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All the hoopla over Darwin is important to recognize the valuable insights he provided, but the value is overblown as I have indicated before, in contributing to today's active research. This is a better exposition of my viewpoint by someone much more important in science than I am. http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/23/evolution-creation-debate-biology-opinions-contributor...

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It appears once again that Lamarkism is not dead. I have pointed out in previous posts that there is much evidence for adaptive changes to environment that are mediated within the organism. This abstract suports the point: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090220/full/news.2009.113.html

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It appears once again that Lamarkism is not dead. I have pointed out in previous posts that there is much evidence for adaptive changes to environment that are mediated within the organism. This abstract suports the point: http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090220/full/news.2009.113.html - One of my favorite complaints about the Darwin Theory is the issue of human childbirth. To stand on two legs requires many changes in the shape of the pelvis. Obviously newborns appear through a large opening in the middle of that female pelvis. The human brain grew rapidly especially as Neanderthal and H. sapiens appeared over 300-400,000 years. Following Darwin's approach, one must imagine that the female pelvis opening and the baby's head each had to grow in concert! And this by the hunt-and-peck approach of random mutation and natural selection, by two different individuals with different DNA (mother/ child). This could have worked only by two possible mechanisms: the simultaneous changes were coded into DNA in advance (ID) or the ability of the female human to drive genetic changes when under stress, as has been recently shown in my comments about Lemarkism. Please read this article on point: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090217173043.htm

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Here is an example of epigenetic changes in a study involving abused children and later suicide. http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126974.700-child-abuse-may-leave-suicide-marks-... There appear to be built-in processes to alter gene structure to adapt to evironmental pressures, as I have noted before.

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This article shows how chemically complex the early bacterial forms of life were, and how they set up nitrogen and oxygen levels, resulting in support for more complex organisms, which followed in the continuing evolution of life. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219141436.htm

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This article describes a brilliant discovery showing how difficult it is to make simple peptides, short chains of amino acids, and by inference imagine how difficult it is to make polypeptides, the long chain amino acids molecules of life. This is another indication of how hard it must be to start life from inorganic matter. Research scientists working in the field of origin of life know this and propose an RNA world to come first to manufacture proteins. But RNA is just as complicated to create if not more so. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090224154906.htm

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I am continuing to find articles that show research into the importance of RNA as a major regulating system. This item uncovers the regulation of nerve impulse transmission by RNA. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315091400.htm Discovering DNA and its mechanism of making long strings of protein molecules has unlocked a door into the more intricate area of living processes regulation. RNA has now taken the stage and the various RNA types are revealing a much more complex arrangement than originally imagined. - On the other hand there are other scientific studies that exude an amorphous optimism regarding research into the issue of origin of life. This finding about asteroids is that left-handed amino acids in asteroids are 20% more in number than right-handed. But, in life the 20 essential amino acids are 100% left-handed. From 20% to 100% is a big change, and these researchers are excited! For abiogenesis, it is any straw in the wind. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16779-watery-asteroids-may-explain-why-life-is-le...

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You never know what type of new scientific findings will pop up, but science charges off in multi directions. This report supports Fred Hoyle's panspermia theory of life's origin on earth, but as I have cautioned before, even if life came to Earth from outer space, it still does not solve the problem of the origin of life. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090318094642.htm

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I have posted a series of scientific dicoveries recently. Most of them described a new complexity in the processes that make organic matter living matter. This was to illustrate our understanding of just how very complex the processes are that create life from the single cell to the entire organism. The more complex, the more unlikely is the probability of chance, Darwin's mechanism. The following is an excerpt from a statistical article discussing the probabilities that chance created life: - "We call these [mutation] events accidental; we say that they are random occurrences. And since they constitute the only possible source of modifications in the genetic text, itself the sole repository of the organism's hereditary structures, it necessarily follows that chance alone is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the biosphere. (Jacques Monod)[Ref 1] - Many in science employ a dogma that life is related to matter, rather than to mind. The dogma seems conceptually flawed. Unlike rocks, rivers, wind, rain and snow, life operates on information - tightly integrated messages that function to order a grand symphony of future events for clearly evident purposes. Lacking a mind, matter simply can't comprehend or order future events for a purpose. Because purpose only derives from mind, logic seems to demand that life is related to mind rather than just to matter. - Lacking a mind, material causes have only two tools to work with: (1) physical and chemical necessity flowing from the properties of matter, energy and the forces and (2) chance. As implied by Monod's statement, physical and chemical necessity are not tools used to order the symbol sequences that make life. Hence, the heavy lifting is left to chance by default. - The chance default is considered adequate because it is endowed with seemingly gargantuan resources consisting of billions of years of time and countless opportunity. The purpose manifested by life is only "apparent" and not objectively real because chance can explain it. For the materialist, the purpose apparent in the messages of life is just an illusion, like the illusion of a rising sun in the morning. - This article explains why Monod is wrong and the claim of chance fails. It fails because probability decreases exponentially at an accelerating rate as the complexity of a system increases only incrementally. Because of the phenomenal rate of reduction even billions and billions of years of time and opportunity are not adequate for chance to mimic the simplest functions of life." - What this final paragraph explains is the principle of stastistical probabilites that rules out chance as the mechanism of evolution. The more complex our discoveries the less likely that Darwin wins to argument. - The article concludes: "In summary, this vignette illustrates the inherent problem of attributing complex functional sequences to chance. As the complexity of the sequence increases, its chance probability decreases exponentially. Within finite realms, chance losses its plausibility with only small increases in complexity."

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As usual Turell is simply passing on material endorsed by his friends at Uncommon Descent. - http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/we-have-no-excuse-a-scientific-case-f... - Note the 69 comments, many of which are critical. - The quote by Monod is from "Chance and Necessity" 1971 (originally in French 1970). It is also cited here: - http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/07/good-science-writers-jacques-monod.html - One of the errors in the reasoning seems to me to be in the statement: - "As implied by Monod's statement, physical and chemical necessity are not tools used to order the symbol sequences that make life." - In this extract from the same book he discusses the difficulty of distinguishing between "natural" and "artificial" (i.e. undesigned and designed) - http://creativetechnology.salford.ac.uk/fuchs/theory/authors/jacques_monod.htm - "This apparatus is entirely logical, wonderfully rational, and perfectly adapted to its purpose: to preserve and reproduce the structural norm. And it achieves this, not by departing from physical laws, but by exploiting them to the exclusive advantage of its personal idiosyncrasy." [my emphasis]

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GPJ

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As usual Turell is simply passing on material endorsed by his friends at Uncommon Descent.
> 
> http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/we-have-no-excuse-a-scientific-case-f... 
I believe George's response is totally non-responsive to my point. Yes, the essay is from uncommon descent. I don't care whether Monod was misinterpreted or not. The statisticians' discussion related to a complex living organ which had many required functionalities and the probabilites of chance creating anything. Let me use the liver as an example (they did not) which makes bile, which makes cholesterol, which clears the body of foreign chemicals, like medical drugs; it changes hemoglobin from old red cells to bile, just as beginners for function. Now ask yourself: did evolution grow this complex organ step by step? That is Darwin's proposition, but it could have appeared de novo. That is not Darwin. If it is step by step, by mutation after mutation, the statistical odds become exponentially so enormous, the age of the universe is not sufficient time for chance mutation to accomplish a resulting liver. Since George gave you the website, read the essay. They use very simple examples and simple statistical formulae, which can be followed by most folks to make their point, but their point is my point. I had reached the same conclusions long before I found Uncommon Descent. Inorganic matter, using chance, doesn't work.

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Inorganic matter, using chance, doesn't work. - I probably have the least intelligence in this room so my opinion counts for naught but, it just seems to me, if what exists now, came by chance, ie., zero intelligence, we wouldn't be here discussing matters origin today. - It is just as unlikely that chance created what we see today as it is unlikely a child was born today by chance rather than by a sexual act. Without intelligence 'using' (for lack of a better word) matter as a creative outlet, for whatever reason (even if for no other reason other than it can) again, we would not be discussing matters origin. - I don't think the question we are really discussing here is whether matter, organic or inorganic, is guided by intelligence, or whether intelligence came before matter; it's what to call this intelligence and whether this intellgence is unified and with one or many agenda's. - Of course, science wants to nail down this intelligence to one unified force, just so science can name it, which is why they continue to probe the inner and outer depths of 'what is' for it...but once, or if, science does finally name this intelligent force and can prove without any shadow of doubt this force is intelligent, science will then be at square one, finally catching up to religion. Then the real battle of the gods will begin.

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BBella writes in support of David Turell's contention that "inorganic matter, using chance, doesn't work." - Please don't say that your "opinion counts for naught"! You've been through experiences that no other correspondent on this forum can even begin to match, and in any case even the most brilliant minds can't agree among themselves. Despite the pontifications of the pontiffs and the recondite vocabulary of the specialists, we're all equal in this debate. - You wrote: "I don't think the question we are really discussing here is whether matter, organic or inorganic, is guided by intelligence, or whether intelligence came before matter; it's what to call this intelligence and whether this intelligence is unified and with one or many agendas." - In my view, there's a problem with the term 'intelligence', and I'd like to break down what you say into phases. David has drawn our attention to the astronomical odds against chance being able to start life off (not to mention producing hitherto non-existent organs). But atheists believe that it is possible, and that once life has begun, "natural laws" take over, with a combination of random mutations and natural selection. So Phase One, as discussed on this thread, really is chance (non-consciousness) versus intelligence (= conscious design). - Phase Two is what else we might mean by "intelligence". If we separate it from all the personalized notions of a father figure in the sky, we may find common ground between George's atheism, David's panentheism, my own agnosticism, and even the religions as represented by Mark, since these too are full of mysteries that are open to interpretation. We might link intelligence to Nature and natural laws, and to superorganisms like ant colonies or ourselves (with so many living units that act independently and yet are part of the whole), and we should keep in mind that 96% of the universe is believed to be made up of so-called dark energy and dark matter, of which we know nothing. If "intelligence" means a nebulous force which somehow keeps the whole show running, we might all agree. - Phase Three is your "agenda" question, and that's where all the definitions of "intelligence" diverge and most discussions begin. - You finish your post with an interesting observation: "science wants to nail down this intelligence to one unified force, just so science can name it." Names oversimplify. When we give a name to something, we think somehow that we've captured it ... given it an official form. "Random mutations", for example, has a good convincing ring to it, but the words don't cover a millionth of the complexities involved in their role. DNA trips nicely off the tongue, as do reproduction, consciousness, memory. Because we have terms for these inexplicable wonders, somehow they lose their mystery. It's like an illness. The moment the doctor names it, we feel a slight sense of relief ... it's official, identifiable, understandable. Language makes things seem so familiar that we often can't see beyond the words. Whether science will ever "prove without any shadow of doubt that this force is intelligent" is on a par with whether science will ever prove that the force is not intelligent. I doubt very much if it can be proved either way. But giving it a name won't actually explain anything, and the names already given to it down through the centuries have raised at least as many problems as they've solved. We might just have to settle for The Unknowable ... which I guess brings us back to agnosticism.

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Here is another study on origin of life, in this case suggesting the possible age of the Earth when life was first present, pushing that point in time to only a very short time after the Earth was formed (4.5 billion years ago), to slightly over four billion years ago. http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16733-life-could-have-survived-earths-early-pound...

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In the development of Homo sapiens our ancestors had varying degress of abilities. The "Stone Age" was thought to be a fairly recent event. It takes some skill to hammer stone at the right cleavage points to create sharp edges. Such stone edges have been found, dated 500,000 years ago, predating Neanderthals and us. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/402/2

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I have been entering science studies that relate to evolution. The human eye is pointed to by atheists as a prime example of why there is no 'designer'. The layers of the retina are in reverse order with the cells (rods and cones)receiving light in back. Furthermore we see upside down and the brain reverses it. This article shows how elegant the system really is. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090406212837.htm Further it has been previously shown that the backwards arrangement provides more energy for the retinal cells. Perceived design errors are in the eye of the beholder. Perfect design may not be biologically optimal design.

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The evolution of life on Earth has resulted in most organisms relying on using oxygen. Plentiful oxygen in the atmosphere was not always present and large amounts appeared about 2.4 bya (Billion years ago). Scientists think they know why: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090408145336.htm Life can appear only in solar systems with planets with molten cores, iron/nickel in our solar system. The convection currents in those cores also produce the protective magnetic fields around Earth, keeping all those nasty particles in space at bay. - When scientists wax philosophical about life on Earth we get an interesting perspective. Are we the only life in the universe? There should be lots more, but is there? http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16920-existential-vertigo-over-human-origins.html... Thoughts, anybody? dhw, your questions of several days ago are discussed here.

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That outside environment can influence DNA changes directly is not longer doubted. The word is epigenetics and this article demonstrates current research into the phenomenon. There is another layer to heritability, a layer that does not use mutation but influence on DNA processes. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090412081315.htm The researchers feel this is not Darwin's Theory, that his theory is intact. This is something extra. Any comments?

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All the hoopla over Darwin is important to recognize the valuable insights he provided, but the value is overblown as I have indicated before, in contributing to today's active research. - The other facit of Darwin's personal philosophy is his overt racism which has been excused as a characteristic of his times. I don't think that Darwinists want this side of him discussed. The following column reviews that aspect of Darwin: http://www.christiantoday.com/article/whats.wrong.with.darwinism/22647.htm

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I'm afraid I'm getting rather fed up with the way, thanks to David Turell, this site is becoming a repository for anti-Darwin propaganda. The article by Tony Campolo is the worst I've seen for a long time. Did DT really read it before citing it? Or did he just pick it up uncritically from his friends at Uncommon Descent? Here is a total demolition of Campolo's outright lies: - http://timpanogos.wordpress.com/2008/01/21/shame-on-you-tony-campolo-darwin-was-not-rac... - I've not bothered to respond to DT's previous links to articles by Christopher Booker, and by a US scientist whose name I've misplaced, since the comments that followed from readers of the articles adequately countered the nonsense.

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GPJ

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Just to keep everything evenly presented here is a response to Phil Skell's article in Forbes from Panda's Thumb http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090214162626.htm

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George has registered his disapproval of Tony Campolo's article criticizing Darwin for racism. I agree, and when opening the thread on "Aspects of Evolution" I expressed my own disapproval. There is a tendency both on atheist and on creationist sites to look for ways of denigrating or ridiculing the other side, which is again to be seen in the O'Leary "Chucking Johnson" article that precedes the fascinating one on Monarch migration to which David has referred us ("Aspects of Evolution", 1 March at 14.20). Ridicule and personal attacks may earn applause from the converted, and make them feel good about themselves, but it has no place in a reasoned discussion.

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David Turell has posted a number of articles that employ statistical arguments in an attempt to show that evolution of some aspect of biology, or the first appearance of life, are impossible, because so improbable. I promised to look into these arguments when I had completed my house move. The following page from richarddawkins.net goes a considerable way towards countering these arguments. - http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=46882 - The main fallacies consist in 1} assuming that there is only one possible evolutionary line that will do the trick, 2) ignoring the way multiple events can occur simultaneously and 3) ignoring the determinate nature of many of the processes involved.

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GPJ

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http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=46882
> 
> The main fallacies consist in 1} assuming that there is only one possible evolutionary line that will do the trick, 2) ignoring the way multiple events can occur simultaneously and 3) ignoring the determinate nature of many of the processes involved. - George has thrown out challenges which are straw men. 1) I have never said there was one line of evolution. All of you will remember my quoting Simon Conway Morris, his discussion of convergence: six types of eyes. 2) the Dawkins' stuff is more fluff. There is a discussion of the "serial trials fallacy", like elephants trunk to tail in a line, claiming that folks like me believe that only one trial at a time can go on. The best way to defeat a debate opponent is to infer a line of reasoning on his part that is obviously wrong. - In the 'primordial soup' all sorts of inorganic and some organic molecules were bouncing all over each other. Nothing was living. As I've noted before only 8 essential amino acids have been found in meteorites. Getting from bouncing molecules to a left-handed amino acid is an enormous job for chance, and they can be only left handed. Then get them to cooperate and form chains that contain a code for life. This is where the improbable odds are, not the stuff in Dawkins' blog. - 3) George's 'determinate nature'? What happened to purposeless chance? Yes, complex organic molecules when organized can have 'emergent' properties that develop in a determinate way. Getting there from bouncing molecules is an enormous jump. - And the final issue which Dawkins and George ignore and do not understand. To have living organization of organic molecules they have to be directed by a code filled with information. Where did the information come from? If you read the following let me warn you it is filled with jargon, but it makes the point I just raised about information and its need by life. http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247

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George has referred us to an article by Calilasseia on the Dawkins website which purports to deal with fallacies relating to probability ... the writer uses the image of a billion Chinese tossing coins, thus drastically reducing the odds against someone throwing 10 heads in a row (i.e. against chance creating life). David has pointed out the fallacies in the article on fallacies, and asks what seems to me to be the crucial question: "To have living organization of organic molecules they have to be directed by a code filled with information. Where did the information come from?" I'd like to elaborate on this. - Firstly, it's not always clear in the article and subsequent discussion whether people are talking about evolution or abiogenesis, and they often fail to separate the two theories, so perhaps we should draw some lines here. Natural selection, epigenetics, mutations and Lamarckism relate to processes that work on existing material. The theory of evolution tells us nothing about how the material first came to life, and Darwin himself made it clear in The Origin of Species that that was not his concern. ("How a nerve comes to be sensitive to light, hardly concerns us more than how life itself first originated." Difficulties on Theory.) It's perfectly possible to believe in evolution without believing in abiogenesis. - The problem I would like to raise can be summed up through a supportive response from ESPRITCH to Calilasseia's article: "Haemoglobin is actually an excellent example of how evolution produces complex things; by assembling simple existing useful things to build more complex useful things and then using those things to build still more complex useful things." You only have to look at the verbs to see the problem: "produce", "assemble", "use", "build". Evolution is not a conscious designer. Evolution is a process. It doesn't exist independently of living organisms, and can only work within them. Now go back to origins. Most of us assume that the first "simple existing" things were unconscious. They didn't have a clue about the possibility of sex, sight, hearing, memory, consciousness etc. What, then, performed the producing, assembling, using, building? Obviously they did. So where did they get the ability to do it ... or as David asks: "Where did the information come from?" - To sum it up, we are expected to believe that chance brought about not only life and reproduction, but also the ability both to adapt to changing environments and to increase complexity. None of these were the work of evolution. If the first living creatures had not been able to reproduce and adapt, life would have ended soon after it began, and if the ability to increase complexity had not already been potentially present, there would have been no evolution. - The billion Chinese are tossing coins looking for a combination. The first primitive organisms weren't looking for anything. They knew nothing. They simply existed. Yet what they produced was so complex that we still haven't figured it out. Evolution is Chapter 2 in the history of life, and it makes sense, but in most books Chapter 2 depends on what happens in Chapter 1.

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In the chinese dice-throwing analogy, when applied to the abiogenesis problem, the "10 heads in a row" represents the unlikely configuration that was the first self-replicating molecule. dhw cites DT saying that "To have living organization of organic molecules they have to be directed by a code filled with information. Where did the information come from?" This seems to suppose that the code pre-existed the earliest self-replicating molecules. In fact of course the code was part of the molecule. We now know that the code in DNA uses four bases. Perhaps the first replicating molecule only used two bases, and four was a later development. I throw this in as what seems a likely conjecture. - Darwin in Origin of Species did not concern himself with how life first originated because he had no evidence to throw light on that subject. But now that we know the chemical structure of DNA and many of the processes involved in cells we are in a better position to consider the subject. And we can envisage the theory of evoution by natural selection extending back further to the earliest self-reproducing molecules, or systems of molecules. Whether you could properly call these molecular systems "creatures" however seems doubtful. - It is true that "Espritch" like many biologists talks about evolution producing, assembling, building and using. However, as dhw admits, that form of language is not meant to imply any conscious purpose. dhw asks: "What, then, performed the producing, assembling, using, building?" He answers, wrongly, "Obviously they [the first "simple existing" things] did." - dhw talks about "the ability both to adapt to changing environments and to increase complexity" (his emphasis) as if these "abilities" were properties of living things. Humans with consciousness have the ability to adapt themselves to changing conditions. But this is what takes them out of the realm of natural selection. The adapting to changing environments is forced on life from the outside by action of the environment (e.g. colder climate favours those with hairier coats). Complexity arises, as in the haemoglobin example, from simpler components getting combined. These are not driven by some desire within the life-form to become more complex. - The statement from Espritch can be rephrased in non-operational form, something like this (I'm sure you could do better): "Haemoglobin is actually an excellent example of how evolution can result in the appearance of complex things; by the chance assembly of simple things with an existing functionality into more complex but still functioning things and then in subsequent stages of evolution resulting in those things coming together in a still more complex functionality." But you can see why this sort of contorted English is avoided!

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GPJ

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dhw cites DT saying that "To have living organization of organic molecules they have to be directed by a code filled with information. Where did the information come from?" This seems to suppose that the code pre-existed the earliest self-replicating molecules. In fact of course the code was part of the molecule. We now know that the code in DNA uses four bases. Perhaps the first replicating molecule only used two bases, and four was a later development. I throw this in as what seems a likely conjecture. - I find this to be an overly simplistic view of what is a very complex scientific and philosophic issue. Considering that a string of three letters represent the amino acids that do the coding and they code for amino acids to be added to a protein, there are 61 codon combinations that represent the 20 essential amino acids used in life. The three other codons are 'stop codes' marking the end of production of a string of amino acids. For example, AAC is a code for asparagine. That previous sentence of mine is 'decoding a code' for you. Codes carry information. How did AAC know to ask for asparagine? Or the other way around, how did the messenger RNA know what to produce when it encountered AAC? I don't know which came first. Did information encode itself, preceding the code, as George suggests, or did the DNA/RNA very early mechanism somehow fall together and the products of the code happened by chance? That last supposition is preposterous on the face of it. Life is too complex to have happened that way. - Just because we humans are smart enough to recognize a living coding system, does not tell us how the information was implanted in that code. All codes that we know outside of the codes of life carry implanted information. DNA/RNA does also. There is no other conclusion. Studying odds at this level of inquiry is of no value. That is why I dismissed the Chinese flipping coins example.

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Two new nucleotides have been added to the standard four DNA code signals. These were found in epigenetic research looking at how methylation of DNA modifies gene expession. This doesn't change the coding of protein itself. Epigenetics is the hot new field that is adding to our knowledge of the complexity of DNA functions. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090416144639.htm - In another hot area of research on extremophiles, bacteria in very strange places, bacteria have been found with no oxygen available. Life is very adaptable. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/416/2

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Multicellular animals have been found at 3,000 meters down on the ocean bottom living without oxygen, and have substituted for mitochondria with a different organ to allow this:-http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100406/full/464825b.html

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New australopithicus, with an almost complete skeleton:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110908104159.htm

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New australopithicus, with an almost complete skeleton:
> 
> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110908104159.htm-Further discussion about the new ancestor for humans:-http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7364/full/477252a.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20110915-Australopithecus sedeba skeletons are almost complete of a female and a young male. There is a mixture of newer and older skeletal developments. A broader pelvis allows for bipedal walking and a bigger brain, but the brain is still small. What branch is this?

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George: dhw talks about "the ability both to adapt to changing environments and to increase complexity" (his emphasis) as if these "abilities" were properties of living things. Humans with consciousness have the ability to adapt themselves to changing conditions. But this is what takes them out of the realm of natural selection. The adapting to changing environments is forced on life from the outside by action of the environment (e.g. colder climate favours those with hairier coats). Complexity arises, as in the haemoglobin example, from simpler components getting combined. These are not driven by some desire within the life-form to become more complex. - In my post I made it clear that I have no problem with the general principle of evolution. My problem is with abiogenesis, and the above is another example of how easy it is to slip from one to the other. Your hairy coat example of adaptation being "forced on life from the outside" is evolution in the form of natural selection. I'm focusing on what you call the "first replicating molecule" and its pals and its immediate descendants. I can't go into the scientific background as David has done, but you have provided the relevant arguments yourself. You say "the code was part of the molecule". That is precisely my point: that the first simple forms of life would not have been changed by new environments unless the code enabling adaptation was already in those first replicating molecules. Therefore we are expected to believe that the first molecules not only chanced upon replication but at the same time chanced upon a code (I called it "ability" but stressed the lack of consciousness, which is the whole point) that would bring about adaptation when the environment changed. - The same applies to complexity. Again you are making the point for me. Of course the life-form isn't driven by some desire to become more complex. There is no desire anywhere, no consciousness, no intention. "Getting combined" glosses over the innovative force of the process: your "first replicating molecules" must also (according to the theory of abiogenesis) have chanced to have within them the code or potential ability to combine mindlessly, blindly, unconsciously with other replicating molecules to produce different, functioning, hitherto non-existent structures so complex that we are immensely proud of ourselves when we understand them. That is what belief in abiogenesis entails. - I asked what performed the producing, assembling etc., and you say I answered "wrongly" that obviously they [the first "simple existing" things] did. Why is that wrong? What else formed the creative combinations if it was not the mindless, blind, unconscious molecules themselves? If they reacted to the environment, that could only be because they had an ingrained code that enabled them to react. Without it, there could have been no adaptation, no combination, no evolution. - Let me repeat yet again that the point in dispute is not evolution but abiogenesis ... i.e. long before there were hairy coats. Perhaps it's no problem for you to believe that chance could bring inanimate globules of matter to life, enable them to replicate, and at the same time endow them with a code which in due course would bring about adaptation and complexity. But I just can't take that leap of faith.

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Let me repeat yet again that the point in dispute is not evolution but abiogenesis ... i.e. long before there were hairy coats. Perhaps it's no problem for you to believe that chance could bring inanimate globules of matter to life, enable them to replicate, and at the same time endow them with a code which in due course would bring about adaptation and complexity. But I just can't take that leap of faith. - Bravo!!! It takes a faith equal to a whole religous theology to accept George's version of the miraculous birth of abiogenesis as he describes it. And the fact that both of you blithely use hemogloben as a talking point for how easily evolution does its evolving indicates you do not know the following: The amino acid sequences in hemoglobin throughout the animal community cannot be arranged in any type of of evolutionary series, to agree with phenotypical arrangements of the 'evolutionary tree'. Biochemical research does not support the tree in that way, but does support it in the study of cytochrome C, which is pretty much the same throughout the animal kingdom, making points for common descent.

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dhw: "In my post I made it clear that I have no problem with the general principle of evolution. My problem is with abiogenesis, and the above is another example of how easy it is to slip from one to the other." - My point is that as soon as a replicating molecule, or a system of chemicals incorporating replication, comes on the scene evolution by natural selection kicks in and progress to greater complexity is rapid (on an evolutionary time scale). - dhw: "I'm focusing on what you call the "first replicating molecule" and its mates and immediate descendants." - The first replicators certainly weren't sexual (if that's what you intend to imply by "mates"). - dhw: "the first simple forms of life would not have been changed by new environments unless the code enabling adaptation was already in those first replicating molecules." - The code at that stage enables replication, it does not enable adaptation, that follows by the process of natural selection. - dhw: "your "first replicating molecules" must also (according to the theory of abiogenesis) have chanced to have within them the code or potential ability to combine mindlessly, blindly, unconsciously with other replicating molecules to produce different, functioning, hitherto non-existent structures so complex that we are immensely proud of ourselves when we understand them. That is what belief in abiogenesis entails." - No. The first replicating molecules would only produce very similar replicating molecules. Complexity appears gradually over time by natural selection. - dhw: "If they reacted to the environment, that could only be because they had an ingrained code that enabled them to react. Without it, there could have been no adaptation, no combination, no evolution." - Not so, as I've explained above. - dhw: "Perhaps it's no problem for you to believe that chance could bring inanimate globules of matter to life, enable them to replicate, ..." - Replication IS life at this early stage. - dhw:"... and at the same time endow them with a code which in due course would bring about adaptation and complexity." - I don't claim this. I claim that the replicating or reproductive code evolved further as part of the increasing complexity.

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GPJ

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George: The code at that stage [the first simple forms of life] enables replication, it does not enable adaptation, that follows by the process of natural selection. - George: The first replicating molecules would only produce very similar replicating molecules. Complexity appears gradually over time by natural selection. - But natural selection is not creative. It doesn't "enable" adaptation or cause complexity. Natural selection is the process by which existing variations survive or disappear because they are or are not advantageous. It doesn't matter whether it's the second or the millionth generation of replicating molecules that began to produce variations, natural selection can only "kick in" when there is something to select from. This principle applies whether the variations are caused by random combinations (complexity) or the impact of the environment (adaptability) or accidental mutations. The problem is not natural selection but the origin of the capability for variation. - You, David and I (but I do wish others would join in) seem to agree that life began with replicating molecules, and I'm sure we agree that so far we humans represent a pinnacle of complexity. During the evolution from mindless, unconscious blobs to us, the variations over billions of years have created arms, legs, eyes, ears, digestive systems, penises, vaginas, memory, consciousness etc. etc. It all seems incredible, but evolution is the best explanation we have: variations which survive and improve through natural selection. However, if there is an unbroken line from blobs to us, it can only be because those blobs contained the potential capability or "code" for such variation. If they had only been capable of replication, there would have been no evolution. In other words, the code for life and replication must have included the code for creative variation ("creative" because it led to hitherto non-existent, functioning organisms). This code is so intricate that we still haven't unravelled it, and if it's too complex for the most brilliant minds of our time to unravel, then it's too complex for me to attribute it with any confidence to a stroke of luck. And that is why I cannot share your faith in the theory of abiogenesis. - By the first replicating molecules and its "mates" I meant buddies, chums, pals, and not concubines! Thank you for drawing my attention to the ambiguity. I've taken the liberty of editing it out.

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George: The code at that stage [the first simple forms of life] enables replication, it does not enable adaptation, that follows by the process of natural selection.
> 
> George: The first replicating molecules would only produce very similar replicating molecules. Complexity appears gradually over time by natural selection.
> 
dhw: "But natural selection is not creative. It doesn't "enable" adaptation or cause complexity. Natural selection is the process by which existing variations survive or disappear because they are or are not advantageous." - OK. Perhaps instead of "the process of natural selection" I should have said "the process of chance variation acted on by natural selection". - 
dhw: "The problem is not natural selection but the origin of the capability for variation." - I don't understand your problem here. Variation is just a different atom or molecule being in a different place and producing different results. It doesn't need any "origin". It's bound to happen comewhatmay. - dhw: "... if there is an unbroken line from blobs to us, it can only be because those blobs contained the potential capability or "code" for such variation. If they had only been capable of replication, there would have been no evolution." - You have the totally wrong end of the stick here! The code tries to ensure continuity without variation. It serves to make an exact copy of the replicant. The variations come in by accident, chance, mutation, permutation, mistake, whatever you want to call it. - dhw: "This code is so intricate that we still haven't unravelled it" - But we have unravelled the DNA code. What we don't know are the full consequences of its working. DT has posted links to a lot of article on current work being done on this.

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GPJ

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We are once more discussing abiogenesis ... the theory that life can arise spontaneously from non-living materials. My difficulty with this theory is the need to believe that sheer chance can create something as complex as replicating molecules. The degree of disbelief will be proportionate to the degree of complexity, and this is where George and I disagree. - George: But we have unravelled the DNA code. What we don't know are the full consequences of its working. - Unravelling a code does not make it any the less complex. Crick and Watson were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in this field, which suggests something a bit more intricate than your average Sudoku. I'm sure there'll be another Nobel Prize for anyone who can create a replicating molecule out of non-living materials, but it'll take some brilliant scientific minds to do it, as opposed to a billion Chinese chucking chemicals into pots and hoping for the best. - I wrote that evolution could only have happened because the original forms of life contained the potential capability or "code" for variation. - George: You have the totally wrong end of the stick here! The code tries to ensure continuity without variation. It serves to make an exact copy of the replicant. The variations come in by accident, chance mutation, permutation, whatever you want to call it. - I had myself pointed out that variations were caused by random combinations, the impact of the environment, accidental mutations. There is no disagreement here, except for the end of the stick and the potential of the first replicating molecules, so let me offer three simple variations on the very first set of originals, which I shall call blobs.
 
1) Blob 1 has a head-on collision with another blob; they combine and form a bloblob. From now on the new form replicates bloblobs.
2) Blob 2 is hit by a bolt of lightning, which gives it a large mole on its cule. From now on it replicates blobimoles. 
3) Blob 3 makes a mess of things while trying to replicate itself, and its (non-)replica is a blobimess. From now on this replicates blobimesses.
 
My point is one of simple logic: in all cases, the transformation would have been impossible if the blob's "code" had not been capable of being transformed. In other words, when chance assembled the first replicating molecule, it also built in the possibility of variations. Otherwise after the collision, the lightning and the mess, there would either have been more replicated blobs, or no replications at all. (Natural selection will then decide whether bloblobism, moles and messes are worth preserving.) - You say variation is "just a different atom or molecule being in a different place and producing different results." Why "just"? If the code tries to ensure continuity without variation, the fact that nevertheless it can be changed but can still function suggests to me an additional complication, not something to be brushed aside with a "just". - So put it all together, and what have you got? Chance creates the first replicating molecule (an amazing feat of engineering), it has the potential for infinite variations (an additional touch of genius), and it relies on yet more chance (accidents etc.) to trigger the operations that will produce the variations. Evolution goes from blobs to us, through billions of lucky breaks underpinned by the logic of natural selection, which ensures that the good lucky breaks survive and improve. I can believe that chance has played an enormous role in evolution, just as it does in our human lives. However, Chance the Nobel-prize-winning scientist goes beyond the bounds of my credence.

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We are once more discussing abiogenesis ... the theory that life can arise spontaneously from non-living materials. My difficulty with this theory is the need to believe that sheer chance can create something as complex as replicating molecules. The degree of disbelief will be proportionate to the degree of complexity, and this is where George and I disagree. - I enter the fray once again to add another layer of complexity to DNA/RNA that science is turning up. This finding is a discovery of feedback loops, which are ever present in living biochemistry, but these are loops between and among genes and as ususal work in both directions to speed up or slow down expression of the genes targeted by the loops. This is now in addition to the epigenetic nucleotides recently discovered. All by chance? My foot. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/421/3 I predicted in my book that finding increasing complexity was certainly ahead in discovery, and as knowledge of complexity increased, faith in chance had to decrease.

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I have been following articles demonstrating how very complex controls are in place in genetic material. These articles describes the controls over the development of a cell to maturity and proper functionality. http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090419/full/458954a.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090420103549.htm

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It has been clear for some time that DNA study must take over from morphologically created evolutionary 'trees'. Two look alike worms are different species! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090422121858.htm
Also remember that hemoglobin, myoglobin, Cytochrome C and many other important ubiquitous common proteins show very little evidence of a 'tree'. I keep stating that I believe evoltion occurred, but as in 'punctuated equilibrium' of Gould and Eldridge, by sudden leaps, not itty bitty steps as Darwin proposed. Those leaps then do not produce tiny branching off appearances, and so-called trees become very discontinuous. - In a totally unrelated area of science, another quantum effect has been discovered, two atoms at a distance forming briefly a new form of molecular binding. http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/423/4 Per uncertainty, the electron is everywhere at the same time.

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Here is another important discovery in the effects of chromosomal breakage. The break points tend to be in areas that allow greater genetic changes, as if the chromosomes are designed to push evolution to more variation. Oops, I shouldn't have used that nasty word, design. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090423142309.htm

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Debate is still raging (among scientists) about the ability of Asteroid Earth strikes causing mass extinctions. The Chicxulub crater in the Yucutan is 65 million years old and so is dinosaur extinction, but new findings suggest they may not be related. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090427010803.htm

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One of the arguments by Darwinists against the presense of a Deity is done by pointing to the mammalian retina, which is put in backwards. The rods (seeing cells) are behind two other layers. The inference is that it is terrible design if an intelligent force is in charge. One answer to this has been that this arrangement supplies more energy, but a new finding in mammals that hunt at night finds that DNA is arranged in the rods' nuclei to refact light and concentrate it, allowing increased night vision. I know the following is from the dreaded Discovery Institute, but they are discussing a valid paper in the Journal Cell. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/04/shoddy_engineering_or_intellig.html Take your choice:Is this the result of blind luck (Chance mutation and Natural Selection) or could this be a planned design?

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An RNA World is one proposal for how life started. Laboratories studying this possibility have now successfully created replicating RNAzymes, that is RNA with an enzymetic area that allows accurate replication. In the following study two such different RNAzymes were set in competition and evolved in separate ways, showing how an RNA World might have worked. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090429140849.htm If this finding excites your faith in blind Darwinian evolutionary advances, please remember this study was created by intelligent design. Proof of concept goes in both directions.

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I took the liberty of passing this link on to RichardDawkins.net since I thought it looked to be in their line and it has now been published there. - Most of the stuff on evolution that David Turell is posting here is certainly interesting and supports or does not negate my, atheistic, side of the argument. - The argument that these experiments are designed by intelligent scientists and so the evolution they show requires an intelligent designer just doesn't make any sense to me.

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GPJ

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This hyperventilating article tries to explain how the 'multiverse theory' of Andrei Linde explains all the mysteries at the edges of cosmologic theory. String theory has gone nowhere as indicated by two recent books. But, as the article points out, string researchers are marching forward, despite no experimental proofs. Their faith in the theory is almost religious. Since it has the possibilty of explaining everything it HAS to be the correct road to travel. Damn Occam, full speed ahead: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227061.200-how-to-map-the-multiverse.html?full=...

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On this subject I'm inclined to agree with you. A theory that can "explain" everything really explains nothing, that applies to Multiverses as much as to Gods. I'm sure there must be other games in town, but they are not attracting enough players.

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GPJ

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The odd Hominids that have been found on the Indonesian island of Flores are referred to as "Hobbits" and are still the subject of much debate, but it now appears that most paleontologists accept Homo floresiensis as ancient ancestors in some branch of our tree. The following article is a good thorough review even though it has an ID source: http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/3/2009/05/12/homo_floresiensis_the_flower_that_is_sha

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In my continuing search of the literature regarding evolution the following article describes a laboratory approach to the start of the proposed RNA world and they have manufactured a beginning part of RNA: Plesed note Robert Shapiro's critical comments. He is a retired professor of biochemistry I have mentioned before, and he is a devout evolutionist who believes life arose from inorganic matterhttp://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html.

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Excellent stuff! Some "matter" got stuck to the front of the link.
It should be: - http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html - "We had a suspicion there was something good out there, but it took us 12 years to find it," Sutherland says. "What we have ended up with is molecular choreography, where the molecules are unwitting choreographers." - That's an image I like. It's all a dance of the molecules.

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GPJ

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Excellent stuff! > 
> That's an image I like. It's all a dance of the molecules. - Please remember to note Robert Shapiro's objection. Those molecules danced under intelligent direction. The odds for chance to bring everything together as the human mind did are minuscule.

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The following article discusses the issue of 'plant blooms', which present the same problem to understanding evolution as the Cambrian Explosion of animals, the 'sudden' appearance of so many species. As the article notes Darwin was very troubled by this. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090518172453.htm

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The Darwin study of evolution continuous to be hung up on analogy; what does it look like and therefore what is it related to? The true way to prove relationship is through homology, what biochemical evolved in what organism and is passed along unchanged through whom. Or by tracing exact morphologic changes as a flipper becomes an arm. http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090519/full/news.2009.494.html

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I've been away for a few days, and came back to find sensational headlines in Wednesday's Guardian: "She's called Ida, she's 47m years old ... and she's our link to animal life". She is dubbed "the eighth wonder of the world", some scientists are calling her the "missing link", and regard her as the final proof that Darwin was right. - David Attenborough wrote the front page article, which you can find on - http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-attenborough-evolution-darwin - However, that's only one of several articles in the same issue. In a considerably less prominent piece, there is a quote from a paper written by Jorn Hurum, the leader of the team studying the fossil at Oslo University: "Darwinius masillae is important in being exceptionally well-preserved and providing a much more complete understanding of the paleobiology of an Eocene primate than was available in the past...[the species] could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here." The article concludes: "The paper's scientific reviewers asked that they tone down their original claims that the fossil was on the human evolutionary line." - I'm left wondering just how wonderful this wonder is...Any enlightening comments would be much appreciated.

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[/i] The article concludes: "The paper's scientific reviewers asked that they tone down their original claims that the fossil was on the human evolutionary line."
 
> I'm left wondering just how wonderful this wonder is...Any enlightening comments would be much appreciated. - The hoopla about "Ida" is greatly toned down. She 20+ million years old, her line of descent is in dispute and thinking paleontologists are upset at the drama over a fossil that has had only 30 comparisons done instead of the expected 100! Science now is getting more and more PR oriented. Is the recession threatening to cut the number of grants? Yes! So we see this foolishness.

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Another IDA commentary: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1900057,00.html

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I have made a continuous argument that the DNA/RNA system is extremely complex, that there is little 'junk' DNA, and the RNA contained in it is enormously vital to the genetic control of the organism. This article is an example of my point of view, showing how RNA can control reproduction, making a orchestra of genes (DNA) perform a function. http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S24/28/32C04/ All of this code created by chance?

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In my continuing search of the literature regarding evolution the following article describes a laboratory approach to the start of the proposed RNA world and they have manufactured a beginning part of RNA: Plesed note Robert Shapiro's critical comments. He is a retired professor of biochemistry I have mentioned before, and he is a devout evolutionist who believes life arose from inorganic matterhttp://www.nature.com/news/2009/090513/full/news.2009.471.html. - Please excuse the fact that the following link is from an ID site, Uncommon Descent. It is a refutation of the 12 years of RNA World work cited in the Nature/news above. The first eight references are from reputable non-ID folks, and there is a great quote from my idol, Dr. Robert Shapiro, who is obviously (to me) one of the clear-headed 'origin of life' researchers. http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/prebiotic-earth-scenarios-founded-on-...

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I don't really understand why the IDers prefer Shapiro's litle molecules approach to the origin of life to the RNA-world long molecule theory. Whichever turns out eventually to be true, they can still claim that it was all designed. - I suppose it's just because the RNA-world theory is considered by most evolutionists to be the current front-runner, so they have to support the underdog.

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I don't really understand why the IDers prefer Shapiro's litle molecules approach to the origin of life to the RNA-world long molecule theory. Whichever turns out eventually to be true, they can still claim that it was all designed. - I pick and choose among the ID theories which I think is most reasonable from a scientific standpoint. I am a skeptic and so is Robert Shapiro. His book from 1986 (that's 23 years ago), "Origins: A Skeptic's guide to the Creation of Life in Earth is a masterpiece of clear critical thinking from a biochemist's viewpoint. He tears apart every theory present at that time, and continues to do so today. That sort of fits the ID viewpoint, which is to be skeptical of any Darwinian based theory. Remember, they think an unnamed agent started and guided all of this. Some of the more fundementalist IDer's are out and out creationists, Biblical style, and do not accept evolution. As I have previously noted, Michael Behe accepts evolution.

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I don't really understand why the IDers prefer Shapiro's litle molecules approach to the origin of life to the RNA-world long molecule theory. Whichever turns out eventually to be true, they can still claim that it was all designed.
 
> As I have previously noted, Michael Behe accepts evolution. - Here is a direct quote from Behe: "But the assumption that design unavoidably requires "interference" rests mostly on a lack of imagination. There's no reason that the extended fine-tuning view I am presenting here necessarily requires active meddling with nature anymore than the fine tuning of theistic evolution does. One can think the universe is finely tuned to any degree and still conceive that "the universe [originated] by a single creative act" and underwent "its natural development by laws implanted in it". One simply has to envision that the agent who caused the universe was able to specify from the start not only laws, but much more." (p. 231) Not all IDer's follow a party line. I feel pretty much as Behe does.

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David has drawn our attention to an article about Homo floresiensis, the "hobbits" on the Indonesian island of Flores. He says that it's a "good thorough review even though it has an ID source." - It certainly is a good article, and it left me wondering just what implications the advocates of ID actually draw from these findings. In their view, are such discoveries arguments against the theory of evolution itself, or just against the theory that brain size was a crucial factor? And what, in the ID view, do the findings tell us about the intelligent designer? You may not be able to help me on the latter question, David, as you are always scrupulous NOT to speculate on the subject. But perhaps you or someone else could explain the "official" ID line, if there is one. Do they see all this as evidence of their designer deliberately experimenting, or simply of a great evolutionary free-for-all resulting from the mechanism that was set up in the first place? Either way, there doesn't seem to be much sign of a master plan. - Thank you also for the latest post about RNA.

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But perhaps you or someone else could explain the "official" ID line, if there is one. Do they see all this as evidence of their designer deliberately experimenting, or simply of a great evolutionary free-for-all resulting from the mechanism that was set up in the first place? Either way, there doesn't seem to be much sign of a master plan.
> 
I don't think there is an 'official line'. In personal conversation with Behe
I know he believes in some sort of evolutionary process. I've met and listened to Bill Demsbki and Jonathan Wells in their lectures at a seminar I attended. The main theme is that they don't accept Darwin. They feel DNA/RNA is a very complicated coding system with an enormous amount of information that cannot have arisin by chance. They quote Shannon informtion theory in which one can mathematically represent the amount of information in math formulas, ones that I don't know how to interpret myself. - They philosophically accept causation as possibly coming from chance, from necessity and from agency. A recent paper dismissed necessity, gave no credence to chance which left agency and that goes unnamed. Each of the individuals in the group of fellows at Discovery Institute have their own approaches to all of this. - I take what I want from their views and have my own approach. I understand that evolution occurred.There is an agent who is around and active, therefore I am not a deist. I don't think the agent experiments or intervenes, but has set DNA as a production code and RNA as the main agent for adaptation and evolutionary progress. Each development in the past 20 years in science supports my view as the knowledge of the biochemistry of life increases exponentally in complexity. I believe if Darwin were alive today he would not accept his own theory, since there is no evidence of tiny step by step evolutionary development. Fossil animals, as in the Cambrian Explosion, arrive fully developed body plans. Punctuated Equilibrium is a nice name for "Darwin's Theory doesn't work.

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David: I understand that evolution occurred. There is an agent who is around and active, therefore I am not a deist. I don't think the agent experiments or intervenes, but has set DNA as a production code and RNA as the main agent for adaptation and evolutionary progress. - Thank you for your detailed response. As usual I'm trying to pin things down when I know you prefer not to, but for me this is all part of the search for some kind of identifiable truth, and also for common ground between the different sets of beliefs and non-beliefs. Once the mechanism has been set in motion, BBella's "intelligent matter", or George's chance plus natural laws, could explain how evolution goes on working of its own accord without any outside intervention. But if, as you say, there is an original "agent" which does not experiment or intervene, in what way is it still active? And would the whole process stop if it was not still around?

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Once the mechanism has been set in motion, BBella's "intelligent matter", or George's chance plus natural laws, could explain how evolution goes on working of its own accord without any outside intervention. But if, as you say, there is an original "agent" which does not experiment or intervene, in what way is it still active? And would the whole process stop if it was not still around? - Since dhw is trying to 'pick my brain' to determine why I think what I think, some background is necessary re' my decision making. I was a confirmed but rather inactive or passive agnostic after medical school. I really didn't do any active thinking about the issue until about 15 years after I graduated. And I am an active skeptic about everything. I don't accept following the herd of humans that are led by the nose by various media to believe, for example, that the environment is dying from global warming. If I suspect an idea is foolish, I read both or many sides of the issue and make up my own mind. I try to avoid my own built-in prejudices and past beliefs. - I stumbled into an interest in "Is there a God" by taking my astronomy interest into reading about the developments in cosmology and how that tied in to the discoveries in particle physics, all fascinating to me and easy to follow in the lay literture that was produced from the 1960's to the 2000's. From this aspect alone I decided there had to be a causative agency. Leibnitz' question of 'why is there anything' goes back to Greek philosophy of 'first cause'. The universe is too fine-tuned: 20 major parameters and 100 minor ones precisely adjusted to allow this universe to expand from the Big Bang and create the elements for life to appear. I've never 'bought' the multiverse theory as too adverse to Occam''s parsimony. Up to this point what I believe is related strictly to my view of scientific proof beyond a reasonable doubt. - As to why I think the agent is still present, I cannot imagine a conscious universal intelligence losing interest in what it created. That is not 'scientific', but a judgment, based on my belief that our individual consciousness is a small part of the universal consciousness, and therefore, our thinking is in parallel to universal 'thinking'. Since, as bbella proposes, that agent is in and part of everything it does maintain this universe. But I don't think the agent is a deterministic force over life forms' decisions. We have freedom of choice. Evolution however is pre-ordained. The discoveries of new interference RNA's continues, and there are 4-5 now controlling groups of genes and adapting organisms to new challenges. There will be much more of this to be found in 'junk' DNA. The concept of "Junk" DNA supported George's approach. As more and more 'junk' becomes shown as active and controlling, the scaffolding of George's constellatin of ideas will be cut away.

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David: As to why I think the agent is still present, I cannot imagine a conscious universal intelligence losing interest in what it created. - Thank you once again for your detailed response, and apologies for the delayed reaction, but I've been away for a few days. - I'm still trying to understand the thinking behind your panentheism, so I hope you'll allow me to go on "picking your brain". It has always been integral to your argument that a conscious agent is responsible for the creation of life, but we should not try to endow it with human qualities. "Losing interest" sounds pretty human to me and raises the question: what is it interested in? Over billions of years different forms of life have arisen, disappeared, evolved. This might suggest experimentation, but you don't think the agent experiments. You also think it doesn't intervene, in which case it must have set up the initial DNA/RNA codes of production, adaptation and mutation, and since then has sat back and watched evolution take its own course. - If you combine conscious creation of life, non-intervention, continued presence, billions of changes, interest in what it has created, and "freedom of choice", wouldn't you say the whole thing amounts to an experiment? It would hardly be of much interest if the agent already knew what choices were going to be made, and in any case you "don't think the agent is a deterministic force over life forms' decisions". - I'm coming back in a roundabout way to the idea that if there is an agent, the world as we know it is nothing but an entertainment. The difference, then, between panentheism and atheism is that the former provides the show with an audience, whereas the latter leaves us playing to an empty theatre. The presence of an author/audience, however, raises the problem of its nature and, in particular, its attitude towards the suffering of its creatures down through the history of life. But perhaps you have a different answer to my question: what is it interested in?

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You also think it doesn't intervene, in which case it must have set up the initial DNA/RNA codes of production, adaptation and mutation, and since then has sat back and watched evolution take its own course. - I don't know whether it completely sits back but I think from scientific evidence 'it' set up DNA/RNA as you describe.
 
> If you combine conscious creation of life, non-intervention, continued presence, billions of changes, interest in what it has created, and "freedom of choice", wouldn't you say the whole thing amounts to an experiment? - I don't know if the agent is experimenting. I don't know what is on its 'mind'. And there is no way of our ever knowing. Religions make up stories, just as Darwinists may up fanciful tales to cover their ignorance.
 
> The presence of an author/audience, however, raises the problem of its nature and, in particular, its attitude towards the suffering of its creatures down through the history of life. But perhaps you have a different answer to my question: what is it interested in? - Again, I have no answer, which is why I leave the 'agent's' personality out of the equation. However, soft-hearted as you are, the suffering is due to sex. The history of evolution is 3 billion year period of binary fission in one-celled animals and plants. Sex rears its ugly head less than 600 mllion years ago with the Cambrian Explosion, and sex requires death of the sexual organisms while helping the diversity of forms in evolutionary organisms. Red of tooth and claw, per Darwin. Animals have to eat to survive. We would not be here as humans unless that process with sex and death were not put into play. In this methodology sex and suffering are required. I can simply observe this process. I do not know if a different method is available, or if it would be better from an ethical standpoint. I'm not sure evolution is unethical. - I don't know what interests the agent. We are back to personality. I don't think we have to know as I have stated before. You have a great yearning for an agent with a loving personality. Religions make that up, right or wrong. Most humans have that same yearning, which is why religiosity is so strong. For some reason I can live with what I've gotten so far by my studies, because I think there is a connection. My mind (consciousness) is a small part of the agent's universal mind. I am comforted by that thought, And I do talk to God in my own way.

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David wrote that he could not imagine a conscious universal intelligence losing interest in what it created, and I asked what he thought the agent was interested in. He doesn't know if the agent is merely sitting back or experimenting, and he doesn't know what interests it. "I don't think we have to know as I have stated before." - Thank you once again for your direct answers. Of course, it makes sense not to chase after the uncatchable, but it's a very human trait that we keep trying! - To set the record straight, I do not have "a great yearning for an agent with a loving personality". It would, of course, be wonderful if there was a loving God and paradise waiting to welcome us, but I am deeply sceptical and my scepticism causes me no distress at all. Just as you are comforted by the thought that your mind (consciousness) "is a small part of the agent's universal mind", I am comforted not only by my enjoyment of life, but also by the thought that if, as seems to me quite likely, there is an impersonal agent or no agent at all, life will end in a peaceful, dreamless sleep. - I'm saddened only by the suffering I see all around me (and to which I may yet become subject). I don't know why you say this is "due to sex" when there are so many other factors involved as well ... carnivorousness, disease, natural disasters, plus all the other survival instincts that have evolved into the selfishness which underlies many of our man-made disasters. You say you can "simply observe this process", though as a doctor you did far more than I ever could to alleviate its effects. I observe it too, and it makes me argue against the wishful thinking and blinkered vision of most religions. I have no difficulty, though, understanding suffering as the product of natural processes within an impersonal universe. That is why your panentheism is intellectually appealing, as is George's atheism. But I can't switch off at that point. Hence the protracted discussions on abiogenesis, the paranormal, and the nature of an agent if there is one. For me they are all threads in the same confused pattern.

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I don't know why you say this is "due to sex" when there are so many other factors involved as well ... carnivorousness, disease, natural disasters, plus all the other survival instincts that have evolved into the selfishness which underlies many of our man-made disasters. - Sorry to have been obtuse, but trying for an economy of words is not always conducive to a clear meaning. Early single-celled forms for 3 billion years reproduced by simply splitting in two (binary fission). Essentially there was no death. When sex appeared, it required aging and death, and this event is probably at the Cambrian Explosion were very complicated animal forms appeared, presumably male and female. The Edicaran and Bilatarian forms, which preceded, were very simple, and very likely did not have sex as an issue. Of all the abhorrant factors you list above, the only one that does not lead to death is selfishness(if it does not lead to murder). Sex requires aging and death by whatever manner. We are stuck with that reality. - But a more interesting underlying issue is: how did sex arrive under Darwinian theory? Both sexes had to appear at the same time, or did organisms go through stages of hermaphroditism or parthenogenesis to get to clear sexuality? The latter process does appear in lower forms. But more importantly the Darwin method of evolution must have male and female appear at exacty the same time. Anyone have a just-so story for me to explain that conundrum? - Another issue like the one above that challenges Darwin: When humans got up on both legs, the female pelvis had to change shape, and as human brains grew the female pelvic outlet had to enlarge to accommodate bigger baby heads. The human birth canal is not apelike. There is a 90 degree angle and 180 twist to accomplish. No other primate has that. How is living birth accomplished over, let's say, 6 million years, in humans, with both mother and baby simulateously changing size and shape, each individual with different DNA/RNA? Let's have another just-so story.

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David: Sex requires aging and death by whatever means. We are stuck with that reality. - I shall give it up immediately.

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David: Sex requires aging and death by whatever means. We are stuck with that reality.
> 
> I shall give it up immediately. - I'm taking bets! And giving odds!

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Ah, the mysteries of Life. Why is there sex and how did it appear, when originally single-celled organisms simply split in two? http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227121.600-has-the-mystery-of-sex-been-explaine... I promise the article cited is not pornographic, but written with hyper- exuberance.

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Another interesting article on possible steps to speciation: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/615/1 Typical Darwinian headline. Note objection at the end of the piece. - I don't doubt this finding on Monkey intelligence at all: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17318-monkey-iq-test-hints-at-intelligent-human-a... - Dogs have been rated: Border Collies, 1; Poodles, 2; Rottweilers 9. We have Rotts. - Fish also have some intelligence and can observe: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090616205515.htm

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Under the "Earth Is A Very Special Place" title is an article that states, volcanic activity is a very important part of making a planet habitable: http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/615/2

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Another example of rapid adaptation or epigenetic change in E. coli. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090617131400.htm

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A tiny primate skull has been found intact, dated to a few million years after the dinosaurs went extinct. The find changes the way large brain evolution is viewed. This brain had a very large sense of smell based on the size of the olefactory bulbs: 
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090622171359.htm

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A fascinating study of a very simple organism demonstrates that the same adaptive mechanisms repeat 80 million years apart. Is this a fixed pattern of epigenetics or is the adaptive mechanism the only one coded into the DNA? At any rate random mutation or variation is not at play! Can any defender of Darwin explain this? To hammer the point home: this animal has only one programmed way of adapting to environmental danger over a 100 million year period of time/evolution, and never advances beyond a certain point of body defense formation. - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090609220721.htm

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A fascinating battle has gone on: Are birds really dinosaurs: Long thought to be true, a recent article says ther bones don't allow it. Birds need a certain bone structure for breathing. Also aerodynamic feathers are very complex, and there is no evidence how they arose, or when. (See Michael Denton, Evolution, A Theory in Crisis", 1986) There is also a large time gap between possible dinosaur ancestors and the appearance of birds. - http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/osu-drn060809.php

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In my ongoing demonstration of the complexity of biochemistry in evolution, and especially how complex a single-celled animal can be comes the following book. I'm going to have to read it as it appears to make my point that living matter is too complex for chance appearance. - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227141.600-review-wetware-by-dennis-bray.html - I'm also constantly amazed at the variety of machinations various species go through. Again very complex life cycles are everywhere: - http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090629081133.htm

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Here is another article on the complexity of single-celled organisms responses to environmental challenges, a partial background to epigenetics in higher animals: - 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17390-why-microbes-are-smarter-than-you-thought.html?page=1

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The fuss over IDA may be over but another early fossil jaw has turned up in Asia that suggests the line of evolution leading to hominids and monkeys came from there. Of course there is disagreement: - 
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2009/701/1 - 
And related to the book "Rare Earth" and the CO2 cycle mentioned there, is a discussion of a new study of plants and CO2 levels. This is certainly also related to the "Global Warming Debate" of current times, The greenhouse gas effect has allowed evolution and life to progress, and the CO2 variation in the past have been enormous: - 
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17404-plant-life-saved-earth-from-an-icy-fate.html

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There are two theories about the end of dinosaurs: the big asteroid in the Yucatan or volcanoes in Siberia. It is probably both:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204531404577052090769957890.html?KEYWORDS...

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More evidence for volcanoes:-http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2014/12/11/did-a-massive-volcanic-eruption-in-india-kill-off-the-dinosaurs/-"Now scientists have found a way to date more precisely the Deccan Traps eruption, and the results are a boost, potentially, for the volcano-did-it camp.-:The main pulse of the lava flow began about 250,000 years before the mass extinction event, and ended about 500,000 years after, according to a paper published online Thursday in the journal Science. Thus if the eruption is not a significant factor in the mass extinction, it's a remarkable coincidence. Earlier attempts to date the Deccan Traps, using less precise methods, had a much larger margin of error, on the order of plus-or-minus one million years."

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A fossil starfish in the act:

https://phys.org/news/2024-05-fossil-captures-starfish-million-years.html

"One of the wildest wonders of nature is the ability of some animals to reproduce by splitting in half. There is still so much we don't know about this process. So the discovery of a 155-million-year-old starfish fossil frozen partway through this process, published in a new study, could give scientists incredible new insights.

***

"The starfish, or asteroid, is part of a group of animals called the echinoderms or spiny skinned animals that also includes sea lilies, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. They are found in almost every corner of our oceans and spend part of their life as microscopic larvae before developing into adults.

"Starfish are among the oldest living animals on our planet. They appeared in a form we would recognize almost 480 million years ago and have survived five mass extinctions.

"The reason for their evolutionary success could be in their ability to reproduce both sexually and asexually—by literally splitting in two and growing into two new animals. This is known as fissiparity. It is still sometimes observed in modern starfish and comes with the advantage of forming numerous offspring in a relatively short time and without "costing" the parent a great amount of energy or time.

"Sexual reproduction, on the other hand, requires starfish and brittle stars to come together in huge numbers to spawn. The disadvantage of fissiparity is that this type of reproduction can result in a lack of genetic diversity in the population.

"Biologists call the process of splitting in two parts fragmentation. Only a small number of animals can do this. For example, the common garden earthworm, which many gardeners have watched in amazement as one animal suddenly becomes two. Biologists can also watch starfish and brittle stars doing this in their labs or in marine stations.

***

"Only a few animals make it into the fossil record, and many of these are in fragments as they often fall apart once the body has decayed. However, Thuy's brittle star discovery appears to show a brittle star in the process of reproducing asexually. The fossil has already been "born." One half of the body appears to be fully developed while the other half shows signs of regeneration with three smaller arms clearly visible."

Comment: Amoeba split in two, so the mechanism existed from the beginning. Sexual activity is highly complex and was an activity that had to be evolved over time. It is not surprising for this is to occur before sex appeared. Earth worms are still doing it from fragments if cut up. From the design viewpoint, the timing makes sense.

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dhw: I had myself pointed out that variations were caused by random combinations, the impact of the environment, accidental mutations. There is no disagreement here, except for the end of the stick and the potential of the first replicating molecules, so let me offer three simple variations on the very first set of originals, which I shall call blobs.
 
 1) Blob 1 has a head-on collision with another blob; they combine and form a bloblob. From now on the new form replicates bloblobs.
 2) Blob 2 is hit by a bolt of lightning, which gives it a large mole on its cule. From now on it replicates blobimoles. 
 3) Blob 3 makes a mess of things while trying to replicate itself, and its (non-)replica is a blobimess. From now on this replicates blobimesses. - By George he's got it! I enjoyed that. Very well put. - Latest results from astronomy: - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8009014.stm - [More] Complex molecules seen in space.

--
GPJ

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In the context of abiogenesis, I wrote that the degree of disbelief was proportionate to the degree of complexity, and tried to prove to George with three examples that the first replicating molecule must already have had the potential for infinite variations, thus adding substantially to the complexity. - George: By George, he's got it! I enjoyed that. Very well put. - In fact it's by dhw via Charles D, but I'm glad you enjoyed it. Actually, I knew I'd got it, and the point of the examples was to see whether you'd got it. - Thank you for pointing out the latest astronomical discovery of complex molecules in space. I'm not sure that finding a few floating bricks proves that chance built my house, but it's fascinating stuff with promise of more to come, and I appreciate your keeping us up-to-date with such discoveries. - Thanks also to David for the latest update on the complex controls that govern cell development. All these references are invaluable to those of us who have not yet arrived at make-your-mind-up time.

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