Artificial Life Created

Zombrex

StealthRolex wrote: »

The problem with "what ifs" is that they mean nothing unless the alternate hypothesis can be tested.

Which is why you don't entertain the concept of the existence of a non-testable god, right

Morbert

StealthRolex wrote: »

An you my good boy need to read a little wider.

Something proved beyond reasonable doubt is no longer a theory.

No.

I don't see how you can assert that someone needs to read a "little wider" and then in the next sentence say something that is instantly recognisable as wrong to anyone who's read a book on science.

StealthRolex

Morbert wrote: »

No.

I don't see how you can assert that someone needs to read a "little wider" and then in the next sentence say something that is instantly recognisable as wrong to anyone who's read a book on science.

fair point - removed.

Sam Vimes

StealthRolex wrote: »

An you my good boy need to read a little wider.

To the best of my knowledge the theory of evolution is still, well, a theory.

Oh dear. You know that gravity, electromagnetism, biology and, well, pretty much everything in science is a theory?

StealthRolex wrote: »

Evolution did not produce DNA

Really? What makes you say that? you're very definite about that and in conflict with science to boot

StealthRolex wrote: »

Evolution did not produce life

No that's called abiogenesis.

StealthRolex wrote: »

If some want to suggest that God took an ape that evolved from a bacterium and turned him into a man that is one way of viewing it.

If some want to suggest that God created life in bacterial form and let evolution at it until man appeared and then he ensouled man that is equally valid.

If some want to suggest that God created everything we see today and manipulated the fossil record that is equally within His power.

Equally valid is that evolution had its way with the animals and plants after God started it but He took man on specifically as His personal project.

You seem to be working under the misapprehension that there exists in science proof the God is not required

Evolution describes a mechanism of mutation and selection that happens all on its own. We know that it happens because it's still happening today and has been directly observed so which part exactly do you think requires a god?

There's a difference between saying that you believe god was involved in something and saying that it could not have happened unless god was involved. The former is unfalsifiable, the latter is not

StealthRolex wrote: »

and that humans except for atheists are innately stupid.

Um, no I didn't say anything of the sort

antiskeptic

Sam Vimes wrote: »

Even this "simple" form of life is the result of 4 billion years of evolution and is not in fact simple at all. This type of cell was almost certainly not the first form of life. The current theory is that it was something like RNA, which has also been produced in a lab from inorganic material:

My point was that the experiment showed only what it showed: vast intelligence produced a copy of a relatively simple form of life. This says nothing about whether or not God is required to form life.

And you seem to be conflating "god" with "intelligent life". This does show that it's possible without god, what we're talking about here is whether it's possible without intelligent life. And that's where abiogenesis theory and evolutionary theory come in.

We don't know whether relatively simple life can be 'created' without God. We only know that it can be copied without God. That's all that occurred.

The trouble here is your extrapolating what is shown into what you'd it is you'd like to be shown.

philologos

Sam, I see you have been busy since I went off Boards to write some philosophy :pac:

You claim that I said that it was unlikely that life could form without a God. I do believe that, but in particular on this occasion, I said that it is unlikely that this happened of its own accord. On its own.

At least in the example provided by the OP, there is some guiding intelligence involved (the humans in the lab), rather than no intelligence at all.

I find the irony to be interesting though.

Generally, and please challenge me if I am wrong, you regard my belief in God to be unlikely, but at the same time you are very open to accepting that the universe with all its chemical, physical, and biological entities could be formed from absolutely nothing, which is in itself incredibly unlikely. Infact it would be more unlikely than having a guiding principle bringing out the environment necessary for life to form to begin with.

Edit: You claim that the supernatural is impossible, and yet provide no reason as to why it is impossible. Such an assumption is based on the view that all things of necessity must be material. Yet there is no valid reason to assume this.

Your view amounts to, I hold a materialist worldview, and supernatural entities cannot exist because I hold a materialist worldview. (Circular reasoning)

Please do what you will with this post, I have an exam tomorrow, so I probably won't be able to respond that much, but I will pop in and out between revising stuff.

PDN

Malty_T wrote: »

Also the Good Archbishop Ussher made the calcuation that the earth was created in 4004 B.C even though no scientist at the time thought that to be true. Some Christians, it seems, did their best to overthrow the old earth idea. Sadly they are still continuing to this very day.

Johannes Kepler didn't think 4004 BC was the right date, he claimed it was 3998 BC.

Would you consider Kepler a scientist?

Turtwig

PDN wrote: »

Johannes Kepler didn't think 4004 BC was the right date, he claimed it was 3998 BC.

Would you consider Kepler a scientist?

Actually that was Newton.
Yep both were scientists, but both made their calculations directly from the bible and look where it got them. Again, it wasn't the doctrine of Christianity that shed light on the age of the earth, it was the mere discover of physical evidence.

lmaopml

sink wrote: »

I agree to a point. Love a beauty can be explained through natural processes but this does not diminish their splendour.

Alternate methods to science can pose interesting questions and provide satisfying answers to the soul. Unfortunately there is no way to verify any of it, and what's more two contradictory answers can both be equally satisfying, yet there is no way of knowing which is true. Without a means of verification it's nothing but an exercise in self satisfaction. Which is all very well if that's all you're looking for.

pml, I sure hope this debate was 'satisfying' for you too....:D It must be those self satisfying chemicals we're all so addicted to, our internal 'head shop'......They say we don't 'do' anything without some kind of a 'payoff'....Me, you (yes yes you too), them, everybody...

Hey ho!

I just thought the op was kinda dumb to be honest in the Christianity forum, but however....

I'm off to self satisfy myself...:eek:



Sam, cheers for that...It means a lot that you don't mind...

Sam Vimes

antiskeptic wrote: »

My point was that the experiment showed only what it showed: vast intelligence produced a copy of a relatively simple form of life. This says nothing about whether or not God is required to form life.

What it shows it that there is no requirement for the laws of nature to be broken in order for life to form and the theory of evolution shows that incredible complexity that astounds human beings and makes many of them say that an intelligence must have been involved in its production can happen entirely unaided by intelligence. Yes it is very counter intuitive but as I said earlier, counter intuitive but it happens nonetheles.

Yes God could still have done it and could have broken the laws of nature even though there was no requirement to but the argument "you can't prove god wasn't involved" is an awful lot weaker than "this cannot possibly have happened without god".

antiskeptic wrote: »

We don't know whether relatively simple life can be 'created' without God. We only know that it can be copied without God. That's all that occurred.

I don't understand the difference. The scientists copied an existing genome but they didn't have to, they could have sequenced an entirely new one. Would you then accept that they had created new life?

Sam Vimes

Jakkass wrote: »

Sam, I see you have been busy since I went off Boards to write some philosophy :pac:

You claim that I said that it was unlikely that life could form without a God. I do believe that, but in particular on this occasion, I said that it is unlikely that this happened of its own accord. On its own.

At least in the example provided by the OP, there is some guiding intelligence involved (the humans in the lab), rather than no intelligence at all.

I find the irony to be interesting though.

This is what you said:

Jakkass wrote: »

Every time one considers how unlikely it is that the universe was created without God, or at least every time I consider it, the more absurd I think your references to the FSM are, because the case for God is about as strong as it has ever been.

So not only did you not say "on it's own", you didn't even say "a god", you said just "God", meaning the specific god you believe in.

But again, the problem here is that you said considering that the universe was created without god makes you see the FSM references as absurd but the same consideration adds exactly as much weight to the FSM because he is also defined as having created the universe. It's add equal weight to every single deity, being or conecpt that has ever been or will ever be posited as having created the universe. The position that the universe could not have been created "on its own" could be said to be reasonable, I don't know if it is or not but what I can say is that this desitic position that you are arguing for is far more reasonable than the theistic position that you actually hold. This is the point that I was making, that the position you were arguing for is not the one you hold, the "tin man" argument. PDN unfortunately seems to have missed this point and yet again jumped to the conclusion of dishonesty on my part but there's not much I can do about his desire to label me as dishonest every time our paths cross.

Jakkass wrote: »

Generally, and please challenge me if I am wrong, you regard my belief in God to be unlikely, but at the same time you are very open to accepting that the universe with all its chemical, physical, and biological entities could be formed from absolutely nothing, which is in itself incredibly unlikely. Infact it would be more unlikely than having a guiding principle bringing out the environment necessary for life to form to begin with.

My position on what can and cannot create a universe is the only one that it is possible for a human being to have: total ignorance. I have absolutely no idea if a universe can form from nothing, I have no idea if it was created by a god but what I do know is that deciding to pick one explanation and go it it before that explanation has been shown to be the correct one is foolish and stunts development. That goes for every area of human endeavour, not just universe creation. You have decided that you know how the universe was created and so have closed your mind to the infinite number of other possibilities that we have not yet imagined.

Jakkass wrote: »

Edit: You claim that the supernatural is impossible, and yet provide no reason as to why it is impossible. Such an assumption is based on the view that all things of necessity must be material. Yet there is no valid reason to assume this.

The supernatural is impossible by the definition of the word. If the supernatural was possible it would be called the natural. If the supernatural is possible then the resurrection was just a magic trick that Jesus was able to perform because he had knowledge the Israelites didn't and we will all be able to do it once we understand how it was done. You believe in a god that is able to do the impossible but that does not mean that the supernatural is possible, it means that there is a being that can do the impossible.

philologos

Jakkass wrote: »

We are still very far from reaching the conclusion, that life could exist without any form of being creating it or guiding it, which would have to be the case in the absence of God. It is still incredibly unlikely that things just happened to fall into place chemically, and physically to allow for life to begin.

gosplan: It hasn't decreased at all from my perspective anyway.

Jakkass wrote: »

It's still hugely hugely unlikely. That's why I view it to be more realistic that there was indeed a guiding principle both to the universe and to all human beings. That being is commonly referred to as God.

Every time one considers how unlikely it is that the universe was created without God, or at least every time I consider it, the more absurd I think your references to the FSM are, because the case for God is about as strong as it has ever been.

I did say on its own. I said without "any form of being creating it or guiding it".

It appears that you did take liberties with my posts.

Morbert

Several people have now claimed that it is unlikely that life could occur without any being. Where are the people getting there info from? It's certainly not the conclusion of biologists, the very people who study life.

lmaopml

What have biologists concluded?

ISAW

Malty_T wrote: »

In Western societies the belief of 6,000 years was widely down to interpretation of the bible. However, when scientists started finding fossils in the ground and signs of extinction events. It became apparent the world was much older.

Which would be about 150 to 200 years ago? Up to that time scientists and everyone else basically believed the Earth was several thousand years old.

Actually LeClerc estimated 75,000 years old in 1759

Kelvin estimated 20 million years, iirc. Unless you can show that these scientists made their arguments from the bible you cannot say Christians changed the consensus

Newton Kelvin Leclerc and Darwin as far as I know were Christian.

Also the Good Archbishop Ussher made the calcuation that the earth was created in 4004 B.C even though no scientist at the time thought that to be true. Some Christians, it seems, did their best to overthrow the old earth idea. Sadly they are still continuing to this very day.

They are and steady state cosmologists are too. Sadly Burbridge passed away recently.

Morbert

lmaopml wrote: »

What have biologists concluded?

As it stands, the community accepts that the development of life is best explained by the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution, which states that life develops via the natural selection of random genetic mutations, where "natural" refers to the immediate influences of the surrounding habitat.

The community also accepts that life probably arose through some natural chemical process (loosely referred to as abiogenesis).

Christians are free to believe that, despite the research carried out by scientists, life is still unlikely to have arisen without any intelligent, guiding influence. But they should make it emphatically clear that what they believe is contradicted by science.

antiskeptic

Morbert wrote: »

Christians are free to believe that, despite the research carried out by scientists, life is still unlikely to have arisen without any intelligent, guiding influence. But they should make it emphatically clear that what they believe is contradicted by science.

Would you accept though, that this particular piece of science, in which intelligent life copies existing life doesn't form part of the contradicting science (whatever that might be)

JimiTime

Morbert wrote: »

Christians are free to believe that, despite the research carried out by scientists, life is still unlikely to have arisen without any intelligent, guiding influence. But they should make it emphatically clear that what they believe is contradicted by science.

How?

ISAW

Morbert wrote: »

As it stands, the community accepts that the development of life

development of life not the origin of life

is best explained by the modern synthesis of the theory of evolution, which states that life develops via the natural selection of random genetic mutations, where "natural" refers to the immediate influences of the surrounding habitat.

Dont conflate volution with abiogenesis.

The community also accepts that life probably arose through some natural chemical process (loosely referred to as abiogenesis).

"loosely" ? You played your trump and now are trying to win the trick with a rag.

Christians are free to believe that, despite the research carried out by scientists, life is still unlikely to have arisen without any intelligent, guiding influence.

Research by "intelligent guiding scientists" is different? Okay they are not god but they are intelligent guiding scientists. the experiment wasn't one of "accident" or "random happening" but of predetermined interference.

But they should make it emphatically clear that what they believe is contradicted by science.

Actually it isn't but even if science proved that abiogenesis does not require outside interference it would not disprove God.

Morbert

antiskeptic wrote: »

Would you accept though, that this particular piece of science, in which intelligent life copies existing life doesn't form part of the contradicting science (whatever that might be)

Yes.

At most, what this research shows is that life does not need to be imbued with an "anima" to emerge from non-life, and that life can be driven by natural chemical processes alone.

Vitalism, in other words, has been thoroughly debunked.

Morbert

ISAW wrote: »

development of life not the origin of life

Dont conflate volution with abiogenesis.

ISAW, I have the feeling that you responded to my post before reading all of it. You, for example, warn me not to conflate evolution with abogenesis, even though I make the distinction in my second paragraph.

"loosely" ? You played your trump and now are trying to win the trick with a rag.

This claim makes no sense. Abiogenesis, as you should know, is not a theory like evolution, but rather a loose umbrella term for the various proposals of life-from-non-life mechanisms. I don't see what the problem is.

Research by "intelligent guiding scientists" is different? Okay they are not god but they are intelligent guiding scientists. the experiment wasn't one of "accident" or "random happening" but of predetermined interference.

What does this have to do with my post?

Actually it isn't

Yes it is. Scientists who have investigated evolutionary biology and mechanisms for abiogenesis have not found any evidence which suggests that life could have arisen or developed without any intelligent force, and they frequently publish papers about life arising and developing in the absence of an intelligent force.

JimiTime

Morbert wrote: »

Yes.

At most, what this research shows is that life does not need to be imbued with an "anima" to emerge from non-life, and that life can be driven by natural chemical processes alone.

Vitalism, in other words, has been thoroughly debunked.

Really?

philologos

Morbert wrote: »

Yes.

At most, what this research shows is that life does not need to be imbued with an "anima" to emerge from non-life, and that life can be driven by natural chemical processes alone.

Vitalism, in other words, has been thoroughly debunked.

That is if we ignore how hugely complex it is to get the correct chemical atmosphere for life to form, to have the planets in the correct position and so on to begin with.

If we wish to examine one particular area and ignore all others, then your case could be very well valid. In consideration of all creation it becomes much more difficult though.

antiskeptic

Morbert wrote: »

Yes.

At most, what this research shows is that life does not need to be imbued with an "anima" to emerge from non-life, and that life can be driven by natural chemical processes alone.

So long as "emerge" is taken to mean no more than fabricated by hi-intelligence copying existing life then we're in agreement.

As for life being driven by chemical processes alone once it exists (however that happens)? No argument there - chemical processes (conforming to the laws of nature (anima?)) is it.

Vitalism, in other words, has been thoroughly debunked.

The Biblical view of vitality appears to be limited to God blowing soul into man. More basic mechanisms of life (that which rots in the grave) appear to be well, mechanistic. Ash to ashes, dust to dust and all that..

lmaopml

Why should Christians make it 'emphatically' clear that what we believe is 'contradicted' by science? ...and to whom?? Biologists? or Atheists?

Are you aware that the roots of Christianity are older than your Gran? way older..?? Common sense dictates that they weren't writing chemical formula at the beginning of Christianity or for that matter making 'scientific' by today's standards propositions...when the bible authors put pen to paper..

...and ****, there are some very hairy proposals, even in the scientific community these days...( Ahh human nature at it's best )

Look, I have no problem with accepting that evolution is indeed more than just a theory. However, I am point blank wondering how anybody has the ability to start life...It seems a circular error is inevitable here...because we are only observers..

...and I'm still wondering what the answer is, considering biologists know so much? We 'study' life, we copy, learn, etc? ....but really the op is jumping the gun..

I echo whoever said 'Christian Yawn' earlier...

..nothing new here as far as theology is concerned. V. exciting in the Science forum however...


I wonder if it was posted there first...lol...

*toddles off to see*

lmaopml

Just had a peek, and seemingly our online scientists are more interested in here

antiskeptic

Jakkass wrote: »

That is if we ignore how hugely complex it is to get the correct chemical atmosphere for life to form, to have the planets in the correct position and so on to begin with.

Although the use of the word "emerging" has a spontaneous-sounding ring to it, Morbert has already acknowledged this piece of science says nothing about the spontaneity of that emergence (if I'm reading him write(sic)).

I think we can all acknowledge that high-intelligence copied relatively simple life.

DeVore

StealthRolex wrote: »

An you my good boy need to read a little wider.

To the best of my knowledge the theory of evolution is still, well, a theory.

Evolution did not produce DNA
Evolution did not produce life

If some want to suggest that God took an ape that evolved from a bacterium and turned him into a man that is one way of viewing it.

If some want to suggest that God created life in bacterial form and let evolution at it until man appeared and then he ensouled man that is equally valid.

If some want to suggest that God created everything we see today and manipulated the fossil record that is equally within His power.

Equally valid is that evolution had its way with the animals and plants after God started it but He took man on specifically as His personal project.

You seem to be working under the misapprehension that there exists in science proof the God is not required and that humans except for atheists are innately stupid.

To be fair, gravity is still a "theory" but I'm betting you walked out your front door today and not, say, your bedroom window.


DeV.

lmaopml

I like gravity me, it keeps me grounded, especially when I walk out on the upper floor balconies of my holiday apartment overlooking a fabulous seaview with a glass of wine to start off the night ahead....love that feeling!

Do you think people walked out of windows before Newton described gravity? I don't think so...I certainly hope not anyway...

.. I love 'Newton'...he's a favourite of mine to be sure, not too many firsts in his league, not too many mathematicians, philosophers, astronomers, alchemists, theologians, and physicists all rolled up in one person that you will come across on boards these days...but we can always aspire or ape I guess..

monosharp

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

You are losing the run of yourself. Quite why you feel your rhetorical questions are justified from my words eludes me. I also suspect that it eludes you and you are crowbarring in some objections that are rattling around your head.

Whats you said is the equivalent of pointing out to a believer in thor, that scientists can reproduce thunder in a laboratory and then that believer saying "OK now my faith is stronger".

It makes no sense to me, I wasn't trying to be smart but if you want to ignore me go ahead.