I don't know about the universe being a living thing, so much as a collection of living things,,,,

but, much like its unlikely a dvd could just create itself,, its unlikely that all the life that coexists on this earth could have just created itself either,,,,,,behind the design, I believe there is an intelligent creator,,,

Many learned people would take issue with this presentation by discovery. Discovery is a entertainment company which happens to include science related materials in its entertainment. It is not an organisation of scientists.

The main criticism some people would level is that abiogenesis is not part of the core theory of evolution. Evolution explains how modern life arose from the earliest forms of life. The theory of abiogenesis (not the theory of evolution) is an attempt to explain the origin of the earliest lifeforms.

This is important, as a well articulated and defined theory of evolution is rock solid, while the theory of abiogenesis is much less so.



I don't mean to be rude, but this statement is total nonsense. No one has claimed that a particle 'turned into' anything (except a newly configured particle).



Faith, intelligence, and humility/integrity can all be orthogonal qualities. Religious faith motivates people to rationalize away the facts, no matter how smart or dumb they are.

The inability to achieve absolute certainty on a topic does not mean that all notions are equal. It really is ignorant, dishonest, and irresponsible to advocate for, say, a young earth creation theory given the abundance of evidence for evolution. People who do so are rightly mocked.





One can play language games, but it doesn't change the essential difference between (a) believing something because 'my religion says so' and (b) believing something because a rational interpretation of the actual evidence leads you to that conclusion.

It sounds to me like you still think that you know it all. You have an amazing experience and then you just declare that you know there is a loving creation source.

The arrogance of this statement is astounding. Have some humility, and before you reach conclusions about this actually learn something about how your brain works. This is an unsurprising chemical phenomena. Its a natural consequence of the chemicals which your brain is naturally capable of producing. You can induce a very similar experience with mere meditation.

Thinking that your personal subjective experience, absent any understanding of the mechanisms which cause it, can be a basis for reaching conclusions about the existence or non-existence of a creator is just amazing hubris.

And there you have it. An anti-evolutionist comes in and tries to tear down evolution, only to reveal they actually have no understanding of evolution.

Another day on the internet.

What does this tell us about the social processes surrounding these theories?

I agree, that people should not believe things just because someone else says so,, including scientists

I have no problem with 'rational interpretations', I have an issue with who decides whats 'rational' when trying to explain the details of how things began and everything in between,,,,,


it is 'rational' to believe there was an intelligent creator,, regardless of what 'rational' explanations science believes explains EVERYTHING throughout time,,

considering that SCIENCE makes the assumption that if it is observed as possible now, it makes it the only possibility since the beginning of time,,,

While you misrepresent reasonable theories of abiogenesis, its clear that you don't believe in any material theory of abiogenesis. Fair enough.

However it looks like you may actually believe in the theory of evolution, or at least some major portions of it.

I would like someone who believes they know the 'real' theory care to post that definition so it can be debated properly?


,, without the refrences to whether people understand becoming the debate,,,,

there is in fact a lot less proof for evolution than most believe... the theory keeps changing with the lack of facts. To even considewr creationism as an option pretty much admits there is a God, which many dont want to hear. Do you know that MIT did the odds against life origionating by chance? 1- 100000000000000000000000000000. that is one to 10/28th power. there are not that many grains of sand on the earth. Where are the thousands of intermediate step skeletons..? there are sometimes one here and there, and most of them have been proven to be fakes, yet they drag these things out like they are gospel truth. Go make a tree with your chemistry set sometime.

the bible says each species will reproduce ACCORDING TO THIER KIND. The fossil record shows me that a species suddenly appears, exists or a time, and goes extinct. EXACTLY as the bible said.

In conversations among non-scientists, emphatically yes!!

Its a huge problem. I try to avoid the issue sometimes by rephrasing the question to be "are humans descended from non-human primates" because that's usually the sticking point which the anti-science people have. It can really simplify the discussion by avoiding the issue of 'what *exactly* is the theory of evolution. What is included, what is not?




High school or later? Its rare that we are taught good representations in high school.

In high school I was taught several variations, and in one of them it was emphasized that "accidental, random mutation" was allegedly the SOLE source of variation and new material for any particular lineage - the only one, ever. If you didn't believe this (I did not), then you didn't believe in 'the theory of evolution' This reduces to a distracting and unfortunate matter of definitions rather than the heart of the matter. (I say its distracting, but its also necessary...)

Antidepressants?

Serotonin-Syndrome as the result?

if we were walking in a barren desert, and came accross a house, fully built, with hot and cold running water, shelves stocked, carpet cleaned, ect,,. and i told you that the place just appeared one day after a storm would you believe me? of course not. Yet any life, even simple life is way more complicated than anything we have ever made with our so called advanced science , ect. the math just isnt there and it is not logical. someone created your car, your house, and you.

I'm definitely not here to defend any particular theory of abiogenesis, but it might be helpful to consider the difference between a particle and molecule.

If we are talking about an individual molecule, floating alone, we might call that a particle. Fine.

But generally we speak of molecules as classes. When we say that a water molecule is H20, we aren't speaking of a single particle but a class of particles. We might easily find 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,00 individual members of that class all together in one place.

We don't use the word 'particle' in this collective way. So when you try to represent some theory of abiogenesis by saying particle instead of molecule, it can look like you are trying to distort the meaning behind the claims being made.

But Science is not concerned primarily with how it got there,but with the Fact that it is there,and how it developed!
Science is not concerned with proving or disproving a Creator!

The information organized in a CD is static. There is no mechanism within the CD which favors any 'locally anti-entropic' activity to take place.

We directly observe activity in living organism which locally decreases entropy.

This massive difference makes it unreasonable to compare these two activities. Its reasonable to think that life can evolve on earth, and not reasonable to think that a DVD could organize the bits within it.

I think it would be tragic if we had a tiny group of people, called scientists or otherwise, who decreed what the truth was and everyone else was expected to believe in it fully just because they say so.

The wonderful thing about science is that it is largely transparent. Any honest person who wants to know whether or not a claim by a scientist is valid can investigate it themselves. Its hard, but its possible.




I think it is rational to believe that there MAY be an intelligent creator. Do you consider it rational to believe that there MUST be? If so, based on what?




I'm not sure what you are saying, but it sounds like you might be saying that 'belief in a creator is rational independent of what the scientists say'. I wonder if you are also saying 'we can therefore ignore the claims of scientists when deciding whether we believe in a creator'.

I think that any other rational or seemingly ration position a person may have should not be 'regardless' of what scientists claim. If you really want to know the truth, then it may be advisable to learn about what the scientists are saying, and why, and see whether your reason leads you to adjusting your previous positions based on that new learning.





People do science, so if anyone is making assumptions its the people doing it, not 'science'.

I've known many scientists earlier in my life, and I did not know a single one who assumed that (a) something being observed now, therefore means (b) its the only possibility, ever.

I think you are headed in a really good direction, to bring clarity and precision into the conversation; but I'm wary of anyone aspiring to define 'the real theory'. How but just 'one fair (but flawed) presentation of it'?

I've debated this from several points of view over a couple decades, and when you dig into the details it can be hard to get consensus on what 'the real theory' is.

I think the wikipedia page on it is a good start. (They do make mention of abiogenesis without emphasizing that this is not generally considered by scientists to be the domain of the theory of evolution, which is unfortunate. )

Edit: MetalWing posted something similar to a 'common misunderstandings of evolution' on the other page. This could also be helpful.

I make a lot of typing mistakes - substituting not just letters but sometimes word endings or entire words, lol...thinking about the next sentence while typing the last... Rather than edit them I'll just apologize for them (sorry) and hope the meaning is still clear.

Parts of the theory have been improved with the growth of facts, yes. Essential premises have not changed since Darwin's day.

Do you believe that humans did not descend from non-human primates? If so, are you fully committed to this belief? Is it at all possible that you might learn something new one day, which could change your mind?

lol, 6 posts in a row but I came late to the party and was responding to many posts at once.

Even professional biologists want to turn evolution into something that it isn't:


"Ruse (1997) presents a detailed and carefully researched survey of the idea of progress in evolutionary biology. He argues that belief in evolutionary progress is still prevalent among evolutionary biologists today, although it is often denied or veiled. Ruse (1997) writes, "A major conclusion of this study is that some of the most significant of today's evolutionists are progressionists, and that because of this we find (absolute) progressionism alive and well in their work." He claims that progressionism has harmed the status of evolutionary biology as a mature, professional science."

(Or, more accurately, want to cling to older ideas about evolution which are not substantiated by evidence.)

My point is that it can be hard to get a good working statement of what evolution is and what it isn't, but this doesn't change the fact that humans are descended from non-human primates.