article is diametrically opposed to the spin the creationists want to put on it. Wald is not, as the creationists would have you believe, arguing for a naturalistic view[1] despite the "evidence" of the supposed great improbability of life arising naturally, he is arguing that there is no such "evidence." Wald's point is, first of all, that the probability of abiogenesis happening is impossible to calculate. But beyond that, the very nature of the problem suggests the likelihood that abiogenesis did happen, here on Earth or somewhere in the universe.
Creationists are free to dispute Wald's arguments or his conclusions, of course. In fact, he accepts, based on the evidence available in 1954, that there was some 2 billion years between the point that conditions on Earth made life possible and its first appearance. Evidence discovered in the 50 years that have passed since Wald's article suggests that liquid water first appeared on the Earth about 4.4 billion years ago, while the earliest fossils found are dated at 3.5 billion years ago and the earliest (though disputed) signs of life date to 3.8 billion years ago. It is not immediately obvious that 700 million years or so is insufficient for Wald's argument to be valid.
Time is in fact the hero of the plot. The time with which we have to deal is of the order of two billion years. What we regard as impossible on the basis of human experience is meaningless here. Given so much time, the "impossible" becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: time itself performs the miracles.
It is now clear why the quote miners omitted the sentence following the snippet they appropriated. Including it might have tipped off the people the quote is intended to impress that they are being mislead. And if they went and actually looked at the article, they would find that Wald was not saying that a naturalistic origin of life is impossible but was, instead, engaged in a bit of rhetorical flourish, leading up to his conclusion that:
The important point is that since the origin of life belongs in the category of at-least-once phenomena, time is on its side. However improbable we regard this event, or any of the steps which it involves, given enough time it will almost certainly happen at least once. And for life as we know it, with its capacity for growth and reproduction, once may be enough.
In short, Wald's conclusion in the article is diametrically opposed to the spin the creationists want to put on it. Wald is not, as the creationists would have you believe, arguing for a naturalistic view[1] despite the "evidence" of the supposed great improbability of life arising naturally, he is arguing that there is no such "evidence." Wald's point is, first of all, that the probability of abiogenesis happening is impossible to calculate. But beyond that, the very nature of the problem suggests the likelihood that abiogenesis did happen, here on Earth or somewhere in the universe.
Creationists are free to dispute Wald's arguments or his conclusions, of course. In fact, he accepts, based on the evidence available in 1954, that there was some 2 billion years between the point that conditions on Earth made life possible and its first appearance. Evidence discovered in the 50 years that have passed since Wald's article suggests that liquid water first appeared on the Earth about 4.4 billion years ago, while the earliest fossils found are dated at 3.5 billion years ago and the earliest (though disputed) signs of life date to 3.8 billion years ago. It is not immediately obvious that 700 million years or so is insufficient for Wald's argument to be valid.
PostmodernProph
....fully immersed....
you know they aren't mine.....must be yours.....
Embrace your YEC'ism. Embrace your ignorance.
PostmodernProph
....fully immersed....
I love the way you keep demonstrating yours.....
Not at all, actually. I'm fully supportive of the methods of science. Further, were you not essentially arguing as a classic fundie / YEC'ist, I would expect you to actually have a valid alternative to propose as a counter to natural processes, which (of course) You YEC'ists do not. YEC'ism has always consisted primarily of arguments against science rather than argument in favor of a different theory of origins. This is also the manner in which you are arguing.
PostmodernProph
....fully immersed....
???.....Hollie, you haven't actually read any of my arguments since June.....if you had you would realize why you're wasting everyone's time.....
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