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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: dcnovice

FR

I tried watching but lacked the patience for the 13-minute countdown.

I doubt it would have been worth it even if you had had the patience. Evolution/Creation debates seem invariably to descend into one side proclaiming theology as fact and the other side proclaiming theory as fact. In short, a pissing contest between priests.

Frankly, the notion that all life evolved from a single common ancestor has always struck me as likely to be no less a made up story than Genesis. If life arose once, why not more than once, in different forms in different niches? I could see all plants having a common ancestor, for example, but while natural selection works fine to explain speciation it seems increasingly inadequate when called upon to account for the phyla and kingdoms.

Superficially, these arguments appear to center on a literal interpretation of Genesis, i.e., a God who is "outside" nature "creating" the world and its creatures. But in most of the debates, evolution is just being used as a stalking horse for abiogenesis, i.e., "spontaneous generation" dressed up in a new clown suit, just like Creationism changed costumes to become "Intelligent Design."

Which brings us back to the pissing contest between priests. Meanwhile, of course, it's possible to view the universe as a manifestation of Deity, in which case there's no conflict between evolution and believing in God as the source of all life. But then, of course, the clergy couldn't have any fun.

K.

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ORIGINAL: asyouwish72
I suppose it's possible that there were some "undecideds" in the TV audience who could benefit, but most peoples' minds are pretty well made up on this subject already.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

I doubt it would have been worth it even if you had had the patience. Evolution/Creation debates seem invariably to descend into one side proclaiming theology as fact and the other side proclaiming theory as fact. In short, a pissing contest between priests.

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

I watched the whole thing...

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ORIGINAL: Kirata
Frankly, the notion that all life evolved from a single common ancestor has always struck me as likely to be no less a made up story than Genesis. If life arose once, why not more than once, in different forms in different niches? I could see all plants having a common ancestor, for example, but while natural selection works fine to explain speciation it seems increasingly inadequate when called upon to account for the phyla and kingdoms.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: DomKen

And if you actually understood biochemistry you would have no doubt that there was a single origin for all life on earth. For instance all life on Earth shares essentially the same DNA to amino acid codon correspondence which is not something that would occur with separate origins.

My apologies. It was just a crazy idea of mine, not something that would ever occur to anyone who knew what they were talking about.

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Now for an injection of reality.
All life shares:
The same metabolic mechanism
The same genetic coding mechanisms including the same genetic code
The same way of doing all the basic functions of life.

How could all of that be possible if we did not all share a common ancestor?

The very possibility for horizontal transfer of genetic material, one of the arguments used by your quote, requires a universal common ancestor.

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ORIGINAL: TheHeretic

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ORIGINAL: Lucylastic

I watched the whole thing...

That's sad. Maybe full pathetic, but sad at a bare minumum.

I can't fathom Nye's decision to give these young Earth creationist morons a platform, or imply they have the credibility to share the stage with even a children's science teacher.

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I can't fathom Nye's decision to give these young Earth creationist morons a platform, or imply they have the credibility to share the stage with even a children's science teacher.