patrick.net

Bd6r says

If what we have around is real, then I have just one issue with evolution: I can't explain how was first life created, even though I am familiar with so-called "prebiotic chemistry" and chemistry of DNA and RNA rather well. After first living bacteria everything is very easy to explain. But it is impossible to explain how very unstable molecules such as (initially) RNA and then DNA were formed and started self-replicating. They rapidly fall apart in lab if you synthesize them and leave them in elements...

Sure, they have nothing to keep the outside out and the inside in, like a cell membrane.

Theories abound, but ideas are ideas and the mechanisms proposed have missing underpants parts.

richwicks says

Well, one lifeform won't change into an existing lifeform. You must be aware this is a canard. Evolution doesn't predict a dog can become a cat. It predicts that species will adapt to their environment over time, and there's many solutions for adapting to that environment.

The issue is that a multitude of new forms with very little clear relationship to other creatures nearby in space and time.

Where did that information come from?

The horse is all very good, but how did plankton become trilobites in just a few million years? The fossil record is far less adequate than what many of us were tuaght; it's mostly missing, not mostly found as illustrations mislead, and the issues cluster around key periods like the Cambrian Explosion, which Darwin himself identified and is mostly holes still today.

Evolution is gradual change by mutation and 'locked in' by short term utility in survival and repoduction, not a sudden massive explosion of new types of life in just a few million years:

And no, it's not a God of the Gaps argument: The evolution humans from pre-primates being about 10-20MYA; reasonably explained by small changes. The difference between an Australopithecine and Hominid in genetic makeup and form and function is minimal in most systems. Whether there was a species between Afarensis and Luicy isn't of much importance because the form is obvious and almost all of the multitude of interlocking systems are plausibly present already with just a few tweaks between them.

But in the Cambrian we went from plankton to trilobites in about the same period of time, which is an all but entirely new lifeform (among many others). It's also not a period where we don't have fossils aplenty, in many places in the world you could trip over rocks with Cambrian fossils in them, as Darwin and Jefferson and many others personally encountered and wondered about. There's nothing clearly intermediary between early trilobites and simple animals that float around, and it's a project humans have been working on for over a century.

Consider life had already existed for well over a billion years when the Cambrian began,

"Evolutionary Pressure" - that line has also been exhausted, everything from Snowball Earth (lastest possible end date too far in advance to be the pressure) to atmospheric composition (weak evidence). Punctuated Equilibrium is another of the Narrative Defenses deployed to cover the gap.

Just to repeat - I don't dispute the random mutation over time for living things. However there are holes in Evolution, like sudden bursts of new forms worldwide regardless of climate and the absence of any massive condition changes going on simultaneously, with no immediate forms identified previous. It's almost as if they 'pop in' out of seemingly nowhere.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

richwicks says

Well, one lifeform won't change into an existing lifeform. You must be aware this is a canard. Evolution doesn't predict a dog can become a cat. It predicts that species will adapt to their environment over time, and there's many solutions for adapting to that environment.

The issue is that a multitude of new forms with very little relationship to other creatures nearby in space and time.

Where did that information come from?

This is why I keep bringing up things like simulated annealing and genetic algorithms. Do you realize that nobody knows how optical character recognition works, and that it was done through an evolutionary algorithm? It works extremely well. Order is a LOWER ENERGY state, not a higher one. Things seem to want to organize on their own. A crappy algorithm will use a lot of power and be crap at what it does, a good one uses far less power and is awesome at what it does.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

The horse is all very good, but how did plankton become trilobites?

They didn't. Some ancient ancestor that left no fossil record at all evolved into plankton and trilobites - or that is the thinking. Most organisms have no indication they ever existed. There may have been complex human civilizations 30,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago that have left no trace. You're talking about BILLIONS of years ago.

It could be that life independently started several times on Earth, and there is no common ancestor between plankton and trilobites. There sure seems to be among mammals though.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

The fossil record is far from complete as the textbooks say; it's mostly missing, particularly around key periods like the Cambrian Explosion, which Darwin himself identified and is mostly holes still today.

Exactly right - we don't know. We have hypotheses, but we really don't know - that doesn't mean "well, a god must have done it" - we simply don't know, and it might be impossible for us to EVER know.

There's no certainty at all with investigation. We have best guesses. The fact is though that the concept of "evolution" is extremely useful in AI algorithms. They do things that people simply are unable to do in a reasonable time or well. It's so useful in artificial environments, I cannot believe it doesn't happen in natural environments which is where the concept first came from.

We have a fairly reasonable explanation (although imperfect I admit!) about the variety of life. We test it in simulation all the time now, and it works.

To me, evolution is an obvious fact. The origins of life? That's a total mystery. I'd say our knowledge about evolution might go back 100 million years at most - before that, it's a black hole of knowledge. All evidence of it, gone.

We have as much chance of understanding these issues as the ant on the ant hill understands the clouds in the sky.
Or my boot coming down. I feel like in The Grand Scheme we are really not much *smarter* than the ant.

We're getting off into Evolution again - I'm just as guilty.

Naturalistic OOL / Neo-Spontaneous Generation isn't Evolution.

We need the Naturalists-Materialists to demonstrate life self-organizing into existence without using extant life or life products.

Until then, it's like the Multiverse or the Oscillating Universe (the latter being mostly rejected at this point).

richwicks says

Exactly right - we don't know. We have hypotheses, but we really don't know - that doesn't mean "well, a god must have done it" - we simply don't know, and it might be impossible for us to EVER know.

That's right.

It's just as much of a stretch to say "Gaia Did It", when we have no evidence of life emerging from non-life whatsoever.

Organic Compounds ain't life, they've been found on meteorites far from any Earth genesis, pre- or post- biotic conditions.

All we know for sure is that life exists, and how it can change over time to some degree.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Just to repeat - I don't dispute the random mutation over time for living things. However there are holes in Evolution, like sudden bursts of new forms worldwide regardless of climate and the absence of any massive condition changes going on simultaneously, with no immediate forms identified previous. It's almost as if they 'pop in' out of seemingly nowhere.

Hmm, do you know the concept of "catastrophism"? You might enjoy this listening to Graham Hancock, but because youtube is a bunch of fucking assholes, this link won't work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDejwCGdUV8

But I have many terabits. You'll find it here:


original link

When it eventually uploads. That may take some time. Here, grab it from this location while it uploads:

https://samoyed.dynu.net/~rebellion/

I'll delete that once it uploads properly to bitchute.

It may be that the Cambrian explosion happened when there was some sort of catastrophe to upset the balance. Who knows?

You can poke holes in the postulates and hypotheses all you want - there's plenty of holes I'm certain - can you come up with a BETTER explanation? "God did it" is not an explanation. HOW did god do it?

For all we know, God is a force of nature itself, why is it believed to be sentient? Just because a bunch of child predators collected a bunch of stories from a bunch of barbarians, and deemed it "the word of god"?

We don't know. I appreciate my ignorance. Took me long enough to get there, but now I realize I'm as fucking stupid as anything. So much I don't know and can never know.

richwicks says

You can poke holes in the postulates and hypotheses all you want - there's plenty of holes I'm certain - can you come up with a BETTER explanation? "God did it" is not an explanation. HOW did god do it?

That's not how science works - the proffer's job is to answer criticism and objections and fill holes. It's the process to review a theory and poke holes in it.


We can shoot down Lamarck without having Darwin to replace it.

richwicks says

It may be that the Cambrian explosion happened when there was some sort of catastrophe to upset the balance. Who knows?

Everything from Snowball Earth (ended long before the period in question) to Asteroid impacts (no evidence) or a sudden increase in volcanism (no ash layers or chem sigs in rocks) have been proposed, and all have been shot down.

richwicks says

For all we know, God is a force of nature itself, why is it believed to be sentient? Just because a bunch of child predators collected a bunch of stories from a bunch of barbarians, and deemed it "the word of god"?

Again, why God? Why not Sheldon from the Year 5000 AD running an Ancestor simulation on his Titan based supercooled computer farm and changing/inserting new data during it?

richwicks says

For all we know, God is a force of nature itself, why is it believed to be sentient? Just because a bunch of child predators collected a bunch of stories from a bunch of barbarians, and deemed it "the word of god"?

Could be, that's pantheism.

The origin of life seems simpler to me than the origin of consciousness. Maybe I'm wrong to think consciousness can be "explained" at all, because it might be some irreducible element.

I don't know whether it was Gavin Menzies or Hancock, but about a decade ago I read a book about Chinese /Polynesians in the Americas prior to Columbus.

Apparently there are Oriental Statues, and Yams in the Andes, suggesting that both visited America. We do know that the Polynesians settled Easter Island and were probably the greatest Sailors on the Planet. I grudgingly admit superior even to the Vikings in terms of accomplishment.

If memory serves, before Japan was opened, US merchant vessels did rescue a boat with one surviving Japanese fisherman not far from Hawaii. He was brought along with Perry.

Evolution and Origin of Life are two separate topics. The planet Earth is not a closed system. The chances of organic matters on earth spontaneously forming into RNA, DNA or Protein are much much lower than some random cryo-resistant radiation-resistant RNA strand landing on earth. In fact, IIRC, we already know many space rocks carry RNA strands that can survive the low-temperature and high radiation environment of space. As for where RNA strands on space rocks came from, that could have been an environment very different from anything we know on earth.

As for religion vs. atheism, I don't believe it is possible to sustain a peaceful society/civilization without some kind of faith. For example, one of the most basic faiths that people harbor is crime-and-punishment; for most people, that faith has to be rooted in the blind faith that government law enforcement can catch criminals . . . now what if the reality is revealed to them that in cities like Chicago and Detroit, 85-90% of murders are not solved! i.e. people get away with murder 85-90% of the time! That's despite the government sucking up so much resources that it's already killing the local economy on top of approaching bankruptcy. Religion (any kind of religion) simply makes societal maintenance less costly. That's why banksters (and their funded agents, like Karl Marx) promote atheism: so that depositors can be killed in the subsequent chaos as society/civilizations fall, and the banksters get to keep the deposits without having to worry about claimant knocking on the door.

Reality says

Evolution and Origin of Life are two separate topics. The planet Earth is not a closed system. The chances of organic matters on earth spontaneously form into RNA, DNA or Protein are much much lower than some random cryo-resistant radiation-resistant RNA strand landing on earth. In fact, IIRC, we already know many space rocks carry RNA strands that can survive the low-temperature and high radiation environment of space. As for where RNA strands on space rocks came from, that could have been an environment very different from anything we know on earth.

@Reality, Naturalist OOLists often use terms like "building block of Life/RNA/DNA" when they've discovered nothing but an amino acid.

If that was the case, actual RNA strands conclusively on a pristine meteorite with no chance of Earthly contamination (key element) would be huge: Panspermia or at least common origin or common composition of life.

Finding clay is a far cry from finding a huge clay brick structure with instructions for walls, door/window openings, a chimney, door that organized to build itself and mutates new forms of organization over time.

Reality says

As for religion vs. atheism, I don't believe it is possible to sustain a society without some kind of faith.

Agreed. Without some kind of common touchstone of several items. if it's simply "believe and do whatever you want", society will simply re-organize either into a tyrannical centralized empire, or smaller entites, or worse, Balkanization of mutually hostile areas of self-selected ethnicities/religions/philosophies punctuated will some periods of peace.

It's no accident that the rise of Imperial/Overcentralized America coincides with Mass Immigration and tearing apart old belief systems. At some point, the Roman Emperors in the East gave up Latin and began adopting the trappings of Oriental-Hellenic Despotism and abandoning all interest in a Senate or Citizenship in favor of Subjects.

Nation States, Liberty, and Democracy all arose hand in hand. Downplay one and it will collapse.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

richwicks says

For all we know, God is a force of nature itself, why is it believed to be sentient? Just because a bunch of child predators collected a bunch of stories from a bunch of barbarians, and deemed it "the word of god"?

Again, why God? Why not Sheldon from the Year 5000 AD running an Ancestor simulation on his Titan based supercooled computer farm and changing/inserting new data during it?

This is the point.

I have SOME concept of how evolution could have brought us about, but I have NO idea about a higher power. The most I can access that is a vague notion that it exists, and it may be nothing more than a survival instinct that gives me an evolutionary advantage. I cannot inspect it or test it or verify it.

If there is some sort or God, it's obviously beyond any human's comprehension. I rather resent people that claim to "know God" - nobody does. It's entirely personal and it's untestable. It's well outside the realm of rational investigation.

richwicks says

I'm willing to dabble in the possibility of a god, but trust me, many religious people aren't willing to even accept the possibility that what has been dogmatically programmed into their head from childhood, that they've been simply propagandized.

I believe Religion is a fundamental emotion, part of the human psyche, as or Spirituality in some form or an other. It's an antient trait of the human mind going back before Civilization. All Religions are a man made manifestation to emote and convey those Spiritual cravings. Civilizations happened because man did invent Religions in various forms, to unify the community, create human resources, exploit those human resources, and to make laws to control them. The Romans and the Antient Greeks had their Gods to guide them. Great Civilizations were built in tribute to those Gods. I think Faith in your Creator is far more important than your trust in the Instructions and the people who run them.
This Pope is a great example, Catholics should be standing up against all of the bad people in the Church, rather than fleeing Catholicism. Which is what's happening unfortunately. That's the problem with all religions, good faithful people just allow the bad and wicked to be the face of their religion. Because they refuse to denounce them and reject them.

Christians and Catholics do to some extent, but not enough. Jewish people will take it as direct personal insult to the Whole of Judaism if you deride a single Jew. They make it out to be like you're condemning all Jews. Christians will join you in condemning a bad Christian and call for that person to be thrown out of the Church.
A Jewish person can be the biggest crook and cad in the history of Scumbags, and every Jew will rush to his defense, as if you're insulting them personally.
And of course Muslims rather than calling out the violent Imams or reporting them. They pull the islamophobia card, when people say he radicalized bombers.

richwicks says

If there is some sort or God, it's obviously beyond any human's comprehension. I rather resent people that claim to "know God" - nobody does. It's entirely personal and it's untestable. It's well outside the realm of rational investigation.

A despot doesn't need a God to enforce personality cult. In fact, in the absence of faith in God, a society usually falls into personality cult, simply because most people need to believe in something. "Prophets" claiming to know God were useful agents for check-and-balancing would-be despots.

I have SOME concept of how evolution could have brought us about, but I have NO idea about a higher power.

Two hens in a chicken coop that don't know the existence of human outside discussing the origin of the 300+ eggs laying per year hen may well come to the conclusion that it was the result of laying 300+ eggs a year gave the hen carrying such a gene an evolutionary advantage in the wild . . . thereby ignoring the possible crucial contribution of human breeders who bred wild hens laying only half a dozen eggs a year into hens that lay 300+ eggs per year through artificial selection (before genetic engineering on a molecular level became an available tool).

richwicks says

drop a bunch of, I dunno, bunnies on a deserted island with edible vegetation, in a million years, if you kept it isolated and untouched, I bet you'd find a bunch of animals that are dog like, cat like, bunny like, etc. At SOME POINT a bunny will realize cannibalism works.. As time goes on you'd expect it's progeny to also learn this and adapt to it.

Have you ever thought of how many assumptions you are making in this little wager?

It is a stark reminder to anyone with critical thinking skills just how much fantasy has crept into our “history” and “science” textbooks. And how pervasive origin fantasies based on”science” are in our culture. It is almost as if non-religious people “ aren't willing to even accept the possibility that what has been dogmatically programmed into their head from childhood, that they've been simply propagandized.”

Would you like to see some proof of some of this dogmatic programming and denial of actual science? Just examine the following statement for any facts, and any fantasy:

richwicks says

Some ancient ancestor that left no fossil record at all evolved into plankton and trilobites - or that is the thinking. Most organisms have no indication they ever existed. There may have been complex human civilizations 30,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago that have left no trace. You're talking about BILLIONS of years ago.

It could be that life independently started several times on Earth, and there is no common ancestor between plankton and trilobites. There sure seems to be among mammals though.

Did you see any facts in the above statement? Yes facts, you know the things that have been shown and recorded by direct observation and are known without a shadow of a doubt to be true? How about fantasy, is anything in the above statement sound like a conjured up story to try to explain something about which we have very little or no direct knowledge (other than Biblical accounts of course)?

Let’s do a little thought experiment. Let’s assume the earth is billions of years old. Yes I know that is a GIANT assumption but indulge me here. And let’s also assume that humans have been on earth for 100,000 years. Yes I know now we are making two huge assumptions but please bear with me. Now in this scenario we are the humans who are supposedly smart enough to know (despite the lack of observation) without a shadow of doubt that the earth predates the first humans not by just a few days, but by billions of years.

If I may, I must assess this situation as being similar to a man sitting in a boat on the surface of the ocean and sticking a toothpick into the surface of the water and then claiming to be able to measure the depth of the sea. He simply lacks the ability to measure that depth no matter how many assumptions he makes. At the very least he needs a longer stick.

That is what the Bible is. It is the stick by which we measure history, righteousness and by which which can know the future.

There is coming a day in this land when true believers will be put to death for sharing their beliefs or refusing to submit to the lies of this corrupt world, and that is why I speak now, before it is too late. It may come to pass that those who are reading this page have a choice to make, to believe God, or believe the lies. May God in His mercy give you the grace to believe.

richwicks says

Now, drop a bunch of, I dunno, bunnies on a deserted island with edible vegetation, in a million years, if you kept it isolated and untouched, I bet you'd find a bunch of animals that are dog like, cat like, bunny like, etc. At SOME POINT a bunny will realize cannibalism works.. As time goes on you'd expect it's progeny to also learn this and adapt to it.

Let me know when someone runs that experiment and show me the results. :)

richwicks says

If there is some sort or God, it's obviously beyond any human's comprehension.

What is obvious is that a person who does not know God, can’t comprehend God. But what might not be so obvious is that if God exists, He certainly can give a person the ability to know Himself.

Automan Empire says

but he literally cited personal experience for his belief in the truth of not only the origins of life but the creation of the universe itself. Twas low hanging fruit.

Ok, was trying to keep my initial statement succinct. As a believer in Christ I've had a number of times in my life where I've experienced God in a very direct and personal way.

Tenpoundbass says

Christians and Catholics do to some extent, but not enough. Jewish people will take it as direct personal insult to the Whole of Judaism if you deride a single Jew. They make it out to be like you're condemning all Jews. Christians will join you in condemning a bad Christian and call for that person to be thrown out of the Church.

Many do, because it's an ethno-religion, but it's very much an Ashkenazi problem. And it is a problem.

It's a Jewish "Dindu Nuttin, he was a good boy" or more accurately "I'm scared that criticizing one Jew will lead to the camps, oy vey." which is a manifestation of Ashkenazi high neuroticism/anxiety propensity due to genetics that goes along with the higher IQ or more accurately "More ashkenazi Jews at the right end of the distribution curve if not at IQ, then at systems/abstract reasoning"

That being said, one of the worst persons living in the USA is Susan Rosenberg, I've said this when I was a secular Jewish person, as have people like Horowitz, Levine, Praeger, etc.

Again, the good news is that the secular Jewish Brooklyn crowd is going bye-bye from lack of reproduction. Randi Weingarden of the AFT hit every stereotype Red Diaper trait on the way down the Anarcho-Commie tree: Lesbian, Secular Jew, Brooklyn. Oh, and her 'partner' is a Psychologist!

PeopleUnited says

Ok, was trying to keep my initial statement succinct. As a believer in Christ I've had a number of times in my life where I've experienced God in a very direct and personal way.

PeopleUnited says

What is obvious is that a person who does not know God, can’t comprehend God. But what might not be so obvious is that if God exists, He certainly can give a person the ability to know Himself.

In filling of the Holy Spirit. Amazing moment.

richwicks says

Now, drop a bunch of, I dunno, bunnies on a deserted island with edible vegetation, in a million years, if you kept it isolated and untouched, I bet you'd find a bunch of animals that are dog like, cat like, bunny like, etc. At SOME POINT a bunny will realize cannibalism works.. As time goes on you'd expect it's progeny to also learn this and adapt to it.

I wrote a bit about this:

Over evolutionary time, we can see an animal group grow fangs and claws and
split to live off the flesh of its cousins. Hawks eat other birds. Lions eat
other mammals. Given enough time and strict endogamy, human ethnic groups would
do the same.

PeopleUnited says

richwicks says

drop a bunch of, I dunno, bunnies on a deserted island with edible vegetation, in a million years, if you kept it isolated and untouched, I bet you'd find a bunch of animals that are dog like, cat like, bunny like, etc. At SOME POINT a bunny will realize cannibalism works.. As time goes on you'd expect it's progeny to also learn this and adapt to it.

Have you ever thought of how many assumptions you are making in this little wager?

Yes, 1. Organisms in an environment will, over time, fill every niche in that environment over successive generations. We've seen the evidence of happening. Every niche that existed in Europe has a counterpart in Australia.

There's Australian Bilby (bunny), the Tasmanian devil (wolf), the mulgra (mouse), marsupial moles (obviously moles).

PeopleUnited says

It is a stark reminder to anyone with critical thinking skills just how much fantasy has crept into our “history” and “science” textbooks. And how pervasive origin fantasies based on”science” are in our culture. It is almost as if non-religious people “ aren't willing to even accept the possibility that what has been dogmatically programmed into their head from childhood, that they've been simply propagandized.”

This isn't something that was pounded into my head. I wasn't dragged off to a church once a week to get a sermon on this, then spend another hour in a bible study class to further drive it in. I didn't hear about this in school and I was never tested on it.

PeopleUnited says

richwicks says

Some ancient ancestor that left no fossil record at all evolved into plankton and trilobites - or that is the thinking. Most organisms have no indication they ever existed. There may have been complex human civilizations 30,000 years ago or 100,000 years ago that have left no trace. You're talking about BILLIONS of years ago.

It could be that life independently started several times on Earth, and there is no common ancestor between plankton and trilobites. There sure seems to be among mammals though.

Did you see any facts in the above statement? Yes facts, you know the things that have been shown and recorded by direct observation and are known without a shadow of a doubt to be true? How about fantasy, is anything in the above statement sound like a conjured up story to try to explain something about which we have very little or no direct knowledge (other than Biblical accounts of course)?

Sure, we can't know this precisely happened, but there's a TON of evidence to suggest it did happen. We know with absolute certainty there is descent with modification to better suit an environment. There is no question this happens. We see it all the time.

This is a Samoyed in 1910:






And this is what one looks like now:



(and they ALL look like that now)

Still, they are all recognizable as dogs, but that's how much their visual appearance has changed just in 100 years - maybe 25 generations at the least, probably 50. They started out as hardy working dogs, and now they are living teddy bear. They are bred now for their personality and their visual appeal. The appearance of the breed has not changed at all for at least 30 years either, my neighbor had one in college.

Do you know the vast majority of dog breeds didn't exist 300 years ago? When you see a lapdog, NOTHING like that existed in 1500. Now we are able to visually record history. In 2000 years, it's going to be POSSIBLE (and maybe even common place) for people to be viewing audio and video of the same quality we have today. We are NOT going to be making "better cameras" and "better sound recordings" or "better displays". We've perfected it.

PeopleUnited says

Let’s do a little thought experiment. Let’s assume the earth is billions of years old. Yes I know that is a GIANT assumption but indulge me here. And let’s also assume that humans have been on earth for 100,000 years. Yes I know now we are making two huge assumptions but please bear with me.

NO - this is NOT a giant assumption. Do you know how radiometric dating is done? How it's done in rocks?

There's also PLENTY of doubt. Science is all about doubt.

PeopleUnited says

If I may, I must assess this situation as being similar to a man sitting in a boat on the surface of the ocean and sticking a toothpick into the surface of the water and then claiming to be able to measure the depth of the sea. He simply lacks the ability to measure that depth no matter how many assumptions he makes. At the very least he needs a longer stick.

I hate analogies. They never explain the situation, they obfuscate it.

PeopleUnited says

There is coming a day in this land when true believers will be put to death for sharing their beliefs or refusing to submit to the lies of this corrupt world, and that is why I speak now, before it is too late. It may come to pass that those who are reading this page have a choice to make, to believe God, or believe the lies. May God in His mercy give you the grace to believe.

Predictions have a way of coming true because the believer in the prediction makes certain to bring it about.

It's terrifying that some religious people equate the destruction of this planet with the second coming of Christ and state openly it will be destruction by fire, and then point out our nuclear arsenal as a method to bring it about.

It really doesn't matter what I believe, honestly. I can only assess things based on their utility. There was a point where I would be doing my best to humiliate you and trivialize your beliefs, because I simply saw them as wrong. Because I view religion as incorrect, "it was bad". Having gained some amount of wisdom in my life though, I know this viewpoint was childish and VASTLY oversimplified. Of course it has utility, if it was actually detrimental, there would be plenty of societies that, because of their atheism, would have far outstripped our own.

There doesn't appear to be a niche for that.

If there is a god, I think I can only innately become aware of it myself. All religions, they're misdirection. I'll give you something to ponder - what's the most evil thing Satan has done in the Bible? I always hear he "tempted Christ" - well, god supposedly drowned the entire world - killed every man, women, child, fetus, puppy, kitten - a massive genocide. Isn't Satan said to be the "King of Lies"? Well, what makes you think the Bible isn't actually the word of Satan? I mean, after all, what kind of omnipotent all knowing entity would make the DECISION to sacrifice his son to "save mankind"? God is omnipotent - he could have just snapped his fingers to accomplish the same thing, there was no need to have his son tortured and killed.

I don't really care to argue religion. It's not beneficial to you for me to undermine your faith, and I've put a lot of thought into my position so you'd find it very difficult to change my mind on it. It's not worth your time to try to convince me, because I'm pretty intransigent at this point - not out of stubbornness, but I've thought about this for 40 years, and actively researched it many times in my life. I've INDEPENDENTLY discovered moral frameworks just by trying to construct them only to find out they already existed, and some person or group came up with nearly an identical moral framework 1000's of years ago.

Do you have any idea who weird it is when you spend years to "invent" something as complicated as a moral philosophy only to find out it already exists? It seems like good evidence it's correct.

richwicks says

I've INDEPENDENTLY discovered moral frameworks just by trying to construct them only to find out they already existed, and some person or group came up with nearly an identical moral framework 1000's of years ago.

You forgot the part where they monetized it and used it as a shield for their own vices.

No one needs religion for morality. Church leaders have been diddling little boys and girls for centuries. Those are the leaders of morality for people? The Catholic Church has some of the most prime real estate across the world. They don't pay taxes. Power corrupts and people just throwing cash at you does not make the institution a moral compass.

Not trying to start an argument, but ultimately it's parenting. I had a quasi-religious upbringing until about 7. It was a joke. I could tell my parents thought it was a joke and they were just doing it because someone else was. It's a Sunday social club. Where you pay a guy to tell you stuff that you already know is wrong or right, yet most are using it as cover for the wrong they're doing. "But, but, but I'm religious."

And I'm not saying churches don't do good for certain people. But if you need to pay to be preached to, you might want to rethink that strategy. My neighbors yard needs a clean up. She cheated on her spouse, he left. Her yard looks like shit. I don't care, I'll just clean it up for her. Just because I know it's the right thing to do even if she did something I find horrible. I don't forgive her sins at all. But I don't want to look at 12' weed plants growing out of her patio in back. Religion didn't teach me to do that. I WANT to do that.

richwicks says

Yes, 1. Organisms in an environment will, over time, fill every niche in that environment over successive generations

Yep. Natural selection. A natural process studied to death by scientists (ahem, I was one of those before retiring), enabled by the mathematics and physics behind the four fundamental forces that enable a life-hosting universe.

When you go 98 years through life as an Atheist thumbing your nose at God. Then decide to donate your body to science, your one true religion.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/11/98-year-old-donated-body-science-ends-dissected-front-audience-expensive-freak-show-portland/

That Karma is a Son of a Bitch!

We can understand our creator as much as a computer virus can understand the software engineer that created it. It's beyond our comprehension.

richwicks says

I've INDEPENDENTLY discovered moral frameworks just by trying to construct them only to find out they already existed, and some person or group came up with nearly an identical moral framework 1000's of years ago.

Do you have any idea who weird it is when you spend years to "invent" something as complicated as a moral philosophy only to find out it already exists? It seems like good evidence it's correct.

LOL! I independently invented Communism when I was barely 1yr old, and could barely talk: after seeing my parents eating adult food quite apart from the baby food that they were giving to me (because I didn't have the full set of teeth to chew adult food yet), instead of asking or begging for the adult food, I said "Let's all share! Let's all share! Let's all share all the food!" when I couldn't possibly bring any food to the table. Voila! I invented both Communism and Socialistic Community Activism all on my own! at the tender age of about 1 year old! Doesn't make either idea correct though.

Onvacation says

We can understand our creator as much as a computer virus can understand the software engineer that created it. It's beyond our comprehension.

I've also heard it put this way, though just in terms of biology:

"If the human brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would be too simple to understand it."

B.A.C.A.H. says

Yep. Natural selection. A natural process studied to death by scientists (ahem, I was one of those before retiring), enabled by the mathematics and physics behind the four fundamental forces that enable a life-hosting universe.

Where did the information in the first DNA - excuse me, RNA (since DNA is now admitted to be too complex for first life, also Junk DNA, a long standing counter-argument of Neo-Spontaneous Generationists has been disproven - at least 80% does indeed have a purpose) - come from?

This is the first life form. No predecessor to mutate from or copy from. And it has to be of immediate utility in survival and reproduction - not something a cell is wasting energy on maintaining that has no immediate use.

Another one would be how did the first life emerge without a cell wall?

When you make it so a lipid globule would just so happen to enclose those base amino acids and ribose sugars - precise in number and of the precise kind - all diluted in the big premordial stew, and stay together despite the salt water wearing it down... the odds go way down. How did the lipid globule psuedo cell wall expel waste but admit nutrients and repair itself without instruction?

Otherwise, a bit of wave motion would quickly pull apart that chance proximity of all those different molecules. And the moon was much closer back 4B years ago...

Patrick says

I've also heard it put this way, though just in terms of biology:

It's not biologists - who study life - we should be asking about neo-spontaneous generation. Rather, synthetic chemists.

They work with living and non-living molecules, proteins, and enzymes all day long actually trying to get them to do certain things.

Patrick says

Onvacation says

We can understand our creator as much as a computer virus can understand the software engineer that created it. It's beyond our comprehension.

I've also heard it put this way, though just in terms of biology:

"If the human brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would be too simple to understand it."

Sounds like the human brain must be something very special. Perhaps like an iPhone omega, the final design in the series.

Dog Breeds are a great example of Intelligent Designers meddling with life! And teosinte to corn, tiny equines to Clydesdales, etc.

Our question is... did life generate from non life and why/how.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Dog Breeds are a great example of Intelligent Designers meddling with life! And teosinte to corn, tiny equines to Clydesdales, etc.

It's just an evolutionary pressure. I wouldn't say it's intelligence. Any evolutionary pressure can drastically change the appearance and characteristics of a creature in just a hundred years. It's said that 15% of the population of Rome had vestigial tails. I don't know if that's true, but today, it happens, but it's much more rare.

richwicks says

It's just an evolutionary pressure. I wouldn't say it's intelligence. Any evolutionary pressure can drastically change the appearance and characteristics of a creature in just a hundred years. It's said that 15% of the population of Rome had vestigial tails. I don't know if that's true, but today, it happens, but it's much more rare.

It's evolutionary pressure through directed, intelligent meddling; the American Kennel Club (and others) have standards, and dog breeders select traits to selectively breed.

No change in oxygen level or change in foliage cover did that - that would be environmental pressures.

(Of course, none of this has jack shit to do with OOL)

Patrick says

I wrote a bit about this:

Over evolutionary time, we can see an animal group grow fangs and claws and
split to live off the flesh of its cousins. Hawks eat other birds. Lions eat
other mammals. Given enough time and strict endogamy, human ethnic groups would
do the same.

Isn't there a protein in the brain that fucks you up though if you eat one (a human one)? Prion?

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Isn't there a protein in the brain that fucks you up though if you eat one (a human one)? Prion?

Yes, that's Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease also thought to be the same as Mad Cow Disease, or Chronic Wasting Disease in deer. I think the prion needs to get beyond the blood/brain barrier though to actually infect (and eventually kill) the organism.

Cows were forced to become cannibals (it's just protein anyhow!) in England - so it cropped up there. Among human populations there were tribes that ritually ate human remains after their elders died.

There's evolutionary pressure NOT to be cannibalistic apparently - at least among some species.

richwicks says

Organisms in an environment will, over time, fill every niche in that environment over successive generations. We've seen the evidence of happening. Every niche that existed in Europe has a counterpart in Australia.

Like they have a common designer, who built the system to adapt to the preordained physical conditions that were to happen after the land was divided (Pangea broken up), the flood occurred, and the earth’s climate changed dramatically from pre flood times where there was no rain and the earth was protected from UV radiation by a protective canopy (perhaps thick layer of water/water vapor), and has since gone through many changes as well where ice ages, and other forces turned forests into deserts or tundras, swamps into grasslands and many other such dramatic “natural “ phenomena. You see when you have unlimited knowledge and are not constrained by time, everything you do is deliberate and with purpose.
richwicks says

This is a Samoyed in 1910:

Yes, you posted photos of two fluffy white dogs with a common ancestor. I could post two photos, Hilary and Barak have a common ancestor too. Their respective people groups diverged from a common original lineage, passed through genetic bottlenecks and adapted to different climates. But they are both still humans just as your two dogs are still dogs. I see clear evidence that the more species change over time, the more they stay the same. Barak could presumably breed with a fertile Clinton, and your dog could breed with another dog. This would yield another dog, and another human. Barak’s descendants will be human and the dogs decendents will always be a specialized wolf like organism.

But that brings me back to one of your biggest assumptions. You want to believe that if a biological entity is given enough time (the mythological power of time) and a reasonably hospitable environment (The mythological power of Mother Earth) it will through natural selection adapt to create increased biodiversity (more species specialized to fill a niche). But even if these assumptions hold, it implies that you would have to be an essentially eternal and omniscient entity to even observe the origin of species. And how much more power would it take to actually conceive matter, energy, and life.

richwicks says

I hate analogies. They never explain the situation, they obfuscate it.

I’m sorry for you. Analogies are a basic form of human communication. But it is a convenient way to ignore the fact that humans can’t measure time before human existence. Heck, we often have trouble measuring time since humans first came on the scene. That’s because, “ For a process to be considered a good natural clock, it must contain the following: a known initial condition, an irreversible process, a uniform rate, and a final condition.” that means that unless we can observe the original condition, and that the process is irreversible, and the rate is uniform, we are left with massive assumptions regarding those parameters. Radiometric dating as based on assumptions chief among them being that unless you created the thing or know everything about it, you can not be sure of its original condition. You’re free to make assumptions but at least be honest with yourself that you are creating your own mythology if your world view is based on those assumptions.

On the other hand if you assume the Bible to be true, you will find access to an entirely new world view, with no need for any other assumptions.

PeopleUnited says

Like they have a common designer, who built the system to adapt to the preordained physical conditions that were to happen after the land was divided (Pangea broken up), the flood occurred, and the earth’s climate changed dramatically from pre flood times where there was no rain and the earth was protected from UV radiation by a protective canopy (perhaps thick layer of water/water vapor), and has since gone through many changes as well where ice ages, and other forces turned forests into deserts or tundras, swamps into grasslands and many other such dramatic “natural “ phenomena. You see when you have unlimited knowledge and are not constrained by time, everything you do is deliberate and with purpose.

Look, I consider it a responsibility to respond to people who have taken the time to write back to me, but we are at an impasse here.

I don't, and never will be able to believe, in the story of Noah's ark for one. That is myth to me. I know the story goes back to Gilgamesh. Religion evolves in a way as well. A Christian of today would NOT recognize a Christian from 1,000 AD as being similar. Christianity used to incorporate reincarnation as well. A true religion couldn't change.

And the other blatant problem is what created God in your viewpoint? If God can come into existence through some inconceivable way, why is it such a leap to think life can?

To me, religion is nothing but a proto-science of a sort - an attempt to explain the world. The VAST majority of ideas born out of science have been show to be wrong. Science is littered with far FAR more mistakes than successes. That's what so damned great about science. It's clumsy, but it's the free market of ideas that are tested, and when they fail the marketplace, they are removed - failed ideas might come up again, and they'll be removed again. It's very random.

PeopleUnited says

Yes, you posted photos of two fluffy white dogs with a common ancestor. I could post two photos, Hilary and Barak have a common ancestor too. Their respective people groups diverged from a common original lineage, passed through genetic bottlenecks and adapted to different climates. But they are both still humans just as your two dogs are still dogs.

Do you doubt that a horse, zebra, and donkey have common ancestors? They can all interbred, but all their offspring are sterile.

A horse has 64 (sometimes 66) chromosomes
A donkey has 62 chromosomes
A zebra has 46 (sometimes 44 and even 32) chromosomes

I spent a few minutes trying to think "well, what species probably have a common ancestor that CAN'T interbreed to make a sterile offspring?" - well, the only species I can think of, are apes - and I'm not certain about that. There's some speculation that human beings HAVE interbred with apes but it's not confirmed and any intentional attempt to do that, that's monstrous.

Sheep and Goats can sometimes interbred as well.

If humans didn't re-converge about 300 years ago, and we stayed isolated for, I don't know "a very long time", it's quite possible the different races couldn't interbreed when eventually they found one another again. Look at the conflict we had after only being separated for maybe a few 100,000 years? War, we were so different. It's no wonder the Europeans looked at the Africans as subhuman - Europeans had cities, societies, technology and the Africans - they didn't even have two story homes, nor cities, or even exploration boats.

PeopleUnited says

richwicks says

I hate analogies. They never explain the situation, they obfuscate it.

I’m sorry for you. Analogies are a basic form of human communication.

Analogies are useful only to introduce a concept that you'd otherwise be at a loss to understand. As soon as you get past the analogy, you MUST discard it, because it's only similar in one, maybe two ways. There's nothing complicated about evolution. There are no vastly deep concepts in it. It's the easiest scientific theory that exists in my opinion. When I read The Origin of the Species, I entirely understood Darwin's thinking.

PeopleUnited says

Radiometric dating as based on assumptions chief among them being that unless you created the thing or know everything about it, you can not be sure of its original condition.

OK, REALLY BRIEFLY (because I don't want to look it up again) - the way we measure the age of a rock formed from lava, is that it starts out containing a radioactive element that degrades into two others. The isotopes that it degrades into are often radioactive themselves and we know the proportion of the isotopes of each element in general. From the proportions of the original radioactive element, and the compounds they degrade into, we can calculate about how old that rock is. Especially useful is if one of the degraded elements is a GAS - that's trapped in the rock until it's heated.

The assumption here of course, is that radioactive decay today is as fast (or as slow) as it was a million years ago. This is not a crazy assumption because if the world really began 5000 years ago, everything would have been super radioactive.

It's more complicated than that, and I used to know this really well, but it's a bitch to explain and it never helps to explain it, so I've largely forgotten it. Geology never interested me, and I hate chemistry.

PeopleUnited says

On the other hand if you assume the Bible to be true, you will find access to an entirely new world view, with no need for any other assumptions.

Here's where my 30 year old self would go nuts on you, but I'm 50 now.

The Bible has changed quite a bit in the last 2000 years. It's an EXTREMELY well researched book.

At 30, I'll be talking about the Council of Nicaea, the similarities that the Jewish religion has to the Babylonian religions, how there's strong evidence that Yahweh is actually a perversion of the Babylonian God of War that the Jewish religion didn't start until around 800 or 700 BC - I'd be appealing to known research about what is probably incorrect about the current mythology. I might even bring up the parallels of Hercules and Jesus.

I naively viewed things that were "incorrect" as "bad" - however the religion certainly shows its usefulness, and it certainly seems to be beneficial to many people and I do not doubt it is for you. I would have spent days, maybe even weeks, picking away at your faith - but how does this help you, me, or society? It's just destructive. I'm an engineer, I like build things, and there's no reason to tear down things that work.

I'll give you an analogy now: IPV4 (the basic library for most internet communication) is a MESS of software. It's CRAP. It's confusing, it's filled with secrets, basically ONE code base works, it's the BSD code base, it's FILLED with bugs, but everybody uses it, and it works with itself pretty well. People who try to re-implement it to the "standard" find they have problems. The point isn't that it doesn't conform to a standard, the point is it works. And in time, it will be replaced with superior algorithms for communication. I am kind of working on one now, but it will probably go nowhere (here's a hint - TCP/IP shouldn't exist, it should be UDP exclusively, and all protocols should be on top of that.)

Here's my point: I don't what to fuck up what works for a HUGE segment of people even though I think "this is wrong" and who gives a damned what I think? This works! It doesn't matter if you're wrong, or even I'm wrong. We're probably both wrong. This works well for you, is it moral for me to undermine a tool you find very useful, simply because I don't believe its basis is correct? At 30, I'd say yes, at 50 - absolutely not.

I have spent DECADES thinking about "life". You've settled on a religion, and I'm perfectly comfortable sitting in the area of "I don't know, but maybe this, or that, or something else". I'm entirely comfortable with uncertainty. You will never be able to change me to certainty, and it's a wasted effort for you. Don't waste your time on this trying to "save me".

If you want to convert somebody to your religion, I'm like 100-1000x times more difficult to convert than almost anybody else you run into. You should consider me "lost" and irretrievable. If by conversion you are actually saving people, it's immoral to waste your resources on me. I'd die to save a 100 people, willingly.

Well, unless those 100 people were not exclusively banking executives, top US military brass, "journalists", intelligence officers, and politicians.