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Dna And Its Origins

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Khandro | 13:03 Thu 08th Oct 2015 | Religion & Spirituality
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In the light of new findings, DNA is even more beautiful and complex than we imagined, considering that it was in existence in the early life-forms on the planet, doesn't any theory of the origin of life by a blind series of chemical accidents seem preposterous ?
Surely only the most unimaginative and feeble-minded could believe in this.
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Hmm. They are different achievements. To call one somehow low compared to the other is fairly patronising. Never mind the "that's a fact and you know it is" statement that is, in fact, impossible to know or ever verify. Who is to say how many ideas for melodies that have been created in the past but, subsequently, forgotten or never committed to paper, that were...
15:01 Sun 11th Oct 2015
The scientists who accept evidence for I.D. are obviously aware of the stuff written above in various posts, yet stick to their opinion based on evidence.
The trouble is, they are witch hunted by the scientific establishment, for holding these views. The bottom line is the programme needs a programmer, and it is purely a matter of faith to deny this.
Malaria. Masterpiece of design.

Theland, what evidence?
For example, Stephen C Meyer, cell biologist. Also, the film "Expelled" on YouTube.
But Theland, he, like you, thinks he knows who or what the designer is. On what evidence?
No. He is a Christian it's true. But many adherents of ID simply acknowledge the fact of ID without going further into theism. Maybe, hopefully that will come later. Anthony Flew for example.
Theland, You haven't answered my question - and Anthony Flew wasn't at all well.
Science is about inferring laws of nature and predicting outcomes. What does Intelligent Design predict?

Does it predict that God's work is all done and no new life forms will ever emerge?

(I'll grant that new species discoveries, in remote jungles, ocean depths and cave systems do not count as new life forms coming into being).

That is dogma. Shame on you. Sharing your beliefs. Tut tut.
/Surely only the most unimaginative and feeble-minded could believe in this/
The lack of imagination and feeble mindedness seems to reside in those who are unable to grasp how evolution works and cannot recognise a daft idea when it is proposed. The unwitting implication of 'Intelligent Design' is that all natural processes are the result of the intervention of a greater power. That does stretch credulity just a tad.
The intervention of a higher power is incredulous?
Well scientists acknowledge that everything they know about our universe is derived from studying only 4% of it, the other 96% being made up of dark matter / energy.
Is that not incredulous?
If you are a created being, do you automatically demand to know, on demand, everything you want to know, about your creator?
And get into a hissy fit and deny his existence, if the answer you demand is not forthcoming?
The pot making demands of the potter? Crackpot idea.
So Theland, if the spontaneous appearance of simple life forms is incredible how do you account for the spontaneous appearance of a being that is so complicated that could 'design' all living things?
What a cop out answer Khandro 'humans are not fully formed'. We're a damn site more formed than DNA. So I'll ask again....why did the Creator not just bring us into existence as we will ultimately be?
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Zacs; //why did the Creator not just bring us into existence as we will ultimately be?//

Where's the fun in that?
@Theland

I don't often resort to nit-picking but I couldn't let this one go by:-

//The intervention of a higher power is incredulous? //

Things, including abstracts like 'intervention' have the property of being credible or incredible.

People can have the property of being credulous (credo: belief) or incredulous. Credulous, nowadays, being synonymous with gullibility, or naïvity and incredulous, the state of disbelief.

When a person achieves an improbable thing, being a thing, it's back to incredible again.

Your dialect may vary.

British English is, of course, a dialect of American, nowadays. Excuse me while I do what I can to help preserve it. :-)

Hypo, we make allowances all the time, can we not make allowances for vernacular English? (assuming that's what it is)
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jomifl;//The unwitting implication of 'Intelligent Design' is that all natural processes are the result of the intervention of a greater power.//

This implies that there was 'something' into which something else intervened, but Aristotle went further back to a 'Prime Mover', he believed that all movement depends on there being a mover. For Aristotle, movement meant more than something travelling from A to B. Movement also included change, growth, melting, cooling, heating…etc.
Just like his predecessor Heraclitus, Aristotle recognised that everything in the world is in a state of flux.

Aristotle argued that behind every movement there must be a chain of events that brought about the movement that we see taking place.

Aristotle argued that this chain of events must lead back to something which moves but is itself unmoved, this he referred to as the Prime Mover.


The greeks just did philosophy, they didn't test their reasoning with experiments which is why they got so much wrong. The only time they actually discovered anything was when Archimedes took a bath. :-)
@jomifl

I liked that!


@Khandro

If you wanted to impress the ladies with your extensive knowledge of Greek philosophers and/or philosophies then why didn't you do so, starting from the opening post?

Why did you have to drag DNA into the title? You know it would only draw
the likes of me into the debate, doing my best to ensure misinformation about it does not spread, unnecessarily.

Or is your goal to misdirect impressionable students and make them fail their exams, so they can't get onto science degree courses? That would help achieve your long term goal of making sure theists are more numerous than scientists and creationism/ID will be taught in schools.

Fast track to the 1870s, if you ask me.

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Hypo; By the way, I withdraw the epithet.
//... is your goal to misdirect impressionable students...// Oh yes I've done plenty of that, - and one or two did quite well despite of it :0)
"Why did you have to drag DNA into the title" Because that is what my question is about and it still hasn't been answered, the best you can do is suggest that because of the large numbers of particles moving around as the Earth cooled (why were they moving? - see Aristotle ^) you think that is sufficient to believe that somehow they could group together (why would they group together? -ditto) and form the DNA which existed in trilobites 521 million years ago, the complexity of which we are still only learning to understand.
The problem you and others have is that your approach is 'top-down'. Your basic belief is that there could not possibly be an explanation for the origin life anywhere else but on this planet and this blinds you to even consider such a possibility, largely because you fear it might smack of a 'higher power/ prime mover' or whatever one wants to call it.
Many great minds, - some of them even in the sciences - are not so narrow in outlook.

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