CORRECT: The step-by-step changes are not explained in detail..
Why is step-by-step detail required?
-Sab
Counting the errors in one section of the Origin of Life brouchure
by bohm 33 Replies latest jw friends
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sabastious
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bohm
The theory of evolution tries to account for the origin of life on earth without the necessity of divine intervention.
CORRECT: That was Darwin’s strategy from the beginning, to show no God was needed..
- Evolution tries to account for the evolution of life (hence the name) without the necessity of divine intervention, just like gravity tries to account for why stuff fall to the ground without divine intervention. it does NOT try to account for the origin of life, its a completely different study carried out by different people. No matter how you try to redefine words used by scientists, but its not the same, just like evolution is not about the creation of earth.
However, the more that scientists discover about life, the less likely it appears that it could arise by chance.
CORRECT: Hence the extreme silence as to this first step. But once this step has been achieved, then the theories come into action.
- New ideas and research on existing ideas are being proposed all the time in journals. Much work is being carried out by different teams. What silence are you talking about?
To sidestep this dilemma
CORRECT: There is a huge dilemma..
- Please outline the dilemma without confusing evolution and abiogenesis.
to make a distinction between the theory of evolution and the Question of the origin of life.
CORRECT: There is a huge silence on the Origin question, but an equally huge literature on the Evolution question.
- What do you base that on? Are you saying no research teams are actively engaged in top-down and bottom-up research on the origin of life?
The theory of evolution rests on the notion that a long series of fortunate accidents produced life to start with.
CORRECT: That is what it is all about.
- Quentum mechanics and caos theory instroduce stochastic effects on all scales of nature. Life is no different. USing the words chance and accidents like this is an attempt to load the language and make it sound like science believe abiogensis was a huge stroke of luck. That is unknown as of present, and i am a bit surpriced how you can say little is known on abiogenesis and AT THE SAME TIME claim its a stroke of luck. You cant have it both ways.
It then proposes that another series of undirected accidents produced the astonishing diversity and complexity of all living things.
CORRECT: That is what evolution says.
- Loading the language again are we? Evolution is about luck like snowflake formation is about luck.
However, if the foundation of the theory is missing,
CORRECT: The step-by-step changes are not explained in detail..
- more is explained each year. Snowflake formation is not explained in detail either.
what happens to the other theories that are built on this assumption?
CORRECT: They end up void.
- So the theory of gravity is void since we dont have a theory of what matter is? this is really below your level.
Just as a skyscraper built without a foundation would collapse, a theory of evolution that cannot explain the origin of life will crumble.
CORRECT: Once a foundation is made, anything can be constructed, but they have no foundation.
- oh dear lord...
After briefly considering the structure and function of a "simple" cell what do you see-evidence of many accidents or proof of brilliant design?
CORRECT: I see nothing but proof of brilliant design. A design that can be ascribed to a Creator or to Evolution – but not to Darwinism - but design is what I see.
- Creationism: Debunking theories long abandoned by science.
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PrimateDave
I used to believe in Intelligent Design. I read Behe's popular book promoting ID. It was a fascinating read, and it quite cemented my attachment to JW Creationism at the time. Of course, this was long before I had access to the internet, back in the mid 1990s. If you had asked me where I would be in 2010 back then, I would have told you I would be in the Paradise TM .
A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. - Simon and Garfunkel, "The Boxer"
So, it wasn't until I finally allowed myself to be completely open minded in my search for knowledge that I was able to learn some necessary concepts for understanding the Evolution of life. And it finally struck me, the absurdity of the Biblical Creation account and its reinterpretation by the WTS to appear to be "scientific." Not only do they incorrectly reinterpret this old Jewish myth, they knowingly hide the best Biblical scholarship available which places ancient Jewish literature within its proper historical context.
There is no question that the "Origin of Life" brochure is a propaganda piece. There are a lot of hidden assumptions contained within it, many of which are not exclusive to the Witnesses. If there is one thing I have learned, the Witnesses are not so different from the "world" as they would like to think, as many of their internal narratives are simply rebadged versions of those found in the broader culture of Western Civilization.
(I have to go now. I may try to write some more on this later.)
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BurnTheShips
That brochure is so full of errors, inaccuracies, and ham headed reasoning, it is really....ridiculous. The sad thing is that most JWs are so scientifically illiterate that they will find it convincing.
The other thing is, whoever wrote this had to know. This is a very dishonest polemic. That is disgraceful.
One of us, or several of us, should collaborate on writing a comprehensive, easy to understand* response to this brochure, and post it somewhere like Freeminds. If I wasn't so busy I'd do it myself.
*minimal jargon, clear reasoning, low grade level language and sentence structure.
BTS
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BurnTheShips
Bohm, I think the distinction between evolution and abiogenesis is artificial. I think that we will see the same evolutionary activities of self replicating proteins as part of the continuum of what happens in what we call "life."
BTS
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sir82
I'm not sure how to research this, but I'm about 95% certain that the line of "reasoning" used in the brochure comes virtually verbatim from already-published creationist sources. The Society is pretty much incapable of original thought - at the very least, it takes an active imagination to concoct the arguments used in the brochure.
The collected imagination of the writing department would be hard-pressed to dream up a name for a puppy, much less construct the arguments used in the brochure. Don't get me started about their collected intelligence.
At best they could reword slightly the ideas presented by someone else. That is what I suspect has happened here.
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Mad Sweeney
Dear Bohm, don't you know that every snowflake is unique because Jehovah God makes them that way? No other natural factors come into play. He is just THAT interested in the wonderful arts of wintertime!
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Mad Sweeney
One of us, or several of us, should collaborate on writing a comprehensive, easy to understand* response to this brochure, and post it somewhere like Freeminds. If I wasn't so busy I'd do it myself.
*minimal jargon, clear reasoning, low grade level language and sentence structure.
If someone writes or compiles one, I'm willing to edit it.
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Cadellin
There is a huge silence on the Origin question, but an equally huge literature on the Evolution question.The theory of evolution rests on the notion that a long series of fortunate accidents produced life to start with.
CORRECT: That is what it is all about.
It then proposes that another series of undirected accidents produced the astonishing diversity and complexity of all living things.
Old Hippie: The Society perpetuates the strawman argument that evolution proceeds by "undirected accidents" or "blind chance." While chance plays a part in virtually everything, to ascribe evolution as resting upon that solely is simply false. Natural selection has been proven to be a dramatic, effective and, in some cases, astonishingly fast-acting design force, both in the lab and in nature. In fact, that was the whole point of Peter and Rosemary Grant's research on Darwin's finches--not to prove that somehow over the course of a few decades they'd turn into hippos but that environmental forces could produce--design, in fact--measurable changes in morphology. The theory of evolution rests on many things but "fortunate accidents" is not one of them.
I'd like to point out, as well, the use of the word "notion," which the Origin brochure uses repeatedly as a way of trivializing the hard science upon which modern biology rests, as if scientists spend their time following silly little sentiments unconnected with any real proof.
Burn the Ships: I like your idea and it might work, however, the current state of evolutionary science is complex and resistant to easy dumbing-down. That's one of the difficulties with really explaining some of the absurdities in the brochure well; the WT writers have exploited shifts in understanding (like the punctuated equilibrium controversy from the 1970's which has long been settled, and the more recent squabbling over cladistics) in order to harvest their quotes but understanding the errors means understanding the underlying issues, which often requires at least a fundamental knowledge of evolution and the history of the science. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, and I'd be willing to help, but it will be a challenge to say the least. I'm hoping the analysis I'm working on now will accomplish something similar but I'm finding that my analysis is longer than the article ("Has All Life Descended from a Common Ancestor?" p. 22)
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Cadellin
Oh, and Old Hippie, there's not a "huge silence" on the origin question--in fact, the Gordons article quoted repeatedly in the Origin brochure as well as the Shapiro article from Scientific American, quoted in the first article of the brochure, both discuss recent research in abiogenesis. A few minutes of careful research online will reveal an abundance of info, though admittedly, there's not the numbers of scientists working in the field as in others. Why? One reason is the sheer weight of time and the convulsive changes that have occurred to the planet since then. It's difficult to research something when all the original material is gone. But that doesn't mean research isn't happening and hypotheses being formed and tested.