Can the origins of life be discovered through science?

Question

Like since the Scientific method states observation, and since no one was there, according to evolution, how can science say anything about the origins.

The Bible is based on eyewitness accounts and has been proven historically accurate. It cannot be proved wrong by science and various things within it such as the flood, better explain and fit with what we observe on earth.

(now here are the rules, if you don't have anything good to say don't say anything,)
don't criticize others who made an earlier question.
I want to know what you think about the question, not what you think about the other members of this site.

I asked for facts not unresearched criticts.
I asked a question for you to answer, and you ask me for facts thats your job. Did you read the answers page description?

As far as the Bible written 200 years after Christ your proof is nonexistent. and for 500 followers to be eyewitnesses that give accuracy. They were persecuted why would they admit to it and write it down? Come on and Think. There are over 20 thousand copies of the new testament. accurate to each other to the very letter.
Some history for those interested The Iliad and the Odyssey was dated to be 700 years after homer died. Ok now I gave you the proof even though you were not so kind. Now please answer the question in the Title.

Oh and Vocal transitions where extremely accurate then, but they also wrote them down. people don't think about the early life spans and generation overlap. when Adam told the story to 3 generations after him. and they did the same the degradation of stories are negligible

eyewittness acount = an account from the eyewitness either by dictation or directly.

God to moses would be dictation. The Ten commandments would be both.

saying that there is a God because it says he exist in the Bible which is the word of God is using circular reasoning. but I did not say that. A better example of circular reasoning is dating of the earth. such as evolution took billions of years to take place therefore since the earth and everything on it evolved the earth is billions of years old.
Start with the facts then find what fits them best.

Answer 1

Every fossil, every observation in biology points to evolution. There is nothing that goes against it or points to a different way to scientifically explain modern diversity. There is not one fossil or one piece of DNA that does NOT point to evolution. It would be hard NOT to see the concrete evidence, and only those blinded by faith can do this.

Evolution is 100% world-wide accepted fact, including the evolution of man.

There is ZERO evidence for a higher being causing anything. This is why people who are religious need faith, you can't see or study the actions of a deity, by definition. Evolution has ZERO faith and ALL evidence.

Scientists (real ones) have been studying and supporting evolution for over 150 years, and still nothing has pointed to creationism. There is clear links and transitional forms between everything in the fossil record to the Class-Family level, if not Genus-Species level. And this includes humans, which there are several 'missing links' which are well described and studied, people just choose to ignore this. Sure, there are still things we don't know, but that's why science is not stagnent and dead. We learn more every day, that's what happens when you keep an open mind and follow the scientific method.

There are some areas of evolution in which all of the pieces have not been found in the fossil record, but there is no counter theory that has even ONE piece of evidence that can not easily be explained by evolution.

Let me turn the question around, if Creationism was correct and science could definitively prove Creationism (and thus the existence of God), why would they not? That would be the greatest scientific discovery in the history of the world. No one would pass that up to maintain the 'status quo'. There is no conspiracy to hide creation evidence. Anyone who knows real scientists knows they are glory-mongers first. They love to prove others wrong to enhance their own standing. And if any scientist could prove Creation/God, it would've been done a long time ago.

Go to a museum, take a class in biology, go to reputable sites on the Internet (like AAAS: http://www.aaas.org/news/press_room/evolution or http://www.talkorigins.org ) and find out for yourself.

Answer 2

First of all, "eyewitness" testimony is notoriously unreliable. Even very simple things get changed with repetition (and translation) - try the game of telephone if you don't believe me. If you do you would be doing science by running an experiment to test an hypothesis!

The biblical account of the "flood" is unsurprising, since *every* culture needs to be located near a reliable source of water, and if it's there long enough a "world-destroying" (from their perspective) flood is inevitable. Noah's ark is a *fable* that tries to explain how everything came back after being wiped out. It takes belief in absurdities to accept that one yahoo with a boat could rescue all the animals in the world (but remember, the world to any ancient people only meant their own neighborhood since they didn't have cars or airplanes).

And if you think the *two* creation accounts in the bible are scientifically accurate you've been brainwashed beyond help. They are grossly inaccurate, and any third grader could tell you why.

Science can only guess about how life actually got started, and scientists freely admit this. They aren't guessing about evolution, though, which is a *fact* as much as the sun rising (or earth rotating it into view if you prefer) every day is a fact. It's too bad the word 'theory' means very different things scientifically versus the popular definition of an educated guess. A scientific theory is an *explanation* of a set of facts, whether evolution, gravitation, digestion, or whatever. Your loudmouthed creationist preachers know this by now, but don't let on for fear of having to get a real job when their churches lose too many members.

Answer 3

I'm sorry ... but I have to question your statement "The Bible is based on eyewitness accounts and has been proven historically accurate."

Are you saying that Genesis was written by an eyewitness? Is the story of Noah, or Abraham an eyewitness account? Or anything in the entire Old Testament?

(If you're going to say that God was that eyewitness, and this is "proven" because because it says so in the Bible ... then somebody needs to introduce you to the meaning of the phrase "circular reasoning". {edit} I am referring here to the claim that God is an eyewitness, not whether God exists. Also, the dating of the earth is NOT circular reasoning as it uses methods completely *independent* of biological evolution ... namely, radiometric dating of rocks, meteors, and lunar samples; varves; stratigraphy; luminosity of the sun; etc.)

(Sorry, to pounce on that. I am not saying the Bible is false ... but only that you cannot claim it to be "eyewitness accounts." Even the most ardently faithful theologians claim that the first five books (the books of Moses: GELN and D) were revealed to Moses by God ... not the words of human eyewitnesses. {edit} Notice I said "human" eyewitnesses. As it seems you *are* claiming that God is that eyewitness, then you run into the circularity problem ... you can prove that God is an eyewitness only if you already accept the events to be true.)

Now, to answer your question ... science can never *prove* anything. All it can do is provide better and better theories that fit with the existing evidence. As we learn more and more about the conditions of life on the early earth, we can come up with better and better experiments to show how those early conditions *might* have produced life. That's all we can do ... but that's prettty darned good.

When you say "Like since the Scientific method states observation, and since no one was there, according to evolution, how can science say anything about the origins."

The idea that science can't say "anything" about where there were no eyewitnesses, is trivially false. Forensic evidence is used all the time in courts of law as evidence of events that occured with no eyewitnesses. Geologists can tell us a great deal about how a piece of granite or basalt formed, even though there were no eyewitnesses. Astronomers and astrophysicists can say a great deal about how planets, stars, and galaxies formed, even though there were no eyewitnesses. Yes it's all theory ... but they're not just idle guesses ... they are really, really STRONG theories. And even if you disagree with those scientific theories, you can't honestly say that science can't tell us *anything* at all.

The next time you see a deer in the woods, how do you know that it was born as a faun to a mother deer? There were no human eyewitnesses. You can say, "yes, but eyewitnesses have seen other deer being born, so we can extrapolate that the same process happened to produce this deer." Yes! And that is how science works. Humans cannot be eyewitnesses to all events ... but we can extrapolate based on events we do see, that other events occurred the same way.

That is science.

Answer 4

We can observe the results of evolution. We can observe the remains of creatures which lived long ago, and we can observe modern creatures. That is how science can say anything about the origins.

The Bible most certainly can be tested and proven wrong like any other document, except for the many passages which are too vague to make any testable predictions.

Also, remember that when the events in the Bible took place and were recorded, science as we know it didn't exist. Just because the people back then weren't aware of a concept doesn't make that concept wrong. If I were God, and I was trying to explain to Moses how I created the Earth, I might resort to using the term "day" because he simply wasn't capable of understanding the term "eon." Remember, to God a million years is like a day.

It's kind of like the argument they used a couple hundred years ago about astronomy--that someone (I forget who) told the Sun to stand still, not the Earth. Just because people back then thought the Sun revolved around the Earth doesn't mean it did. I wonder if they thought God would have told him "Sorry, can't help you," if the Earth really moved.

Answer 5

You are quite correct. There will never be a scientific absolute truth about the origin of life. The best that can be done is to provide an educated guess, and to slowly refine this guess to a higher and higher degree of accuracy as more information becomes available.
The Bible, on the other hand, does not contain any eye witness accounts. It does contain copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of eye witness accounts, but these cannot be considered true eye witness accounts. All of the old testament was passed down by word of mouth for thousands of generations before ever being written down. Even the new testament was not written down for around one hundred years or more after the fact. Furthermore, the Bible is an incomplete work, since nowhere is mentioned such basic concepts as atoms and molecules, radioactivity, DNA, genes, radio waves, electricity, entropy, etc. And things like electromagnetism are mentioned only in the most cursory way, such as simply being referred to as "light", with no attempt to provide any sort of in-depth understanding of these very complex phenomena. And totally forget quantum mechanics or relativity. It simply can't be found anywhere in the Bible. I am serious when I say that I am very sad that God didn't give us any better instruction about these things back in biblical times. It sure would have saved us all a whole lot of hassle in having to discover his works on our own.
Also, I would like to point out that the bible makes patently false statements in several areas. For instance, in the old testament, Joshua is said to ask God to stop the Sun in its tracks, to give the Israelites some extra badly needed time. And it is said that God willingly complies. But everyone knows that it is the Earth that is actually turning on its axis, and not the Sun. This would have been the perfect moment for God to explain to us about the revolution of the Earth about its axis and so forth, but the Bible just leaves us in our ignorance. And in the new testament, in Matthew 13:31-32, Jesus is said to have described the mustard seed as: "the least of all seeds". This is simply untrue. There are many species of plant that produce seeds far smaller than a mustard seed. It kind of makes you think that the Bible was written by primative ignorant people.

Answer 6

The first thing I have to say about your question is that you never use a question mark anywhere in the details, just in the header. Sorry, but that really bothered me. As to whether or not they can be discovered through science seems to be a moot point, since you have clearly already decided. You state "...how can science say anything about the origins [Here you should've included a question mark]." and go on to say "The Bible is based on eyewitness accounts and has been proven historically accurate." While some parts of The Bible have been proven accurate, there are big gapping sections that have not been proven. I doubt this answer constitutes you definition of "good" but I felt I needed to answer.

Answer 7

The origins of life are fairl well understood by science.

The bible, on the other hand, is a self contradictory collection of biased (often racist) stories some very loosely based on historical accounts but in fact with very little corroboration that it is at all an accurate account. Some parts of the bible are known to be whooly historically inaccurate, and science can very readily disprove large parts of it.

Logically, the account in the bible of the creation of life could not be eye witness (think about what you are claiming here - it is absurd). It is also trivial to show that it is almost wholly inaccurate. Its timing is out by more than three orders of magnitude (i.e. a factor of a million) and its order of event is physically impossible.

Why you would ask the world to believe an account of creation written by a scientifically ignorant man or woamn some 2,000 or more years ago on one side of A4 instead of the work of hundreds of thousands of scientist - all backed by observation and experiment - is unimaginable. It is breathtaking religious arrogance.

Little wonder that religion has been the main source of suffering in the world for millenia, and continues to be today.

Answer 8

The Bible is a lot of allegory and symbolism. The origins of life can, assuredly, be discovered through science. Nobody was there to witness creation, and no evidence is left over. Nobody was there for evolution - but evidence was left over. I guarantee you this is 110% the wrong section to be asking this question; it's entirely religious in nature. There are many problems with a literal interpretation of much of the Bible - such as the Flood and creation. Don't use lies to prove your point. Without those lies, creationism has no basis. How can you sit at your computer and logically say "It cannot be proved wrong by science..."? Science has proven a literal Genesis to be very wrong, indeed.

Answer 9

The Bible can so be proved wrong, but nobody was there to record many of the events. There may have been a large flood in biblical times, but did it cover the entire globe? Probably not.... Did one man really gather 2 of each animal and repopulate the species of the world? Not likely.... So, just like science cannot prove the origins of man, nor can the Bible be shown 100% historically accurate, due to the many exaggerations and the vocal tellings of it for hundreds of generations.

Answer 10

The Bible is based on eyewitness accounts and has been proved historically accurate.
WHAT?
Do some research, when was the Bible written?
200 hundred years AFTER Christ, how many eyewitnesses were still alive?
All of Christianity is based on the remains of the "Dead sea scrolls", which tells of the life of a religion that pre dates Christianity, and Judaism!