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Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050814170410.htm

If this work holds up it will be one of the most important and fundamental pieces of research in our life times.

It will prove, conclusively, that our DNA was created by purely natural processes and not by any intelligent or sentient being.

Use this to kick the cr.p of our your local religious nut-case. Oh yeah, they aren't rational beings, so perhaps you shouldn't try. They are the same people that used to burn witches and heretics.


DA Morgan
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Who said God exists?
IT is all due to some probabilistic events happening at regular interval using some complex transactional logic.
Something got created out of it and it was us(some say it was God and goodness...)
There are inherent limitations to the desired accuracy of scientific reasoning.There are many questions which it needs to answer before it can even claim to give HOPE as given by God.
Atleast religion gives me a goal !! :-))
Dont get surprised by the ordinaryness of creation.It was always meant to be understood by all.

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It is not at all a useful discussion point.
All the discussion should be limited to Science.
And before discussing any such concept we must arrive at a common understanding of concept called God. God means different things to different people.
Which defintion are you fighting against?
The creator is not needed in some religions.

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That's a lovely theory. Kinda gives you one of those moments where you slap your forehead and ask, "why didn't I think of that?"
One has to admit that it's pretty highly speculative stuff. Like much of evolutionary theory, there is still a lot of room for creationist losers to thrash away at it. Unfortunately, in a historical science, I fear that will always be the case.
Still, this idea explains the redundancy problem better than anything else I've ever seen. Occam is the evolutionary biologist's best friend.

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Certainly speculative.

But if the math holds up ... then it deserves a Nobel Prize. It is, in its own field, as brilliant a bit of work as Einstein's in his field of endeavour.


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Quote:
Originally posted by DA Morgan:
Source:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/08/050814170410.htm

If this work holds up it will be one of the most important and fundamental pieces of research in our life times.

It will prove, conclusively, that our DNA was created by purely natural processes and not by any intelligent or sentient being.

A wonderful find Daniel, a prediction that becomes more likely with every month that passes.
I'm so absolutely positive that DNA was created by a natural process, that I offer these additional proofs.
Preamble:
A hardy microbe "Halobacterium" that only lives in hot water that is 10X more salty than Sea water
It has been found to be able to completely repair itself and live again, after it has been mechanically broken, or bombarded with Radiation.
"We have completely fragmented their DNA. I mean we have COMPLETELY destroyed it by bombarding it with [radiation]. And they can reassemble their entire chromosome and put it back into working order within several hours," says Adrienne Kish, member of the research group studying the Halobacterium at the University of Maryland.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/10sep_radmicrobe.htm?list946288

And again, another Bacterium that lives inside a Volcanoe in near boiling water.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/176589.stm

And yet another early evolved Halobacterium that contains a third of its Genes that are novel, and presumably allows these extremophiles to live as they do.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/953356.stm

Religious nut-case's have no business in talking in a Science Forum, anyway,(apart from reading and learning)


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I'm so absolutely positive that DNA was created by a natural process, that I offer these additional proofs.
REP: Who said it was created by some unnatural process?
=======================================
Preamble:
A hardy microbe "Halobacterium" that only lives in hot water that is 10X more salty than Sea water
It has been found to be able to completely repair itself and live again, after it has been mechanically broken, or bombarded with Radiation.
"We have completely fragmented their DNA. I mean we have COMPLETELY destroyed it by bombarding it with [radiation]. And they can reassemble their entire chromosome and put it back into working order within several hours," says Adrienne Kish, member of the research group studying the Halobacterium at the University of Maryland.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/10sep_radmicrobe.htm?list946288
REP: What does it prove? It proves that it can reassemble. It proves that creation process doesnt try to outsmart the own created laws.
If you dig deep enough you will always find cause and effect.That makes the unkown event ordinary but it will pose new questions...
This is called evolution of awareness.
What is known is almost always followed by another puzzle. A more interesting question will be to ask "When will we be able to understand everything?"
Disintegrated Life(DNA) as per your assumption does not belong to the field defined as Biology.
The whole Biology was created on the defintion of Life.
I would like to know the complete defintion of Life.
==============================
And again, another Bacterium that lives inside a Volcanoe in near boiling water.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/176589.stm
And yet another early evolved Halobacterium that contains a third of its Genes that are novel, and presumably allows these extremophiles to live as they do.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/953356.stm
REP: The definition of life allows you to get surprised.
======================================
Religious nut-case's have no business in talking in a Science Forum, anyway,(apart from reading and learning)
REP: I am also religious but dont expect everyone to hold beliefs similar to mine.Ideally no one else should try to disporve the belief without becoming expert in Religions.

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dvk ... there is a difference between religious and religous nut case. Nut case indicates someone incapable of reconsidering a belief based upon new information. If you can rationalize new information and retain a belief system then you are not a rational being. If you can take in new information, and change your beliefs to comply with reality ... then you are not a nut. Only you and everyone that interacts with you can form an opinion on this.

The point of my post is that there are many possibilities for how life formed. We appear to have just excluded design by a divine sentient entity based on a very simple fact. That fact being that a divine sentient entity ... does not make mistakes and then correct them. Well except in the case of Noah. Damn there I go again ... pointing out how impossible it is for something to be all knowing and stil ake a mistake. At least the Judeo-Christian god is a loving god ... well except for that nasty little incident where he killed everyone on the planet except one family and that incident where he killed every first born son in an entire country, and that one little indicent where he .... You get the idea.

Well back to the topic .. science. The research, if confirmed ... provides proof positive that life has a purely natural explanation and requires nothing more: Nothing special.


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What do you consider as special?
Think and answer.
All the religious stories do not fall into the domain of reality as perceived by us.
Those who practice it admit that they are talking about something which is not part of our domain of understanding(which is Science).
We all know that neither the Science , nor the religion knows how to express the reality in its completeness.
Both knew some part of it.
They both celebrate what they can explain.
They both forget that inevitabily there will be something more to acheive.
Both must grow within their own domains.
The apparent contradiction is limited to limited understanding of Sceince and Religion.
The day when we will discover the final truth we will realize that we were both saying the same thing but using different languages.
Religious concepts must not be taken literally.
In most cases it can have more than one meaning.
And fianlly there is no need to give excuses to start a fight.
In the next reply I hope to get a good defintion of life.

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Quote:
Originally posted by dkv:

Religious concepts must not be taken literally.
In most cases it can have more than one meaning.
dkv makes an important point here - religious messages are usually intended to be understood as metaphor.
But dkv, if you lived in the US you would see that there are a great many people who do try to understand Christian scripture literally. They really do believe in the literal "truth" of the Bible. It's a dangerous and growing movement in our country. "President" Bush himself is an ardent believer in Biblical truth. It's very frightening for those of us who live next door to these people.

Quote:
Originally posted by dkv:

In the next reply I hope to get a good defintion of life.
Unfortunately, there isn't a good definition of life. Biologists - those who study life - don't agree about what should be considered "alive". There are some generally recognized characteristics shared by all living things: Homeostasis, Response to environment, Growth and development, Reproduction (and many biologists would include other features as well). However, even in the most strictly defined sense, there are always a lot of examples of things that fall into gray areas. Many biologists believe that life can't be treated as a black-and-white phenomenon.

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Quote:
Originally posted by finchbeak:
That's a lovely theory. Kinda gives you one of those moments where you slap your forehead and ask, "why didn't I think of that?"
One has to admit that it's pretty highly speculative stuff. Like much of evolutionary theory, there is still a lot of room for creationist losers to thrash away at it. Unfortunately, in a historical science, I fear that will always be the case.
Still, this idea explains the redundancy problem better than anything else I've ever seen. Occam is the evolutionary biologist's best friend.
Creationists don't accept Occam. Ultimately they'll say that God created the earth 5000 years ago in the state science believes it was in at that time (i.e. including all the fossils of dinosaurs and all the evidence for evolution etc.).


The best way to attack creationism is not by trying to find more evidence for evolution, but rather by making their ''theory'' ridiculous. You have to defeat them at their own game. Thing is that God didn't need to create the earth 5000 years ago, he could have done that ten minutes ago. Here you assume that the universe was created in the exact state it was in ten minutes ago.


There is no way to scientifically distinguish between the ten minutes old earth theory, the 5000 years old earth theory and evolution.
But there are a lot of theological arguments in favor of the ten minutes old theory.


A ten minutes old Earth implies that our memories of events that we remember happened more than ten minutes ago are false memories. God created us with these memories. This means that 9/11, WWII Hiroshima etc. never really happened. This is plausible (if you accept that creation is possible at all) because God would never have allowed for such horrible events.

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Interesting approach, Iblis.
What theological arguments favor the 10-minute theory? I can't imagine any.
On the other hand, I can imagine a biblical literalist's response: "the Bible says 5000 (actually, I think they usually say 6000) years ago, and because the bible is the inerrant word of God, it must be true." Of course this response is not a reasonable argument, but it's the one they use, and it works equally well (which is to say not at all, except in the minds of the literalists) against the 10-minute theory.
In other words, I'm not sure this argument would really be effective against confirmed creationists. I think it may be more effective to dissect their debating strategies and to expose them as poor critical thinkers.

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I have to admit, don't know too much about theology smile

I heard about the ''ten minutes old earth theory'' from a astronomer. It exposes the flaws of creationist reasoning to non scientists very well.

Perhaps scientists should also take aim at the Bible too. Isn't teaching religion to children indoctrination? Children are told that Jesus rose from the death without being told that there isn't a shred of evidence that this really happened. If a teacher teaches similar nonsense about any another subject he would be fired and possibly prosecuted for the harm done by having taught nonsense.

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Quote:
Originally posted by dkv:
Reply by Mike Kremer "I'm so absolutely positive that DNA was created by a natural process, that I offer these additional proofs".
REP:by dkv: Who said it was created by some unnatural process?
Reply by Mike Kremer "It seems that you do agree that DNA was created by NATURAL processes"

And also you would like to see a 'good definition of life'

Thats not so easy to define. There are many different types of life.
There is 'simple life, its almost on a molecular level. Its life that has the smallest amount of DNA, and still be able to survive. That type of life we call:-A Virus.
Unfortunately it cannot survive without a living protein...supplied by a human or animal.
Neither can simple life think!
And yet it does have the ability to seek out a warm bodied protein host. Simple life has the ability to seek out sunshine, like algae. Or seek darkness, Co2 and Sulphur....like Oxygen hating extremophiles. Or like another type of life that lives within the salty metallic waters of hot deep sea vents. It IS a type of THINKING based upon the molecular affinity of different chemical surfaces that interact with each other.
What I am saying is that the very simplest early types of life came into being without the presence or need of a God.
Hot, salty, metallic liquids and gases, constructed themselves into simple replicating nano bacteria (for want of a better definition)
Different nano bacteria, or viruses, developed differently within different conditions, right here on Earth.

So what does all life have in common?
Answer. ALL LIFE IS SELF REPLICATING, provided it has the chemicals (nutrients) to enable it to survive!

(Its strange that IF life has JUST the ability to replicate, it would ultimately destroy itself, rather like a disease we call cancer)

American Scientists have developed Nano-Robots a self-replicating process in which devices whose diameters are of atomic scale, on the order of nanometers, able to create copies of themselves. (A nanometer is 10-9 meter or a millionth of a millimeter) Its function is to construct at least one copy of itself during its operational life.
One example might be an artificial anti-body?

von Neumann, was the name of the man that first proposed the feasability of making a self replicating machines.
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/vonNeumann.html

A study that has now been taken up by NASA for
use upon the Moon
http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRepNASA.html

Are Man made replicating bodies, the same as life?
It might just depend upon who is doing the looking
The fact that they would be many millions of times bigger than natural Viruses, would arouse an Aliens suspicions. Early man made replicating bodies, might not be able to protect themselves from any adverse conditions, like lack of chemicals (materials) excessive heat or drought. But that could be overcome...eventually.
By just going back, and copying the inter molecular atomic surface forces, that I am sure governed the beginings of early life upon this Earth, and elswhere.



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dvk: Special = Intentional intervention by an anthropomorphic sentient entity.


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Exciting, indeed. Affirmation of that which we have considered to be intuitive is gratifying.

A most important part of the puzzle, a defining piece, yet, herein, quixote in title, at least, one wonders as to the bent,,,, were we bored ~regards dna .

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hmmm, the 'dna .' was unintended,,, something extra last nights seamonkey build~

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Man, who spiked esin's punch?

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Quote:
Originally posted by Count Iblis II:
Perhaps scientists should also take aim at the Bible too. Isn't teaching religion to children indoctrination? Children are told that Jesus rose from the death without being told that there isn't a shred of evidence that this really happened. If a teacher teaches similar nonsense about any another subject he would be fired and possibly prosecuted for the harm done by having taught nonsense.
I agree that this kind of teaching is indoctrination. And I agree that it does violence to young minds. In my opinion, Biblical Literalism is a horrendous theology.

I don't think the same thing can be said about all forms of Christianity or for the bible itself. Indeed, if one simply understands that the bible is a collection of literature, metaphorical writings that have been handed down through many generations and translations, which is undoubtedly true, then it's not hard to understand why the stories there are so compelling to so many. I personally am not terribly interested in very much of it (although I will admit that I think Jesus's sermon on the mount is pretty cool stuff). But then I also am not terribly interested in, say, the writings of John Milton. However, I know that there are many people who find Milton to be profound poetry. I conclude that there must be something there that I just don't get and I'm quite content with not getting it. I'm happy to let others feel a sense of wonder when they read Milton, just as I feel awe when I look closely at the veins in a leaf. If people feel captivated by biblical stories and if they find deep meaning in them, then I see no reason to insist that it's empty just because I don't get it. Indeed, maybe the very fact that I don't get it disqualifies me from commenting intelligently on the bible, just as those who misunderstand or misrepresent Darwinian theory are utterly unqualified to make intelligent comments about evolution. So I feel that I'm in no position to attack the bible.

When it comes to pedagogy, though, I am very much in my element and I can state with conviction that it is deeply harmful to simply command children to believe something, especially when no logical reason is given for the belief (and no, "because the bible tells me so" is not a valid logical reason). Thus, I am absolutely opposed to faith, when "faith" is taken to mean "belief despite evidence to the contrary." I believe that faith is logically indefensible and should have no part in a rational person's psyche.

I would (and do) attack faith. But I have no problem with the bible per se.

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finchbeak:

Get real. The differences between one form of theology and another is nothing but a nuance. We are talking about a brain washing practice used to control children's behavior and thinking to serve a self-annointed elite class.

Apply even the most basic of Boolean reasoning and the entire Judeo-Christian-Islamic belief system falls apart. Here's the Christian test as most here are likely Christian by background. Equally simple tests can be applied to any other belief system.

Matt.26:53
"My God, My God, why hath thou forsaken me"

The trinity as three aspects of the same being:
Is it even remotely conceivable that a part of a single entity would question itself?

The trinity as three independent entities:
Is it even remotely conceivable that a true believer would question the wisdom of the creator of the entire freaking universe?

You have to be brain-dead to not see the logical inconsistency in a document that is supposedly perfect and divinely inspired.

For anyone of either Jewish or Christian belief ... please ... in your spare time ... justify Genesis 19 5-8. I'd like to hear a rationalization of why it is "good" to give one's virgin daughters to a mob to be raped to spare the life of a stranger.

Why any woman would willingly subscribe to a morality based upon these belief systems is beyond my wildest imagination: And I have a very wild imagination.


DA Morgan
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