Vatican: Intelligent design is not science

That analogy would work if the small moon existed at all, even in fiction. But it doesn't. The people who want to go the big, visible moon are baffled by the people who want to go to the "invisible" moon of which there is no evidence, not even a tidal pull. -So the invisible, magical moon people draw up a defined strategy to undermine the study of the visible moon, infiltrate every area of public thought, and try to gain powerful sympathizers to force funding for the rocket to go to the invisible moon while deceitfully claiming that their plan is to look for any moon because the visible moon is really a painting on the sky.

Unfortunately, this is fiction or I would happily support launching the loonies into space.

By the way, arguing about the motivations of fictional cosmonauts is a vast improvement on this thread.

Heh. not bad.

Of course, since (again, returning to my old definitons) the more reasonable ID people are simply pushing for a disclaimer, it would be more like people going to NASA before the moon rocket was ready and saying, "Hey, would you mind telling your astronauts to keep an eye out for our moon? We're pretty sure it's up there somewhere".

Except the Wedge plan blows that kind of innocence out of the water.

Oh... and please don't bring up ID anymore. We're talking about moon people now. KTHXBYE

That assumes that you believe that *everyone* who supports ID (Or invisible moons ) is subversivly trying to destroy civilzation as we know it.

I don't buy that.

There is a huge difference between invisible moon people who believe in it because it's impossible not to believe in it because of their beliefs and that's that and they go about their merry way and the invisible moon people who are in the public eye, lying to judges, and launching a media campaign to undermine real study while deceitfully passing off their own work as legitimate even though it is 100% theologically motivated.

We both know who I'm talking about, or at least we should, because one is topical and the other is not. If you think I'm going after the non-topical group then it's a personal issue.

Sure. But like I said, it's a double-edged sword. In their attempt to, pardon the pun, drive a wedge in for their own purposes, they've opened a crack that lets in more than just their own beliefs. I'm of the opinion that in the long run it will even out.

The current theory of how life appeared is abiogenesis. It replaced the theory mice came from decomposing grain.

Many suggest it must be a natural mechanism, but it is yet undiscovered.

If it was found to have a natural mechanism, the question would be, how is it this natural function of nature only occurred once, ever, in the history of life?

Still, it is hard to conceive of a natural mechanism that would bring together all the required ingredients to create the functions found in the most basic life form.

The first life form must do more than live, it must consume food, remove waste, take in gases, and regulate all functions. That is just in order to survive beyond becoming alive.

Beyond that, this new creature must figure a way to reproduce itself. Or it will wear out and die.

Science tells use this "natural mechanism" only happened once, so we haven't been able to witness it. So if it is a natural mechanism, it's not very constant.

Feh.

It's harder to concieve of going so fast that time stops.

It's even harder to concieve of splitting an atom and changing the spin of the electrons on one half of the atom, and then the electrons on the other half change as well, no matter how far apart they are.

"hard to concieve" does not invalidate something.

Taking a wild guess that is untestable doesn't validate the idea either. It's clearly untestable and requires more faith than believing in a creator.

It didn't. Right now, life is being abiogenitically forming on your scalp. thousands of times a second; god told me so. Unfortunately, this life doesn't get very far because it is almost instantly eaten up by your distant cousins the microphages who have 3 billion years of practice at consuming organic molecules for their own purposes.

When you look at the world around you - correction: when others look at the world around you - we see the successful lifeforms and don't see the failed ones by virtue of them having failed. On this planet, the RNA/DNA based replicators happened to be the ones that won and any other life that might have happened before or after simply got outcompeted by that which we now see.

Let me rephrase my earlier assertion. Not only do you understand not a damn thing about the theory of natural selection, you have negative knowledge about it. Care for a game of chess, Trigger?

First of all, it could never, ever, require more faith than believing in a creator. Nothing can. It is the ultimate test of faith.

Second, it's hardly a wild guess, and it's hardly untestable. You simply choose to ignore all facts presented to you, that's not the same thing.

What tests are you referring to? We are talking about abiogenesis.

Oh, are we now?

In either event, my first point still stands.

I'm beginning to think someone wrote a creationist version of ELIZA.

Yes, that is a broad category of theories of the origin of life.

That is a reasonable definition of life. Some may quibble about things like viruses and such, but eventually you need to reach this stage at some point.

Which is what makes the field so much fun. If only someone would pay me to work on this problem. *sigh*

These points I would disagree with. I suspect that life from non-life probably did happen more than once. Of course, you need to be careful about the split in definition between what is alive and what isn't, which is why choosing a consistant definition is important.

I'm glad we finally agree for the most part about actual scientific theories. This field is fascinating and I look forward to seeing what new evidence is uncovered in the search for answers to this ellusive problem. Still, we are a long way from being able to recreate the whole string of events. We are still barely able to clone, much less create life from non-life.

And if we did create life from non-life, it would suggest ID, not abiogenesis, as it takes man's know-how to do it.

As it so happens, many of the critical genetic molecules (telomarases, transrctipases, etc.) fairly fall together spontaneously. That we have fossils of 3.5 billion year old Archaeons shows that life was fairly "itching" to get started once the surface of the earth stopped boiling.

I'd put references here, but as you haven't read a bloody thing anyone has posted, I'll just take the opportunity to point out again that you have absolutely no idea of the subject matter you think you mastered to a degree that you can brush off a century and a half of work as incompatible with what the bible and Duane Gish tell you.

Actually, it would suggest neither.

Other uses for dead horses:

Gelatin, glue, and you can make a sweet profit off of selling dead horses to the overseas market according to straightdope.com (buy horses in the United States for about 50 cents a pound and sell the horsemeat overseas for about $15 a pound).

There is also that perpetual rumor going around that Romans figured out that elephants are afraid of the smell of horse blood, but I think that one's just a rumor because I can't verify it from a reputable source.

A dead horse could also be left near a bed of fire ants for a few days until all that is left is the hide and bones. Have your buddy crawl inside and pretend to be a zombie horse.

"Dead horse" is apparently slang for ketchup.

That depends how it's done.