Life outside of Earth

  • Thread starter Thread starter NoMoreGames
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Yes science is provisional and very amenable to change. But that does not change the fact there is good science and bad science.

Good science is the creation of theories based on data we do have while 1) not ignoring any data you have and 2) not assuming any data you have not.
We have plenty of data - the multitude of factors required for the origin and survival of life as we know it.
This is why the attempt to put a probabilistic estimate on the rise of life is bad science. To achieve it you have to rely on data we simply do not have, such as, HOW life in fact did arise in the first place.
Many of our decisions and scientific hypotheses are not based on mathematical calculations of probability. To make that an essential condition is to obstruct progress in research.
This is, as I said, why this mans “Theory” made it into a book, and not a peer reviewed journal. Not that journals are infallible either, but it is a good first test of a Theories claims.
Many philosophical, spiritual, ethical, political, aesthetic and, scientific discoveries have not appeared in peer reviewed journals.
Now if you personally are aware of any peer reviewed science, rather than novels, supporting a probability estimate on the rise of life I would gladly read over them. Make sure whatever you cite has first established how life arose in order to base these calculations in reality first however.
You are imposing arbitrary limits on our interpretation of reality by restricting it to peer reviewed science and assuming that life is solely the result of purposeless processes. There is no conclusive evidence that physicalism is an adequate explanation of life, let alone everything…
 
You realize, genetically, humans share 98.4% of their genome with chimpanzees, right? This is true of many other mammals as well. Obviously I’m not trying to say they are human, but I’d say that’s a huge connection, biologically.
Do you accept the reality of free will? If so how do explain that we have it and other mammals do not? If not how do explain we are morally responsible and they are not?
 
You realize, genetically, humans share 98.4% of their genome with chimpanzees, right? This is true of many other mammals as well. Obviously I’m not trying to say they are human, but I’d say that’s a huge connection, biologically.

Humans have technology, but that doesn’t mean each other species isn’t unique. I’m also kind of confused at to how human ingenuity disproves evolution and reduces it to an argument from ignorance.
So a chimp is 2% different from a human and a mouse is 6% different from a chimp. I see no similarity between a mouse and a chimp, nor do I see even the remotest possibility of a mouse becoming a chimp, nor have I any reason to believe that by giving the mouse the 6% difference in genes that that will make a mouse a chimp.
Human and chimp dna is similar but that does not mean they are related or that one was a descendant of the other. It only means that both creatures shared similar environments and behaviours so their designs on a dna level are also similar. To draw a relationship between them of ancestor and descendant is going a step beyond what the evidence can prove.

Human technology is a unique phenomenon. Does evolution randomly, chaotically lead to creatures flying through space in a spaceship. If everything was truly truly chaotic there might, just might be bacteria living on earth, but spaceships… I don’t know…🤷
 
So a chimp is 2% different from a human and a mouse is 6% different from a chimp. I see no similarity between a mouse and a chimp, nor do I see even the remotest possibility of a mouse becoming a chimp, nor have I any reason to believe that by giving the mouse the 6% difference in genes that that will make a mouse a chimp.
What do you mean by becoming? As in instantly transforming or evolving? Either of which would be wrong. It means they share a common ancestor. Evolution is not linear, it’s a tree. And saying you see now similarity, that is astounding. Open them up. Most, if not all of the organs are the same, preforming the same function in mice, monkeys and humans. Bones have direct parallels. I think you might be in a small minority is seeing no similarity between species of life.
Human and chimp dna is similar but that does not mean they are related or that one was a descendant of the other. It only means that both creatures shared similar environments and behaviours so their designs on a dna level are also similar. To draw a relationship between them of ancestor and descendant is going a step beyond what the evidence can prove.
A step beyond what genetic evidence alone can suggest, yes. But we have fossils of their ancestors. You realize it takes a formerly living creature to make a fossil, right? Since this is the case, these creatures used to exist.

The evolution of the ribosome is a particularly good case for determining ancestry. From bacteria to eukaryote and archaea, the evolution of the ribosome can be traced base by base. That’s pretty much evolution verbatim. If you can honestly look at that evidence and say it doesn’t mean anything beyond a common designer, there really is noting more I can say.
Human technology is a unique phenomenon.
So if monarch butterfly migration, so is the fact that starfish push their stomachs into their prey to digest them, so are most of the behaviors of the species in tropical rain forests. Is seems like you’re using unique to imply best.
Does evolution randomly, chaotically lead to creatures flying through space in a spaceship. If everything was truly truly chaotic there might, just might be bacteria living on earth, but spaceships… I don’t know…🤷
I still don’t understand how space travel has anything to do with evolution that happened millions of years before humans existed, but I think I’m going to stop trying if all you do is restate it.
 
Turns out I mixed tow sources from when I was looking up information.
  1. “One easily testable form of CSI is irreducible complexity, which can be discovered by experimentally reverse-engineering biological structures to see if they require all of their parts to function. When ID researchers find irreducible complexity in biology, they conclude that such structures were designed.” from intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
  2. “ID suggests that the mysteries surrounding life and existence are so complex that there must be a transcendental force subtly guiding the process.” from blatner.com/adam/consctransf/intelligentdesign.html
Considering most of what I said (sans “transcendental”) is from intelligentdesign.org, I’m guessing that is pretty close to how Behe would say it.
Perhaps instead of mixing A and B to gain a desired result on your part, it would be better to find out how Behe would actually say it.
interestingly his book was rejected by the scientific community due to the fact that is we merely an elevated form of “argument from ignorance” (essentially, it hasn’t been proven false, therefore it is true (or the other way around, which applies to evolution), and I think we’ve come the consensus that science can’t prove God, so his theory can never be proven wrong, a major no-no in science). Still think ID is science? 😛
The book is not about God. It has not been rejected by “the scientific establishment” since there is no such entity.

Until you read it, you have no ground to stand on to reject it. Otherwise, you are arguing from true ignorance.
 
Can be speculated but has not been observed. There is no known RNA-based life extant.
So I’ll assume you agree with the rest of my comments.

As far as not observing it, it depends what you mean. We can observe, step by step, through the domains of life, the changes in the ribosome. That is an observation. If you mean watch it happening in front of our eyes, then I highly suggest you look at the story I posted above. I’ll sum it up here.

With the popularity of leaving birds suit and seeds all winter, part of a species of bird’s migration patterns are changed. Because of this, the two groups mostly mate with each other. This has caused a tiny, but detectable genetic differences between the two groups. Researchers could identify if the bird was part of the typical migratory group or the altered one with 85% accuracy. This means the groups are developing a detectable difference in their genetic makeup. That is speciation, and it is happening in our lifetimes. That is observation.
 
Perhaps instead of mixing A and B to gain a desired result on your part, it would be better to find out how Behe would actually say it.
Yes, I admitted I accidentally mixed two sources form when I was searching for sources. I went on to say that I’d go with id.org’s definition since they seem to be well experienced in the idea.

I think is is less important to know how the first person used it and more critical to understand how it is used today. Do we agree on this?
The book is not about God. It has not been rejected by “the scientific establishment” since there is no such entity.

Until you read it, you have no ground to stand on to reject it. Otherwise, you are arguing from true ignorance.
I was not talking about the book you suggested, I was talking about Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box. I didn’t suggest it was rejected because it was about God. I said it was rejected on an argument from ignorance. I was not based on evidence, it supported it’s theory be exposing what science did not know, for example that fact that science could not explain the evolution of bacterial flagella. There have been papers released describing this, in detail. That is why it is a argument from ignorance, the term means presenting something as true because there is no evidence against it.
 
So I’ll assume you agree with the rest of my comments.

As far as not observing it, it depends what you mean. We can observe, step by step, through the domains of life, the changes in the ribosome. That is an observation. If you mean watch it happening in front of our eyes, then I highly suggest you look at the story I posted above. I’ll sum it up here.

With the popularity of leaving birds suit and seeds all winter, part of a species of bird’s migration patterns are changed. Because of this, the two groups mostly mate with each other. This has caused a tiny, but detectable genetic differences between the two groups. Researchers could identify if the bird was part of the typical migratory group or the altered one with 85% accuracy. This means the groups are developing a detectable difference in their genetic makeup. That is speciation, and it is happening in our lifetimes. That is observation.
I am evolving my arguing habits to pick one point instead of inefficiently arguing every single point separately and at once.👍
You can unravel the ribosome but you cannot conclude the reverse is how it actually formed. Because you’ve never seen it form.
About the birds. I can go one better. People have been genetically modifying animals for thousands of years but no-one has ever changed a sheep into a goat, or a horse into a cow. There are hundreds of horse and dog varieties but none seem to have been the ancestoral species for two different types of creatures.😛
 
I am evolving my arguing habits to pick one point instead of inefficiently arguing every single point separately and at once.👍
Probably a good idea. I’m just usually proud of my ideas and don’t like when they’re ignored 😃
You can unravel the ribosome but you cannot conclude the reverse is how it actually formed. Because you’ve never seen it form.
Lets take a hypothetical situation. Let’s assume you’ve never seen a skyscraper or know how it works. First you see a fully constructed building. Next you see a building with windows, but inside it’s just framework, then just the open framework, and finally a partially completed framework. Would you be wrong is using logic to determine how the final building was made by looking at the 3 other buildings? Of course not.
About the birds. I can go one better. People have been genetically modifying animals for thousands of years but no-one has ever changed a sheep into a goat, or a horse into a cow. There are hundreds of horse and dog varieties but none seem to have been the ancestoral species for two different types of creatures.😛
I still don’t understand what you mean by “changing a sheep into a goat”. As in taking a sheep embryo and having it develop into a goat? And evolution does not say that things have ancestry from two different species, so I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here. Evolution is a slow change (like what’s happening in the birds), not about two sheep mating and creating a goat.

If you have to pick a point, go with the second one. You’re just using poor logic in the ribosome case, but I’m extremely confused about what you are trying to suggest in the second.
 
Probably a good idea. I’m just usually proud of my ideas and don’t like when they’re ignored 😃

Lets take a hypothetical situation. Let’s assume you’ve never seen a skyscraper or know how it works. First you see a fully constructed building. Next you see a building with windows, but inside it’s just framework, then just the open framework, and finally a partially completed framework. Would you be wrong is using logic to determine how the final building was made by looking at the 3 other buildings? Of course not.

I still don’t understand what you mean by “changing a sheep into a goat”. As in taking a sheep embryo and having it develop into a goat? And evolution does not say that things have ancestry from two different species, so I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say here. Evolution is a slow change (like what’s happening in the birds), not about two sheep mating and creating a goat.

If you have to pick a point, go with the second one. You’re just using poor logic in the ribosome case, but I’m extremely confused about what you are trying to suggest in the second.
In the ribosome case you are not watching the ribosome form and evolve. You are looking at a finished product. As in the US skyscrapers, you may presume at first glance that they were logically built from the bottom up getting gradually more complex as time passed, i.e. evolve slowly without divine purpose; but at the same time, you are not aware that the Russians build skyscrapers from the top down, ie. divine purpose has allowed evolution the shapes it takes.

With the sheep and goats, I mean people have selectively bred, or genetically engineered if you like, sheep and goats for thousands and thousands of years, but the sheep and goats always remain sheep and goats. Human breeding of domestic animals greatly accelerates, one would imagine, any natural slow process of evolution. I would expect to see after thousands of years of intensive genetic engineering, a sheep being the ancestoral species of two or more different species, as happens naturally in evolution, presumably. But sheep always stay as sheep and goats alway stay as goats, neither species drift away and subdivide into different designs and types of animals. Thats all.
 
In the ribosome case you are not watching the ribosome form and evolve. You are looking at a finished product. As in the US skyscrapers, you may presume at first glance that they were logically built from the bottom up getting gradually more complex as time passed, i.e. evolve slowly without divine purpose; but at the same time, you are not aware that the Russians build skyscrapers from the top down, ie. divine purpose has allowed evolution the shapes it takes.
But we don’t only have one ribosome. We have thousands and thousands of different genetics codes for thousands of ribosomes, each one building on the code of the last. The genetic changes (evolution) can be seen as you move though the ribosomes.
With the sheep and goats, I mean people have selectively bred, or genetically engineered if you like, sheep and goats for thousands and thousands of years, but the sheep and goats always remain sheep and goats. Human breeding of domestic animals greatly accelerates, one would imagine, any natural slow process of evolution. **I would expect to see after thousands of years of intensive genetic engineering, a sheep being the ancestoral species of two or more different species, as happens naturally in evolution, presumably. **But sheep always stay as sheep and goats alway stay as goats, neither species drift away and subdivide into different designs and types of animals. Thats all.
This is where you are mistaken. As I said before, that is not what the theory of evolution says. Sure, it probably happens, but it is not how organisms evolve.
 
But we don’t only have one ribosome. We have thousands and thousands of different genetics codes for thousands of ribosomes, each one building on the code of the last. The genetic changes (evolution) can be seen as you move though the ribosomes.
It does’nt answer the question though. There are Catholic evolutionists who would not see the significance of two different ribosomes any more than the significance of two different related animals. How does difference prove random purposeless evolution as opposed to ordered purposeful evolution.
This is where you are mistaken. As I said before, that is not what the theory of evolution says. Sure, it probably happens, but it is not how organisms evolve.
I thought organisms evolved by genetic mutation over time.
 
It does’nt answer the question though. There are Catholic evolutionists who would not see the significance of two different ribosomes any more than the significance of two different related animals. How does difference prove random purposeless evolution as opposed to ordered purposeful evolution.
If the person was an evolutionist, Catholic or not, they wouldn’t see the genetic and physical similarities between species as insignificant. They would see it as evidence of evolution. I was arguing that the theory of intelligent design was not science. If we’ve agreed on the fact that evolution is true, and just discussing the fine details (random vs guided), we’re pretty much on the same page.
I thought organisms evolved by genetic mutation over time.
Exactly. So why did you say that since we don’t see organisms that are combinations of two other species, or that humans developing the technology to travel to space somehow disproves evolution. That was my confusion. Evolution is based on mutations, not crossing species or technology.
 
If the person was an evolutionist, Catholic or not, they wouldn’t see the genetic and physical similarities between species as insignificant. They would see it as evidence of evolution. I was arguing that the theory of intelligent design was not science. If we’ve agreed on the fact that evolution is true, and just discussing the fine details (random vs guided), we’re pretty much on the same page.
The fine detail of whether evolution is guided or random is hardly fine detail; after all the answer to this question has guided the policies of entire countries towards human life itself for example.
Exactly. So why did you say that since we don’t see organisms that are combinations of two other species, or that humans developing the technology to travel to space somehow disproves evolution. That was my confusion. Evolution is based on mutations, not crossing species or technology.
I don’t mean cross breeding different species. I mean why has a goat, for instance, not evolved into a mammoth, imagining it could, after thousands of years of intensive human genetic engineering of the goat.
or…
If theoretically, a mouse is an ancestor of a chimp just because a mouse has 94% of the chimp dna, why do mice not change into chimps or something else. People have selectively bred mice for, I don’t know, hundreds of years, but no mice are evolving into any other animal, far less a chimp.
 
The fine detail of whether evolution is guided or random is hardly fine detail; after all the answer to this question has guided the policies of entire countries towards human life itself for example.
This is true. I meant it in context of the discussion. The initial comment was to show that ID is not science. So if you accept evolution as science and ID as not, the purpose has been served.
I don’t mean cross breeding different species. I mean why has a goat, for instance, not evolved into a mammoth, imagining it could, after thousands of years of intensive human genetic engineering of the goat.
So you ask why has a goat not evolved into a mammoth after thousands of years of intensive genetic engineering? Simply put, genetic engineering that sophisticated is not even around yet, let alone been happening for thousands of years. That is not to say it will never happen, however.
or…
If theoretically, a mouse is an ancestor of a chimp just because a mouse has 94% of the chimp dna, why do mice not change into chimps or something else. People have selectively bred mice for, I don’t know, hundreds of years, but no mice are evolving into any other animal, far less a chimp.
Yes, but they have been breeding mice for certain mice traits, not to transform them into something that isn’t a mouse. You say hundreds of years. Evolution takes millions. That’s why it hasn’t happened in hundreds, even with human influence. Besides, we engineer traits, not the entire organism. I’ll state this again: the 94% does not mean a mouse evolved into a chimp. It means they have a common ancestor. Evolution is not linear, it is a tree with many branches.
 
If we’ve agreed on the fact that evolution is true, and just discussing the fine details (random vs guided), we’re pretty much on the same page.
Excuse me, you’re way off base here.

ID agrees that there is “change over time.” The only issue is random versus guided. ID says the change is guided.
 
Excuse me, you’re way off base here.
My mistake. I tried to understand what the various sources of ID said, but the fallacies blew my mind and made it hard to focus. I suppose we are not at the same page.
ID agrees that there is “change over time.” The only issue is random versus guided. ID says the change is guided.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but ID talks about large jumps, not just changes over time. This would mean there is more of a difference than just guided vs not guided. I incorrectly assumed that if we agreed on small gradual changes, we were talking about guided vs non guided evolution, not evolution verses id.

One thing I was very confused by was this line form intelligentdesign.org: “Yes. The scientific method is commonly described as a four-step process involving observations, hypothesis, experiments, and conclusion. Intelligent design begins with the observation that intelligent agents produce complex and specified information (CSI).”

How does one observe an intelligent agent producing a CSI?
 
This quote sums up a scientific theory.

“In science, a theory is an explanation that binds together various experimentally tested hypotheses to explain some fundamental aspect of nature. For an idea to qualify as a scientific theory, it must be established on the basis of a wide variety of scientific evidence. Its claims must be testable and it must propose experiments that can be replicated by other scientists.”

I have looked for experiments that I could go into my lab or out in the field to preform. I have not found any. I understand this does not mean they do not exist. Can you provide some links to papers that contain a hypothesis that support ID so I may preform them?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top