Story submitted by Eric Worrall
How do we prove climate alarmists are wrong? Let us count the ways
If the temperature goes up, this is just what the models predicted – watch out because …
…soon it will get a lot worse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaway_climate_change
If the temperature goes down, the deep ocean is swallowing the heat – even though the heat can’t be measured, we know it must be there, because that is what the climate models tell us. Global warming prevails! http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/pacific-ocean-and-climate-change-pause/
If the global temperature crashes, its because global warming induced melting of arctic ice shut down the ocean currents. http://science1.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2004/05mar_arctic/
If the snow disappears, this is just as models predicted – snowfall is a thing of the past. http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
If there is an unusually heavy snowfall, this is just as models predicted – global warming is increasing the moisture content of the atmosphere, which results in increased snow cover. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/10/2010-snowmageddon-explained-sans-global-warmingclimate-change/
If there is a drought, that is because of global warming. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/21/causes-of-midwest-drought-2012_n_1690717.html
Except of course, when global warming causes heavy rainfall. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/13/global-warming-the-incompetent-politicians-excuse/
No matter what the observation, no matter how the world changes, we can never falsify alarmist climate theories. Any possible change, any possible observation, can always be explained by anthropogenic global warming.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/22/occams-razor-and-climate-change/
THERE SIMPLY IS NOT A SINGLE CLIMATE MODEL worth the name, in existence anywhere, as I tried to illustrate in
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/snippets-questions-2-climate-models.html
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/snippets-questions-2-comments.html
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/snippets-questions-2-some-answers-re.html
or in
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/blog-post.html
or
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/eating-sun-fourth-estatelondon-2009.html
That said, I am now rueing that I allowed myself to fall into the trap I should have avoided in line with an earlier comment I made elsewhere:
“I am getting bored. The globe can be getting warmer or colder, but the idea that the human contribution from burning carbon fuels has anything to do with it is not only IMHO the biggest political and intellectual fraud ever – but so says the IPCC itself: http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.com/2011/10/west-is-facing-new-severe-recession.html. The ongoing discussion pro and con is becoming akin to the scholastic argument as to how many angels can dance on the head of a needle. Which is, of course, exactly what is intended to achieve worldwide disorientation away from the actual IPCC aims of monetary and energy policies, i.e. helotization and de-democratization – and bringing a whole, if not all, of science into disrepute.
And if you want to see how big that trap is, try those two TYGER reads, as in http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/tyger-spoors.html and
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/tyger-lair-from-edenhofer-interview-1.html
Warning: you read these at your own risk!
Now, after five years of my bloggery I put together a BLOG LOG http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/blog-post.html
of all my postings, after which I consider that my first blog is still as valid as ever
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2009/08/clean-energy-primer-quousque-tandem.html
Many things I learned since during my meanderings, above all the recipe book for the way ahead by the incomparable Hermann Scheer:
http://cleanenergypundit.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/at-risk-of-boring-you-i-must-quote.html
milodonharlani says:
August 15, 2014 at 3:33 pm
Will Nitschke says:
August 15, 2014 at 3:26 pm
Both evolution & cosmology make testable predictions, so are scientific. Evolution is as subject to test by experiment as any other science, & has always been confirmed when so tested, never falsified. Cosmology is currently in more need of further testing than evolution, but no theory is ever settled in all its details, except when finally directly observed, as in the case of the heliocentric theory of the solar system, as refined.
—
Don’t be bamboozled by claims that cosmology has become and observational science. The observation part has always has been Astronomy. Cosmology is never astronomy, and astronomy is not cosmology, one is purely observation and the other is purely mental construct.
The only thing that has changed is that the astronomical observational sensors and field of view now permits cosmological theories to be falsified with actual observations, rather than just replaced with more theoretical constructs.
Cosmology isn’t just in need of a bit further testing, it has barely begun to be tested at all. Come back in one century and cosmology of 2114 will be radically different to that of Aug 2014, just as it was in 1914, compared to today.
With evolution it was entirely the other way around, there were an existing plethora of observations that could no longer be just ignored and denied. The theory came next but the observations defined the theory in that case, rather than a theory drove exploration and demand for new observations. So Evolution basically became blindingly obvious early on, and it was only the processes and mechanism of it that took until mid last century to identify.
With Cosmology its almost exactly the reverse, they propose initial conditions and a mechanism, then the processes, then wait for instruments to be built which might be able to falsify the lot.
Mostly they forget that falsification is what you’re really shooting for. If it’s impossible to reject on observational grounds then it might be valid – but only MIGHT be. Because other confounding and contradictory observations always spring up to spoil the gush of hubris and back-slaps. Incomprehensible observation of an accelerating cosmos for instance.
Place a peg on your nose and wear rubber gloves before coming into contact with any theory, and regard all theory fans as potentially leprous.
Nitschke says;
AGW theory is not a theory at all. It is set of computer models set up to try a predict climatic change based on a SWAG. Somewhere a long the line some “scientist” noticed that there was an increase in the co2 content in the atmosphere and there also happened to be a increase in atmospheric temperature (energy content). Now taking these observations and plotting a linear increase it was determined that if this continued life as we know it would be greatly and adversely effected.
So this scientist goes to some of his bodies a they get together and develop a theory on why this happens and apply for some grants to study it. Some politician looks at it says this makes sense to me at gets them the grant money and also starts telling everyone the world is going to end unless we fix this problem (which of course only he can do). Meanwhile the scientist go back their university and talk to some off the computer guys running the WEATHER modeling software and they start playing around. They take these ideas and play for a while with software till the have something that they think accurately represents how the atmosphere behaves. They then run the software and it predicts they end of the world and they go tell everyone the world is going to end.
Unfortunately for them someone else along the way says what happens if you run the software backwards? The answer is it does not come close, but it seems to be working going forward ,heck it has correlated pretty well with five or six years of actual observation. So they play with this idea and that idea to try and figure out how to make it work going backwards but nothing they do works. They at this point assume the model works so they question historical facts because their model says it must be so. They make a lot of head way here baffling people with BS and more SWAG and everyone jumps on board and buys in, but then something funny happens the models go complete of the rails going forward too.
Now they have to figure out a way to explain this. Even though they know according to their model and in fact what they based every aspect of the theory on temperatures must rise in relation to co2 content.
I know it must be in the ocean, ok let’s figure out how this works. Energy from the sun shines down on the earth and is reflected in to the atmosphere and the temperature rises as the co2 absorbs and energy and re directs back down as IR energy. So the temperature should continue to rise as long as the co2 content rises. But it’s not. What if they energy is being absorb by the ocean and stored? Sounds good and you know the oceans have been warming (I know they were warming before the co2 thing but don’t worry about that) must be the answer. Hey I have a question why wasn’t this also happening for the last 100 years? Also IR energy doesn’t real penetrate into the oceans real well, so wouldn’t it still warm the atmosphere. Oh ya and co2 content is still rising too wouldn’t there have to be a continual increase in the amount of energy the oceans absorb for the atmosphere not warm. And since according to these same scientist the surface ocean temps have been warming all a long wouldn’t it makes that adding more energy would increase this process? Wouldn’t the warmer oceans warm the colder atmosphere? Oh ya when you warm the top layer of the ocean how about that evaporation thing.
So again how does the oceans warm with out the atmosphere warming too?
It can’t
AGW theory is not a Theory at all because it doesn’t stand up to any actual scrutiny. Changing history and ignore facts is not adjusting a theory it trying to stretch out founding. Oh ya it’s also called lying.
Most of these people are pretty old though so I guess they are not too afraid of their mothers any more so that part doesn’t bother them. Climate is not weather.
Oh i forgot my prediction, the arctic wont by ice free for at least 40 years and never because of AGW
Bob, I think nitschke is just saying that while the current AGW theory is full of holes, there is some scientific basis for parts of it. I didn’t get the sense that he/she was in anyway arguing for the current mess that proponents like to call theory, just that certain mechanisms could/do exist in nature.
Re: evolution discussion, while I can certainly see the elegance of the evolutionary theory, and the many observations that seem to confirm it, what would really intrigue me is a robust attempt to address some of the holes in the theory…trying to find examples that falsify is where a theory is ultimately tested. As I understand it, the problems (or unanswered questions, rather) with the theory include the following:
– how do sexually reproducing organisms evolve…seems highly improbable
– I’m not sure I agree that micro – evolution, which can easily be described by natural variability, is the same mechanism as macro evolution. The genetic codes already include variability, but to randomly generate new variability is certainly a different mechanism.
– I think we need to come up with some plausible explanation for certain lifeforms that do not easily fit into the evolutionary explanation. The caterpillar/butterfly is a good example. It’s difficult for me to wrap my head around a random mechanism that induces an organism to dissolve itself and reform in a entirely new structure. (What a fascinating organism!!!)
– I don’t think we observe new information randomly being created in nature. This is maybe the most difficult aspect of evolution to justify. We really need to conduct some controlled experiments to see if we can observe this phenomenon.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts.
rip
Rip says
No actually he isn’t saying anything at all.
Nitschke say
Rip
“That anyone that believes GHG cause the atmosphere to warm and anyone who doesn’t believe that is a crank.”
What if i was to say that as soon as the energy enters the atmosphere it is there and when it leaves its gone. GHG absorb and redirect energy that is already in the atmosphere back into the atmosphere thus not causing any increase in energy. The only way energy stays in the atmosphere in a greater quantity is if the atmosphere retains more energy. Now what if I told you CO2 has less of an ability to retain energy on a mass for mass basis then atmospheric air? What if i was to say you can only retain more energy by increasing the mass of the atmosphere or by finding a way to increase the amount of energy coming into the atmosphere thats it.
Because this is what quite a few scientist are starting to say, are they cranks?
Nitschke believes that he is some kind of expert and that he determines what makes sense or not, but if you read what he writes he never actual says what is going on, he isn’t brave enough to. He just tries to redirect and confuse.
Nitschke, by the way I really don’t care if you read my posts and I am pretty sure that there aren’t a lot of people sitting home just waiting for you to read theirs either.
By the way have you came up with a prediction based on your understanding of AGW theory yet?
Sorry
The quote should have been
“GHG warms the atmosphere and anyone who doesn’t believe that is a crank”
I was wondering how long it would take before you touted your own credentials. Appeals to authority and ad hominem attacks are sure signs of a lost argument. But it is a very common occurrence throughout the history of science. Anyone who questions the dogma is ignorant. You know you’re right, and anyone who disagrees with you is either ignorant or an idiot. What’s interesting to me is how many “scientists” are so intolerant of questioning and so adamant about their own beliefs.
There’s a difference between ignorance and not accepting dogma. Just because you read something in a textbook doesn’t make it true. There is no reason why a living thing has to reproduce or be able to reproduce. Is reproduction essential to life? No. It is only essential to the continuation of the species because all physical life dies. I’ll ask again, if you, yourself, were incapable of reproducing, would that mean you were not alive? If all the cells of your body were eternal, not only would they have no need to reproduce, their reproduction could be a real problem. There is a difference between reproduction being a characteristic of all known physical life forms and it being an essential characteristic of life itself.
Explain to me why life must reproduce, i.e., why you consider it to be an essential characteristic of life. You’re a biologist. You studied at Stanford. Surely this will be easy for you. I’m not interested in a textbook definition. The textbook was not written by the hand of God on stone tablets.
ripshin says:
August 16, 2014 at 7:14 am
“– how do sexually reproducing organisms evolve…seems highly improbable”
__
I’d say the probability of a brain being an integral emergent product of weathered silicate rock crystals is also rather improbable.
But it happened.
Jtom
… Eric Worrall, I fear you missed the point. Since other theories, from God to little green men from Alph Centauri, could explain the flower and the moth, then that example “proves” no theory. It is simply consistent with various theories.
The flower and the moth example highlights what I think is a weakness in evolution. Which came first, the plant or the moth? I could see the advantage of the moth evolving to take advantage of the flower, but why would the flower evolve to suit the moth? If the flower was the result of a random mutation, how and why did it survive until the moth evolved? If it were a gradual process involving both, the question is why? What advantage did it provide? Clearly both organisms were surviving before, and during, those mutations.
I am sure you are familiar with a keystone arch – an arch that would collapse without a center top-stone, but that stone requires the others to support it. It requires exterior support while being constructed, and only after construction can those supports be removed. I have studied many biological processes that would require dozens of independent mutations to create, but there would be no benefit to the organism until a key mutation toward the end of the process. Why didn’t those mutations ‘collapse’, i.e. not be maintained since they provided nothing for the organism, before that ‘keystone’ mutation occurred? I won’t even pretend to know the answer.
I haven’t seen any theory that satisfies me, and likely won’t.
Evolution isn’t a clean affair. Our genes contain a lot of detritus, genetic codes for useless or even harmful features like the appendix which in humans. Or the hair on our heads, or other places, which serves very little useful purpose. But many elements in this library of useless features carried by our genes are probably one mutation away from doing something useful, should the human race ever face the kind of selection pressure required to force a change from our current pattern.
There have been cases of humans adapting unusual features to survive harsh environments – its rare, but it happens. African Bushmen in Africa or Australian Aborigines, for example, tend to have metabolic adaptions to extreme temperatures found in deserts, they have far greater ability to endure harsh desert conditions than say Europeans.
Then you have humans born with webbed feet and hands, and other more extreme mutations. In humans, these mutations are usually a nuisance, but you can easily imagine a series of similar mutations in other species, which produced a more beneficial outcome – for example, the webbing which led to the earliest bats developing a rudimentary ability to fly, or the mutations which took the land living ancestors dolphins and whales back into the sea.
As for your example of insects and flowers – the flowers came first of course. They were a mutation, something as useless as the human appendix or the webbing on an unfortunate child’s feet – except that when insects started to feed from them, they offered a drastic evolutionary advantage to the plants which had this mutation.
All these events are very low probability – its difficult to comprehend just how many throws of the dice nature gets to try in a billion years.
When Algore says something stupid, it’s global warming’s fault.
When Algore…. never mind.
re: appendixes, heads of hair and evolution.
There are theories about what the appendix does, e.g., harbor “good” bacteria in the gut. And I find the hair on my head prevents sunburn. In any case, just because we can’t think of a use doesn’t mean there isn’t one.
In my opinion, the biggest problem with evolution is the premise that incredibly complex and highly organized life forms, more complex than anything man has made, arise out of random, meaningless processes. Just what is it about the laws of physics and chemistry that cause this to happen? There has never been any explanation of this that I know of. Complex codes, e..g, computer algorithms, architectural plans, etc., are not in the habit of creating themselves much less improving upon themselves by acquiring knowledge they didn’t have before.
The origin of life itself is a complete mystery. For 100 years scientists have tried to figure it out and create life in the laboratory with complete failure. If it is a natural result of the laws of nature than it should not be so hard to watch it happen. Lots of conjecture but nothing else.
The equilibrium of every chemical reaction concerning the molecules of life lies in the wrong direction, i.e., towards the precursor, not towards the end product. There’s a very good reason why we don’t see life popping up all over the place – because the laws of chemistry prevent it. The natural thing for proteins and DNA to do is to fall apart, not self assemble. It is only the knowledge embedded in DNA that makes life possible and there is no scientific explanation of where that knowledge came from that rises beyond pure conjecture.
Richard Wright:
At August 16, 2014 at 2:57 pm you say to Eric Worrall
DNA contains information.
Transcription errors and exposure to chemicals and radiation modify DNA.
Modified DNA provides mutations.
Survival of the fittest for an environment selects for some mutations and selects against others.
Thus, mutations and natural selection have evolved “incredibly complex and highly organized life forms, more complex than anything man has made”.
And systems “more complex than anything man has made” which are not biological organisms have also evolved; for example, the Sun.
What is the “knowledge” that you say evolving organisms are “acquiring”?
Richard
Richard Wright says:
August 16, 2014 at 9:10 am
There is no argument. You already lost it by being unable to reply to any of the explanations I provided in answer to your questions. All you have are your religious beliefs, not a shred of science supportable by evidence or reason.
There is no universally agreed-upon textbook definition of life. Observation by scientists & laymen alike has however led them to conclude that all living things yet found display replication & metabolism. Non-living things don’t. A few forms constitute a grey area, as noted, like viruses.
Even very long-lived clonal plants like Pando replicate their constituent cells.
Eric’s examples of head hair & the appendix aren’t valid instances of what he is trying to describe, but humans do have lots of vestigial relicts of our evolutionary ancestry. Some are so on their way out that not everyone even has them today, like the Woolnernian tip or Darwin’s tubercule, which I have but you might not. It’s a vestige of when our ancestors had pointy ear tips. The gene for it is inherited as an autosomal dominant, but with incomplete penetrance, hence not everyone with the gene will necessarily display the phenotype. Evolution is also reducing the incidence of wisdom tooth eruption, although dentistry & medicine might be slowing down this development.
Other genuinely vestigial structures in humans include the plica semilunaris on the inside corner of the eye (a remnant of the nictitating membrane), muscles to move our ears for better sound location, which still function slightly in people able to wiggle their ears, & other muscles found on the head, face, arm, torso, leg, breasts & tongue with varying degrees of occurrence in different populations. Other structures (such as the occipitofrontalis muscle) have lost their original functions (in that case to keep the head from falling) but have been coopted by evolution for other purposes (facial expression).
Humans also bear some vestigial behaviors & reflexes. The formation of goose bumps in humans under stress is a vestigial reflex; its function in human ancestors was to raise the body’s hair, making the ancestor appear larger and scaring off predators, & to make space for more heated air to keep them warmer. Humans have the same number of hairs per square inch of skin as chimps, but ours don’t grow as long.
Infants will instinctively grasp any object which touches the palm, in some cases strongly enough to support their own weight. This palmar grasp reflex harkens back to when our young ancestors clung to their mother’s fur.
There are also vestigial molecular structures in humans, which we no longer use but show our common ancestry with other species. An example is L-gulonolactone oxidase, a gene–functional in most other mammals–which produces the terminal enzyme to make vitamin C. A mutation deactivated this gene in an ancestor of the haplorhine (“simple or dry nose”) primates (tarsiers, monkeys & apes), while the strepsirrhine (“curved or wet nose”) prosimians, like most other orders of mammals, have retained this enzyme’s function & hence the ability to manufacture vitamin C. But the broken gene still remains in our genomes as a vestigial sequence called a pseudogene, of which humans, like most mammals, have a lot, which help reconstruct phylogenies. Guinea pigs, Indian fruit bats & a handful of other species are the only mammals who cannot make their own vitamin C, but their genes are broken in different ways from that of us dry-nosed primates.
Conversely, sometimes the genetic controls that suppress genes we still retain for traits now not normally expressed fail to stop the development of atavistic features such as tails.
Before you decide what you imagine to be the biggest problem for evolution, you really ought to study the subject. Doing so would require work, but the scales would fall away from your eyes wondrously, if your mind is open. I mention that I have studied biology for over 40 years because even after having objective reality explained to you, you continue preferring the ignorance upon which you so pride yourself.
The laws of physics & chemistry not only allow life to develop under certain circumstances but may well require it to solve energetic problems. However abiogenesis, the origin of living things, is a different process from evolution, the origin of new life forms from existing ones. Evolution isn’t always driven by random processes, as you falsely suppose. Its processes are “directional” in the case of selection & stochastic in the case of “nondirectional” evolution, such as genetic drift from reproductive isolation or some other barrier separating formerly interbreeding populations. Mutations arise more or less randomly (although organisms can increase their frequency when needed), but selective pressure on genetic variation arising from mutation & other sources isn’t always random. Mutations cannot help but happen from the process of replication, passing cosmic rays, mutagenic agents in the environment or other regularly occurring natural causes. As noted, there are other sources of genetic variation, such as the inclusion of viral or bacterial genomes into those of eukaryotic organisms, like humans.
The history of accumulated genetic variation is, as I told you, used to work out relationships among different species, genera, families, orders, classes, phyla, kingdoms & domains, to use old-fashioned Linnaean nomenclature.
Remarkable progress is being made on origin of life research. Instead of just assuming abiogenesis is impossible, why don’t you read up on the great strides made in recent decades in understanding how it could occur, & in some phases of the process probably did? Many issues have been resolved satisfactorily. It’s yet another fascinating subject which you have not allowed yourself to study for fear of what you might find. I don’t have time on a fine summer afternoon to list all the important breakthroughs, but some are breathtaking.
There is nothing miraculous about the increasing complexity of life on earth over its nearly four billion year history. Unless earth somehow avoids the fate of other planets around sun-sized stars, life here will start getting less complex again in another 500 million to billion years. Then it will go extinct when the sun goes red giant in a few billion years, although life probably will do so long before then, unless humans or other capable future species manage to engineer the solar system to avoid that fate, or colonize the solar system or the galaxy. The fossil record & genomics allows science to observe & figure out when various groups diverged from each other & developed greater complexity. You could observe developments in the history of life on earth, too, if you had not willfully blinded yourself to reality.
The title is wrong. See Rupert Darwall’s recent article.
PS: Insects are older than flowering plants, but after the appearance of angiosperms, those plants & insects co-evolved, sometimes into remarkably specific relationships.
Richard Wright says:
August 15, 2014 at 9:08 pm
One of the two prerequisites for life is replication.
Really. If you were unable to reproduce but existed forever would that mean you were not living? (Waiting for the next ad hominem attack by “Mister Brilliant and anyone who disagrees with me is ignorant, blind, unobjective, an living in a fantasy world”.)
~ I assume you mean, existing forever as a human being without the ability to reproduce? Counting a human as a stand-alone ‘unit of life’ is hardly accurate. Living cells which make up the human body must continuously ‘reproduce’ (divide via mitosis) or the body would quickly wear out and death would result.
Dylan says:
August 16, 2014 at 6:10 pm
Richard Wright says:
August 15, 2014 at 9:08 pm
One of the two prerequisites for life is replication.
Does that mean “life, as we know it”?
Nice story. It’s really wonderful how you present everything so dogmatically. You stipulate everything and there is supposed to be no debate. And, once again, because you can not debate, you resort to personal attacks; “Before you decide what you imagine to be the biggest problem for evolution, you really ought to study the subject.” and “you continue preferring the ignorance upon which you so pride yourself.” and ” you have not allowed yourself to study for fear of what you might find.”.
You claim that I don’t answer your questions but when I ask you one simple question about whether reproduction is a necessary characteristic of life you don’t even make an attempt to answer it but just spin a yarn of all sorts of unrelated supposed proofs of evolution.
Let’s just leave it at you’re a genius and I’m an ignorant idiot religious nut with no scientific eduction. That’s what you want to believe, I guess because it makes you feel better about yourself. Clearly that believe is an objective, rational scientific analysis. The amount of disdain you have for me is truly remarkable. What an idiot I am that I don’t just accept all of the wonderful, incontrovertible truths that you have so kindly bestowed upon me. How ungrateful I am!
I do love the line about all of the “breakthroughs” in abiogenesis. Set up an experiment and watch life create itself in the laboratory given the right conditions. That would mean something. How hard can it be? After all we’re told the universe is full of life! It’s just a normal outcome of the laws of physics and chemistry. When you’ve done that then perhaps I’ll change my mind. Basic experimental verification. That’s all I ask. I am ignorant but I think that that’s a reasonable scientific request.
Global Warming: Heads they win, tails you lose.
http://tinyurl.com/nexp22g
Mason I Bilderberg:
I’m happy to hear from a person (you) who seemingly understands the logical implications of the use of weasel words (aka polysemic words) in climatological arguments. When a climatological argument is made in terms of weasel words and a weasel word changes meanings in the midst of this argument then this argument is an example of an “equivocation.” An equivocation looks like an argument that has a valid conclusion aka a syllogism but isn’t one. Hence the rule that one cannot draw a valid conclusion from an equivocation. To draw such a conclusion is an “equivocation fallacy.” Through applications of this fallacy, climatological “scientists” have deceived journalists, politicians and many others into thinking that there is a scientific basis for regulations on CO2 emissions when there is not such a basis.
The “knowledge” is the information contained within DNA. The knowledge to polymerize the molecules of life into proteins, DNA, RNA, build the cell and govern it’s machinery. The knowledge to organize countless billions of cells into a mutl-cellular organisms, turn on and off regulatory genes at just the right time to differentiate cells and govern their distinct roles. Etc., etc.
I suggest you try mutating the computer code that runs your web browser and try to produce at better version.
I am at a loss to understand your point about the complexity of the Sun. It’s disorganized complexity is very different than the ordered complexity of a cell or the space shuttle. Cells contain incredible complex organized molecular mechanisms. Not just a bunch of hydrogen molecules bumping into each other.
Dylan says:
August 16, 2014 at 6:10 pm
When Richard produces evidence of an RNA- &/or DNA-based form of “life” existing forever without replicating itself in any way, yet carrying out biochemical metabolism, then his alternative world hypothesis might have some support. Living things as observed on earth don’t work like that.
So far scientists have not found a life form on earth (or anywhere else) that doesn’t use RNA or DNA for replication & biochemicals synthesized by instructions contained in those molecules to conduct metabolism from which processes to derive energy. This observation offers fundamental support to the theory of common descent. It is possible however that two different cellular membranes evolved separately, in bacteria & archaea, to contain these chemical reactions & house the genetic material which controls replication.
He’s also wrong that scientists can only conjecture how RNA arose.
http://phys.org/news/2013-12-scientists-closer-rna.html
It’s not at all uncommon for chemicals & minerals to self-assemble. No mystery, & no conjecture.
Then there is the somewhat older hypothesis, supported by observations, that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which abound in the universe, helped mediate the synthesis of RNA molecules. It is no coincidence that in a self-ordering stack of PAH, adjacent rings are separated by 0.34 nm. This just so happens to be the same separation distance found between adjacent nucleotides of RNA & DNA. Moreover, smaller molecules will naturally attach themselves to the PAH rings, but PAH rings, during formation, tend to swivel around on one another, which can cause attached compounds to collide with those fixed above and below them to dislodge. Therefore the attachment of flat molecules such as pyrimidine & purine nucleobases, the key constituents (& information carriers) of RNA & DNA, is preferentially encouraged. These bases are similarly amphiphilic, so also tend to line up in similar stacks.
More recent research further explodes the lies he repeats. Among other substances which can act as a substrate to promote RNA synthesis through self-assembly is water ice, also common in the universe:
http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v5/n12/full/nchem.1781.html
I could go on, but better that Richard study origin of life research on his own, in hopes he’ll quit making baseless assertions gleaned from the blatant lies of paid ID Creationism advocates.
Richard Wright says:
August 16, 2014 at 6:30 pm
You don’t know enough to be able to debate. No dogma, just facts.
I answered your question repeatedly. Yes, replication is characteristic of all life forms yet observed. How many times do I need to repeat myself?
Nothing I said was unrelated. I was responding to your questions. Science doesn’t do “proof”. It does showing predictions false. Prediction made by ID Creationism is false & it’s incapable of explaining anything. The predictions made by evolution are confirmed & it explains the history of life on earth.
It is indeed idiotic to make dogmatic assertions as you do out of total ignorance.
As in comment above, important steps in the development of life from complex, self-organizing organic compounds have indeed been reproduced in the lab. There have been lots of others. But instead of reading up on the subject, you just make baseless claims.
Cellular mechanisms have evolved over billions of years on earth from simpler mechanisms, which in turn arose abiogenetically from complex organic chemical constituents, without any need for a Designer’s intervention, although you can insert It at any point you want. If living organisms were designed, then their Designer is incompetent, cruel & deceptive.
Dylan says:
August 16, 2014 at 6:10 pm
That this blog is infested with creationist trolls like Richard, who can’t take an answer for an answer because it doesn’t jibe with their voodoo beliefs and who pick a fight on a tangential issue when they lose on every substantive point, does a great disservice to skepticism about “climate change”. To his credit, John Christy, to whom condolences on his loss, keeps his religious faith out of his science. Roy Spencer should follow his lead, instead of proposing apparently seriously that the earth is self-regulating because of God.