For the alternative theorists:

[paddoboy]

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Evolution as fact and theory:

Many scientists and philosophers of science have described evolution as fact and theory, a phrase which was used as the title of an article by Stephen Jay Gould in 1981. He describes fact in science as meaning data, not absolute certainty but "confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent." A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of such facts. The facts of evolution come from observational evidence of current processes, from imperfections in organisms recording historical common descent, and from transitions in the fossil record. Theories of evolution provide a provisional explanation for these facts.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_as_fact_and_theory
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Digesting the above, I would see Abiogenesis as even more certain.

 

[paddoboy]

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http://www.notjustatheory.com/


You've been told that "evolution is just a theory", a guess, a hunch, and not a fact, not proven. You've been misled. Keep reading, and in less than two minutes from now you'll know that you've been misinformed. We're not going to try and change your mind about evolution. We just want to point out that "it's just a theory" is not a valid argument.

The Theory of Evolution is a theory, but guess what? When scientists use the word theory, it has a different meaning to normal everyday use.1 That's right, it all comes down to the multiple meanings of the word theory. If you said to a scientist that you didn't believe in evolution because it was "just a theory", they'd probably be a bit puzzled.

In everyday use, theory means a guess or a hunch, something that maybe needs proof. In science, a theory is not a guess, not a hunch. It's a well-substantiated, well-supported, well-documented explanation for our observations.2 It ties together all the facts about something, providing an explanation that fits all the observations and can be used to make predictions. In science, theory is the ultimate goal, the explanation. It's as close to proven as anything in science can be.

Some people think that in science, you have a theory, and once it's proven, it becomes a law. That's not how it works. In science, we collect facts, or observations, we use laws to describe them, and a theory to explain them. You don't promote a theory to a law by proving it. A theory never becomes a law.

This bears repeating. A theory never becomes a law. In fact, if there was a hierarchy of science, theories would be higher than laws. There is nothing higher, or better, than a theory. Laws describe things, theories explain them. An example will help you to understand this. There's a law of gravity, which is the description of gravity. It basically says that if you let go of something it'll fall. It doesn't say why. Then there's the theory of gravity, which is an attempt to explain why. Actually, Newton's Theory of Gravity did a pretty good job, but Einstein's Theory of Relativity does a better job of explaining it. These explanations are called theories, and will always be theories. They can't be changed into laws, because laws are different things. Laws describe, and theories explain.

Just because it's called a theory of gravity, doesn't mean that it's just a guess. It's been tested. All our observations are supported by it, as well as its predictions that we've tested. Also, gravity is real! You can observe it for yourself. Just because it's real doesn't mean that the explanation is a law. The explanation, in scientific terms, is called a theory.

Evolution is the same. There's the fact of evolution. Evolution (genetic change over generations)3 happens, just like gravity does. Don't take my word for it.4 Ask your science teacher, or google it. But that's not the issue we are addressing here. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is our best explanation for the fact of evolution. It has been tested and scrutinised for over 150 years, and is supported by all the relevant observations.

Next time someone tries to tell you that evolution is just a theory, as a way of dismissing it, as if it's just something someone guessed at, remember that they're using the non-scientific meaning of the word. If that person is a teacher, or minister, or some other figure of authority, they should know better. In fact, they probably do, and are trying to mislead you.5

Evolution is not just a theory, it's triumphantly a theory!
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[Trippy]

This is such a blatant mis-representation of the post you are responding to that I have given you a warning for trolling.

wow, that DOES sound ridiculous.
hmmm . . . i wonder why NASA made sure voyager was disinfected.
i wonder why NASA made sure the LEM was disinfected.
or why the astronauts were quarantined afterwards.
yeah, "alien life" is rubbish.
in other words this is an odd statement coming from someone that thinks life can come from "nowhere".
if it can happen on earth then what is so terribly wrong with it happening elsewhere and BROUGHT here?
i submit "alien intervention" has WAY more going for it than divine inspiration.

On the one hand, what I said was that we had as much evidence for alien intervention as we do for divine intervention.

Do you have peer reviewed, independently verifiable and published evidence supporting the hypothesis that 3 billion or so years ago little green men in flying saucers came to earth and introduced the first single celled forms of life?

Remember, here's what humbletelescope said:

Aliens are just artificial counterpart to meteorites.

This is what I was responding to.

Remember, I was discussing alien intervention, not panspermia, they're not the same thing.

 

[Trippy]

@ leopold, referring to your Post #1615 :

Grok'd! ... Grok'd!! ... Grok'd!!!

It's a pity you didn't take the time to grok the post he was replying to.

 

[paddoboy]

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http://www.ted.com/conversations/1962/why_don_t_people_believe_the_f.html"

Why don't people believe the fact of evolution?

Biological evolution, the principle that species change over time due to the combination of random mutations and natural selection is a well accepted scientific fact (about a clear a fact as any).

Why do so many people insist on denying it? Why do people feel such a need to protect an archaic world view that they deny science?
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Good questions.

 

[Trippy]

But surely the problem about alien infection or seeding is that it explains nothing? Doesn't it merely kick the can down the road, so that then we would have to find a scientific explanation for how the alien life came to be, instead of the life on Earth?

I have tried making this point dozens of times to DMOE and leopold, but neither of them seem willing to defend it. As I said to one of them many posts ago "It can't be turtles all the way down".

It may turn out to be true, if this meteorite evidence is supplemented in the future, but that would just frustrate everybody because it would mean life first arose somewhere else, rendering the chance of finding evidence of how even more intractable for us Earthlings.

One hypothesis that has been gaining traction recently is that life may have arisen on mars and been transferred here by hitching rides on meteorites. They've found evidence of life recently in old impact craters very shortly after the impacts. Also Mars has a better availability of some elements at its surface (specifically molybdenum and boron) that life relies on than earth does. Plus mars may have had a habitable environment sooner than earth did.

See also Trippy's remarks about chirality in quartz. I have not looked at this yet, but I do recall a hypothesis that silicate mineral substrates may have played a role in (I think) stabilising complex molecules by adsorption. Need to read further on this.

Clays as well.

 

[Trippy]

Just to throw the cat among the pigeons when discussing what it means to be 'alive'.

Mimivirus
It is a virus.
It is as large as some bacterial species.
It's genome is as large as some bacteria.
It has genes coding for proteins that even some bacteria lack.

Perhaps this is similar to what early life looked like.

 

[leopold]

Remember, I was discussing alien intervention, not panspermia, they're not the same thing.

yes, and "alien intervention" was the entire point of my post.
a biomolecule from earth would be "alien intervention" if it made it to mars.
why don't you infract posters for making 5 posts in a row and hardly ever comes off with anything original.

 

[Trippy]

yes, and "alien intervention" was the entire point of my post.
a biomolecule from earth would be "alien intervention" if it made it to mars.
why don't you infract posters for making 5 posts in a row and hardly ever comes off with anything original.

Are you seriously suggesting that panspermia represents alien intervention????

Remember, this is the post I was responding to:

Aliens are just artificial counterpart to meteorites.

He's not talking about panspermia and seeding by meteorites, he's talking about actual little green men, otherwise it wouldn't be artificial now would it?

 

[dumbest man on earth]

And it is the unneccessary pedant and grudges you obviously hold [and as referenced by others] that sees so many of your threads either deleted or confined to the cesspool.

paddoboy, the ^^above quoted^^ are spurious assertions.

1.) - I have NEVER had one single Thread that I Started "deleted".
Produce evidence to the contrary!

2.) - I have only had ONE of my Threads sent to the "cesspool", as a direct result of YOUR Tro...err, whatever it is that YOU DO incessantly on SciForums.
Again, Produce evidence to the contrary!

Everyone on SciForums is acutely aware of exactly how Knowledgeable you are, paddoboy.
Everyone on SciForums knows "exactly how you practice" the "12 simple procedures" that you, yourself Posted, and that you, yourself demand of everyone else.
Everyone on your SciForums knows exactly how you will respond when given the simple task of following just these Two of your "12 simple procedures" :

[2] Gather all the experimental and Observational evidence to support your claims...

[7] You’re going to be asked tough questions. When someone asks you a question answer it.

paddoboy, I ask you to produce concrete evidence of your spurious assertions.
Simply Man Up.
Produce the evidence that I requested above.

 

[Trippy]

MODERATOR NOTE:
PADDOBOY, DUMBEST MAN ON EARTH

Not in this thread.

IF YOU WANT TO DUKE OUT WHATEVER PERSONAL GRUDGE IT IS THAT EXISTS BETWEEN THE PAIR OF YOU DO IT ELSEWHERE. IN THIS THREAD IT IS OFF TOPIC.

I WILL DELETE OFFENDING POSTS FROM EITHER OF YOU.

IF THAT DOES NOT WORK, I WILL ISSUE FORMAL WARNINGS AND THEN FINALLY BANS.

IT'S BEEN SUGGESTED BEFORE THAT THE PAIR OF YOU SHOULD PUT EACH OTHER ON IGNORE, IF THIS BEHAVIOUR CONTINUES I WILL PERSONALLY SEE TO IT THAT THE PAIR OF YOU ARE PERMANENTLY BANNED FROM SCIFORUMS REGARDLESS OF THE VALUE OF ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS YOU MAY HAVE MADE.

AM I CLEAR?

 

[paddoboy]

yes, and "alien intervention" was the entire point of my post.
a biomolecule from earth would be "alien intervention" if it made it to mars.
why don't you infract posters for making 5 posts in a row and hardly ever comes off with anything original.

As I have told you repeatedly...I also am attracted by Panspermia theory, but I am big enough and ugly enough to realise that it is still speculative....
Abiogenesis and Evolution occurred, as much as you see fit to deny it, and show your angst when you read it.
The details are what is in question...nothing else.

 

[paddoboy]

AM I CLEAR?[/B]

Certainly!
I will gladly abide by the rules and decency.

 

[krash661]

The worst that can come about is for some young kid being indoctrinated with such crap,

beware of false knowledge, it is more dangerous than ignorance [george bernard shaw]

 

[paddoboy]

.
why don't you infract posters for making 5 posts in a row and hardly ever comes off with anything original.

If you are referring to me, I see nothing wrong in posting reputable links to support the fact that Evolution and Abiogenesis did occur, in answering your continued inferences and claims that they are just "theories" and your rather boring, often repeated "life from non life is absurd" remark, when it is obvious to everyone else, that it is factual and the only choice we have.

 

[leopold]

He's not talking about panspermia and seeding by meteorites, he's talking about actual little green men, otherwise it wouldn't be artificial now would it?

why do you refer to them as "little green men"?
i was too.
a biomolecule could be considered a "little green man" in regards to abiogenesis when it hitches a rides on a meteor.
or maybe you are talking about tacks and i'm talking about CD-ROMs.

 

[paddoboy]

a biomolecule could be considered a "little green man" in regards to abiogenesis when it hitches a rides on a meteor.
or maybe you are talking about tacks and i'm talking about CD-ROMs.

Maybe? sure.
But for the umpteenth time, we have no evidence for it as yet.
All we know for certain, is that Abiogenesis occurred somewhere and Evolution then took hold here on Earth.

 

[paddoboy]

The following is an interesting little video by a Professor David Deamer: Professor of Chemistry:
University of California, Santa Cruz:
entitled:
Astrobiology and the Origins of Life:
Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaWliRVmytU

 

[Trippy]

why do you refer to them as "little green men"?

Because, for what must surely be the thousandth time, that was the context of the point that humble teleskope was making!
Here is what he said:

Aliens are just artificial counterpart to meteorites.

How are you not getting this?

a biomolecule could be considered a "little green man" in regards to abiogenesis when it hitches a rides on a meteor.

Oh for the love of...

How are you not getting this? A biomolecule hitching a ride on a meteor does NOT represent an artificial counterpart to amino acids being hitching a ride on a meteor, which is the context of the statement that I made in response to this:

Aliens are just artificial counterpart to meteorites.

Seriously, how are you not getting this? Or are you actually trolling me at this point?

Stop trying to justify your response and simply admit that it was wrong.

 

[dumbest man on earth]

It's a pity you didn't take the time to grok the post he was replying to.

My bad, Trippy.

I evidently misread, and/or misunderstood, leopolds intent, behind his Post #1615.

I was under the impression that he was 95% in agreement with your response to humbleteleskop's post #1576 :

To adopt the theory of "meteorite seeding" is to believe the Earth itself could not have provided whatever it is meteorites are supposed to have brought. It is as superfluous as "alien seeding" theory, and if there is a reason to believe one, than that is the same reason to include the other.

The remaining 5% being that leopold thought : "alien intervention" has WAY more going for it than divine inspiration.
Especially since he stated "divine inspiration"- instead of "divine intervention" - as you had stated.

In all actuality, Trippy, I only have a basic education in Chemistry and Biology, so I can follow along quite well, but as you probably have noticed I do not Post much input in those areas.

At any rate leopold only "quoted" the one single "Alien intervention" sentence from your Post #1582. I did not realize that he was "Trolling" your whole Post #1582.

I sincerely apologize for any misunderstanding on my part, and for any and all discomfort or insult that you or anyone else experienced that was caused by my misunderstanding of leopolds intent.

If I deserve a "warning" or a "Ban" for my Post, then I should receive a "warning" or a "Ban".

I do not feel that I, dmoe, should be treated differently, in any way, than any other Member of SciForums when it comes to following the "Sciforums - Rules, Posting Guidelines and Advice to Members".

Again, my sincerest apologies for my grievous misunderstanding of leopold's Post #1615.