Wanna have an Evolution v. Creation civilized discussion?

Question

Let's take it step by step, respectfully. Please stay just on the issue...I will ask more later.
Question: Can it be proven scientifially that life does come from non-life?

NOIZE- I am getting there, hang on...in a few weeks I will espouse my theory.

BTW- I have studied the subject for approx. 18 years now...and have studied under both camps (mostly under evolution). A good "Creationist" side would be the book called "Scientific Creationism". It is worth at least reading.

Saying evolution or creation is scientific proves nothing!
IS IT SCIENTIFICALLY THAT LIFE CAN COME FROM NON-LIFE?

OOOPS, IS IT SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN? Or is it still in the theory stage?

Answer 1

well hey as an agnostic i'm open to every possibilitie so sure why not it's all good in my book

Answer 2

Only in the proper forum, which this is NOT. What you have to do is convince the members of the scientific community that "creation" is anything other than a religious concept.

By the way, if you did attempt such a debate, you might start by defining, or at least modeling, what you mean by "creation." I understand what evolution means. But I've never run across a satisfactory description of "creation" from a creationist. And it had better be superior to the risible "watch-maker" analogies.

UPDATE: The answer below mine is 100% correct, and I have to say your statement
"OOOPS, IS IT SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN? Or is it still in the theory stage?"
left me thinking that your concept of how science works may need some discussion. (Think of gravity & quantum mechanics.)

Answer 3

At the moment, and given the generality of the question, the best answer probably is – we do not know.

It should first be made clear that the lack of a universally accepted ‘clean’ answer is not a disproof of evidence that it cannot. Science exists only to help us learn things that we do not already know.

In fact the difference between 'living' molecules and 'non-living' molecules is not a great known definite thing. We know the parts necessary and we understand many of the processes that explain the behavior of elements and what effects they have on each other. Further the compounds of life are among the most common, not only in our own little solar system, but throughout the known universe.

Further, biochemical process and reactions are nonrandom and hypotheses of how ‘life’ can be created from ‘non-living’ elements are perfectly reasonable, understandable and knowable.

Why do you suppose all the interest and excitement about the possible existence of water on Mars? Because that means conditions for life are possible.

It would be more difficult to prove that it cannot happen. It would be more of a mystery to have all of the preconditions for certain reactions to occur and the have them NOT occur. Life on earth is not as great a mystery as the absence of life would be.

Answer 4

You are using the word "proof" and "theory" in a non-scientific way and in a way that makes it impossible for us to call anything proof. Science does not aim at proof in the sense that one can say, "I'm 100%, absolutely certain I am right about this." Rather it aims for probabilities and takes the explanation that has the highest probability. Also, a "theory" is not just "somebody's guess." Scientists do not come up with theories by sitting in their chairs and letting their imaginations fly. There is of course some imagination involved, but theories have to make predictions about how the world works, and to fit within the boundaries of the known facts. The other ambiguity comes from your notion of "species." Scientists define species as a group of organisms that are reproductively isolated. That is to say, if members of one group can't produce fertile offspring with members of another group, they are different species. In that sense, yes, we have directly seen species change into other species. The famous fruit fly experiments have produced thousands of different species. But you seem to imply that the only kind of evolution that counts is when a frog turns into a cat, or something similar. That never happens spontaneously, and we'll never see it happen, because that takes millions and millions of years to happen. The distinction between micro- and macro-evolution is a false one, at least as it is used by creationists. If two groups of organisms are separated (say, a new river forms, separating the two), and you'll allow that tiny changes can occur in both the species, then why can't lots and lots of tiny changes occur over time to become big changes? It's like saying "I'll grant you that if I spent a dollar less than my brother today, I'd be one dollar richer, but I don't believe that if I did that for 50 years I'd be thousands of dollars richer." What if, instead of 50 years, it was a million years? Would you deny that you'd be 365 million dollars richer just because nobody has lived long enough to observe someone save that much money? You can't just assert a difference between two kinds of evolution and let it set there, bald. You have to argue for it. Otherwise, I could, with equal force, deny the difference and we'd get nowhere. So why is it that, in this special case, lots of small changes don't add up to big changes? Again, hopefully I have caused no disrespect on your part.

Answer 5

Science does not operate on proof of what is true. It operates on disproof of what is not true.

By way of analogy:

I hold in my hand a black velvet bag that contains some marbles. I ask you to make a guess what color the marbles are. Let us presume you say, "The marbles are red." I allow you to reach in and pull out ONE marble. You first notice that your hand tells you there's about 100 marbles in the bag, maybe a few more, maybe a few less. You pull out a marble and it is red. Have you proven your hypothesis? Is one red marble sufficient to prove all are?

I put the marble back in the bag and let you pull out another. Just like the universe, I will not let you see all the facts at one time. You pull out another red. This is looking good for your Red Marble Hypothesis. We continue this process. Ten thousand times you draw a marble (remember, there's only around 100), and each time it's red.

You could say with 99.99% certainty that all the marbles are red. Is this a fact? Is it possible that there is still one marble out of the hundred that by random chance you never touched? Sure. So you cannot be 100% certain. But 10,000 draws, of 100 choices, all supporting the original claim, gives extremely high certainty.

On your 10,001 draw, you finally get that marble that's blue.

Was your certainty wrong? No. You were fairly certain. You had good REASON to be certain. In the social sciences, if something can be held to an alpha level of 0.05 (that is a measure of certainty saying approximately 95% cetain -- oversimplification but its sufficient), you can effectively use it as a fact.

So you adjust your theory to reflect the new information. You say, "The overwhelming majority of the marbles are red, but there is at least one blue. There is still no evidence to cause the belief that there are any other colored marbles, however."

You continue to draw. After a million draws, you come up with a ratio of 1 blue marble for every 9999 red marbles. Now you KNOW something more complex has to be going on, because your hand tells you there's only about 100 marbles, so how could 1 out of 10000 be blue? The logical options are that I'm either playing a trick on you (the universe doesn't play tricks, so let's ignore this idea), OR, there's something more complex going on. Perhaps there are a few color-shifting marbles. Perhaps random chance is just playing buggers with you.

No matter what you do, you can never prove 100% the status of all the marbles unless I pour them all out in front of you -- and the universe literally will not let you do that (heisenburg's indeterminancy principle, at the smallest level).

-------

The hypothesis that life comes from non-life violates no known laws of physics, so it is possible, yes. Can we prove it? No. Technically, abiogenesis is still a hypothesis, though it is classified as a theory because there is no other explanation consistent with empiricism.

Answer 6

There is nothing scientifically impossible about demonstrating that life arises from non-life. One simple way is to do it! Scientists have tried to replicate the original conditions on Earth, and put methane, ammonia, hydrogen, and other gases into a large flask. They then simulate lightning by sparks of electricity. After a few weeks of this, you get a brown stuff congealed all over the flask. No, it's not alive, but there are fantastically complicated molecules that defy our commonsense notion that "life can't come from non-life." Among the complicated molecules are some amino acids, which are the building blocks of life. Don't be fooled by all those people who calculate the odds of an amino acid forming "by pure random chance." They assume that every combination is as good as every other, but that's not how chemistry works. It's not chance, it's physics. If you put ammonia, methane, and hydrogen in a certain temperature and at a certain pressure, you get amino acids, no matter what the "odds" against it are. Well, I hope that gives you some hope of the scientific possibility of showing that life can come from non-life, and I hope I've answered your question respectfully.

Answer 7

Life has nothing to do with a magical soul or whatever, its simply a state of functionality. Whether you function (alive) or not (dead) you are made up of cells that are made up of molecules. Your sight can be fully explained in terms of a very complex chemical reaction. When all this complex body stops working, it is referred to as dead, but it is still what is.... something that is made of matter!

Taking your question literally, Yes. What are you? A cell that got bigger and replicated by consuming food and oxygen. Your hand, hair, brain, .....etc was simply food that you consumed and got used to build these organs. So in this case, things that you refer to as non living (food, air, matter in general) became living things.... cells that make up a tissue that make up an organ that make up a living organism. Once you die, the whole thing is reversed.

What hasn't been done yet was creating life in a lab out of matter. It will be done soon with more advances in science. Whether there is a designer or it happened by natural selection is irrelevant at this point. It must have happened through a certain mechanism/process that we need to know. There must be a reaction that produced the first form of DNA/RNA. A Designer might have used a mechanism. Ex:Aliens making the first RNA and leaving it do develop on earth. Or it might have happened through something like natural selection .... where only the perfect mix with the perfect condition produces life, and all the other mixtures fail to do so. In any case there must be a mechanism... certain conditions.... a particular reaction that made the first form of life....the first form of DNA/RNA.

Assuming that the Designer doesn't need a mechanism or simply said "Let there be DNA" ... that's when we get a "belief alert" and thats when scientists start fighting the fight for protecting science from superstition and religion!

Whether you believe that God creates light that comes out of the sun, or it all happens without any interference, science is only concerned with how light is produced. People are free to accompany whatever deity they want with the facts in their own minds, but not in science text books!

Answer 8

Hmmm, would that there were a way to tune out the people who don't play this game well.

Okay, it cannot be proven. It can be proven that live could come from inanimate compounds - that is, from a mix of chemicals such as we found in early earth history we suppose they could have mixed in a specific way to produce amino acids that somehow are self-reproductive (we know what a self-reproductive amino acid looks like, we can create such a thing in a lab). What we cannot say is that that did or had to happen. But that's common in science. If you have a gap in knowledge, you propose a theory to explain it (in this case it's the high nitrogen pool and lightning for instance) and then look for corroborating evidence.

So bottom line, we cannot say "yes" to your question. All we can say is that we hypothesize that life can arise from non-living compounds. No alternative theory (ID) really cares about this jump so all we have is this one theory which accords with our understanding of chemistry and physics.

Answer 9

If you studied for 18 years, you weren't paying attention.

Life from non-life is a seperate area of study called abiogenesis.

Think of evolution as the study of genealogy. You don't have to start tracing your family tree with Adam and Eve. You can start at any known point, then work forwards and backwards as information is uncovered. Knowin the first living cell isn't necessary to demonstrate evolution, nor the existence of your own family.

The next points is easy. Evolution has evidence. Creationism does not. In fact, creationism is contrary to the evidence we have.

It's really that simple.

Answer 10

God is a creation of man, not vice versa. Not only does the idea of God increase community size and trust (the key to man's survival), but it gives people hope for a life after death. It makes sense why people bealeve in him... who wouldn't want to, a big lovible guy watchin your back. Truth is he does not exist, at least in the christain sense.

There is NO proof of god. There is proof of evolution. Evolution has been officially declared a scientific theory. Many people don't understand that to be declared a scientific theory there needs to be some hardcore proof to back it up. Creationsim is NOT officially a scientific theory, meaning there is no hard evidence to back it up. Some of smartest minds in the world have declared this, no one on this board is likly at their level to prove otherwise.

I find that EVERY christian fighting agianst evolution has little understanding of the other side. The pull some dumb arguments like, "you can't understand god, I don't look like a monkey."

Remember their is no ultimate goal in evolution, everything is random, we are not moveing towards the perfect creature. Thats not the idea of evolution! There is no middle of evolution or end, theres just what works at the time.

Answer 11

There can be no civilized discussion about the matter. You see it's very simple. Evolution is a science, based in reality.
Creationism on the other hand is mythology, based in fantasy.
Understand now?

And by the way, gravity is still a theory, as is relativity and thermodynamics. No one would deny that these forces exist however. Evolution is the exception to the rule, when it comes to creationists that is.