First off, let me say I'm quite disappointed, SenseiOtho. For a second it almos seemed like you knew something (however misguided it may have been)
But now you expect us to take a small paragraph from a creationist article seriously? Where's the empirical evidence? Where's the research? Where's the peer reviews? Any old idiot can say "yeah, well it turns out that point mutations and lateral gene transfer don't mean anything coz.. um... i say so". I really don't see anything even vaguely conclusive about the exerpt you posted, just someone saying "Here's a hypothetical objection. It must be true!"
As for your first point, if I understand you correctly this seems to be another tired rehash of Behe's little idea about "irreducible complexity". It. Does. Not. Hold. Water.
I'm not sure how often it has to be said, but evolution is not linear. Things adapt to have different functions. Taking a single piece out of a complex structure may make its current function impossible, but it may still be able to perform a different function.
Behe's own example of the bacterial flagellum shows this. Take any single part away and it no longer functions as a flagellum. However, it is very similar in composition to another structure in bacteria which is used to inject toxins into neighbouring cells (if I remember correctly). A single change could turn one into the other. And guess what? The toxin injector isn't irreducibly complex! It'll still work with parts taken out of it, just not as well.
Now, moving onto the point about abiogenesis, (even though you seem to be trying to avoid it)
I really think you're going to be pushing shit uphill if you try to pursue this one. First off, let me say that the Miller-Urey experiments aren't useful specifically for seeing how complex amino acids could have formed on the young Earth. Sure that aspect of it may have been somewhat redundant recently. (Although I would still contest your position that the early Earth had no O2 in its atmosphere. I've read several articles about this and have never come across the supposition that there was O2)
The experiments (and the many others like them that have been performed since) are useful because they show that complex amino acids can form under natural conditions.
And the O2 in the atmosphere doesn't even mean a whole lot anyway because there would have been thousands and thousands of anoxic environments (especially in the oceans) where amino acids would have had no trouble forming.
AND BESIDES THAT EVEN its not even agreed upon that these amino acids formed on Earth. They may have easily formed on comets or other pieces of space detritus, or even other planets and subsequently blasted onto Earth by a meteor impact.
AND BESIDES THAT it's not even widely accepted that life (the word used very loosely here) began with amino acids. What is important is self replicators. Once a molecule, or a collection of molecules, managed to, by chance, develop the ability to replicate themselves, the sky was the limit. Whatever the molecule was, it could have, without much trouble, after however many years of evolution it took (and again I use the term evolution loosely), incorporated amino acids into its self duplicating mechanism. After that the rest is history.
As for your final comments I have a few things to say, but this being the "science" forum, not the "philosophy" forum I will keep them brief.
A supernatural creator does not answer any questions, it just raises more. Science is about finding out how the forces of nature we can observe and examine can explain the world around us. And just because we don't know which hypothesis about abiogenesis is the right one yet (including those we have not yet thought of) does not mean there is no right one (or that God is by default the right one).
But now you expect us to take a small paragraph from a creationist article seriously? Where's the empirical evidence? Where's the research? Where's the peer reviews? Any old idiot can say "yeah, well it turns out that point mutations and lateral gene transfer don't mean anything coz.. um... i say so". I really don't see anything even vaguely conclusive about the exerpt you posted, just someone saying "Here's a hypothetical objection. It must be true!"
As for your first point, if I understand you correctly this seems to be another tired rehash of Behe's little idea about "irreducible complexity". It. Does. Not. Hold. Water.
I'm not sure how often it has to be said, but evolution is not linear. Things adapt to have different functions. Taking a single piece out of a complex structure may make its current function impossible, but it may still be able to perform a different function.
Behe's own example of the bacterial flagellum shows this. Take any single part away and it no longer functions as a flagellum. However, it is very similar in composition to another structure in bacteria which is used to inject toxins into neighbouring cells (if I remember correctly). A single change could turn one into the other. And guess what? The toxin injector isn't irreducibly complex! It'll still work with parts taken out of it, just not as well.
Now, moving onto the point about abiogenesis, (even though you seem to be trying to avoid it)
I really think you're going to be pushing shit uphill if you try to pursue this one. First off, let me say that the Miller-Urey experiments aren't useful specifically for seeing how complex amino acids could have formed on the young Earth. Sure that aspect of it may have been somewhat redundant recently. (Although I would still contest your position that the early Earth had no O2 in its atmosphere. I've read several articles about this and have never come across the supposition that there was O2)
The experiments (and the many others like them that have been performed since) are useful because they show that complex amino acids can form under natural conditions.
And the O2 in the atmosphere doesn't even mean a whole lot anyway because there would have been thousands and thousands of anoxic environments (especially in the oceans) where amino acids would have had no trouble forming.
AND BESIDES THAT EVEN its not even agreed upon that these amino acids formed on Earth. They may have easily formed on comets or other pieces of space detritus, or even other planets and subsequently blasted onto Earth by a meteor impact.
AND BESIDES THAT it's not even widely accepted that life (the word used very loosely here) began with amino acids. What is important is self replicators. Once a molecule, or a collection of molecules, managed to, by chance, develop the ability to replicate themselves, the sky was the limit. Whatever the molecule was, it could have, without much trouble, after however many years of evolution it took (and again I use the term evolution loosely), incorporated amino acids into its self duplicating mechanism. After that the rest is history.
As for your final comments I have a few things to say, but this being the "science" forum, not the "philosophy" forum I will keep them brief.
A supernatural creator does not answer any questions, it just raises more. Science is about finding out how the forces of nature we can observe and examine can explain the world around us. And just because we don't know which hypothesis about abiogenesis is the right one yet (including those we have not yet thought of) does not mean there is no right one (or that God is by default the right one).
Too weird to live, and too rare to die.
