Changes

::To address your questions at a more basic level, we are still learning more about the connections between inorganic and organic chemistry, and how complexity could arise without a designer's intervention.  We don't question, for example, that salt and other minerals arrange their crystals in very precise lattices as they form.  There are rules of chemical bonding that govern this, and experiments over time have shown beyond doubt that this is an intrinsic property of these elements, and not of supernatural influence.  We've known since the 1950's that simple chemicals, when mixed and exposed to electricity, can form compounds like amino acids on their own.  Just last Fall, scientists in Montreal showed that chemistry can also explain the formation of something even more complex like a ribosome.  Here's the key except from this [http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/02/20/ribosome.html article]:

::To address your questions at a more basic level, we are still learning more about the connections between inorganic and organic chemistry, and how complexity could arise without a designer's intervention.  We don't question, for example, that salt and other minerals arrange their crystals in very precise lattices as they form.  There are rules of chemical bonding that govern this, and experiments over time have shown beyond doubt that this is an intrinsic property of these elements, and not of supernatural influence.  We've known since the 1950's that simple chemicals, when mixed and exposed to electricity, can form compounds like amino acids on their own.  Just last Fall, scientists in Montreal showed that chemistry can also explain the formation of something even more complex like a ribosome.  Here's the key except from this [http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/02/20/ribosome.html article]:

:::"But proving that chemicals can spontaneously form simple amino acids did not prove that spontaneous action could create more complex mechanisms. "In the absence of such explanations, some people could imagine unseen forces at work when such complex structures emerge in nature," said Steinberg.  Steinberg was able to show otherwise. He found the ribosome was put together using relatively simple structural rules, a bit like a three-dimensional puzzle. For critics who ask why spontaneous formation didn't lead to something other than the ribosome, Steinberg used mathematical models to show there was no other possibility. The ribosome simply wouldn't hold together if it were constructed any other way."

:::"But proving that chemicals can spontaneously form simple amino acids did not prove that spontaneous action could create more complex mechanisms. "In the absence of such explanations, some people could imagine unseen forces at work when such complex structures emerge in nature," said Steinberg.  Steinberg was able to show otherwise. He found the ribosome was put together using relatively simple structural rules, a bit like a three-dimensional puzzle. For critics who ask why spontaneous formation didn't lead to something other than the ribosome, Steinberg used mathematical models to show there was no other possibility. The ribosome simply wouldn't hold together if it were constructed any other way."

:::In short, questions about how life can form on its own without a designer or supernatural intervention are being answered every day, and our collective understanding of the big picture grows as those questions are answered.  Every time someone states that "Nobody can explain 'X'", what they should be stating instead is that "Nobody can explain 'X' '' '''yet''' ''" --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 12:02, 2 March 2009 (EST)

::In short, questions about how life can form on its own without a designer or supernatural intervention are being answered every day, and our collective understanding of the big picture grows as those questions are answered.  Every time someone states that "Nobody can explain 'X'", what they should be stating instead is that "Nobody can explain 'X' '' '''yet''' ''" --[[User:DinsdaleP|DinsdaleP]] 12:02, 2 March 2009 (EST)

::::The experiment you cite has potentially serious structural flaws: is it truly a random process causing spontaneous complexity or was the experiment itself designed in the precise way needed to create this degree of complexity? What safeguards can you have against this in a human-designed (and thus artificial) experiment?

:::The experiment you cite has potentially serious structural flaws: is it truly a random process causing spontaneous complexity or was the experiment itself designed in the precise way needed to create this degree of complexity? What safeguards can you have against this in a human-designed (and thus artificial) experiment?

::::Also, you have not answered my original question about the shape. A fractal is complex, having all the self-similarity. To produce it, the fern would have to divide, bisect, and scale its own operations. What would be the source of such power? These are not simple shapes to come up with. In contrast, a circle (or oval) is a relatively simple shape. To scale it you just have to evenly push out the border, expanding outwards. If all our plantlife were like tree trunks or the circular fungi that grow on logs, I would find your arguments more plausible. But the wide complexity of shapes and structures found in nature cannot have such a simple principle as natural selection to explain them! It cannot have another explanation than that of being designed by an Intelligent Being. -[[User:Foxtrot|Foxtrot]] 16:41, 2 March 2009 (EST)

:::Also, you have not answered my original question about the shape. A fractal is complex, having all the self-similarity. To produce it, the fern would have to divide, bisect, and scale its own operations. What would be the source of such power? These are not simple shapes to come up with. In contrast, a circle (or oval) is a relatively simple shape. To scale it you just have to evenly push out the border, expanding outwards. If all our plantlife were like tree trunks or the circular fungi that grow on logs, I would find your arguments more plausible. But the wide complexity of shapes and structures found in nature cannot have such a simple principle as natural selection to explain them! It cannot have another explanation than that of being designed by an Intelligent Being. -[[User:Foxtrot|Foxtrot]] 16:41, 2 March 2009 (EST)