A Brief History of Slime...


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In this section:  Chance or Design? •  The Scientific MethodLife in a Test Tube?The EyeIrreducible ComplexityAnything Can Happen? Evolution or Selection?Real Examples of Evolution"Do You Feel Lucky?"(Abio)Genesis 1:1Life from Comets?Life on Mars?Richard DawkinsA Brief History of Slime...

"A Brief History of Slime and Space"

If evolution as life's origin were a case in court, would there be enough evidence for a conviction?


Science progresses by seeking new explanations when evidence is found to contradict the current understandings.  Why is it that evolution holds to its beliefs about life's origins and advancement in the absence of critical evidence and even in the presence of  contradictory evidence?  Is this true to the discipline we call science?

Science disproved life coming
from inanimate matter in 1861

Charles Darwin 1859 - Mankind still believes (incorrectly) in the spontaneous generation of life from inanimate matter. Charles Darwin publishes "On the Origin of Species." Lacking evidence, he hypothesizes that fossils of transitionary forms will later be found to prove his theory and show conclusively that we are not a creation of the Divine, but are the product of chance and evolution.
1861 - Louis Pasteur proves that even microbial life only comes from existing life, discrediting a major foundation of evolution as the source of life. This leads to modern sterilization procedures (pasteurization).

All evidence merits close investigation

1912 - Charles Dawson announces the fossil find of Piltdown Man, with a human-like skull and ape-like jaw, claiming it to be the missing link needed to prove man's ancestry from apes. This was all based on the fragments shown to the right:

Skull and Jaw fragments used to "construct" Piltdown Man
Some Assembly Required

1953 - Piltdown Man is discovered to be a fraud and declared the greatest hoax in the history of science.  Incredibly, it is a human skull and orangutan jaw that have been altered to fit together. Unfortunately, two generations grow up believing in its scientific truth.

Hoaxes and false beliefs can occur in science or religion.  This is no reason to reject either in its entirety, but it does show that we must carefully investigate what we are told.

The real question is why the scientific community was so willing to accept this evidence for so many years.  Could it be that man's desire to justify his beliefs exceeds his ability to challenge his beliefs?  We can perhaps attribute this to faith in matters of the spiritual, but how do we explain it in matters of science?

Is the gap between theory and evidence growing?

1977 - Contrary to Darwin's prediction, we still lack the fossil evidence required to prove the gradual evolutionary changes proposed by his theory.  Stephen Gould, Harvard paleontologist, proposes a new theory called "punctuated equilibrium" which discards gradualism and says that evolution happened in giant leaps.  This not only contradicts Darwin's theory, but is unsupported by any evidence.  Nothing like this has ever been observed, but it is accepted as science. 

Are our beliefs based in science
or naturalistic rationalism?

1980's and 1990's - Richard Dawkins gains fame and promotes atheistic thinking with books like "The Blind Watchmaker" and "The Selfish Gene," but his writings are filled inconsistencies and half-truths.  Click HERE for more.

New scientific insights reveal problems
with even recent theories

2000 - Stephen Wolfram, a scientific genius regarded by some as "the next Newton," discovers a mathematical error in the thesis Gould used to prove natural selection.  Wolfram states that "natural selection is not all that important" and that organisms take their form by cellular automata, a new field of science which seeks to describe seemingly random or natural phenomenon by discrete rules.  Click HERE for more.
It may be outside the bounds of science, but if science shows us that life executes according to a PROGRAM found in DNA and this program contains very specific RULES for how each object defined in the program is deployed, shouldn't we perhaps wonder WHO is the PROGRAMMER and WHAT is His purpose for life? Or . . .

Do we just easily believe
anything we wish to be true?


Whether or not you accept the evidence claimed to date . . .

Is evolution fully supported by scientific reason?

The Other Side of Common Beliefs
Common Beliefs

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In this section
 Chance or Design? •  The Scientific Method Life in a Test Tube?The EyeIrreducible Complexity Anything Can Happen?Evolution or Selection?Real Examples of Evolution"Do You Feel Lucky?"(Abio)Genesis 1:1Life from Comets?Life on Mars?Richard DawkinsA Brief History of Slime...

 


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