From what I've seen Dr. Bergman doesn't reach conclusions when it comes to the origins of life. He begins with the conclusion that the Genesis account is correct and then interprets the data based on that belief. What in the world makes you conclude this?? Certainly nothing that I said above. Actually, I started from the opposite conclusion and worked to where I am now.
Abiogenesis
by Jerry Bergman 40 Replies latest jw friends
-
-
StinkyPantz
Jerry B-
It's not nice to make all encompassing statements such as this:
This response confirms my experience about atheists. They lack morals, honesty, compassion and often a sense of humanity.
Bad Jerry! That statement is from ONE person that doesn't represent ALL athiests, so how does it confirm anything? You don't even know me and yet you've already decided that I lack morals, that I am dishonest, that I don't have compassion and that I don't have a sense of humanity?! Wow! Your experience doesn't quantify everyone. If I have had only negative experiences with people that have big noses, does that mean I can accurately pigeon-hole all big nosed people? I think not.
I don't always agree with the things that you say but I find them interesting. I assume that you post these things to educate people, so why alienate part of your audience by making inflammatory statements?
-
Realist
hello jerry,
sorry didn't mean to insult you just never heard of Ph.D. in evaluation and research.
about god: there is no conclusive evidence against the possibility that the universe is the result of intelligent design. the inherent design flaws make it improbable however imo.
about the 400.000bp: as you said yourself there are environmental condition under which the number can be greatly reduced. under certain condition a primitve cell could be quite simple with no need for catabolic or anabolic activities. a nature article described the theoretical limit a while back. one can further assume that a cell didn't form out of nothing but that replicating systems existed already before a membrane etc. was added.
about the mechanisms: yes such calculations are done my scientists. however, if something appears impossible at first based on such calculations a scientist does not automatically assume that god was involved but that there are natural mechanisms at work that explain the result without the requirement of a miracle.
for instance no probability calculation about the formation of proteins includes the preference that exists during the formation of peptide bonds between certain aa.
this is a review that talkes about this:
Peptides and the origin of life.
Rode BM.
Department of Theoretical Chemistry, Institute for General, Inorganic and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Innsbruck, Austria. [email protected]
Considering the state-of-the-art views of the geochemical conditions of the primitive earth, it seems most likely that peptides were produced ahead of all other oligomer precursors of biomolecules. Among all the reactions proposed so far for the formation of peptides under primordial earth conditions, the salt-induced peptide formation reaction in connection with adsorption processes on clay minerals would appear to be the simplest and most universal mechanism known to date. The properties of this reaction greatly favor the formation of biologically relevant peptides within a wide variation of environmental conditions such as temperature, pH, and the presence of inorganic compounds. The reaction-inherent preferences of certain peptide linkages make the argument of 'statistical impossibility' of the evolutionary formation of the 'right' peptides and proteins rather insignificant. Indeed, the fact that these sequences are reflected in the preferential sequences of membrane proteins of archaebacteria and prokaryonta distinctly indicates the relevance of this reaction for chemical peptide evolution. On the basis of these results and the recent findings of self-replicating peptides, some ideas have been developed as to the first steps leading to life on earth.
you can get the whole article via pubmed.cheers,
Realist
-
blackguard
Mmmm---maybe stinkypantz' reply underscores the veracity of Bergman's claim, namely, That his experience with atheists is that "they lack morals and honesty..". Stinkypantz then makes a moral judgment, "Bad Jerry". Stinkypantz claims Bergman included, quote, "ALL" athiests when in fact he did not appear to do so.
It's just my observation that a majority of those who identify as xjws seem to take their cognitive dissonance disturbances with them when they depart the Orwellian watchtower world and exhibit them in their reasoning processes in perpetuum.
-
Jerry Bergman
Some more comments from a science professor friend (who has never been a Witness) .
sorry didn't mean to insult you just never heard of Ph.D. in evaluation and research. about god: there is no conclusive evidence against the possibility that the universe is the result of intelligent design. the inherent design flaws make it improbable however imo.
I suppose everyone's entitled to their opinions, but the opinion of someone who hasn't any experience in a field usually doesn't count for much to other people, and I don't know anybody who has designed a universe. To be a bit more serious, this response seems to indicate he's not considering a couple points. I don't know which "inherent design flaws" he's referring to, but it's quite possible that some of them are not inherent but entered the world through sin, at least indirectly, through man's rejection of God even though the original plan/design included more open and active participation by the Designer. Also, as many others, including evolutionist, have pointed out, there are many factors of the basic physical conditions and properties of the universe that have to be extremely close to their observed values for the universe to exist and a stable and interesting form, let alone support living and even intelligent creatures.
about the 400.000bp: as you said yourself there are environmental condition under which the number can be greatly reduced. under certain condition a primitve cell could be quite simple with no need for catabolic or anabolic activities. a nature article described the theoretical limit a while back. one can further assume that a cell didn't form out of nothing but that replicating systems existed already before a membrane etc. was added.
I haven't heard of any "environmental" conditions under which the complexity required for living thing can be reduced that isn't either artificial or the presence of a previous living thing. Nobody has yet demonstrated a genetically engineered creature that is extremely simplified and can live freely in a plausible natural environment. I believe Jon von Neumann (sp?) years ago calculated a theoretical limit to the number of parts a self-replicating machine would need, and as I recall, the absolute minimum was something like 400 parts. Of course, it would be only a couple of decades before they had a machine (computer) with human-level intelligence, and they are still saying that today, several decades later, so I may have been very optimistic about that as well. At any rate, I've never heard of any observation of discrete and diverse parts coming together to form interactive, organized system that converts energy from one form to another apart from a previous living thing. For that matter, I don't know of any other living things besides humans that can produce such phenomena, unless you want to count specially trained apes, and I don't recall hearing any cases of that, even. If one refuses to consider the possibility of an intelligent designer, one almost has to assume that the first life form assembled in piecemeal fashion, with various sub units forming separately and then somehow or other coming together in just the right way. Since nothing like this has ever been observed, however, this is merely an assumption out of desperation.
about the mechanisms: yes such calculations are done my scientists. however, if something appears impossible at first based on such calculations a scientist does not automatically assume that god was involved but that there are natural mechanisms at work that explain the result without the requirement of a miracle.
Scientists almost always study subjects that can be observed repeatedly within the natural world. The origin of life was not observed by any human, has not been replicated by any human, and there is no known natural process that is equivalent. Even the artificial "life forms" that we have succeeded in producing , such as computer viruses, are the work of intelligent designers. As far as that goes, the intelligent design component of the "God Hypothesis" does not require a miracle, simply the application of a known process. Therefore, in the case of the origin of life, the evolutionists are the ones looking for a "natural miracle" (a totally unknown and otherwise undesired "mechanism") and ignoring a process which is known to account for similar phenomena.
for instance no probability calculation about the formation of proteins includes the preference that exists during the formation of peptide bonds between certain aa. this is a review that talkes about this: ...
More wishful thinking and hand waving, based on a few simple chemicals that form on clays and also happen to exist in living microorganisms. These "oligomers" are so small that the probability calculations mentioned above do not apply to them. There is nothing terribly surprising about getting several heads in a row when you're flipping coins, but if somebody gets 100 in a row, it makes sense to suspect that someone has intelligently altered the conditions of the trial, or somehow you've accidentally used a two-headed coin. The problem is the exponential increase in improbability as the number of factors increase. Therefore, examples involving a few factors are irrelevant. Furthermore, while many creationist arguments along these lines deal with proteins as a starting point because the probability of their formation can be clearly and easily expressed in a quantifiable manner, this is still no more than a starting point. Likewise, theoretical estimates of the minimum number of genes required for a basic life form also come short of considering all the complex characteristics that would have to come together to produce such an organism. What all this amounts to, then, is nothing more than an expression of faith that God does not exist, or if he does, he never got involved with our universe except perhaps to set in motion some unknown process that produced life, even though no known process in nature has been observed to produce the same kind of complexity even to a much lesser degree.
-
Jerry Bergman
That statement is from ONE person that doesn't represent ALL athiests, so how does it confirm anything? You don't even know me and yet you've already decided that I lack morals, that I am dishonest, that I don't have compassion and that I don't have a sense of humanity?! Wow! Your experience doesn't quantify everyone. If I have had only negative experiences with people that have big noses, does that mean I can accurately pigeon-hole all big nosed people? I think not. All of these are good points and I do not disagree with most of what you say. My point was that my experience with atheists was as I described. At universities many professors are atheists or very close it , so I have a lot of experience with such people (and I used to be there once, actually in the inner circle for a while). My experience is that most display these traits to some degree. Have you ever seen atheists fight with words with each other or especially Christians? They can be unbelievably cruel. Christians can be cruel but tend to have limits and often do not go as far. It could be professors are a abnormally cruel breed. I will let others make that judgment.
-
Realist
jerry,
do you suggest that the 2nd law of thermodynamics came into existance because of adam's sin?
are super novae and dying stars the result of sin? or the possbile instability of protons? what about black holes?
all these things will lead in the end to a dead boring universe...so either this universe was not created to exist for ever and sustain life forever or it is designed very poorly.
the idea of multiple universes in which some are able to sustain life while most are not is an explanation that better fits the observations.
about the theoretical limit. if you think about it 2 genes would be sufficient (as a purly theoretical limit) for a self replicating system based on nucleotides and amino acids. a RNA strand encoding a RNA polymerase and an enzyme that facilitaes protein formation based on the RNA template.
If one refuses to consider the possibility of an intelligent designer, one almost has to assume that the first life form assembled in piecemeal fashion, with various sub units forming separately and then somehow or other coming together in just the right way.
yes of course... everyone assumes the parts were added...no one says a living cell assembled out of nothing.
The origin of life was not observed by any human, has not been replicated by any human, and there is no known natural process that is equivalent.
absolutely correct. the same thing applys to God as well however. there are no reliable sources verifying the existence of God.
More wishful thinking and hand waving, based on a few simple chemicals that form on clays and also happen to exist in living microorganisms.
hmmm this suggests that you either didn't read the entire article or that you didn't understand the point that was made.
theoretical all amino acids can be joined. however, if you do an experiment with free aa in solution and you let them react you find that certain combinations are formed preferentially. why would a creator adhere to these preferences if she can join aa together as she pleases?
also if clay minerals favor one stereoisomer over the other than this is quite significant since it potentially eliminates the L D problem.
about the 100 aa you talked about...why 100? why not 30? or 40? who says it has to be 100?
in conclusion...one can assume that there were specific conditions that allowed the formation of life by itself or one can assume there had to be an intelligent designer for carbon based lifeforms. evidence was gather over the last 50 years that suggests life formed by itself. i don't see a reason to abandon research in that direction. just because the right conditions were not identified yet doesn't mean they cannot exist.
PS: what is a PhD in evaluation and research?
PPS: I just noticed this:
Have you ever seen atheists fight with words with each other or especially Christians? They can be unbelievably cruel. Christians can be cruel but tend to have limits and often do not go as far.
have you ever seen christians fight for real not just with words? NO? than look to iraq rigth now or look into the middle ages etc.pp! there are good people and there are bad ...it really doesn't depend at all on what superstition one believes in.
-
Abaddon
Wonderful! I've never had someone cut and paste a post of theirs from another thread to start a new thread, and THEN cut and paste comments of mine from the original thread into the new thread. VERY strange, a bit like auto text in Microsoft Word I suppose. Generally Jerry, I would like to be able to make my own comments in the threads that I make them in, and have the original instance and origin quoted if they are used elsewhere. I would have thought this was covered in your Ph.D. in evaluation and research. I don't know how much you would like it if I did the same to you, BUT I WOULDN'T, not without giving credit and references. Do me a favour and return the compliment next time?
But, whatever...
One has to assume the non existence of God just as much as one has to assume the existence of God.
One has to assume the non existence of Santa/The Tooth Fairy/Ahura Mazda/Quetzalcoatl just as much as one has to assume the existence of Santa/The Tooth Fairy/Ahura Mazda/Quetzalcoatl?
REALLY?
So, if someone says something exists, then even if they have no direct evidence of this something, and only the sketchiest indirect evidence, you have to assume it exists as much as it doesn't exist? So I now have to believe that aliens and the USA are conspiring as much as I think that that is errant nonsense!
Golly, where in your Ph.D. in evaluation and research do they teach you that?
We are talking about the smallest possible living organism. Describe how a living organism with one gene or even two or three is possible and how it would do all the things required for life (to reproduce, produce ATP or somehow convert energy to useful forms, breakdown food and construct the parts needed for life. Then give experimental examples and proof.
I think you'll find the referenced articles at the foot of this URL quite informative, as well as the article itself which undermines quite nicely the Creationist straw man arguments regarding abiogenesis with regard to the nature of the first auto-replicants and probability. I’m surprised you don’t know it… they know you; http://www.google.com/custom?q=Bergman&sitesearch=www.talkorigins.org
Here’s the URL; http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html#r24
… as for the “historical evidence we have for the origin of life”, we don’t, just like you don’t.You also have no evidence whatsoever for the genration of a massively powerful supernatural being from nothing, which strikes me as a little more tricky than replicating chemicals developing into polymers developing into replicating polymers developing into protobonts developing into simple organisms. We do have a fossil record of later forms of life showing a clear development of complexity over time, something which your source document doesn’t really allow for…
... don't know which "inherent design flaws" he's referring to, but it's quite possible that some of them are not inherent but entered the world through sin, at least indirectly, through man's rejection of God even though the original plan/design included more open and active participation by the Designer...
So, things were designed intelligently, unless it's obvious there's a fault in them, and then it's mans' fault. Ever heard of special pleading?
Lousy argumentation aside, I really cannot see how mankind’s' 'Fall' lead to the clitorises of female spotted hyenas becoming more-or-less the same size as the males' penises, so much so they were considered hermaphrodites for centuries, with urination, copulation and baby hyenas all coming our of a tiny little hole. It is such awful "design" that 10% of females and 60% of first born hyena die. Mmmmm.... love that intelligent "design" baby... maybe a paragraph got lost after the snake was cursed to crawl on its belly and woman was cursed to give birth in agony?
"And lo, a hyena was in the garden and was laughing, not because it thought it was funny, but because that's what hyenas do. But god was already rather annoyed and said "And YOU laughing girl, your little clity will swell and you will have to push your babies out of it, and provide one of the best examples of the power of natural selection, ha, see if you think that's funny!"
On the other hand, as suggested above, natural selection explains very well how this came about; the females naturally (as in they've evolved it as other hyenas don't) have very very high testosterone levels. The bigger and more aggressive they are, the better they are at securing food, the more of their cubs survive (even taking into account the 60% likelihood of the first born dying). In studies the biggest females in a hyena group pass their genes on so successfully that virtually all the members of a group will descend from them.
Oh, and then there is the scientific FACT that if a man is separated from his regular sexual partner for a few days, EVEN IF HE HAS SEX OR MASTURBATES INBETWEEN TIME, he will ejaculate far more than normal. In Bible world this is inexplicable. In science world it is a cunning development of natural selection to flush out any other guy’s sperm that might have ‘accidentally’ found its way up there. Quite how intelligent design can explain guys bodies acting in such a way that they act as though we are not meant to be faithful or monogamous I don’t know, but I don’t believe in intelligent design. You do. So your explanations are awaited with interest.
-
blackguard
Hey abaddon, let me get this straight: if you don't believe in intelligent design does this mean this is not an intelligent discussion?
And why have you blended morality with physicality to obfuscate the two? Is it because you wish to dispense with morality to justify your need to ejaculate all over the world?
I'm sure if I suggested this type of discussion be reduced to simplistic terms I'd be branded a simpleton. Okay. Then what is the probability that chaotic matter can come into existence from nothing, apparently violating Einstein's famous equation? What then is the probability that ordered matter and its corollary, complex life forms, can come into existence from nothing? What in evolutionary cosmological theory accounts for the non-existence of energy from whence matter is derived?
-
Realist
blackguard,
how does believing in god answer any of these questions?