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James Tour destroys origin of life theory.


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a·bi·o·gen·e·sis
noun
 
  1. the original evolution of life or living organisms from inorganic or inanimate substances.
    "to construct any convincing theory of abiogenesis, we must take into account the condition of the Earth about 4 billion years ago"
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What about primitive RNAs?  How did they eventually get encapsulated within cell walls?  How many different kinds of primitive RNAs are there?

People should not rule out discussion of Abiogenesis (there have been a number of them on this board).  The evolution of primitive RNAs should be of much interest as is the evolution of species.  The study of possible conditions giving rise to primitive RNAs should be more accessible in the laboratory.  Why is there not more discussion of that aspect?

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2 hours ago, pogi said:

Now if he could just give a convincing argument for creation ex nihilo to make it less laughable...

There is not one genesis theory in science or religion that is without enormous holes in human understanding, so picking apart other theories is not that hard.  I would be more impressed if he could defend his own theory to the convincing of scientists rather than pointing out holes in theirs.

The theories of the Creationists and the Abiogenesists are mutually exclusive, but that does not mean that every genesis theory in science or religion is problematic.  Genesis 1 itself is a liturgical and poetic description, not a science text.  Moreover, biblical scholars point out that the meaning is clear:  Gen 1 does not suggest creatio ex nihilo.  Instead it is clearly a creation from pre-existing materials, same as in Babylonian Enuma elish (the liturgical creation narrative for annual temple celebration), which has the same items created (organized) in the same order as Genesis 1.  See E. Speiser, Genesis, Anchor Bible (1964).

Once one has correctly read the Hebrew text of Gen 1, then the formulation of theories can begin.  That LDS theology rejects both Creationism and Abiogenesis is helpful to know, and leaves only room for the theory of Transmission (Panspermia) in its wake.

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4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That LDS theology rejects both Creationism and Abiogenesis is helpful to know, and leaves only room for the theory of Transmission (Panspermia) in its wake.

I was under the impression that Panspermia still doesn't answer the origin of life question, it basically kicks the can down the road, it had to begin somewhere either abiogenesis or God? 

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5 hours ago, snowflake said:

I was under the impression that Panspermia still doesn't answer the origin of life question, it basically kicks the can down the road, it had to begin somewhere either abiogenesis or God? 

On the contrary, LDS theology claims no beginning and no end to life.  The theory of Transmission is also quite popular with astrophysicists.

Abraham 3:18 “if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal.”

Moses 1:3 “Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name; for I am without beginning of days or end of years; and is not this endless?....37 The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.  38 And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.

D&C 29:33 “my works have no end, neither beginning

Joseph Smith, King Follett Funeral Oration, 1844:

“The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is coequal with God himself… The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end… There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-equal with our Father in heaven… Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it. All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement. The first principles of man are self-existent with God” (Journal of Discourses 6:6-7).

Edited by Robert F. Smith
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3 hours ago, snowflake said:

Dr.Tour's discussion on abiogenesis pretty much destroys the theory, did you watch the video? What was your take on it?

I already knew cell functions were extremely complex but Dr. Tour broke the cell down to many parts and explained the numbers associated with each.  He asserted that the number of carbohydrates combinations is 10 raised to 78,000,,000,000 (10^78000000000).  The number of atoms in the observable universe is estimated to be between 10^78 to 10^82.  A mind blowing orders of magnitude difference.  The cell is able to control chemical reactions in discrete steps whereas in nature is unable to start and stop reactions in order to capture certain byproducts and to transport them from place to another.  The video gives an incredible insight to the complex factory operating within the cell.  He said the amount of information within the carbohydrate processes is far greater than in the DNA.  Everyone should view the video.  So amazing.

Dr. Tours is a very impressive scientist as shown in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour

Professor James Tour.jpg
Born 1959
Residence Houston, Texas
Nationality American
Alma mater Stanford University, Postdoctoral
University of Wisconsin, Postdoctoral
Purdue University, PhD
Syracuse University, BS
Known for Molecular electronics, nanotechnology, carbon materials
Spouse(s) Shireen G. Tour
Scientific career
Fields Organic Chemistry
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Institutions Rice University, 1999-present
University of South Carolina, 1988-1999
Thesis Metal-Promoted Cyclization and Transition-Metal-Promoted Carbonylative Cyclization Reactions
Doctoral advisor Ei-ichi Negishi
Website www.jmtour.com
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10 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Claiming that we do not understand the mechanisms of how something happened is not evidence for any contrary hypothesis.

Dr. Tour has a very strong background in many areas of hard science.  The more we learn about the complexity of the cell, the more lame the current "narrative" becomes.  He knows there are academics who will punish any professional who do not toe the line in supporting the politically correct "narrative".

It is not the question of understanding the mechanisms of how abiogenesis occurred.  It is asking the most fundamental questions of which of the basic chemical processes could even begin to occur that could be retained for the next process to begin.  It is a whole different thing for the necessary series of processes to be packaged together and somehow enabled to be "replicated" to provide multiple cells.  Even more far fetched is the coordination between cells and the differentiation of cells to carry on various macro-functions such as the heart, food digestion, respiration, etc.  The basic initial chemical processes are already extremely improbable.  It becomes orders of magnitude more impossible for every step in the level of complexity of organisms.

This is why we need to answer the many questions concerning the beginnings of primitive RNAs.  If the academics cannot deal with the fundamentals, then they don't have a leg to stand on.  They are just telling a fairy tale.

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8 hours ago, snowflake said:

I was under the impression that Panspermia still doesn't answer the origin of life question, it basically kicks the can down the road, it had to begin somewhere either abiogenesis or God? 

Yeah, I kind of think you're right about that. Panspermia might very well explain life on earth, but it does ultimately kick that can.  

It's a question we won't see answered in mortality.  Or elsewhen, if the atheists are correct.  Fun to debate, sure, but ultimately everyone has to come to their own conclusions.

As for me, and I am well aware this is not something that can be disproved (what's the word again?) so it's outside the realm of science, but I'm of the opinion that the Creator caused the can to appear.  

On the other hand, in his last book Hawking explained that "the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing".  If that is true, why couldn't abiogenesis be real?  Just because something is incredibly unlikely doesn't mean it's impossible, does it?  But maybe God designed the universe so that it was actually possible or inevitable for life to emerge out of randomness.  If He could create a universe, he could do pretty much anything he wanted, after all.

Edited by Stargazer
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4 hours ago, longview said:

I already knew cell functions were extremely complex but Dr. Tour broke the cell down to many parts and explained the numbers associated with each.  He asserted that the number of carbohydrates combinations is 10 raised to 78,000,,000,000 (10^78000000000).  The number of atoms in the observable universe is estimated to be between 10^78 to 10^82.  A mind blowing orders of magnitude difference.  The cell is able to control chemical reactions in discrete steps whereas in nature is unable to start and stop reactions in order to capture certain byproducts and to transport them from place to another.  The video gives an incredible insight to the complex factory operating within the cell.  He said the amount of information within the carbohydrate processes is far greater than in the DNA.  Everyone should view the video.  So amazing.

Dr. Tours is a very impressive scientist as shown in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tour

Professor James Tour.jpg
Born 1959
Residence Houston, Texas
Nationality American
Alma mater Stanford University, Postdoctoral
University of Wisconsin, Postdoctoral
Purdue University, PhD
Syracuse University, BS
Known for Molecular electronics, nanotechnology, carbon materials
Spouse(s) Shireen G. Tour
Scientific career
Fields Organic Chemistry
Materials Science
Nanotechnology
Institutions Rice University, 1999-present
University of South Carolina, 1988-1999
Thesis Metal-Promoted Cyclization and Transition-Metal-Promoted Carbonylative Cyclization Reactions
Doctoral advisor Ei-ichi Negishi
Website www.jmtour.com

A similar argument was in my Old Testament Institute manual when I was in my late teens. Nothing new here.

4 hours ago, longview said:

Dr. Tour has a very strong background in many areas of hard science.  The more we learn about the complexity of the cell, the more lame the current "narrative" becomes.  He knows there are academics who will punish any professional who do not toe the line in supporting the politically correct "narrative".

It is not the question of understanding the mechanisms of how abiogenesis occurred.  It is asking the most fundamental questions of which of the basic chemical processes could even begin to occur that could be retained for the next process to begin.  It is a whole different thing for the necessary series of processes to be packaged together and somehow enabled to be "replicated" to provide multiple cells.  Even more far fetched is the coordination between cells and the differentiation of cells to carry on various macro-functions such as the heart, food digestion, respiration, etc.  The basic initial chemical processes are already extremely improbable.  It becomes orders of magnitude more impossible for every step in the level of complexity of organisms.

This is why we need to answer the many questions concerning the beginnings of primitive RNAs.  If the academics cannot deal with the fundamentals, then they don't have a leg to stand on.  They are just telling a fairy tale.

There is no current “narrative” to debunk and if Tours is half as smart as people want to make him he should know that and stop bashing this straw man. Abiogenesis is a placeholder because life had to come from somewhere and that it developed naturally somehow at the time period we can roughly guess life appeared is a plausible hypothesis. Only the most basic speculations as to how it happened have been posited and there is no overarching theory or narrative as to how it happened.

This is dangerous ground to declare victory and crow over. This has happened before in studies of evolution where people held up things like irreducible complexity as an insurmountable obstacle and theory overtook that and explained it reasonably well. If, tomorrow, someone comes up with a plausible mechanism that could reasonably cause abiogenesis then this house of cards falls and people who planted their faith on this ground dies. Or, more likely, the faith of their children dies when they realize their parents had no idea what they were talking about.

I suspect God planted life in a way that could not reasonably be called abiogenesis on this planet but this is probably the worst way to establish that position. There is nothing wrong with having doubts about abiogenesis but the supposed conspiracy against Creationism to hide the undeveloped nature of the study of abiogenesis is a myth.

Still, I am sure it will sell books and make for lucrative speaking engagements so who cares about the facts right?

Edited by The Nehor
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1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

....................................................  

On the other hand, in his last book Hawking explained that "the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing". 

Hawking had no scientific basis for that claim.  Pure fairy tale speculation.  Might as well opt for the spontaneous generation of life, and any other fantasy.

1 hour ago, Stargazer said:

....................... But maybe God designed the universe so that it was actually possible or inevitable for life to emerge out of randomness.  If He could create a universe, he could do pretty much anything he wanted, after all.

The problem with that sort of assertion is that it is logically nonsense.  It posits a god who can create a stone so large that he can't lift it.  An infinity of paradoxes has left most serious thinkers with only one option:  The Death of God.  LDS theology has the unusual distinction of allowing God to do only that which is in accordance with natural law, a law which He did not author.

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35 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Hawking had no scientific basis for that claim.  Pure fairy tale speculation.  Might as well opt for the spontaneous generation of life, and any other fantasy.

Did I say I believed him?  :D  Hawking had not only no scientific basis, he had no math for that claim.

Quote

The problem with that sort of assertion is that it is logically nonsense.  It posits a god who can create a stone so large that he can't lift it.  An infinity of paradoxes has left most serious thinkers with only one option:  The Death of God.  LDS theology has the unusual distinction of allowing God to do only that which is in accordance with natural law, a law which He did not author.

Yes, I know.  Although, I differ with you on God not being the author of natural law.  Of course, if God is of this universe, then of course he did not author natural law.  But the key word here is IF.

Hawking makes a very good point when he writes in chapter one (Is There A God?) in his book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions":

"As we travel back in time towards the moment of the Big Bang, the universe gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until it finally comes to a point where the whole universe is a space so small that it is in effect a single infinitesimally small, infinitesimally dense black hole. And just as with modern-day black holes, floating around in space, the laws of nature dictate something quite extraordinary. They tell us that here too time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the Big Bang because there was no time before the Big Bang. We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

And of course he is absolutely correct -- but if and only if the Creator created himself at the same "time" he created the universe.  This however is implacably absurd.  You see the problem?  In order for the Creator to have created the universe, he has to have been outside it, otherwise he created himself!  Well, I have to admit that that has a certain beauty -- in the same vein as "turtles all the way down" -- but not only does God not play dice with the universe, neither does he operate in the Absurd.

God could have created a universe which was inimical to biogenesis, whose laws would prevent the sustainment of life, if he had wanted to do so.  But since that was counter to his goals, that isn't what he did.  And, oh yes, he is the author of our natural laws. I used to believe otherwise, but I changed my tune.

Edited by Stargazer
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4 hours ago, The Nehor said:

A similar argument was in my Old Testament Institute manual when I was in my late teens. Nothing new here.

I don't think you even listened to Dr. Tours video.  He is a premier expert in nanotechnology and has deep knowledge in many other scientific disciplines.  He is able to construct molecular scale motors and cause it to travel for some distance.  He even uses photons to power certain kinds of "cars".  Nothing new?  You're being ridiculous.

With that kind of knowledge he at least has insights on how RNAs and other components move about within the cell.  What certain chemical processes can occur in parts of the cell.  How the cell is able to start and stop certain reactions.  In nature, molecules do NOT have the ability to retain certain byproducts at a point in a chain of reactions.  It just keeps going from beginning to end.  Dr. Tours explains the extreme improbability of inorganic compounds to produce (and most importantly retain) organic materials.  The sequence of events and byproducts are so difficult as to make it impossible for anything sustainable and repeatable.  He has the numbers and statistics for several basic processes.

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

There is no current “narrative” to debunk and if Tours is half as smart as people want to make him he should know that and stop bashing this straw man.

You remain oblivious to the politically correct "narratives" that are being "enforced" in this country and around the world.  A university president was recently hounded out of office for saying the "wrong thing" about gender studies (the "science" of psychology and biology being abused).  Many academics are very zealous about brooking no "dissent" from the many scientists that question parts of the AGW hysteria (the "science" of meteorology, chemical processes in the atmosphere, data being beling falsified, real history being distorted, etc all being done by institutions funded by government, NOAA refusing to disclose their records, and on and on).

5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

This has happened before in studies of evolution where people held up things like irreducible complexity as an insurmountable obstacle and theory overtook that and explained it reasonably well.

Reasonably well?   Do you hear yourself?   pffffffffft.

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5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

"As we travel back in time towards the moment of the Big Bang, the universe gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until it finally comes to a point where the whole universe is a space so small that it is in effect a single infinitesimally small, infinitesimally dense black hole.

Are you sure you are quoting Hawking correctly?   Should it be infinitesimally small, INFINITELY dense?

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

And just as with modern-day black holes, floating around in space, the laws of nature dictate something quite extraordinary. They tell us that here too time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the Big Bang because there was no time before the Big Bang. We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

If the universe has many more dimensions than the 4 or 5 that we know about.  Time being one of the dimensions.  Would not God operate outside of time?

It is ridiculous to say that something does NOT have a cause.  It is not magic.  If I understand the scriptures and teachings of the church, there is no "beginning of beginnings" and that there has always been a series of creator Gods begetting creator Gods.  An infinite series.  I am inclined to agree with Robert F Smith, God is NOT the author of natural law.

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2 hours ago, longview said:

I don't think you even listened to Dr. Tours video.  He is a premier expert in nanotechnology and has deep knowledge in many other scientific disciplines.  He is able to construct molecular scale motors and cause it to travel for some distance.  He even uses photons to power certain kinds of "cars".  Nothing new?  You're being ridiculous.

With that kind of knowledge he at least has insights on how RNAs and other components move about within the cell.  What certain chemical processes can occur in parts of the cell.  How the cell is able to start and stop certain reactions.  In nature, molecules do NOT have the ability to retain certain byproducts at a point in a chain of reactions.  It just keeps going from beginning to end.  Dr. Tours explains the extreme improbability of inorganic compounds to produce (and most importantly retain) organic materials.  The sequence of events and byproducts are so difficult as to make it impossible for anything sustainable and repeatable.  He has the numbers and statistics for several basic processes.

You remain oblivious to the politically correct "narratives" that are being "enforced" in this country and around the world.  A university president was recently hounded out of office for saying the "wrong thing" about gender studies (the "science" of psychology and biology being abused).  Many academics are very zealous about brooking no "dissent" from the many scientists that question parts of the AGW hysteria (the "science" of meteorology, chemical processes in the atmosphere, data being beling falsified, real history being distorted, etc all being done by institutions funded by government, NOAA refusing to disclose their records, and on and on).

Reasonably well?   Do you hear yourself?   pffffffffft.

Being an expert in something does not make repeating something that is already known “new”. Everyone who has studied this in any depth knows how complicated RNA is. Again, not new. If he was just explaining that to those who did not know it I would have no beef. That he is tying himself to the idea that it is a vast conspiracy to hide something that has been on the Wikipedia page for abiogenesis for a long time is ludicrous. It feeds into the false narrative that scientists are conspiratorial liars. It is deception, piggybacking on a cultural movement’s beloved myth of scientists trying to deceive them. It seems to be working on you with the climate change conspiracy. This is the kind of thing you love to lap up. I try to live by the axiom of being very skeptical of anyone who is telling me exactly what I want to believe. I highly recommend the practice though I am very imperfect at it. I would love to find strong evidence that life did not form on Earth. I am even cautiously optimistic that problems in abiogenesis support that idea but this lying about scientific “narratives” is wrong and harmful and feeds into the worst impulses of those who wallow in delusions of conspiracies.

As to your last comment if you were impressed and thing Tours is presenting some new insight when he talks about the problems in finding a mechanism for abiogenesis I strongly doubt you are enough of a student of biology or evolution to have an informed opinion on irreducible complexity or other biological matters. You do not reach that point by reading watered down popular web articles that only see science as a weapon for cultural, political, or religious purposes. Most of the people who write those aim to deceive.

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8 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Being an expert in something does not make repeating something that is already known “new”. Everyone who has studied this in any depth knows how complicated RNA is. Again, not new.

Nanotechnology is pretty new and is applicable to greater understanding to the inner workings of the cell.  The more you know, the more difficult it is for the "narrators" to defend their fairy tale.  You keep trying to evade the basics of chemical processes (both in inorganics and in biology).  Abiogenesis and inter-species evolution cannot be divorced.  They are NOT mutually exclusive.  One is rooted in the other.  There are evolutionists who refuse to be engaged with certain questions.

18 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

You do not reach that point by reading watered down popular web articles that only see science as a weapon for cultural, political, or religious purposes. Most of the people who write those aim to deceive.

Dr. Tours' is definitely NOT watered down.  You probably only skimmed through his video or you did a knee-jerk automatic rejection of what was said about the different chemical processes.  Do you defend the social justice warriors' punishment of the university professor for saying incorrect things about gender issues?

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9 minutes ago, longview said:

Nanotechnology is pretty new and is applicable to greater understanding to the inner workings of the cell.  The more you know, the more difficult it is for the "narrators" to defend their fairy tale.  You keep trying to evade the basics of chemical processes (both in inorganics and in biology).  Abiogenesis and inter-species evolution cannot be divorced.  They are NOT mutually exclusive.  One is rooted in the other.  There are evolutionists who refuse to be engaged with certain questions.

Dr. Tours' is definitely NOT watered down.  You probably only skimmed through his video or you did a knee-jerk automatic rejection of what was said about the different chemical processes.  Do you defend the social justice warriors' punishment of the university professor for saying incorrect things about gender issues?

Who are these mythical narrators running the scientific establishment who have argued abiogenesis is settled and the mechanisms well understood?!?!?!?

Abiogenesis and evolution from species to species are different objects of study. The former would require the independent formation of living material while the latter requires large-scale alteration. You can argue both have problems and things we do not understand and you would be right. We have little knowledge of how the former could happen and some idea of how the latter could have happened but you exaggerate the overlap.

Why do you keep pounding on the science as if I disagree with it. I do not! I have stated that repeatedly. I object to the lie that our general ignorance about abiogenesis is a new discovery or that there is a conspiracy to hide it. I am saying he and those who propound this are deceiving people on this point.

I stand waiting with bated breath for more of your broken record ramblings about how I did not listen to enough of the clip and how the science is sound because nanobots.

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8 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Did I say I believed him?  :D  Hawking had not only no scientific basis, he had no math for that claim.

Yes, I know.  Although, I differ with you on God not being the author of natural law.  Of course, if God is of this universe, then of course he did not author natural law.  But the key word here is IF.

Hawking makes a very good point when he writes in chapter one (Is There A God?) in his book "Brief Answers to the Big Questions":

"As we travel back in time towards the moment of the Big Bang, the universe gets smaller and smaller and smaller, until it finally comes to a point where the whole universe is a space so small that it is in effect a single infinitesimally small, infinitesimally dense black hole. And just as with modern-day black holes, floating around in space, the laws of nature dictate something quite extraordinary. They tell us that here too time itself must come to a stop. You can’t get to a time before the Big Bang because there was no time before the Big Bang. We have finally found something that doesn’t have a cause, because there was no time for a cause to exist in. For me this means that there is no possibility of a creator, because there is no time for a creator to have existed in."

And of course he is absolutely correct -- but if and only if the Creator created himself at the same "time" he created the universe.  This however is implacably absurd.  You see the problem?  In order for the Creator to have created the universe, he has to have been outside it, otherwise he created himself!  Well, I have to admit that that has a certain beauty -- in the same vein as "turtles all the way down" -- but not only does God not play dice with the universe, neither does he operate in the Absurd.

God could have created a universe which was inimical to biogenesis, whose laws would prevent the sustainment of life, if he had wanted to do so.  But since that was counter to his goals, that isn't what he did.  And, oh yes, he is the author of our natural laws. I used to believe otherwise, but I changed my tune.

All of that entails the normative Judeo-Christian-Muslim theology of God as the Uncaused Cause and only Necessary Being, which creates endless paradoxes, which are the basis of Death of God theologies.  The Book of Mormon sees such a god as impossible.  A god cannot be a god under such absurd conditions.  It isn't that the universe is inimical to biogenesis, but that it requires a Designer, just as a watch requires a Watchmaker.  Abiogenesis is not possible, but advanced sentient beings ("godlike" in atheist parlance) can certainly engineer nearly anything based on advanced technology.  That is the Mormon ace-in-the-hole which comports with the real world, rather than with the fantasies of the theologians -- who are still stuck with the problem of evil (theodicy).

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1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Who are these mythical narrators running the scientific establishment who have argued abiogenesis is settled and the mechanisms well understood?!?!?!?

A cast of thousands.  Dr. Leakey made the brash statement that evolution IS fact.  Fossils in the ground and geologic layers ARE facts but conjectures about the origins and processes are still fairy tales.  There is a great deal of assumptions and extrapolations.

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2 hours ago, longview said:

A cast of thousands.  Dr. Leakey made the brash statement that evolution IS fact.  Fossils in the ground and geologic layers ARE facts but conjectures about the origins and processes are still fairy tales.  There is a great deal of assumptions and extrapolations.

And? Evolution is not abiogenesis.

Leakey has said that he anticipates that the evidence for evolution will grow to be conclusive over the next few years. I cannot find a quote to the effect you describe but, as stated, he is basically right. Almost everyone accepts microevolution at this point. Generally biologists do accept it as proven (with some holes and areas that need exploring). Your problem is that you seem to only play in the political and cultural wars arena which is where the quacks hang out. Talk to some real biologists, the ones doing the real work and you will find that most of them are much more nuanced and careful in their conclusions then you or your allies are and also many of your opponents.

Edited by The Nehor
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17 hours ago, longview said:

Dr. Tour has a very strong background in many areas of hard science.  The more we learn about the complexity of the cell, the more lame the current "narrative" becomes.  He knows there are academics who will punish any professional who do not toe the line in supporting the politically correct "narrative".

 

I haven't really kept up to speed on this, so can you explain what you mean by "current narrative"?  What is this "narrative" that one must support or otherwise risk punishment, and who are the scientists that are doing the punishing (what are their names)? 

Can you provide an example of a scientist that didn't toe the line and got punished?

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12 hours ago, longview said:

Are you sure you are quoting Hawking correctly?   Should it be infinitesimally small, INFINITELY dense?

Yes. I copy/pasted it directly out of his book.

I had a number of epiphanies while reading the first chapter of this book. For a start, while I "believe in" the Big Bang, Hawking characterized the singularity which turned into the Big Bang as containing all the mass and energy in the universe.  So, I thought, this means that it was a black hole, and in fact the ultimate black hole.  Nobody in physics, to the best of my knowledge, has ever said anything about how a black hole with the mass of the universe could possibly explode. It's an interesting question.

Quote

If the universe has many more dimensions than the 4 or 5 that we know about.  Time being one of the dimensions.  Would not God operate outside of time?

I think I was saying that God operates from outside of this universe, or, in other words, from outside of space-time.

Quote

It is ridiculous to say that something does NOT have a cause.  It is not magic.  If I understand the scriptures and teachings of the church, there is no "beginning of beginnings" and that there has always been a series of creator Gods begetting creator Gods.  An infinite series.  I am inclined to agree with Robert F Smith, God is NOT the author of natural law.

Of course it's ridiculous that something does not have a cause.  But if you're Stephen Hawking you can believe it nevertheless.

It is certainly the case that the principles of physics that result in a life-viable universe are pretty nailed down, and if God wanted such a universe then he would use those principles to do it.  So, in a sense you could say that he did not invent the natural law in question, but he did, however, use it to create the universe. And like I said, if he wanted to he could create a universe with different physical laws if he had a reason to do so. I don't know why he might want to, but compared to him I am a flea, so my ignorance on the subject is unremarkable.

In Bill Bryson's book, "A Short History of Nearly Everything", he refers to something the British Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees, has spoken of concerning just one of the physical constants of the universe"

"Rees maintains that six numbers in particular govern our universe, and that if any of these values were changed even very slightly things could not be as they are. For example, for the universe to exist as it does requires that hydrogen be converted to helium in a precise but comparatively stately manner—specifically, in a way that converts seven one-thousandths of its mass to energy. Lower that value very slightly—from 0.007 per cent to 0.006 per cent, say—and no transformation could take place: the universe would consist of hydrogen and nothing else. Raise the value very slightly—to 0.008 per cent—and bonding would be so wildly prolific that the hydrogen would long since have been exhausted. In either case, with the slightest tweaking of the numbers the universe as we know and need it would not be here."

It's clear to me that God could tweak the physical attributes of the universe in any way he chose to obtain the results he wanted.  You can choose to believe that he couldn't, if you want, but I am not so certain that I know enough to assert that he has such a limitation.  Which reminds me of Q (this occurred while he was temporarily mortal and had a backache):

 

Edited by Stargazer
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