RE: Is Evolution a science or a faith?
August 5, 2014 at 1:16 pm
(This post was last modified: August 5, 2014 at 1:18 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(August 5, 2014 at 11:14 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:(August 4, 2014 at 6:00 pm)Chuck Wrote: Actually, there is nothing special about life such that evolution can only happen after life came into being.
Evolution through natural selection as a process happens all the time, everywhere, to minerals and chemicals. Evolution applies to geology just as much as it applies to biology.
Contempary scientific thinking regarding the origin of life sees pre-biotic evolution through natural selection (survival of the fittest) of particular species of complex chemicals and minerals as being the driving force behind the gradual assembly of raw material into life. Spontaneous appearence of life is in itself an act of evolution, just as spontaneous speciation that came after the first life.
Actually, there is nothing special about life such that evolution can only happen after life came into being.
Evolution through natural selection as a process happens all the time, everywhere, to minerals and chemicals. Evolution applies to geology just as much as it applies to biology.
Contempary scientific thinking regarding the origin of life sees pre-biotic evolution through natural selection (survival of the fittest) of particular species of complex chemicals and minerals as being the driving force behind the gradual assembly of raw material into life. Spontaneous appearence of life is in itself an act of evolution, just as spontaneous speciation that came after the first life.
Yes, but none of that means that evolution is based on the spontaneous appearance of life.
That's a little like saying gravity is not based on the earth going around the sun. No, but gravity does explain and predict the milieu of phenomenons which includes earth going around the sun, even had earth going around the sun not been the specific phenomenon that originally prompted the formulation of the theory of gravity.
Spontaneous appearance of life, in the sense of raw materials of life gradually being assembled stage by stage by trial and error until some of the resulting assemblage crossed that artificial threshold we call life, is part of the milieu of biological phenomenon a which can be explained, even predicted, by the mechanics of evolution by natural selection, even if evolution was not initially formulated specifically to explain or predict the spontaneous appearance of life.
