The Origin-of-Life Foundation, Inc. The Secret $1,000,000 Prize

by Deputy Dog 72 Replies latest watchtower scandals

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  Deputy Dog

  From http://www.scienceagainstevolution.org/v9i11f.htm

  The Secret $1,000,000 Prize

  One of the best kept secrets of science is “The Origin of Life Prize” ® sponsored by the Origin of Life Foundation, Inc. When we first ran across their web site (www.lifeorigin.org), we thought that the offer of one million dollars to anyone who could propose a plausible theory for the origin of life was just a slick creationist trick for showing that the emperor had no clothes. We thought that after nobody came forth to claim the prize, the failure could be used to expose the shameful nakedness of the theory of evolution. Closer examination of the website, however, revealed that this has been a genuine effort by evolutionists since 1997 to find the origin of life.

  "The Origin-of-Life Foundation, Inc. wishes to keep the project as quiet as possible within the scientific community."
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  hooberus

  There are still some points here that reflect the many, real, severe problems facing abiogenesis. There are references in this project to work by ID scientists and concepts. Persons may do well to read or scan the whole study site. http://lifeorigin.org/rul_desc.htm Some of the 200 judges are even prominent evolutionary origin of life persons http://lifeorigin.org/rul_judg.htm, however the board of directors aren't and some evolutionists may dispute the guidelines.
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  seattleniceguy

  Abiogenesis is not equal to evolution

  SNG
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  hooberus

  Abiogenesis is not equal to evolution

  SNG

  
  

  
  It should be noted that while today many evolutionists exclude the origin of life from "evolution" the fact also remains that even some evolutionists themselves have included it-including the prominent George Gaylord Simpson who wrote:

  "The origin of life was necessarily the beginning of organic evolution and it is among the greatest of all evolutionary problems." - opening sentence chapter 2 "The Meaning of evolution" 1949 George Gaylord Simpson

  Furthermore even dedicated recent "evolution" books frequently start with abiogenesis and then transition into other aspects of evolution with no demarcation.
  

  (The fact is that "evolution" can be defined in many different ways from the minimalist "any change in alle frequencies" to possibly also include things such as universal common ancestry, amphibians descending from fish, humans descending from ancient apes, even to the origin of life itself.) I believe that one of the reasons for the insistence by many evolutionists today that it must be "excluded" by definition is really in response to the scientific difficulties that have been revealed, and not to any empirical necessity that it be excluded.
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  slacker911

  Ha Ha...Hooberus, such a short time that I have been here and already I chuckle when you post...

  Everybody, Hooberus stalks this message board in search of former JW's that are new to their freedom so he can attempt to convert them to his own personal faith...he has never been a JW, and he is apparently quite fond of threads that have to do with something related to science as he probably fancies himself to be "science minded" and isnt quite bright enough to realize that if he wants to believe the bible he should just explain everything with a statement along the lines of "it's a miracle, God did it. Thank you Lord, now how can I conform myself to your bullshit? Oh, and thank you for sitting by idly as billions of your sons killed each other in wars, and millions of your daugthers were raped by your sons through out history. And also, thanks for sending your firstborn son to die to make up for it all...even though you could have fixed it yourself."

  Hooberus, like you and I have already talked about, evolution, as you insist on broadly defining it, itself is not the issue. The big bang, pertaining to cosmology, the age of the universe, the age of the Earth, all have nothing to do with the supposed religious debate between evolution and creation. Evolution could have just as easily been the mechanism that God used for any of the aforementioned. What you dont like is biological evolution. That is the issue that actually conflicts with your narrow minded literal interpretation of the beginning of the book of Genesis. And so, as was correctly pointed out, Abiogenisis has nothing to do with biological evolution. To refresh your poor memory regarding our previos conversation, biological evolution is the " Change in the genetic composition of a population during successive generations, as a result of natural selection acting on the genetic variation among individuals, and resulting in the development of new species ." Now, if Abiogenisis is the absolute very beginning of the sequence, and has nothing to do with the successive generations, by definition it can have nothing to do with biolocical evolution. So therefore, your entire point was worthless. And I'll remind you, no link you post to another website means that you are (a) correct, and (b) understand a single thing you have posted...
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  hooberus

  Before moving on I would like to clarify that the Origin of Life Prize is actually different from the Harvard research Initiative (previous comments edited).
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  slacker911

  As is apparently typical Hooberus, you have no real response when directly challenged.
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  hooberus

  Ha Ha...Hooberus, such a short time that I have been here and already I chuckle when you post...
  

  
  
  Everybody, Hooberus stalks this message board in search of former JW's that are new to their freedom so he can attempt to convert them to his own personal faith...he has never been a JW, and he is apparently quite fond of threads that have to do with something related to science as he probably fancies himself to be "science minded" and isnt quite bright enough to realize that if he wants to believe the bible he should just explain everything with a statement along the lines of "it's a miracle, God did it. Thank you Lord, now how can I conform myself to your bullshit?

  
  Thread referred to moderator.
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  seattleniceguy

  Hoob,

  "The origin of life was necessarily the beginning of organic evolution and it is among the greatest of all evolutionary problems." - opening sentence chapter 2 "The Meaning of evolution" 1949 George Gaylord Simpson

  Evolution doesn't work without life. Without reproducing systems, there can be no such thing as evolution.

  I agree that many books give a cursory overview of abiogenesis before getting into the meat of evolution, but I think that's only because we are accustomed to dealing with history from the beginning, and so it makes sense to give our best guess as to how life got started in the first place.

  Humans are always going to be interested in origins, so it's natural that we take a stab at what happened before evolution could get started. At the end of his original tome, Darwin made a 1-paragraph conjecture about life getting started. But that really doesn't affect the process of evolution, because evolution is perfectly capable of functioning whether or not life got a kickstart from God or magical unicorns or a hyperintelligent shade of the color blue.

  They're just two entirely different problems. Biological evolution is change in living systems.

  SNG
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  hooberus

  
  

  Hoob,
  
  

  "The origin of life was necessarily the beginning of organic evolution and it is among the greatest of all evolutionary problems." - opening sentence chapter 2 "The Meaning of evolution" 1949 George Gaylord Simpson

  Evolution doesn't work without life. Without reproducing systems, there can be no such thing as evolution. . . .

  
  Apparently Simpson disagreed.
  
  Anyway, as I have stated before there are many diffent ways of defining evolution (I have listed several-including technical ones- in previous threads), and some evolutionists themselves have included the origin of life in it.