Thread: Split from Palin for VP: Creationism in schools

Originally Posted by Seraphim

So if the assertion is that the creation of life functioned on similar guidelines (a pretty good idea, actually)Then why doesn't this same phenomenon cause new life to be created all the time?

A) Maybe it does, and it doesn't compete with the life already here, or
B) Maybe given millions and millions of years, like it had the first time, it will. Think huge time scales and tiny probabilities.

Originally Posted by jockeys

alright, so can we all agree that it's ok to have evolution taught in science class as long as the teacher prefaces with, "it's just a theory, so far" ?

and that ID can be taught in philosophy/religion class so long as it's labeled accordingly?

I'd be OK with that!

Originally Posted by jockeys

alright, so can we all agree that it's ok to have evolution taught in science class as long as the teacher prefaces with, "it's just a theory, so far" ?

and that ID can be taught in philosophy/religion class so long as it's labeled accordingly?

Ooops, misread that. You can't teach a fouth grader that its "just a theory". They don't have the intellectual tools in place to understand that. If you could find a fifth grade religion or philosophy class in a public school, have a field day.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Plenty of raw material laying around for it to happen...Even guys in lab coats purposefully mixing the stuff together, and still, nada.

We're back to the issue of time. Researchers have only been looking into it for a relative "blink of an eye". When we've had a couple hundred or thousand years to study it in a lab, then we can decide whether or not the conclusions deny/affirm the probability of life forming naturally. But the possibility is still open.

There is also the issue that modern conditions are not really analogous to those when life would have arisen

Originally Posted by Seraphim

You had previously illustrated the self sorting principle associated with this by saying that the small crumbs in a potato chip bag alway self sort their way to the botom of the bag, while the larger ones remain on top.

However, I would propose that the creation of life in that scenario would be if you took that bag of primordo-chips and were somehow able to get all of those little crumbs to self assemble back into full chips. Shake it, heat it, hit it with lightning, whatever.

That is the sort of leap that is necessary for the creation of life.

That is just an example of how some kind of order can be created out of disorder without the need for intelligence (since one of the arguments for creation is that living things are highly ordered and that order implies design), not an example of matter reconstituting itself. The "polymerization on the rocks" experiment shows the development of self sustaining chemicals if you wanted an example of that happening.

Originally Posted by ScottS

You can't teach a fouth grader that its "just a theory". They don't have the intellectual tools in place to understand that.

Sure you can, and they do. Just tell them here's an idea someone came up with to help try to figure out what's going on.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

Isn't that what being a gentleman is all about? Or am I missing something?

"After all, what is a gentleman but a man who says one thing and does another."
-Zorro

Originally Posted by Russel Baldridge

We're back to the issue of time. Researchers have only been looking into it for a relative "blink of an eye". When we've had a couple hundred or thousand years to study it in a lab, then we can decide whether or not the conclusions deny/affirm the probability of life forming naturally. But the possibility is still open.

There is also the issue that modern conditions are not really analogous to those when life would have arisen




That is just an example of how some kind of order can be created out of disorder without the need for intelligence (since one of the arguments for creation is that living things are highly ordered and that order implies design), not an example of matter reconstituting itself. The "polymerization on the rocks" experiment shows the development of self sustaining chemicals if you wanted an example of that happening.

As far as requiring a great length of time: why would that be necessary? If the innate nature of life's building blocks is to assemble in such a way as to form life (isn't that what that theory is proposing?), and since we have the "finished product" all around us we know what the "ingredients" are, and yet still it doesn't self asseble in the way it is conjectured to.

That argument (the self-assembling) is saying that life can indeed form "naturally". Saying that it requires a extremely long period of time to happen is saying that it occurs "randomly" and that a long time is needed for it to happen by chance yet again.

Is it really all that believeable that life was created by chance?

No matter how long you give it, it is so remote a possibility as to be unfathomable.

Scientists say "well, it all started with very simple life forms...", But even the simplest life forms are not very simple at all.

So, by chance, or natural combination lets say the structure for a single part of a living cell were able to form....that is still not a living cell, it is only part of a cell.

Let's say by some unbelievable chance that all of the components for a fully functional cell actually did form on it's own. It would have to have also, by further astronomical odds, have formed a way to also reproduce itself.

Yes, I understand that the idea is that over a staggering period of time it is proposed that something happened. But the actual creation of life would certainly seem to be more of an instantaneous thing.

Amino acids are amino acids, a living thing is a whole different ballgame. Life does not happen over time, it either "is", or it "is not".



I would also say that the crumbs falling to the bottom of the bag (I realize that is perhaps not the best example either you or I can come up with, but let's work with it...) is a type of "sorting" not ordering. It belongs more in the department of entropy, as the chips are going from fully formed to crumbs.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Sure you can, and they do. Just tell them here's an idea someone came up with to help try to figure out what's going on.

You're right, that's what they do, and in fact I doubt there's textbooks that don't teach evolution as a theory, but they don't get too hung up on making sure students get that concept. It's something they develop as education progresses.

Originally Posted by Seraphim

As far as requiring a great length of time: why would that be necessary?

Low probabilities. Take a fair coin, start flipping it, and stop when you get a thousand heads in a row. How long do you thing that would take? It would eventually happen, but it will take quite a while.

Originally Posted by ScottS

Low probabilities. Take a fair coin, start flipping it, and stop when you get a thousand heads in a row. How long do you thing that would take? It would eventually happen, but it will take quite a while.

It may eventually happen.

This guys been working on a Shakespeare compendium


"Damn those dealines! I need more time!"