“Intelligence,” OUT OF NOTHINGNESS!

[Mister Agenda]

You can verify by checking page 356, volume 2 of the famous textbook A Guided Tour of the Living Cell by Christian De Duve.
Whether you are ignorant or trying to mislead the world on purpose. Based on this fact I reckon any of your comments meaningless.

Thanks for the reference, I've ordered the set, I should have them in about a week. Certainly if I find that those words are De Duve's and not taken out of context, I will apologize.

Guess what arrived today! Here is the quote, in its entirety, and in context:

"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms, eternity will not suffice to produce one for you. So you might as well accept, as do most scientists, that the process was completed in no more than 1 billion years and that it took place entirely on the surface of our planet, to produce, as early as 3.3 billion years ago, the bacterium like organisms revealed by fossil traces."

De Duve does NOT equate the probability of the birth of a bacteria cell to chance assembly of its atoms. Like most biologists, he thinks the most probable route to the first bacterium like organism was a series of simpler organisms starting with what was essentially self-replicating organic chemistry. Earlier on the same page, concerning the origin of life, he states:

"How this emergence took place is a matter of conjecture, but it most likely involved, on a simpler chemical level, the same cardinal rules of fidelity, variability, and selection that governed biological evolution. Primitive self-maintaining and self-correcting systems must have formed and evolved progressively into dynamic structures of increasing complexity and stability."

So it's a quote mine, a statement taken out of context to make someone appear to have a different position than the one they actually hold, one that supports the liar's (because it IS a form of lying) position in some way. De Duve thinks pretty much what everybody on this thread who isn't a creationist or IDer thinks about abiogenesis, and it's NOT that the odds against a bacterium popping full-fledged into existence floating around in dirty water is an argument against abiogenesis, which doesn't make such an outlandish claim, as much as you want it to be so.

The question now is if Harris was quote-mining deliberately or deceived by quote-miners before him. If the latter, were I Harris, I would be asking why the people on my side are lying. In that sense, I was Harris, once upon a time. Repeatedly finding that the creationist side engaged in wholesale deceit was a major catalyst in my decision to investigate what scientists were really saying about evolution, before having it filtered through sources quite happy to make it look like a reputable scientist's opinion was the opposite of what they actually thought.

No apology for you, Harris, but you owe US one.