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Replying to Volbrigade]
Volbrigade wrote:
A Law implies -- "demands", actually -- a Law Giver.
Human laws require a law giver, this is true. Human laws are not inviolate however. We break them all the time. Physical laws ARE inviolate however. They cannot be broken. So they don't really draw a direct comparison with the sort of laws given by lawmakers. Instead the observed nature of inviolate physical laws directly serve to contradict the supposed existence of a law giver/givers who can manipulate the laws of physics at will. Because all observation indicates that the laws of physics cannot be altered or manipulated under any circumstances.
Volbrigade wrote:
And this technology (TV) REQUIRES intelligence in order to generate it, because even the most rudimentary TV set will never, ever, assemble itself -- "quantum cloud" or no.
Inventing TV was a laborious process of trial and error. Everything has to be done in the right way, and in the right order, for it to work. But because it is possible within the laws of physics, TV was perfected. And the universe does not naturally produce technology, that is true. The universe is perfectly capable of producing things from scratch that we, for all of our technological capabilities, CANNOT produce however. At least not yet. We humans cannot, as yet, produce life from scratch. Much research is going in to being able to accomplish this very thing however. Because being able design and create life from scratch has many many useful possibile applications. And the profit potentials are enormous.
So, when humans discover how to design and create life from scratch, will we then be Gods? Not in my opinion, but those who believe in Gods may disagree.
But let's turn our attention to other things that nature can create from scratch but humans, as yet, cannot. Gold for example. Gold is created when 79 protons are forced to bond into the nucleus of the atom Au, or gold. For all of our technological prowess, humans are not, as yet, capable of creating gold. Even though the profit potential is clearly enormous. The universe however effortlessly cranks out billions of tons of the stuff. Apparently without even thinking about it.
Volbrigade wrote:
It does not add information (except by genetic mutation, which is a copying error), and is not a process that could lead to one kind of organism becoming another -- certainly not an original single-celled organism becoming a man--
A genetic mutation which seves to decrease the survival potential of the individual organism will quickly drop out of the gene pool. A genetic mutation which, by chance, serves to increase the potential for the organism to survive and successfully procreate however adds that very information of its mutation into the gene pool of the entire organism. Which then eventually becomes normal for that organism, as it improves the chances for all the successive progeny to survive and successfully procreate.
The geological record clearly shows that the earliest forms of true life to exist on earth were very simplest forms of single cells. The non nucleated prokaryotic bacterias.
The most varied forms of life on Earth today however are the vastly more sophisticated eukaryotic forms. That is, the forms of organisms whose cells contain a nucleus and other organelles enclosed within membranes. Such improvements increase the chances of survival by offering the organism a greater variety of possibilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eukaryote
As might be expected if evolution is true, there should be, or have been, more simple organisms whose cells DO NOT contain a nucleus. And sure enough, these are the prokaryotic organisms, which DO NOT have a nucleus. NOT COINCIDENTALLY and in accordance with what one would expect if evolution were true, the oldest forms of life known, life forms which were capable of leaving their imprint on the rocks, are the simpler forms. The Cyanobacteria known as blue-green algae, and they are one of the most successful forms of life to this day. As with the early forms of apes which DID NOT evolve into humans, leaving no modern apes, blue-green algae gave rise to other more complex forms of life, but blue-green algae also STILL EXISTS to this very day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale
There is in fact even a an intermediate stage that has been discovered bridging these two stages, known as the Lokiarchaeota. A type of proto-eukaryote.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lokiarchaeota
What we observe is that the oldest rocks to be found on planet Earth show signs of the existence of the simplest form of true life known to us. And that would be the simple bacteria's, non nucleated prokaryotes; the cyanobacteria known as blue-green algae. These bacteria, the prokaryotes, happen to be the earliest form of life to leave a record of their existence in the geology of early Earth, on the order of 3800 million years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria
The early bacteria's, being photosynthetic, were in fact responsible for the free oxygen in the atmosphere of early Earth. The earliest eukaryotic organisms, organisms like us which have a cellular nucleus, did not first appear until 1800 million years ago or so. It took 2,000 million years or so to get from non-nucleated creatures to the much more advanced nucleated creatures. And in fact most eukaryotic organisms require the oxygen which had begun to be manufactured eons earlier by their simple non-nucleus possessing forebears, the bacteria's. LIFE BUILDS ON ITSELF. What the physical evidence shows is that life moved from simple to increasingly complex, and did so incredibly slowly at first, just as evolution predicts. But not even the very simplest prokaryotes, the algae's, are candidates for "first" life. For that we must turn to the protobionts, structures which can't even accurately be termed organisms since they aren't clearly organic and don't possess all of the attributes associated with biological life. Simple molecules which have the achieved the remarkable ability to reproduce themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protobionts
So we turn to the viruses. The simplest of the viruses are nothing but a chain of molecules that incorporate a simple RNA molecule. Literally, all they do is replicate themselves. They don't respire, they don't excrete, and they don't die, because they were never "living" to begin with. They can be broken apart and destroyed easily enough, but if left intact they can remain inert apparently indefinitely. Then, given the necessary environmental conditions, they replicate themselves. I am not suggesting that viruses represent "first life" either. They are not life at all, for one thing. But it is generally held that something like this, something which blurs the distinction between what is living and what is a result of simple on going process of chemistry rather than organic biology, is responsible for process of becoming earliest life itself. What we clearly observe is that life moved from simple to complex with the passage of time.
Viruses are a type of proto-life, not fully living, but demonstrating one very important aspect of true life. They replicate themselves using the DNA or the RNA molecule. As one would expect, viruses using the DNA molecule can be quite complex. The double helix DNA molecule has almost limitless possible combinations available to it. The single strand RNA molecule is far more limited, and as one might expect, viruses which contain the RNA molecule are very basic and simple structures. DNA is very clearly an advanced evolutionary stage over RNA. So the real question in the study of biological evolution for years has been, how did the RNA molecule originate? Because the cornerstone of evolution is the ability to reproduce and adapt to change. The recent study that is the basis for this string has concluded that the primary components necessary for the RNA molecule form spontaneously within carbonaceous meteorites in outer space. This serves to fill in another blank in our understanding of the rise of life from nonliving material.
A recursive vesicle-based model protocell with a primitive model cell cycle
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4598553/
Volbrigade wrote:
-- as many evolutionists themselves have begrudgingly acknowledged.
It is a failed theorem in it's attempt to explain the spectrum of flora and fauna presented to us.
The idea that science has largely discarded evolution as a "failed theory" is almost entirely a myth originated and perpetuated by believers. Like the newly formed Trump administration, such claims are a form of "alternate reality." Claims and allegations which are not founded in fact.
First, we should clear up the basic mistake made by most anti-scientific non believers, that a scientific theory signifies nothing more than a vague notion.
Wikipedia
Scientific Theory
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge.
It is important to note that the definition of a "scientific theory" (often ambiguously contracted to "theory" for the sake of brevity, including in this page) as used in the disciplines of science is significantly different from, and in contrast to, the common vernacular usage of the word "theory". As used in everyday non-scientific speech, "theory" implies that something is an unsubstantiated and speculative guess, conjecture, or hypothesis; such a usage is the opposite of a scientific theory. These different usages are comparable to the differing, and often opposing, usages of the term "prediction" in science (less ambiguously called a "scientific prediction") versus "prediction" in non-scientific vernacular speech, the latter of which may even imply a mere hope.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory
Believers consistently declare that the "theory" of evolution has never been proven. At what point does something become proven, if not by the preponderance of evidence? The same claim might well be made for the "theory" of gravity. We don't fully understand all of the aspects of how gravity works either. From this you might well decide to declare that gravitational theory is a bunch of scientific hokum. And to this conclusion I suggest that you test it out for yourself by holding a large rock over your foot and letting go of it. The "theory" of evolution just as sound as gravitational theory, because it works within our expectations and because it is founded on an an enormous series of fact based observations and findings.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this." -- Albert Einstein -- Written in 1954 to Jewish philosopher Erik Gutkind.
