Is an egg a chicken?

Darth Omar said:
But the question is how it came into existence—not how natural selection acts on *already existent* code systems. You’re starting with nothing but precursors to biochemicals and you have to end up with a system of code. And that, is granting the assumption that there ever was a ‘primordial soup’. That could be sheer mythology for all we know.

Is there any evidence natural selection can work on lifeless matter?
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I've used smooth pebbles and stones as examples. ;)
 
AProudLefty said:
Errors are eliminated by natural selection. Q.E.D.
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Agreed. Over time. It's an imperfect system that favors whatever is most survivable at the moment.

Unfortunately, the Democrats keep fucking up the system by saving idiots from themselves with seatbelt laws, helmet laws and the like for adults. Then those saved idiots reproduce. C'est la vie!
 
dukkha said:
errors would cause a mutation -sometimes successful, most time not
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Then you have to hope[?] the small fraction of beneficial ones get passed onto successive generations.

Contrary to received wisdom there’s plenty of room for skepticism in the whole thing.
 
Darth Omar said:
Then you have to hope[?] the small fraction of beneficial ones get passed onto successive generations.

Contrary to received wisdom there’s plenty of room for skepticism in the whole thing.
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well im sure you understand Darwin. successful mutations live and reproduce. Those that dont end the cycle
 
AProudLefty said:
Why cannot it be applied to any other systems, not just life?
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Cybernetics is a good goal. There are limits, but aren't autonomous cars soon to be a reality? Machines have limits, but they'll certainly replace humans who operate on a menial level.

The challenge is to raise all humanity above the menial level. Unless they like being a ditch digger or a janitor. Ideally, it should be the person's choice with an equal opportunity to access choices available. Making that ideology a reality requires unlimited energy access.

It'd be nice to see that in my lifetime, but there's no doubt in my mind humanity is moving in that direction.
 
Cypress said:
There are whole scientific disciplines devoted to the science of complexity and emergence which study how diffuse systems with many parts can produce emergent phenomena having structure and complexity.

Galaxies, galaxy clusters, biological cells, crystallization of ice from random water molecules represent a few of numerous examples. None of them violate any tenets of the second law of thermodynamics.

There may be obscure rightwing Christian blogs out there who holler about violations of the second law of thermodynamics - but physicists and mathematicians working in the discipline of emergence science deal everyday with structure and complex systems that are formed bottom up from random systems made of many parts.

Just because our souped-up chimpanzee brains may not have the cognitive capabilities to grasp everything about emergence and complexity does not necessarily point to a sentient intelligent designer.

I am willing to accept a premise of an intelligent designer on faith alone. But invoking the tenets of thermodynamics to supposedly prove intelligent design does not cut the mustard.
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You’re insistent about the 2nd Law lol.

The 2nd deals with energy in a closed system and you’re conflating information with energy. If you want to stipulate that information can be an emergent property of energy/matter that’s fine. But that’s where I ask for evidence of this occurring anywhere apart from *already existent* biological systems.

And yes, since the designer explanation is excluded at the starting line by naturalistic methodology it lands in the faith category. But that is a different thing than saying it doesn’t have any explanatory power or that it takes a truck load of faith to believe biological information owes its existence to a higher intelligence.
 
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AProudLefty said:
As of now, nobody knows for sure how life arose. Only hypothesis with some clues.
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Agreed. It's all theory. It'd be nice to find examples of off-planet lifeforms. Even fungus or mold on Mars would double our examples of life in the Universe.

OTOH, if the DNA/RNA/BLAH BLAH BLAH stuff was similar, wouldn't that attract a lot of religious attention? Inquiring people want to know.
 
Darth Omar said:
You’re insistent about the 2nd Law lol.

The 2nd deals with energy in a closed system and you’re conflating information with energy. If you want to stipulate that information can be an emergent property of energy/matter that’s fine. But that’s where I ask for evidence of this occurring anywhere apart from *already existent* biological systems.

And yes, since the designer explanation is excluded at the starting line by naturalistic methodology it lands in the faith category. But that is a different thing than saying it doesn’t have any explanatory power or that it takes a truck load of faith to believe biological information owes its existence to a higher intelligence.
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Because once one invokes "God", that's the end of line in finding out the truth and exploration. If one accepts on faith that God or intelligent designer is necessary for life to arise, one has to ask an obvious question: where did such a being come from?
 
dukkha said:
well im sure you understand Darwin. successful mutations live and reproduce. Those that dont end the cycle
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I have his book on the shelf lol.

Darwin was a genius in his time. But I’ve also read Behe, Dembski, Berlinski and some other forbidden works. I guess that’s part of my problem.
 
AProudLefty said:
Because once one invokes "God", that's the end of line in finding out the truth and exploration. If one accepts on faith that God or intelligent designer is necessary for life to arise, one has to ask an obvious question: where did such a being come from?
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I’ve conceded it’s a matter of faith but it’s not blind faith.
 
Darth Omar said:
I’ve conceded it’s a matter of faith but it’s not blind faith.
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So you are willing to look beyond your faith? I have always stated that it's possible there is some kind of design in the universe. Obviously we have laws of physics so that shows "design" in nature.
 
AProudLefty said:
So you are willing to look beyond your faith? I have always stated that it's possible there is some kind of design in the universe. Obviously we have laws of physics so that shows "design" in nature.
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Can't even get him to recognize science and I don't understand why.

If God created the Universe, then God created all of the laws of the Universe. Therefore studying the Universe and understanding how it worked should be divine work.

Since people like Darth, Dookie, PmP and the like don't recognize science as divine work, then there is something else driving these people other than a search for divinity. I don't know what it is, but suspect a lot of it is fear-based.
 
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