Personally, I don't have enough knowledge regarding abiogenesis to form a proper opinion so I'm reserving judgment until I have a better grasp. But I do hate to see the theory of evolution misrepresented to include abiogenesis by default. SBC
This seems to be the position most militant athiests take on here.
When you make something up that is unknowable ,untestable and which does not accord with the observed evidence in one single way - i.e. something purely from your imagination - and then dare to class it in the same bracket as empirical evidence based science then no it is NOT a possibility any more than Harry Potter is a possibility and will be treated as the fairytale it is - children may however, discuss with wide eyed awe wands and talking animals.- Qcmbr
Abiogenesis has been tested several times, and it is only viable in very specific conditions. The question is, were those conditions actually present on earth? Or, do scientists just want to believe, even though it does not "accord with the observed evidence?" There is the second route of if simple organisms "seeded" earth from outer space. Either way, we come back to the same question for the "host" planet.
Is there any way to "test" for string theory? It's interesting that it proposes 10 to 11 dimensions in order for it to work, yet we have no proof or evidence whatsoever of said dimensions. I guess it's pure imagination then.
Science pieces things together and can make conclusions based on direct and indirect evidence. But, there are things science does not have the capacity to do. I believe that, given cosmological inflation theory, we will never seen beyond our light speed barrier of 14 billion light years. That means we have a whole other chunk of universe that cannot be seen, phenomena that may be unique to that portion of the universe.
It's sad to think we may never see beyond that barrier. We know there is more universe beyond what we see. We don't discredit it as imagination. All I'm saying is, just because science has given us some foothold on understanding our universe, doesn't mean it can give it all to us. And, call it god of the gaps, call it what you want, there is always a possibility of something greater than what we see.
I don't know if this video has been presented here before, but why does Richard Dawkins accept the possibility of aliens seeding Earth, and not that of divine intervention?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlZtEjtlirc
Creationism and ID are not "beyond science" as you rather pompously claim, they were never anywhere close to being science. They are faith based assertions based on arguments from ignorance.
"Easily the biggest challenge facing the ID community is to develop a fully-fledged theory of biological design. We don't have such a theory right now, and that's a problem....Rigth now we've got a bag of powerful intuitions, and a handful of notions such as "ireducible complexity" and "specified complexity" but as yet no general thoery of biological design" - Paul Davis of the Discovery Institute.
In other words, there is nothing to say except "goddidit." Once you come up with something positive to say bring it to the table. -cofty
I disagree. It is beyond science because, say divine intervention did happen in order to bring about life. How do you test the manipulation of the "right conditions for life"? Mind you, this is all that would have to happen in order for life to appear, do you agree? Have the precise right conditions?
