Fundies Will Be Shitting Bricks

[Statler Waldorf]

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Well, first of all, very few "secular"scientists even bother to study the bible in the first place, so your premise starts out on very bad footing. That said, I know quite a few "secular" individuals who apparently know more about the Bible than many non-secular people do. I know one individual who can quote it at will, and then tell you at length why it is a bunch a crap. And what they start with is what the Bible actually says. Your problem, Statler, is that you begin with the assumption that the Bible is the unerring word of God, and then you try to bend science to your own misguided Biblical beliefs. And THAT, my friend, is about as unscientific as it gets

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This is just the pretended neutrality fallacy. You are criticizing the opposing side for not being neutral on a matter (the inerrancy of scripture) when you and secular scientists are not neutral on the matter either. There is no neutrality when it comes to the inerrancy of scripture, you either presuppose it is inerrant or you presuppose it is errant. So again, creation scientists are just as scientific as anybody, they just hold to different presuppositions. At least they are intellectually honest about the presuppositions they hold unlike many in the secular community.

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Erm, Einstein died in 1955.

Einstein reconciled Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. Established the speed of light as being independent of the frame of reference (which means that it travels at the same velocity in all directions regardless of the reference point) and an "upper limit" on velocity and information transmission in non-esoteric situations, discredited the concept of an "luminiferous ether", and the significance of frames of reference in physics.

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Why does it matter when he died? I cited the 1961 English translation of “Relativity: The special and general Theory” so I see no issues here.
I thought he made it pretty clear that according to his theory the one way speed of light being constant was by no means a requirement of nature, but rather a convention held by man. The round trip speed of light being a constant is a requirement of nature and is a constant in ESC and ASC, so there is no problem there.

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This sounds remarkably similar to the arguments that Christians who first conquered North American made in declaring that the natives where somehow less than human, and so it was okay to either destroy them or enslave them. So when we do find life on other planbets, and discover that abiogenesis fits for them, are you going to declare them the work of the devil which needs to be eradicated?

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How cowboys and Indians are relevant to this discussion eludes me, I will be honest. Assuming that just because Object A was formed by Method A on one planet somehow proves that object B on Planet B was also formed by Method A is completely illogical. It’s kind of irrelevant though, to think we’d ever actually observe abiogenesis on another planet is absurd.

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Yes, you are correct. It was late when I wrote that, and I was trying to find small numbers very fast and made a mistake with that one. My apologies. I was thinking about the very small quantities of matter that it represents, tiny quantities, actually. Call it a brain fart, if you will. We all have them from time to time. At least I am man enough to admit when I have them. Yes?

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Kudos for manning up. I know how the late night thing goes.

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If I was suggesting that rocks can spontaneously form pyramids, you might have a point. But amino acids do spontaneously form peptides.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Sidney W. Fox studied the spontaneous formation of peptide structures under conditions that might plausibly have existed early in Earth's history. He demonstrated that amino acids could spontaneously form small peptides. These amino acids and small peptides could be encouraged to form closed spherical membranes, called proteinoid microspheres, which show many of the basic characteristics of 'life'.

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I am still baffled as to why you guys all seem to think that an experiment laced with unjustified intelligent interference somehow proves these things occur naturally. I believe my initial assertion still stands, amino acids do not naturally arrange themselves. Fox’s experiments fail for numerous reasons, a few of which are…
1. He used large amounts of heat to drive off the H20 and its destructive effects on amino acid chains. However this heat destroyed many amino acids that are crucial for the formation of life.
2. He used tri-functional amino acids in order to better his results; however these are very rare in nature and lead to branching that is not found in biological amino acid chains.
3. The heat used in the experiment also led to extremely random polymers.
4. All the chiral amino acids that resulted were racemized, which is not what we find in biological chains.
5. The temperature conditions found in the lab have never been observed naturally occurring on Earth.
6. The amino acids were purified and concentrated. Assuming we’d ever find this in nature is also a bit of a pipe dream.

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But let me ask you a question. I believe that we are about 25 years away (or sooner) from showing in the laboratory that abiogenesis is a valid theory. If you are around when that happens, what will be your response?

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How would they show it is a valid theory? I do not think the logic behind this is valid. I can make a model boat in the lab and put animals on it, does that make the Ark story a valid theory? Abiogenesis doesn’t scare the YEC community in the slightest; all that comes from the experiments is a greater understanding of just how amazingly complex life really is, even in its “simplest” forms.