One, the news story was from 2008. Why has this not been on the front page of the NY Times ...
It was pretty big news back in the day. I saw it posted on numerous scientific news sources and even mainstream media. It was quite fascinating but it's not like this was the first or only evidence we have for evolution.
A cell does not live on its own. Bacterium do. It is an organism on its own. And no bacteria has been ever demonstrated to turn into a cell.
Huh? Bacteria are single-celled organisms.
The bacteria didn't turn into anything new ...
If you expect a radical change to happen in front of your eyes, you have a poor understanding of evolution. The theory of evolution does not predict such observations. Changes take hundreds of thousands/millions of years to happen. We will never see drastic, radical changes happen in front of our eyes, although that would be pretty neat. Such a request is like asking to see the complete life cycle of a star happen before your eyes, from the coalescing of hydrogen gas to its possible demise into a black hole. Ain't gonna happen, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen in the real world given enough time.
Is there even a theory out there that postulates HOW a human cell might have evolved, all the way from amino acids, and how it could have been done in the time alloted?
Yes. Do some reading. "Time alloted" [sic] ? The Earth has been here over 4 billion years. That's a LONG time. Plus it is quite possible the precursors to life arrived at this planet from somewhere else.
The reality is that Stephen Hawking is to the point of declaring that the laws of gravity and physics THEMSELVES created the universe (with pre-existing matter I suppose - whoops, no, that wouldn't be creating). That is where anti-creationism and/or atheism is now. That is the newest theory, put forth only weeks ago from the smartest man in the world.
Yes, all interesting and very hypothetical stuff but it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution has nothing to do with the origin of the universe. It's a theory about how life changes over time.
First, why would "light-sensitive cells" ever exist in the first place?
Random mutation. Remember there is no purpose or goal behind evolution. The raw working material is random mutation (among other things). Once something develops or changes that aids in an organisms survival in its environment, that change tends to "stick."
Did they evolve into more focused eyes later? The video showed several different animals which had varying degrees of light sensitivity or focus. Have the fossils confirmed from one of these species to the other that they evolved from one another?
These example species didn't have to evolve one from another. It was an example of eyes that function at various levels of complexity.
The very occurence of "light-sensitive cells" occuring in just the right cells in the right place, what are the chances?? With no intent by anyone, no knowledge of the cells themselves of what they wanted to be? Why didn't the light sensitive cells show up in my skin or heart instead?
Such a mutation COULD show up in your heart cells. But since that would provide no advantage to an organism, the mutation would not present an advantage and therefore would most likely fade out of existence. Unused features tend to get removed as it is a waste of biological resources.
Again, take away any portion of a cell, and it will not live, and certainly not without an organism that supports it, with all of the thousands of chemical reactions which take place in all of our cells everyday.
Take away any part of an arch and it collapses. If you watched the video you should have learned that "irreducibly complex" is hardly ever actually so.
Ask Stephen Hawking where he is.
Stephen Hawking? First of all, he does not believe in a personal god. It wouldn't matter anyway if he did. He may be an extremely intelligent individual, but that doesn't make him right on every topic. Look up "argument from authority."
It simply seems that were this any kind of a viable theory, major documentaries and coherent movies would have been made about it.
There are numerous!
Plenty of money exists among those believing no God to get the right scientists together, and prove it once and for all. We are talking about physical sciences, with archeological proof to be displayed.
So now it's some sort of conspiracy? Wow.
It isn't there.
There is a MOUNTAIN of evidence. Start here if you honestly want to explore it:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
There is a cause for everything. There must be an ultimate uncaused cause. I call that uncaused cause "God".
I agree that there must be some uncaused source. Infinite causality is illogical. However, even the laws of cause and effect may not have applied before the big bang (heck, they break down at the quantum level), so our understanding of cause/effect may not apply before the big bang.
If you want to call it "God," so be it. But where is your evidence that he exists? That he is the Judeo-Christian God? It seems much more likely to me that some fundamental energy was here at the "beginning" rather than some omnipotent, omniscient being. One is infinitely more complex than the other. Didn't you say something about Occam's Razor?
