Does Contemporary Evolution use a Pseudo-Creationism schema?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by wellwisher, Feb 10, 2016.

  1. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    If you look at contemporary Evolution, this theory begins at replicators, which are self replicating molecules. Although evolution begins here, other areas of science assume that the beginning of life began long before this through a process called Abiogenesis, where simple molecules become increasingly complex, finally leading to replicators. The net effect is Evolution begins it timeline somewhere in the middle of a longer science based history; between simple molecules and the present.

    If you parallel this to Genesis in the Bible, Adam is assumed to be starting point for humans. Science has also shown that life and the precursors of humans began much further back into time. Creationism also begins its timeline in the middle of a longer history.

    In both cases, once their Adam/replicator appears, they both do a good job correlating the timeline, from time-0, to the present, based on what they know/understood. But in both cases, neither take into account events from history before their time=0, as influencing the flow of their theory.

    Is evolution a knock off of creationism; pseudo-creationism schema?
     
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  3. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    You do know there are hundreds of creation myths, right?
     
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  5. PhysBang Valued Senior Member

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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    A history comprised of 4 days in which plants were instantly created, the sun, moon, and stars were instantly created underneath the great dome of water, fish were instantly created, and the birds, beasts, and man were instantly created. No. There is not the slightest resemblance between creationism and evolution.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
  8. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Ok.

    'Abiogensis' refers to life initially arising from non-living precursors. Nobody really knows how that happened.

    If we assume that cells, even simple procaryotic ones, appeared all at once in all of their complexity, complete with their molecular genetics, chemical metabolism and cellular anatomy, out of some hypothetical 'primordial soup', then abiogensis seems to me to be very unlikely and even kind of miraculous.

    But if we imagine that cells are themselves the result of a long evolutionary process involving self-reproducing molecules subject to natural selection involving a long succession of steps, each one of which might have had a reasonable chance of occurring, then the complexity of the cell starts to become explicable.

    Or rather the appearance of fully-formed cellular life might not be the first page of the story. The idea of pre-biotic chemical replicators imagines something like short self-replicating RNA strands that accumulated the complex genetic code we see today, elaborate cellular metabolic processes, cell walls surrounding them and all the rest of it only gradually and incrementally over time, through evolution by natural selection.

    That leaves the exact point when life first appeared kind of indistinct and perhaps a question of how we choose to define 'life'. It reimagines 'abiogenesis' as something other than a single miraculous event in which cells suddenly appear out of nothing and it imagines evolution extending back long before the appearance of the first cellular life.
     
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  9. Daecon Kiwi fruit Valued Senior Member

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    Even if abiogenesis was "proven" to be some incredible event of chance, that doesn't mean Biblical Creationism wins by default.

    There are lots of older religions that were here first, so they're the ones that get first dibs on being the "correct" creationist mythology.
     
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  10. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    "Creationism" isn't the label for a higher or generic category that would subsume "abiogenesis" and anything else non-supernatural that could be a member under a scientific "origin of life on Earth" hypernym. Given that in actual practice or lecture evolutionists will occasionally appeal to some theory in that extraneous territory.

    http://www.evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/misconceps/IAorigintheory.shtml

    "The definition of evolution is being stretched to include the origin of life only by the creationists. [...] No theory of biological evolution has ever tried to account for the existence of everything. It simply explains the diversity of life we see on earth today." http://darwiniana.org/abiogenesis.htm
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
  11. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Let me get this straight: you suggest that, because evolution does not purport to explain the origin of life, while creationism does, then therefore, somehow, evolution is a version of creationism?

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    Shome mishtake, shurely?

    Or, are you, perversely, trying to argue that creationism starts with Adam? If so I must say I have yet to meet a creationist who disowns 1:20-25 of Genesis.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
  12. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Conceptual analysis compares basic logic and logic strategies when approaching problems. Sometimes a conceptual flaw, based on the wrong logic or strategy has been discredited elsewhere. If that is the case, it also needs to be discredited everywhere. It does not matter if it looks pretty or is a tradition, if it is based on a flawed conceptual foundation.

    Before I begin, I believe in the process of change called evolution. I disagree with the current mechanism. I will show this is due to a major conceptual flaw, and not my having a hissy fit.

    The current model used to explain Evolution, begins with an arbitrary starting point; Adam=replicators. This starting point assumes/creates replicators; poof! Creation does the same thing and says Adam is the first human who just appears. Both gloss over all the details that came before. Creation uses a God of order, while evolution uses a god of randomness; poof!

    Let me show you the pitfalls of pseudo-creationism in science, by using an acceptable scape goat that will not hurt the feelings of scientists. If we assume Adam was the first human, this assumption allows us to ignore any connection to anything before Adam, including any connection to animals like apes. The apes can be treated like a separate thing that is not connected. This allows us to call Adam t=0 and then define all future humans apart from anything that may have come previously before Adam. Evolution does the same thing with Abiogenesis by starting with replicators. Abiogenesis is treated like a separate and unconnected branch of science since its chemical arguments do not play any role if evolution after replicators; Adam.

    Science will say, humans did not start with Adam, but we can demonstrate that humans appeared much earlier. The same is true before replicators. Science can show replicators had a longer previous connection to other paths over a billion years. Like apes and humans, some of these previous connection will still linger, but will be ignored by the choice of replicator Adam.

    This is a valid argument. Evolution is not on the chopping block. What is on the chopper block is the replicator Adam assumption. If this is allowed then human Adam, by using the same scheme, is also valid. There is not a dual standard in real science. Dual standard is only possible in fake science.
     
  13. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    This is not a contest between evolution and creation. This is about a branch of science, using a creationist argument, as a foundation premise. The theory starts with a fully assembled starting point; replicators/Adam, and ignores all that came before and therefore does not interface the past properly. This impacts all subsequent logic.
     
  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I think that's false. There's a huge literature on the origin of life and much of it tries to account for that origin in terms of chemical evolution. Hence the 'replicators', molecules much simpler than cellular life that can reproduce copies of themselves and hence are subject to natural selection. Simple naked RNA strands are a hypothetical example. In this vision, the details of the genetic code and all the protein synthesis, ATP cycles and all the rest of cellular biology only came later... through natural selection.

    Wouldn't belief that entire cells with their metabolisms and genetic codes just leaped into existence all at once out of a 'primordial soup' (or at a hydrothermal vent), just be a species of creationism? Renaming a miracle 'abiogenesis' and claiming that it's 'scientific' doesn't mean that it isn't a miracle. It's just lipstick on a pig.

    I'm not sure what Wellwisher is trying to say, but I'm guessing that he's making an analogy. Perhaps he's suggesting that evolutionary thinking still seems to him to originate in a miracle.

    My suggestion is that the evolution of cellular life that contemporary evolution texts address might only be half of a longer and more interesting story, and that there's an entire narrative of how the first cells made their appearance that came before.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
  15. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    But it doesn't. Creationism emphatically does NOT start with Adam. It starts with creation of the cosmos and proceeds, via creation of life in the seas, the air and the Earth, before culminating in the creation of Man. How can you justify ignoring all that and starting with Adam?
     
  16. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    Is that "origin of life" literature really transpiring specifically under the heading or context of evolution? Or making an attempt to "explain everything" associated with the subject if it is? At any rate, this distinction-making between evolution and the earliest origins of life on Earth is among the set of "authoritative spiels" or part of the defensive canon which biologists and defenders of evolution have dispensed over the years. When they're dealing with creationists and other critics, those branded distorting cranks, etc. Everyone else outside this or another enterprise, by the nature of things, is usually stuck with the latter itself being the official knowledge administrator about _x_.
     
  17. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Evolution certainly does not account for the origin of life, and nobody other than creationists trying to ridicule it, suggests that it does. Like all theories, it has a scope of application, outside which it cannot help - or not much.

    The reason why it can't is obvious. Evolution is like a mathematical proof by induction, without the first step. In order to operate, it relies on the pre-existence of replicating organisms that inherit traits from their predecessors. Given such a replicating organism, evolution proposes a mechanism by which further different organisms can arise. That is all it does. Not for nothing did Darwin call his book, "On The Origin of Species".

    Since the theory of evolution is so well founded, people will of course stretch that principle as far as they can, in the process of proposing hypotheses for abiogenesis. That is perfectly reasonable. But there is no theory of abiogenesis yet: all we have are some more or less speculative hypotheses. It cannot be correct to claim that evolution purports to account for abiogenesis, just because a few people may have had a go at applying natural selection to an unsolved problem!

    I do not understand why you put forward this ludicrous Aunt Sally suggestion, that people think "entire cells with their metabolisms and genetic codes just leaped into existence all at once out of a 'primordial soup' (or at a hydrothermal vent)", and which you then go on to ridicule. The fact that evolution doesn't explain the origin of life does not mean anyone would resort to such daft suppositions. In fact the whole point of studying possible processes of abiogenesis is because we are not satisfied with such a non-explanation.

    So your final "suggestion" is no more than exactly what science has recognised, ever since Darwin speculated about his "warm little pond."
     
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  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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  19. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    Since evolution does not address the formation of the solar system it is incomplete and we should fall on our knees and worship God (the right God).

    I mean it just logically follows, doesn't it wellwisher?
     
  20. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    I have implied, from the beginning of this discussion, that evolution does not account for the origin of life; abiogenesis (in different words). It begins its story much later in time, with what I call replicator Adam. This creates a conceptual problem. Where you start becomes the foundation of the theory. The foundation of evolution is built in the air, because it has no roots at the beginning. You don't build a house beginning with the first floor. There needs to be a basement, below this or the house will collapse.

    Let me give an example, say we knew nothing of the creation of the universe. This is the analogy of evolution not claiming to account for the origins of life. We begin the theory, at the formation of the sun and solar system. This is time=0. We can go from there, but there will be a conceptual detachment from all the unknown previous things, from BB to the assumed time=0, which will not be taken into account, by default.

    Nobody would even think to say the materials for the sun and solar system came from a distant exploding star. It may be easier and necessary to say random creation. The theory will not hit the proper center in terms of the entire time line but may seem to work for the abbreviated time line.

    This is not the biology section, but the philosophy section. Philosophy is partially subjective and partially logical. In terms of logic, although we can subjectively pick at starting point, one cannot logically assume that any theory that builds its foundation in the middle of a timeline, will be the same as a theory that starts from the beginning. Evolution is philosophy not science, because in the middle is not a valid way to begin any serious science theory. To be science it needs to begin the timeline at simple chemicals and build using that foundation.

    If we start the theory of the sun and solar system at the BB, many things from that beginning will tag along. Things like hydrogen and helium are still with us. Early stars that provide the materials for the sun are part of new theory. You don't need a random solar system creation schema if this is t=o, since earlier aspects of the timeline, will give you logic.

    I have been arguing this for years, but in different ways. I have proposed alternatives to evolution, not be difficult because it is only a matter of time, until any theory with a faulty timeline foundation will become obsolete. I was trying to stay ahead of the curve.

    If anyone finds a way to start earlier, than everything will need to shift because this new zero point becomes the new foundation.

    As an working exercise to see this affect, assume the solar system appears at t=0 and then extrapolate as best you can, without using anything at time less than zero. See if this matches the current theory that uses the BB.
     
  21. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Right. Or at least replicating somethings that were subject to natural selection. They needn't have been cells and they needn't have been alive.

    My point is merely that it's a lot easier to imagine very simple self-replicating molecules coming together naturally than it would be to explain how all of the infinite complexities of cellular biology could have appeared all at once by purely natural means. The problem then would be explaining how these very primitive chemical replicators ultimately gave rise to biological cells. That's where the evolution and natural selection explanatory strategies become relevant.

    So how would you answer the 'intelligent design' advocate who argues that the existence of brains and eyes are evidence of design? These kind of complexities in living organisms are usually attributed to evolution by natural selection. Why should Sciforums readers oppose treating the complexities of cell biology with the same explanatory strategy?

    Of course. But you are arguing against something I never said.

    I was replying to the thing that CC quoted, that said "The definition of evolution is being stretched to include the origin of life only by the creationists... No theory of biological evolution has ever tried to account for the existence of everything. It simply explains the diversity of life we see on earth today." (Highlighting by me.)

    That's simply false, since there have been many attempts to understand the origin of life in evolutionary terms. Unless some gradual and incremental explanatory strategy is attempted in which individually small developments add and compound over time in conditions of natural selection, it's hard to imagine how the origin of cell biology could possibly be explained (apart from divine intervention).

    You are right that none of these attempts is entirely satisfactory at the moment and all of them are highly speculative. It's very much a work in progress. But people are trying to use evolution by natural selection in hopes of better understanding the problem of life's origin.

    Anyone who doubts that should do a web-search. Here's some results from Google Scholar for the search terms "prebiotic evolution" and "natural selection"

    https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="prebiotic evolution" "natural selection"&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

    And again, there's a broad overview of the current state of play in origin of life studies in these lecture notes from a University of Texas class.

    http://www.as.utexas.edu/astronomy/education/spring05/scalo/lectures/309L-2DOriginLife.pdf

    I said that it seemed vanishingly unlikely and implied that thinking that way suggests divine creation more than a natural event.

    If people are so adamant that evolution could have had nothing to do with the origin of life, and if they think that the idea that cell biology appeared all at once by chance is "daft", then what's their alternative? What account can they give for life's amazing complexity?
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
  22. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Water was necessary for the formation of life on earth. In fact, if you take the water out and replace it with any other solvent there is no life. If our solar system had no water, we would have no life on earth. A good theory will back to the formation of the solar system, since a hot earth rich in simple gases helps. A poor theory will starts as late as necessary to avoid the hard questions.

    Most people looking into space for life on other planets, are looking for a planet similar to our planet earth, since they assume life would need these precursors.

    You guys are trying to confuse the minions. The bottom line is poor theory is poor theory. I would also say, think of a theory that can begin the timeline earlier, and it will supersede the current evolutionary theory. You don't need God, directly, if you have truth.
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2016
  23. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    That is absurd. It seems you do not even know what a theory is. Do you think the Kinetic Theory of Gases 'started too late' to avoid the hard question of how quarks formed? Simply cuckoo...

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