A dead cell is one that has altogether ceased to metabolize and whose other functions have completely ceased also. I am not a scientist but I am sure that it is not that difficult to tell the difference between living cells and dead cells. So they are talking about cells that everyone would agree are quite dead.

I have been thinking about this discussion, and decided it is going down the following track

(a) There is a lot of evidence for an old age earth, with the fossils in the rocks consistent with the evolutionary view of the origin of life. The older rocks, dated with a variety of independent methods, are in a location consistent with continental drift, and the fossils in them consistent with the evolutionary view of the origin of the species. There is not one credible instance of strong evidence of a fossil out of place, although creationists do provide cites for things like multi-layer fossils that the evolutionists have solid explanations for. There ARE many proven instances of hoaxes, fraud, and biased analyses/reporting by the creationists - for example, Paluxy.

(b) Nobody claims to know the exact sequence of the evolution of some complex mechanisms, such as DNA, eyes, the clotting mechanisms. However, there is also no proof that these things can not be accounted for by mutation/selection/replication

(c) You keep point to gaps in detailed level knowledge as though they were disproofs of the whole theory. A gap does not disprove a theory. An opinion, even by Darwin himself, and especially one quoted out of context, does not disprove a theory.

It is (a) - the rocks, the dates, the fossils, the archaelogy, the history, that disproves short-age creationism. By poking at (c), the best you get is Intelligent Design - and the thing that SDA and other short-age creationists tend to forget is that the ID people are NOT short-age creationists. They are actually on my side of the fence, except they tend to invoke God to cover the gaps, where I just say 'some of the details are not clear yet'.

/Bevin

Yes, that stems from my original questions, which had to do with the fossil record and the issue of life arising from non-life. If anyone wants to start a new thread dealing with just one particular question, that's fine with me.

I plan to spend as much of my spare time as possible during the next 12 months doing research on the whole subject of evolution and creationism, working more in libraries with real books and journals, though, than on the computer, and also visiting some universities and talking to teachers and scientists.

I don't trust a lot of the stuff I've found when googling. On one site the writer seemed more interested in making fun of people than in dealing seriously with the issues and the data. My personal experience is that atheistic evolutionists tend to do that sort of thing quite a bit.

On one such site, I read where evolutionists said that Henry Morris wrote that the stars in the universe are "only a few thousand years old." I have a hard time believing that Morris taught that. Does anyone know for sure whether Dr. Morris believed that or not?

But if we read Darwin's Origin of Species, chapters 6 and 7, we will see where Darwin himself says, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." Darwin said he could find no such case. But he did admit that if such could be found, "my theory would absolutely break down." I think that's an important point and should be kept in mind. It is not something that can be simply dismissed as if it no longer holds true or is no longer worthy of our consideration.

You speak of not being able to prove the eyes, etc., cannot be accounted for by mutation, selection/replication. I have never seen proof that they can be so accounted for. But that brings up the whole issue of the impossibility of falsifying the theory of evolution. A true scientific theory is, or ought to be, falsifiable, yet there is not a single test or experiment the failure of which could prove the theory wrong. What about that?



I haven't seen any more transitional life-forms between the large groups of animals and plants in the fossils now than there were in Darwin's day. In other words, the missing links are still missing, as far as I can see. All of the dogs are dogs in the fossils and all the horses are always horses, and there are no transitional forms for them to any lower ancestor. Same with the cats and the fish and all the other major groups. All the fossils show us animals that are easily recognizable in one of today's catagories.



I'd like to discuss each of those catagories in closer detail at some time.

The Intelligent Design people may mostly be long-age creationists, but the essential point is that the ID people teach that the world shows evidence that God created the basic life-forms and that human beings, etc., did not evolve from lower forms. To me and other SDA, I think that is more important than their not being short-age creationists.

Don't you believe that life as we know it shows evidence that God made it? And in fact, don't you believe that God did start life's processes? Don't you believe that you are the result of God's plan? Or do you believe that you are an accident, an organism that just happened to result from random mutations?

I'm going to do more research on the soup but so far it appears that it is a theory or a possible explanation, yet there is no proof of the existence of this soup. See below one analysis of the soup theory:


The Primordial Soup Theory


Amino acids forming Proteinoids

(Out of the Slime)

The Primordial Soup Theory suggest that life began in a pond or ocean as a result of the combination of chemicals from the atmosphere and some form of energy to make amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, which would then evolve into all the species.

The Primordial Soup Theory states that Life began in a warm pond/ocean from a combination of chemicals that forms amino acids, which then make proteins. This is suppose to happen at least 3.8 billion to 3.55 billion years ago.

The Russian Chemist A.I. Oparin and English Geneticist J.B.S. Haldane first conceived of this idea. Both developed this theory independently in 1920.

In this theory, the basic building blocks of life came from simple molecule which formed in the atmosphere (w/o oxygen). This was then energized by lightning and the rain from the atmosphere created the "organic soup". The first organisms would have to be simple heterotrophs in order to survive by consuming other organisms for energy before means of photosynthesis. They would become autotrophs by mutation. Evidence now suggest the first organisms were autotrophs

Chemist Stanley Miller and physicist Harold Urey did a famous experiment in 1950 to test this theory. They mixed gases thought to be present on primitive earth:


Methane (CH4)


Ammonia (NH3)


Water (H2O)


Hydrogen (H2)


No Oxygen

They then electrically sparked the mixture to signify lightning. The results were amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. It was later discovered that other energies also can excite gases and produce all 20 amino acids:


Electricity


Ultraviolet light


Heat


Shock

Problems with theory

1. Amino acids have to become protein

a. 1 protein = 100amino acids of 20 varieties

b. 10130 combinations of amino acids

c. Hard to hit the right protein by accident

d. Amino acids are building blocks, not the assembled structure

2. Early atmosphere contain different gases than those used by Miller/Urey

a. No ammonia and methane

b. Not reduced (opposite of oxidized)

c. Experiments with true atmospheric gases did not produce abundant amino acids

3. 2nd Law of Thermodynamics

a. System becomes less and less organized over time

b. Means amino acids cannot form protein spontaneously (more and more organized)

4. Primordial soup too dilute to achieve anything

a. Cannot spontaneously generate proteins

b. No mechanism to concentrate and make protein



This theory emphasize metabolism because of the cooperative group of molecules and how they gain and use energy and molecules.

In an experiment by Sidney Fox, heated amino acids drove
out water as steam and made peptide chains. They were Proteinoids though, very different from real proteins.

The theory of evolution makes predictions about what the dates will be on rocks (beware people who ignore the various deformations such as folding, or who misapply the dating techniques), about the erosion and other big effects one sees in such rocks, and about what combinations of fossils you will NOT see in the same rocks. These predictions are all falsifiable.These predictions do not include the concept of a complete fossil record showing all transitions, nor the possibility of a species existing for millions of years without leaving a fossil found by us, but they do include the general tree of species.

Short-age creationism and global flood also makes predictions about what we will find - and when we find the opposite, suddenly they are appealing to changes in the physical laws of the whole universe to explain the discrepancy. THIS theory is not falsifiable, because the adherents reach the point where they say "I can't trust my own eyes and my own mind EXCEPT when I am reading a translating of a transmission of a specific set of ancient manuscripts".



Is this true? Think about the more bizarre of the fossil species and ask yourself which categories they are in.

This quote, alone, tells me you got this from a web site that is a written by an ignorant creationist.

This needs a separate thread, because this argument has been repeatedly falisified over the past 30 years. {edited by Bravus}

bevin - can I ask you to edit that last sentence please... you know the problems.

in relation to the fossil record *cough*archeopteryx*cough*

I can't edit it (note is too old) but I will rephrase it.


The use of the Second Law in this way has been repeatedly refuted for at least 30 years.

Short-age creationist's should avoid its use as an argument for their position because such usage shows that they do not understand either the Second Law or the history of its role in the debate.

Evolutionists know that the argument has been made and thoroughly refuted. What impression do you think it gives them when they see it being used?

When have we observed living organisms evolve into more complexed living organisms? Is this just a theory based on the observation of some fossils or has this actually been observed?