Woody, several points:
You said the effect cannot be greater than the cause, but it happens all the time. I gave the example of very pure water (not snowflakes, but a flask, for instance) at below freezing temeratures. If it is very pure, it will not freeze, this has been demonstrated in the lab. Yet, when one particle of dust touches it, the whole container will freeze solid instantly. So, the effect- a large container of water freezing up instantly was caused by one dust particle, the effects are greater than the cause. Also, a nuclear bomb is a good example of an effect being greater than the cause.
God can not be both master and slave to the universe. This violates the law of exclusive middles: You say God must be both master of the universe (because he created it) AND He must not be master of the universe (because He is subject to the laws of his own creation). This logically impossible.
Since God controls everything, he must not be separate from it, so it seems entirely possible that God IS the universe. If this is the case, then following his own laws is just a personality trait. He couldn't NOT follow his laws anymore than you can touch your elbow to your chin.
no one has yet synthesized a "protocell" using basic components which has the necessary properties of life (the so-called "bottom-up-approach"). Without such a proof-of-principle, explanations have tended to be short on specifics.
True, but such experiments are being attempted right now.
YOU might think Norman Packard is playing
God. Or you might see him as the ultimate entrepreneur. As founder and CEO of Venice-based company ProtoLife, Packard is one of the leaders of an ambitious project that has in its sights the lofty goal of life itself. His team is attempting what no one else has done before: to create a new form of living being from non-living chemicals in the lab.
Breathing the spark of life into inanimate matter was once regarded as a divine prerogative. But now several serious and well-funded research groups are working hard on doing it themselves. If one of them succeeds, the world will have met alien life just as surely as if we had encountered it on Mars or Europa. That first alien meeting will help scientists get a better handle on what life really is, how it began
There was also an experiment that recreated the original conditions of early earth, a soup of chemicals run through artificial lightning. Weeks later, scientists found complex organic molecules like amino acids, suitable for the building blocks of life.
S/G said: Coyotes, wolves, and foxes and dogs are all different species. The various types of dogs haven't speciated, since their domestication is relatively recent.
Woody: Yet they can interbreed. They are called hybrids but the offspring are capable of breeding as well.
OK, I have heard of wolves breeding with dogs, but I doubt there are fertile fox-dog hybrids, and anyway, it doesn't prove anything. Before speciation, there are long periods where interbreeding is still possible. Zebra/horse hybrids are possible, too, and they are different species. It all happens gradually, from our point of view.
Woody: Wes, I just think it is a remarkable stretch of faith to believe that life sprang from inert ingredients. Why isn't it happening now?
Good question, the answer is that there is so much life around now, that any organic material that can't defend itself is rapidly consumed. Besides, water is far from inert, it is an incredible solvent, dissolving an amazing number of materials, and when it circulates under the seabed at high pressure, it dissolves even more minerals.
I'll sum it up by quoting an agnostic: "Even four billion years wasn't enough time for dirt to evolve to humanity."
This is an argument from incredulity. You can't believe it, therefore it didn't happen. And, if there was dirt, there was life. Without life, there is only rock and sand.
