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Re: Queen mother (of Britai...

Thomas Brenndorfer
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SubjectRe: Queen mother (of Britain) has died
FromThomas Brenndorfer
Date2002-04-11 03:47 (2002-04-11 03:47)
Message-ID<DW5t8.2723$ZiL.1329@news02.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com>
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Newsgroupsalt.fan.tolkien
FollowsGraeme
FollowupsGraeme (4h & 46m)
"Graeme" <graemecree@aol.compost>wrote in message news:20020410114056.28302.00003176@mb-fe.aol.com...

But you're assumption is always based on either a/ you feel it seems

unlikely

Graeme
b/ it happend by chance. One.. a billion years is a long time...very long.

I

don't know people can calculate (mentally) the odds ofthings happening

over

this sort of time frame.

Exactly. It's a faith based position. Life from non-life doesn't operate

by

any scientifically discovered process. You either believe it or you

don't.

You apparently do. Fair enough. You won't disbelieve this unless it's positively disproved.

Totally wrong. Science is not about fixed beliefs, but about presenting hypotheses and testing them, and in fact rigorously challenging them and trying to falsify them. Assent to any conclusion is always provisional on there being new evidence discovered, or qualifications to a theory presented.

How can you ascribe notions about "hypotheses", "tentative and provisional assent", and a rigorous attempt to experiment to any religion? No one "believes" an hypotheses like they would a tenent of a particular faith.

This is just as ridiculous as the argument that evolution can never be proven because no one was around to see it. By analogy, the whole justice system is based on evaluation of evidence even when they are no eyewitnesses (and being a "witness" is not always the most reliable proof). Forensic investigation using reliable scientific techniques is enough to put people away and to produce reasonable certainty that a particular set of events took place. The only "faith" is in the scientific processes and techniques, but these are the things of everyday life-- the same scientific principles that produced the monitor you are viewing or the engineering behind the construction of the building you are in.

Or in other words, the hypotheses about abiogenesis (life from non-life) is intended to provide a guidepost to scientists to examine the evidence about the chemistry behind such processes. If abiogenesis is true, then one should expect certain conditions to have existed-- and we are still a long way from demonstrating anything. However, every year more evidence is being shown that the early earth was filled with organic molecules of some complexity, and that the earliest known life forms represented a point when life was at its most simplest (evidence is hard to come by because of the lack of preservation of such evidence).

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Graeme (4h & 46m)