Ignorance and evolution

[itinerant1]

itinerant1;3240501:

However, the distinction I was attempting to make is that if a scientist asserts that nature is sufficient unto itself, then he is not speaking as a scientist.

I don’t see why he wouldn’t be speaking as a scientist.

Scientists have to interpret the evidence for evolutionary processes. They can’t just be mere observers of processes but must also draw conclusions about origins. Since they limit themselves to the study of the physical world and mathematical probabilities,they do not consider a Creator. So what is left to explain the origins of life forms? Chance,Necessity,and Nature,which originates and sustains its own. Without a Creator who is always creating,the observed processes are interpreted as the very origins of life. Process is conlated with origin.

But then the intinerant1 remarks that your position is based on a fallacy of ambiguity, which you need to clear up in dry dock before your ship can sail again on these turbulent ocean waves.

Your ambiguity revolves around your use of the word “origin”. Science considers secondary causes only of origins. Theology and philosophy consider the primary cause of origins. Your argument lacks the distinction between primary and secondary causes, alternatively named ultimate or remote and proximate causes.

Primary and secondary causes can be illustrated by looking at two meanings of the word “creation”. First, we can say God is the ultimate cause of everything that exists, is so far as it exists. This is creation ex nihilo.

Second, we can say that a tree has been created by secondary causes, such as the many physical processes required for a tree to come into existence from a seed. In this situation, the elements and physical processes involved in creating the tree have not created the tree ex nihilo. The tree has been created or fashioned from pre-existing matter into a tree.

All secondary causes have as their ultimate source, Divine Providence. This is the activity of God, the One, who is the primary cause of the Many.

An illegitimate inference is made when one says scientific evolution replaces God because science does not invoke God as an explanation for origins of any kind. Genuine scientific theories of evolution only speak of proximate causes. Such theory does not affirm or deny the existence of an ultimate cause.

The multiplicity and variety of beings arise as opportunities present themselves because God created within matter primary principles or causes that account for the origin of new species over time. Reflect on what St. Augustine is saying here:

"For it is one thing to form and direct the creature from the most profound and ultimate pole of causation, and He Who does this is alone the Creator, God; but it is quite another thing to apply some operation from without in proportion to the power and faculties assigned by Him, so that at this time or that, and in this way or that, the thing created may emerge. All these things, indeed, have originally and primarily already been created in a kind of web of the elements; but they make their appearance when they get the opportunity. For just as mothers are pregnant with their young, so the world is pregnant with things that are to come into being, things which are not created in it, except from the highest essence, where nothing either springs up or dies, has a beginning or an end."

—St. Augustine: De Trinitate, 6, 10, II

 

[reggieM]

[Atheism] happens but you aren’t expelled from the church for it.

Perhaps not, but you are expelled from heaven eternally for it.

It was for this reason that it seemed odd that you found so much joy in this matter.

 

[hecd2]

Looks like you’re quite happy about that. So he’s an atheist – big deal. Just as long as you’re a Catholic, that’s all that matters apparently.

Guy Berthault’s response to Kevin Henke’s internet article: Berthault’s Stratigraphy

theotokos.org.uk/pages/creation/berthaul/berthaul.html

…which was completely demolished by Henke here:

noanswersingenesis.org.au/que…lt_k_henke.htm

Further demolition of Berthault’s religiously biassed conclusions:

evolutionpages.com/berthault_critique.htm

Alec

 

[reggieM]

The term “completely demolished” not what I’d call a measured and reasonable conclusion on that follow-up. Half of that reply merely says that “we knew that already”. That’s a classic defense. “Ok, so what. We already knew that what we said before as a “fact” was wrong. Now we’re saying something else, big deal.”.

As in the following:

Nevertheless, geologists recognized long ago that some sections of Steno’s original statements were often inaccurate (e.g., strata covering the Earth, solid consistency in underlayers, exact horizontality in the orientation of freshly deposited sediments, etc.). These sections were modified or removed from the modern definitions of Steno’s laws long before Dr. Berthault’s revelations.

Once again evolutionary “facts” were discovered to be “inaccurate” and had to be modified or removed from the definition of laws.

But we’re assured that today’s “facts” are correct and nobody should doubt them.

 

[anthony022071]

But then the intinerant1 remarks that your position is based on a fallacy of ambiguity, which you need to clear up in dry dock before your ship can sail again on these turbulent ocean waves.

It isn’t a fallacy,and if we are clear on the difference between primary and secondary cause,then it isn’t ambiguous either.

Your ambiguity revolves around your use of the word “origin”. Science considers secondary causes only of origins.

You and I may know that,but do natural scientists know it?
If they do,then why do they describe the secondary causes (the processes of Nature) as if they were the primary causes of origin,with no mention of the primary cause that you and I acknowledge? If they don’t allow the true primary cause of origins into their theories,then the secondary causes become the theoretical origins,and the idea of a Creator is out of the question – mere unfounded belief.

Theology and philosophy consider the primary cause of origins. Your argument lacks the distinction between primary and secondary causes, alternatively named ultimate or remote and proximate causes.

To the contrary,I’ve been pointing out the fact that natural scientists don’t make a distinction between the processes of Nature and origins of life forms,but conflate process with origin. They are as different as the action of a woman giving birth,and conception,or between the word ekporeusis (procession from a single cause) and the word procedit (procession from any any cause whatever)

Primary and secondary causes can be illustrated by looking at two meanings of the word “creation”. First, we can say God is the ultimate cause of everything that exists, is so far as it exists. This is creation ex nihilo.

Second, we can say that a tree has been created by secondary causes, such as the many physical processes required for a tree to come into existence from a seed. In this situation, the elements and physical processes involved in creating the tree have not created the tree ex nihilo. The tree has been created or fashioned from pre-existing matter into a tree.

There is another meaning of creation which is overlooked,which is in fact the first definition: The act of creating;the act of bringing the world into ordered existence.

God is always creating,always originating,always conceiving.

But natural science would have us think about the origins of order and life in terms of process only. It is the natural scientists who have been doing all of the explaining of origins.

All secondary causes have as their ultimate source, Divine Providence. This is the activity of God, the One, who is the primary cause of the Many.

An illegitimate inference is made when one says scientific evolution replaces God because science does not invoke God as an explanation for origins of any kind. Genuine scientific theories of evolution only speak of proximate causes. Such theory does not affirm or deny the existence of an ultimate cause.

That’s the problem. Scientists are searching for the very origins of order and life in natural processes and numbers. If they do not affirm the existence of a Creator who is creating,then the ultimate origins of life and order are attributed to the processes of Nature themselves.
In that regard,they wander into philosophical and theological territory,because order and life have to do with mind and spirit,which are metaphysical.

The multiplicity and variety of beings arise as opportunities present themselves because God created within matter primary principles or causes that account for the origin of new species over time.

I disagree with that. That makes God a mere First Cause,and suggests that Nature is working,and originating itself,independently of God. God himself is always the primary principle and cause of life,and Nature is always dependent upon God. To suggest otherwise is to attribute divinity to Nature itself,like the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno did.

 

[Peter_Wilders]

Barbarian’s response gives credence to the points made in my 249 post of sarcasm, ridicule and lack of scientific content.

He asked me to cite Catholic biologists who disagree agree with evolution. I said their were many and gave two as examples.

One of these was

Dr. Richard von Sternberg: rsternberg.net/CV.htm

Richard M. von Sternberg, Ph.D., Ph.D.
Personal email: rick@rsternberg.net
(please use for correspondence regarding this site)
Staff Scientist
National Center for Biotechnology Information (GenBank)
National Institutes of Health
Building 45, Room 6An.18D-30
Bethesda, Maryland 20894
(301) 402-1502 (work)

National Museum of Natural History
Smithsonian Institution
Washington, DC

Although he is clearly a distinguished Catholic biologist, Barbarian peremptorily dismisses him with:

I’m not aware of any great contributions to biology from Dr.Sternberg

!!!

Seeing he was wrong, instead of admitting it ,he made it appear that he was asking not just for Catholic biologists but those who have made great contributions to biology.

The other was Prof. Dean Kenyon of San Francisco; head of the biology department. He was an eminent biologist who believed in evolution; his book, Kenyon DH, Steinman G. Biochemical Predestination. McGraw Hill Text (January, 1969) became a standard manual on evolution in universities. It was considered a major work.

Eventually his laboratory research led him to the conclusion that biochemical evolution was impossible. He has abandoned belief in evolution and is not opposed to the research of Guy Berthault.

Once again Barbarian hasn’t done his homework. He states:

Kenyon says that the earth is very old, and that evolution is a fact.

As I said in my 249 post a little research would prevent such errors being made.

Complying with his request for empirical proof against evolution I wrote:

Here I revert to my previous posts. The posts referred to peer-reviewed experimental reports published by French and Russian Academies of Sciences showing that strata in the presence of a water current do not form successively according to the principle of superposition but laterally and vertically at the same time.

His reply was:

Did you know that folding and overthrust also are exceptions to the law of superpostition? Did you think geologists were unaware of these things, and fail to account for them? Did you honestly?

My answer is yes. The object of the stratification experiments was to determine the mechanism of strata formation. The apparent exceptions would not challenge the mechanism. In any case for folding and overthrusting to occur the strata must have already deposited.

He continues:

Cross-bedding and various forms of disruption/sorting are well-known.

Who would disagree? Such statements, however, do not provide the counter-experimental evidence which must be produced if the experiments are to be challenged. No one to date has provided any such evidence. His question as to whether I am a scientist does not provide the missing facts. My position is well known, I act as intermediary for Guy Berthault in his contacts with English-speakers. I do the translations and in exchanges of this sort I make no affirmation without his prior permission, unless it is a matterthat has been approved by him in the past. This has kept me closely acquainted with his research.

He refers to my point:

The stratigraphy experiments, for instance, demonstrate visually and mathematically that strata in running water form rapidly; none take millions of years to form.

His response:

No, you merely observed that some can form rapidly.

Agreed. But no strata forming in aqueous conditions where a water current is present can be shown to take more than the accumulated velocity time of the currents. The mechanics of particle grading remove any possibility of a strata taking hundreds, yet alone millions of years to form.

He appeals to larve formations, but again this is not counter-experimental evidence:

The examination of lake varves demonstrates that some do take millions of years to form

This is an affirmation without proof. In any case, calm water deposits form a minute part of the geologic column. Moreover, varves believed to be seasonal can be shown to be due to several other factors. The subject is under study.

He turns to theology:

So St. Augustine was also counter to the Church’s teaching? His idea that beasts evolved from simpler things, is against the Church’s teachings?

St. Augustine, contrary to the majority of other Church Fathers, postulated instant creation from nothing. Beasts evolving from simpler things are excluded, as they are from the Lateran IV definition of creation. Yours is an incorrect assertion.

He adds:

Is it at all possible that the Pope, from the Chair of Peter, is more capable of telling us what is true about our faith than you are?
Most certainly provided he is speaking about the faith. Statements about science, however, are not his department and when they impinge upon the Magisterium he needs help from scientists who have not given in to a naturalistic purview of origins.

Continued in next post

 

[Peter_Wilders]

Continued from previous post

I will close by a mention of your colleague’s hecd2’s post which epitomises all the points mentioned in my post 249; of sarcasm, “ad hominems”, arguments from authority, allegations against persons and organisation and most of all an absence of scientific content; what he considers to be a scientific fact is his personal assertions and questions. He has no experimental evidence to offer just criticisms of those who have. He now writes:

Berthault’s Russian papers are of abysmal quality. They are quite incapable of being published in Western high-impact journals because of their complete lack of scientific rigour.

His views probably haven’t taken into account the papers are translations from French to Russian then back to English; scientists know in such conditions they cannot be judged by usual literary standards. He mentions the Berthault/Henke exchange but only refers to Henke’s initial charges. He ignored Berthault’s rebuttal and answers to all of Henke’s subsequent letters.

His libellous allegations, however, reflect upon the Russian Academy of Sciences who published the papers. I can’t think of a single academic who would not be shocked by his words (although they are applauded by the gallery to the thread!). The critique of Berthault he had posted on his website is of the same shameful tenor. Despite all the insults, I managed to get Berthault to reply; this he patiently did. It was brushed aside by hecd2 as of no value. Yet he refused a request for him to post it on his website next to his critique. I have tried debating with him, but his sarcasms and intent to belittle his adversary, added to his belief that his opinions and affirmations serve as scientific fact, made it impossible. Participating on a Catholic forum one presumes he is a Catholic, if so he should inform himself of the Church teaches slander and calumny are mortal sins.

Peter

 

[itinerant1]

itinerant1;3244907:

The multiplicity and variety of beings arise as opportunities present themselves because God created within matter primary principles or causes that account for the origin of new species over time.

anthony022071 says,

I disagree with that. That makes God a mere First Cause,and suggests that Nature is working,and originating itself,independently of God. God himself is always the primary principle and cause of life,and Nature is always dependent upon God. To suggest otherwise is to attribute divinity to Nature itself,like the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno did.

There is another meaning of creation which is overlooked,which is in fact the first definition: The act of creating;the act of bringing the world into ordered existence.

God is always creating,always originating,always conceiving.

intinerant1 replies, Other than the fact that God creates each human soul individually at conception, are there other ongoing instances of *creatio ex nihil *that you have in mind? I am not sure what you are referring to.

Primary cause
I have listened to philosophy professors of all stripes who had no idea their understanding of primary cause was seriously amiss. This is what happens when one neglects reading Aristotle.

God is not the first cause to be conceived as first in a horizontal series, so to speak, of lesser causes stretching back in time to the instant of creation.

Instead, we say that God is the primary cause in a series of contingent or lesser causes in which he continally maintains in existence (at every instant) all of these contingent causes. It helps if one thinks of this series of causes as a vertical series, rather than horizontal.

Hence, when primary cause is properly understood, it is seen that Nature is not being said to operate independently of the highest cause. Divine Providence is not being ruled out as you have suggested.

My position says that to properly understand and critique evolution from a philosophical aspect, both the theorist and the student can only do so from a correct understanding of causality, which is Aristotelian causality (this includes formal, material, efficient and final causes). Anything else just adds to the already existing confusion.

Bruno
With Bruno, the notion of causality gets skewed, as does his philosophical psychology. For example, Freud was influenced by Bruno’s Aristotelian tone, which accounts for why Freud’s notion of Super-ego, Ego, and Id have so much resemblance to the notions of active and passive intellect, and appetites in Aristotle’s psychology. If Freud had adopted these Aristotelian concepts, according to how Aristotle actually taught them, then the pschoanalytic school would be sporting a much more accurate understanding of man, and history would have been very different.

 

[The_Barbarian]

He asked me to cite Catholic biologists who disagree agree with evolution.

(Barbarian’s actual request)
It would be interesting to see a list of Catholic biologists who don’t accept evolution. I can’t think of one prominent one. Can you?

Nice try, Peter.

Although he is clearly a distinguished Catholic biologist

Barbarian observes:
I’m not aware of any great contributions to biology from Sternberg

Seeing he was wrong, instead of admitting it

Honesty isn’t merely the best policy; it’s safer. Show us the contributions Sternberg made to biology that makes him “distinguished.”

The other was Prof. Dean Kenyon of San Francisco; head of the biology department. He was an eminent biologist

Show us. And show us his “eminent work” in biology.

Eventually his laboratory research led him to the conclusion that biochemical evolution was impossible. He has abandoned belief in evolution and is not opposed to the research of Guy Berthault.

Barbarian observes:
Kenyon says that the earth is very old, and that evolution is a fact.

As I said in my 249 post a little research would prevent such errors being made.

Here’s Kenyon’s associate, William Dembsky says:
For Dean Kenyon has never been associated with the young earth creationists. Indeed, he has always been a full-fledged member of the scientific establishment.

Kenyon has taught evolution in his classes. He just thinks there are some problems with it. Here’s the story:

In the late 60s, Kenyon came up with a theory on how proteins must have appeared in nature. For a while it got some interest; in one year, his book was cited 13 times (which isn’t a lot, but it’s more than some books get). Then new research showed his theory couldn’t work. Even more galling, Thomas Cech was making discoveries that lead to the discovery of ribozymes, (and a Nobel for Cech) self-catalyzing RNA could do what Kenyon’s theory could not. By 1975, Kenyon simply gave up and published nothing more in the literature.

(Peter argues that exceptions to the law of superposition prove it never happens)

Barbarian chuckles:
Did you think geologists were unaware of these things, and fail to account for them? Did you honestly?

My answer is yes.

Well, you’re wrong. That’s been known for well over 100 years.

No one to date has provided any such evidence.

You’ve been duped on that one. For example, we can show hundreds of thousands of years of layer from coral atolls and from varves.

The stratigraphy experiments, for instance, demonstrate visually and mathematically that strata in running water form rapidly; none take millions of years to form.

Barbarian observes:
No, you merely observed that some can form rapidly.

Agreed.

But you have excuses… yes we know.

Barbarian observes:
The examination of lake varves demonstrates that some do take millions of years to form

This is an affirmation without proof.

Nonsense. There are numerous such formations, all of which are shown to have formed over many thousands or even millions of years.

When these one-cell algae die, they drift down, shrouding the lake floor with a thin, white layer. The rest of the year, dark clay sediments settle on the bottom. At the bottom of Lake Suigetsu, thin layers of microscopic algae have been piling up for many years. The alternating layers of dark and light count the years like tree rings. The sedimentation or annual varve thickness is relatively uniform, typically 1.2 mm per yr for present conditions in Lake Suigetsu which is located near the coast of the Sea of Japan. Recently scientists took a 75-m long continuous core from the center of the lake for close analysis including AMS 14C measurements on more than 250 terrestrial macrofossil samples of the annual laminated sediments.
accuracyingenesis.com/varves.html

calm water deposits form a minute part of the geologic column.

But it demolishes your argument that strata can’t form over millions of years. This, and many other gradual processes can and do produce gradual and extensive geological layers.

Moreover, varves believed to be seasonal can be shown to be due to several other factors.

Not by anyone who knows anything about them. They are bilayered, a layer of alge and a layer of clay, each layer with seasonal evidence, such as pollen. Furthermore, it would be necessary for someone to explain how all that pollen and clay got sorted by non-seasonal means, and then suddenly shifted to seasonal mode, just when we showed up to see it.

Barbarian asks:
(St. Augustine’s) idea that beasts evolved from simpler things, is against the Church’s teachings?

St. Augustine, contrary to the majority of other Church Fathers, postulated instant creation from nothing.

He said initial creation was instantaneous, but then things unfolded from that.

Beasts evolving from simpler things are excluded,

Nope. You need to read up on that.

as they are from the Lateran IV definition of creation. Yours is an incorrect assertion.

You’ve confused the initial creation, which God spoke into being, with all of creation, much of which occured after that. Genesis points it out, and your own existence does. You are a creature of God, even if He did it later, partially by natural means.

Barbarian suggests:
Is it at all possible that the Pope, from the Chair of Peter, is more capable of telling us what is true about our faith than you are?

Most certainly provided he is speaking about the faith.

So Lateran IV was speaking of the faith when it “excluded” evolution? Talking out of both sides of your mouth, Peter.

 

[itinerant1]

itinerant1;3244907:

The multiplicity and variety of beings arise as opportunities present themselves because God created within matter primary principles or causes that account for the origin of new species over time.

anthony022071 said,

I disagree with that. That makes God a mere First Cause,and suggests that Nature is working,and originating itself,independently of God. God himself is always the primary principle and cause of life,and Nature is always dependent upon God. To suggest otherwise is to attribute divinity to Nature itself,like the Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno did.

itinerant1 replies (again), I forgot to mention in my previous post that I am surprised this is one of points on which you disagree. My statement above is based on the meaning of the text I posted from St. Augustine in post # 261. Here is that quote again:

"For it is one thing to form and direct the creature from the most profound and ultimate pole of causation, and He Who does this is alone the Creator, God; but it is quite another thing to apply some operation from without in proportion to the power and faculties assigned by Him, so that at this time or that, and in this way or that, the thing created may emerge. All these things, indeed, have originally and primarily already been created in a kind of web of the elements; but they make their appearance when they get the opportunity. For just as mothers are pregnant with their young, so the world is pregnant with things that are to come into being, things which are not created in it, except from the highest essence, where nothing either springs up or dies, has a beginning or an end." —De Trinitate, 6, 10, II (emphasis added)

Your disagreement implies you think St. Augustine “suggests that Nature is working,and originating itself, independently of God.” If you reply that you disagree with St. Augustine in this matter, then I will have to turn the big guns on you, i.e. Augustinian and Thomistic philosophy and theology. If you reply that you do not disagree with St. Augustine, then I must say I have no idea what you are trying to say.

So, make your choice ‘pardner’, (1) face the big guns at high noon tomorrow, (2) make a complete restatement and clarification of your position, or (3), git outta town by sundown.

 

[Orogeny]

Wow, Peter came back. Not that he as brought anything new, but he is back.

Peter, how about responding to my post #205 in this thread.

Also, Peter, please spare us the histrionics about science. You have yet to post any real science for anyone on these forums to refute. You only have a blatant attempt to mislead those who haven’t taken freshman geology.

I know, I know. I’m being mean, calling names, all that bad stuff. Peter, if you want to run away again, you of course can, or if you want a serious discussion regarding geology, I will be glad to indulge you. If you continue with the deliberately misleading argument that geologists consider lateral above or below, however, we won’t get very far.

Peace

Tim

 

[itinerant1]

To my fellow Catholics-

Evolution is not more important than Catholic teaching. The phrase “Science is truth.” is meaningless unless one reads John Paul II’s actual words. The Church renders judgement about science all of the time:

From Human Persons Created in the Image of God, part 64:

Pope John Paul II stated some years ago that “new knowledge leads to the recognition of the the theory of evolution as more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge” (“Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on Evolution” 1996). In continuity with previous twentieth century papal teaching on evolution (especially Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Humani Generis), the Holy Father’s message acknowledges that there are “several theories of evolution” that are “materialist, reductionist and spiritualist” and thus incompatible with the Catholic faith. It follows that the message of Pope John Paul II cannot be read as a blanket approbation of all theories of evolution, including those of a neo-Darwinian provenance which explicitly deny to divine providence any trult causal role in the development of life in the universe."

God bless,
Ed

Very well put. However, there is one point that could use some clarification. The various kinds of evolution theories mentioned by Pope Benedict are, as you have said, materialist, reductionist, and spiritualist. Under the spiritualist category are a number of theories which are inconsistent with the Catholic faith, eg. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. However, some people also include in the spiritualist category theories of evolution that are consistent with the Catholic faith. Specifically, I am speaking of the doctrine of the hiercharchy of being, sometimes referred to as the great chain of being, such as is found in the *philososophia perrenis *represented by Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, which has had an influence on certain modern theories of biological evolution.

Before we can say that “materialist, reductionist and spiritualist” theories are all “incompatible with the Catholic faith”, as you seem to have said, then one first needs to show that Pope Benedict does not include under spiritualist evolution, those theories based on the traditional understanding of the hierarchy of being.

Do you have any additional information that will clarify just how Pope Benedict is using the term “spiritualist evolution” in the particular talk in question? It is a matter of correctly interpreting the Pope’s words.

 

[Wolseley]

Looks like Peter has rattled some cages…I detect a note of defensiveness from a few of our resident Darwinists.

Pity. Here I thought they were all so rational and emotionally uninvolved…

 

[reggieM]

Well, evolutionists have to die also. It’s all a part of natural selection, it’s what evolution wants of us and we obey and go back to the nothingness from whence we came (as it is said).

“Leslie E. Orgel of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies died in October. Orgel had co-authored* Origins of Life on the Earth *with Stanley Miller, the man whose spark-discharge experiment launched the modern origin-of-life craze in the 1950s. Orgel worked in the field for decades and was familiar with all the different approaches.”

Orgel was working on an essay when he died. It was published posthumously this week on January 22. biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0060018&ct=1

Orgel did not have much encouragement for Origin-of-life research in the words of his last scientific will and testament.

**“The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth.” **

"Why should one believe that an ensemble of minerals that are capable of catalyzing each of the many steps of the reverse citric acid cycle was present anywhere on the primitive Earth, or that the cycle **mysteriously organized itself **topographically on a metal sulfide surface? The lack of a supporting background in chemistry is even more evident in proposals that metabolic cycles can evolve to “life-like” complexity. The most serious challenge to proponents of metabolic cycle theories—the problems presented by the lack of specificity of most nonenzymatic catalysts—has, in general, not been appreciated. If it has, it has been ignored. Theories of the origin of life based on metabolic cycles cannot be justified by the inadequacy of competing theories: they must stand on their own.

Simplification of product mixtures through the self-organization of organic reaction sequences, whether cyclic or not, would help enormously, as would the discovery of very simple replicating polymers. However, solutions offered by supporters of geneticist or metabolist scenarios that are dependent on **“if pigs could fly” hypothetical chemistry **are unlikely to help. "

I didn’t realize that scientific research was dependent on “if pigs could fly” hypothetical chemistry, as Mr. Orgel criticizes here.

Orgel was an atheist, and according to Richard Dawkins “Orgel mused about how a **universal genetic code **could have evolved. He and Crick proposed that it might have been brought to Earth by an extraterrestrial intelligence, a process called directed panspermia.”

A whole life spent denying the existence of God.

We don’t know what happened before he died, or how God will judge him necessarily. We should pray for the enemies of God and our own enemies as well.

Kyrie eleison.

 

[The_Barbarian]

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that creationists think abiogenesis means that the citric acid cycle popped into existence from non-living materials.

The evidence is that it evolved from simpler systems over a very long period of time.

Our analysis demonstrates that although there are several different chemical solutions to this problem, the design of this metabolic pathway as it occurs in living cells is the best chemical solution: It has the least possible number of steps and it also has the greatest ATP yielding. Study of the evolutionary possibilities of each one—taking the available material to build new pathways—demonstrates that the emergence of the Krebs cycle has been a typical case of opportunism in molecular evolution. Our analysis proves, therefore, that the role of opportunism in evolution has converted a problem of several possible chemical solutions into a single-solution problem, with the actual Krebs cycle demonstrated to be the best possible chemical design. Our results also allow us to derive the rules under which metabolic pathways emerged during the origin of life.
springerlink.com/content/01v49wfhl92ey7mu/

A quick search on “evolution of the Krebs cycle” got 121 hits. Would you like to see more of the evidence?

 

[Wolseley]

Orgel was an atheist, and according to Richard Dawkins “Orgel mused about how a **universal genetic code **could have evolved. He and Crick proposed that it might have been brought to Earth by an extraterrestrial intelligence, a process called directed panspermia.”

So, they believe in the possibility of aliens, but discount the possibility of God.

Man, that’s what I call good science.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

BWA-HA-HA-HAAAA!!!

 

[itinerant1]

The very notion of Panspermia represents a failed strategy to avoid offering a reasonable explanation of how life could have originated on earth from non-living matter. Panspermia merely pushes the problem further back in time and out there somewhere into the vast universe where it doesn’t have to be addressed.

Of course, life originated on that unknown planet somehow, but now Orgel, Crick and friends no longer have to deal with the original problem, because they conveniently ejected it far too remotely into outer space for any earthling to deal with.

Nonetheless, here on Earth there exists a philosophical theory, or rather a philosophical hypothesis, that accounts for how life can originate through natural processes from non-living matter. This hypothesis takes into account Divine Providence in the universe and appears to be fully consistent with the principles of the Christian philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.

 

[Wolseley]

The very notion of Panspermia represents a failed strategy to avoid offering a reasonable explanation of how life could have originated on earth from non-living matter. Panspermia merely pushes the problem further back in time and out there somewhere into the vast universe where it doesn’t have to be addressed.

Of course, life originated on that unknown planet somehow, but now Orgel, Crick and friends no longer have to deal with the original problem, because they conveniently ejected it far too remotely into outer space for any earthling to deal with.

In other words, it’s a dodge.

And I don’t mean an automotive product manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation.

 

[itinerant1]

In other words, it’s a dodge.

And I don’t mean an automotive product manufactured by the Chrysler Corporation.

Obviously, you caught my meaning.

 

[itinerant1]

Just correcting myself when I said the following in post # 268:

Bruno
With Bruno, the notion of causality gets skewed, as does his philosophical psychology. For example, Freud was influenced by Bruno’s Aristotelian tone, which accounts for why Freud’s notion of Super-ego, Ego, and Id have so much resemblance to the notions of active and passive intellect, and appetites in Aristotle’s psychology. If Freud had adopted these Aristotelian concepts, according to how Aristotle actually taught them, then the pschoanalytic school would be sporting a much more accurate understanding of man, and history would have been very different.

What I should have said here is practical and speculative reason rather than active and passive intellect.

That’s all.