Sheradon wrote:

AN ASTOUNDING CLAIM—The evolutionists applied their theory to the amazing discoveries about DNA—and came up with a totally astonishing claim:

All the complicated DNA in each life form, and all the DNA in every other life form—made itself out of dirty water back in the beginning! There was some gravel around, along with some dirt. Nearby was some water, and overhead a lightning storm. The lightning hit the dirty water and made living creatures complete with DNA. They not only had their complete genetic code, but they were also immediately able to eat, digest food, move about, perform enzymatic and glandular functions, and all the rest.

WOW. That seriously hurt to read... I'm literally at a loss for words..

Heh, if that is really what is among the contents of the book, then that's all you need to formulate a response to him.

Since the above constitutes a deliberate and infantile lie, this is in itself enough grounds to dismiss the entire book as a piece-of-shit collection of religious propaganda. Of course, what else could one expect from who put faith above facts above evidence?


You don't need to comprehensively debunk the entire book.

If he is born again, ask him who his second mother is....

Tell them that the only way you are going to read it is if they read it with you, if they decline no big deal. If they accept, you know where to look for any help you need in the debunking - if you need any help that is - it seems too puerile for anyone with a rational mind to need help with.

Have you tried sitting him down...And hitting him?

Block him.

</thread>

Sheradon wrote:I have to ask, where might I find some of these references that Vance Ferrell is referring to throughout his book? For example, in regards to archaeopteryx:

Let's take a look at this shall we?

Modern birds in same strata.

I suspect a blatant creationist lie right at the outset when reading this heading.

Bones of modern birds have been found in Colorado in the same geologic rock strata—the Jurassic—in which archaeopteryx was found in Germany (Science 199, January 20, 1978).

Another assertion I suspect to be a lie. Not least because numerous fossil proto-avian taxa have been found since the original discovery of Archaeopteryx, spanning something like a 40 million year period within which the original Archaeopteryx find is also located. None of them, however, have been "modern" birds.

Of course, one of the favourite (and duplicitous) tricks creationists adopt, is tracking down obscure papers that are difficult to access, then erecting all manner of false assertions about the contents, knowing that [1] other creationists won't even bother checking this, they'll simply nod in agreement through confirmation bias, and [2] those of us intent upon checking the original sources will find obstacles in our path.

According to evolutionary theory, this cannot be; for millions of years ought to be required for Archaeopteryx to change into a regular bird.

Well first of all, this sentence on its own speaks of creationist ignorance of evolutionary theory on a grand scale. Organisms don't "change" into other organisms, they give rise to descendants that acquire new features. We treat them as separate species for two reasons. First, in the past, taxonomy has defined species on the basis of anatomical comparisons, and organisms with anatomical variations have been regarded as separate species. Second, the more modern biological species concept, postulates that a species is actually a population entity, defined in terms of interfertility of its constituent individuals, and lack of interfertility with individuals from other populations. The use of type specimens in older taxonomic practice, as a "reference standard" for future comparisons, has obscured a proper understanding of the nature of species as population entities, at least in the minds of the naive, the ill-informed and the wilfully duplicitous. It is populations that evolve, not individuals, not least because in the world of sexually reproducing eukaryotes, individuals do not undergo wholesale genetic change during their lives. If they acquire germline changes to their genomes, those changes are expressed not in those individuals, but in the offspring of those individuals. A topic I've written much about in the past, when covering the dynamic species concept in more detail.

Second, that sentence ignores (quite possibly wilfully) the fact that even after Archaeopteryx, or a close relation, gave rise to descendants that were classified as birds, the taxonomic details are actually more subtle. Because, wait for it, there exist avian lineages that died out without leaving modern descendants. Hesperornis from the Cretaceous is a prime example, and indeed, whilst exhibiting more skeletal features recognisable from present day birds than seen in Archaeopteryx, this organism still possessed teeth, and indeed, exhibited a morphological change in the nature of the origin of its dentition that can be regarded as an example of convergent evolution with mosasaurs. Hesperornis looks, to the untrained eye at least, like a cormorant with teeth, until one realises that it lacks certain other anatomical features found in modern birds - a paper you can download that covers more recently unearthed Hesperornitiform taxa is this one:

Aquatic Birds From The Upper Cretaceous (Lower Campanian) Of Sweden And The Biology And Distribution Of Hesperornithiforms by Jan Rees and Johan Lindgren, Palaeontology, 48(6): 1321-1329 (2005) [Full paper downloadable from here]

Rees & Lindgren, 2005 wrote:Abstract: Isolated skeletal elements of three hesperornithiform taxa are recorded from marine strata of latest early Campanian (sensu germanico) age in the Kristianstad Basin, southern Sweden. The material comprises Hesperornis rossicus Nessov and Yarkov, one of the largest Mesozoic aquatic birds known to date, Hesperornis sp. and Baptornis sp. The holotype (a dorsal vertebra) of Parascaniornis stensioei Lambrecht is re-examined, and the nominal species is here considered as a nomen dubium because no diagnostic features can be found that separate the type from dorsals of Baptornis advenus. The distribution and palaeobiology of hesperornithiforms are
reviewed.

One of the features it lacks is a keeled sternum, which alone separates it fairly substantively from modern cormorants, before we factor in the teeth, and it also lacks the pneumatised bones seen in modern bird lineages, suggesting an ancestry dating back right the way to maniraptorian theropods. Hesperornitiforms are considered to be a side branch from the main avian lineage, one that exploited its own aquatic niche before joining the majority of dinosaur lineages on the road to extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.

One of our regular posters here is known as "theropod", by the way, who has specialist palaeontological knowledge I don't possess. I'll see if he can shed more light on this highly suspicious assertion that "modern birds" were alive in the Jurassic.

If it was alive at the same time as modern birds, how can it be their ancient ancestor? Birds have also been found in the Jurassic limestone beds by researchers in Utah.

Again, another highly suspicious assertion, and one that again, will probably require a palaeontological specialist to rebut.

Sheradon wrote:I have tried googling "Science 199, January 20, 1978" hoping to be able to read this piece in its entire context, but the only thing that pops up is (unsurprisingly) creationist sources citing this article.

EDIT: Aaah, found it!

EDIT#2: Wait... I need to pay for a membership in order to see the article? D:

EDIT#3: Wow... this is infuriating. I tried googling the title of the article to try and find it for free, and the only thing that pops up are creationist sources! I wonder how many of them have actually bothered to read the article themselves, since you have to pay at least $20 in order to download it, and a minimum $50 for a student membership in order to access all these old issues of Science.

That's why I'm paging some specialists with access to the papers on your behalf. Institutional access is a wonderful thing when you have it.

Sheradon wrote:

AN ASTOUNDING CLAIM—The evolutionists applied their theory to the amazing discoveries about DNA—and came up with a totally astonishing claim:

All the complicated DNA in each life form, and all the DNA in every other life form—made itself out of dirty water back in the beginning! There was some gravel around, along with some dirt. Nearby was some water, and overhead a lightning storm. The lightning hit the dirty water and made living creatures complete with DNA. They not only had their complete genetic code, but they were also immediately able to eat, digest food, move about, perform enzymatic and glandular functions, and all the rest.

WOW. That seriously hurt to read... I'm literally at a loss for words..

This is as blatantly specious a caricature of actual abiogenesis theories as you could ever wish to see from a creationist. Just so that you're armed with the basics, I'll reproduce for you here, an explanatory article that I wrote on the subject as part of a science writing competition for the now-defunct Richard Dawkins Forums, an entry into that competition that became somewhat infamous for reasons that will soon become apparent ...


The Emergence Of Life On Earth

In the earliest period of the history of the planet, it was a body devoid of life, and conditions on the planet were far from conducive to the appearance of life, particularly during the episode termed "The Late Heavy Bombardment"[1] by scientists, which saw intense bolide impact activity taking place on the planet's surface. Once this episode, and subsequent episodes postulated to have taken place, were complete, the Earth cooled, a solid crust formed, and liquid water in quantity began to appear. Thus, the stage was set for the processes that were to result in the emergence of life.

It was Darwin himself who first speculated about the origins of life, with his short remarks about a "warm little pond"[2], but, in the middle of the 19th century, this would remain speculation, as the means to determine the mechanisms that might apply had not yet been developed. However, it made eminent sense to scientists following Darwin, to hypothesise that any natural mechanisms responsible for the origin of life would be based upon organic chemistry, since life itself is manifestly based thereupon - millions of organic reactions are taking place within your body as you read this, and indeed, the cessation of some of those reactions constitutes the end of life for any organisms affected. Alexander Oparin, the Soviet biochemist, was the first to publish hypotheses about the chemical basis of the origin of life[3], and based his own hypotheses on the notion that a reducing atmosphere existed on the primordial Earth, facilitating the production of various organic compounds that would then react further, producing a cascade of escalating complexity that would ultimately result in self-replicating entities. Back in 1924, his hypotheses remained beyond the remit of scientists to test, but that would soon change.

The first indications that Oparin had alighted upon workable ideas came in 1953, with the celebrated Miller-Urey Experiment[4], in which electrical discharges in a reducing atmosphere composed of simple molecules produced measurable quantities of amino acids. Miller himself only cited the presence of five amino acids, as he was reliant at the time upon paper chromatography as his primary analytical tool, which was only sensitive enough to detect those five amino acids cited. However, Miller had been more successful than he originally claimed: after his death, preserved samples of his original reaction mixtures were subject to state-of-the-art analysis, using gas chromatograph mass spectrometry, a technique millions of times more sensitive, and regarded as the 'gold standard' in modern organic analysis. That subsequent analysis yielded not five, but twenty-two amino acids[5].

Early criticism of Miller's work in the scientific community focused upon the requirement for a reducing atmosphere in accordance with the Oparin model. However, subsequent workers determined by repeat experimentation, that a range of atmospheric constitutions would be suitable for a Miller-Urey type synthesis on a prebiotic Earth[6], several of those constitutions being only mildly reducing, expanding the range of conditions for which the Oparin model would be viable. More recently, work has suggested that the prebiotic Earth could have developed an atmosphere containing considerably more hydrogen than originally thought[7], making the Oparin reducing atmosphere once again more plausible. Indeed, the range of conditions under which amino acids could be synthesised has since been expanded to include interstellar ice clouds, courtesy of more recent research[8 - 14], and the Murchison meteorite was found to contain no less than ninety amino acids, nineteen of which are found on Earth, which were obviously synthesised whilst that meteorite was still in space. Other data from meteorites adds to this body of evidence[10, 15, 16].

The formation of amino acids itself, whilst an important step in any naturalistic origin of life, would need to be accompanied by some means of linking those amino acids into peptide molecules[17] - the process by which proteins are formed. A significant step forward with respect to this, arose when researchers alighted upon the fact that carbonyl sulphide, a gas that is produced in quantity naturally by volcanoes, acts as a catalyst for the formation of peptides, increasing yields dramatically[18]. This would facilitate peptide formation not only in the vicinity of hydrothermal vents, but in the vicinity of terrestrial volcanoes close to bodies of open water. Indeed, Miller had produced the 22 amino acids found in some of his reaction mixtures by extending the synthesis to include volcanic input, though not carbonyl sulphide - the addition of carbonyl sulphide would, however, facilitate peptide formation rapidly once the amino acids themselves were formed.

One additional problem to be overcome was the 'chirality problem'. Amino acids, with the exception of glycine, are chiral molecules, existing in two forms that are mirror images of each other in space (stereoisomers). Initially, methods for producing one form preferentially over another were something of a puzzle, but chemists working in an entirely different field established that a process called 'chiral catalysis' exists, indeed, this work led to a Nobel Prize for the researchers in question[19]. The demonstrated existence of working chiral catalysts[20] led abiogenesis researchers to seek such catalytic processes in their own field, and, in due course, these were alighted upon[15, 21- 24].

However, amino acids are not the only molecules required for life, important though they are. Some form of self-replicating molecule, providing the basis of an inheritance mechanism, is required. Given the difficulties involved in synthesising DNA as a total synthesis, researchers turned to RNA instead, a molecule that still forms the basis of the genomes of numerous extant taxonomic Families of viruses today. RNA, being easier to synthesise, was considered a natural first choice for the basis of primordial genomes, and thus, attention turned to the synthesis of RNA under prebiotic conditions. This was soon found not only to be possible, but to be readily achievable in the laboratory, and indeed, catalysis plays a role in these experiments. Natural clays formed from a mineral called montmorillonite provide a ready natural catalyst that would have been present in quantity on a prebiotic Earth, and the catalytic chemistry of RNA formation whilst adsorbed to such clays is now a standard part of the scientific literature[22- 42].

Having established that RNA was synthesisable under prebiotic conditions, researchers then turned to the matter of establishing the existence of self-replicating species of RNA molecules. This was duly successful[30, 43, 45 - 47], establishing that such species could have arisen among the extant RNA molecules being synthesised on a prebiotic Earth, and of course, once one self-replicating species exists, the process of evolution can begin, which has also since been demonstrated to apply to replicating RNAs in appropriate laboratory experiments[48].

Once a self-replicating molecule that can form the basis of an inheritance mechanism exists, the next stage scientists postulate to be required is encapsulation within some sort of selectively permeable membrane. The molecules of choice for these membrane are lipids, which have been demonstrated repeatedly in the laboratory to undergo spontaneous self-organisation into various structures, such as bilayer sheets, micelles and liposomes. Indeed, in the case of phospholipids, they can be stimulated to self-organise by the simple process of agitating the solution within which they are suspended - literally, shake the bottle[49 - 53]. Moreover, research has established that these lipids can encapsulate RNA molecules, and selectively admit the passage of base and sugar molecules to facilitate RNA replication[54, 55]. With the advent of this discovery in appropriate laboratory research, protocell formation is but a short step away, and indeed, the latest research is now actively concentrating upon the minimum components required in order for a viable, self-replicating protocell to exist. Prebiotic lipid formation is also a part of the repertoire of the literature in the field, and some papers now extant document the first experiments aimed at producing viable self-replicating protocells[55 - 70].

Whilst scientists naturally accept that 'joining the dots' between these individual steps is entirely proper, particularly on a body the size of a planet over a 100 million year period, the absence of experiments actively coupling these stages is a matter remaining to be addressed, though such experiments will be ambitious in scope indeed if they are to produce complete working protocells at the end of a long production line starting with a Miller-Urey synthesis. A 'grand synthesis' of this sort in the laboratory is not high on the scientific agenda at the moment, which is more concerned with validating the individual hypothesised steps, but once those steps are accepted as valid in the field, doubtless one day a 'grand synthesis' will be attempted, and the success thereof will establish beyond serious doubt that our pale blue dot became our home courtesy of well-defined and testable chemical reactions. Even so, no one conversant with the literature seriously considers any more that magical forces are required to produce life: just as vitalism was refuted by Wöhler's classic experiment, that gave rise to organic chemistry as an empirical science in the first place, so it is likely to be rendered ever more irrelevant in abiogenesis research, as the steps leading to life's blossoming on our planet are traversed and studied in ever greater detail.

References:

[1] An apposite paper (among many) covering the Late Heavy Bombardment is:

Origin Of The Cataclysmic Late Heavy Bombardment Period Of The Terrestrial Planets by R. Gomes, H. F. Levison, K. Tsiganis and A. Morbidelli, Nature, 435: 466-469 (26th May 2005)

[2] Cited in The Life And Letters Of Charles Darwin, Including An Autobiographical Chapter, edited by Francis Darwin, 1887

[3] The Origin And Development Of Life by Alexander Oparin, 1924 (English translation: NASA TTF-488)

[4] A Production Of Amino Acids Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions by Stanley L. Miller, Science, 117: 528-529 (15th May 1953)

[5] The Miller Volcanic Discharge Spark Experiment by Adam P. Johnson, H. James Cleaves, Jason P. Dworkin, Daniel P. Glavin, Antonio Lazcano and Jeffrey L. Bada, Science, 322:404 (17th Ocotber 2008)

[6] Amino Acid Synthesis From Hydrogen Cyanide Under Possible Primitive Earth Conditions[/i] by J. Oró and S. S.Kamat, Nature, 190: 442-443 (1961)

[7] A Hydrogen Rich Early Earth Atmosphere by Feng Tian, Owen B. Toon, Alexander A. Pavlov and H. de Sterck, Science, 308: 1014-1017 (13th May 2005)

[8] A Rigorous Attempt To Verify Interstellar Glycine by I. E. Snyder, F. J. Lovas, J. M. Hollis, D. N. Friedel, P. R. Jewell, A. Remijan, V. V. Ilyushin, E. A. Alekseev and S. F. Dyubko, The Astrophysical Journal, 619(2): 914-930 (1st February 2005)

[9] Interstellar Glycine by Yi-Jehng Kuan, Steven B. Charnley, Hui-Chun Huang, Wei-Ling Tseng, and Zbigniew Kisiel, The Astrophysical Journal, 593: 848-867 (20th August 2003)

[10] Prebiotic Materials From On And Off The Early Earth by Max Bernstein, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Part B, 361: 1689-1702 (11th September 2006)

[11] Racemic Amino Acids From The Ultraviolet Photolysis Of Interstellar Ice Analogues by Max P. Bernstein, Jason P. Dworkin, Scott A. Sandford, George W. Copoper and Louis J. Allamandola, Nature, 416: 401-403

[12] A Combined Experimental And Theoretical Study On The Formation Of The Amino Acid Glycine And Its Isomer In Extraterrestrial Ices by Philip D. Holtom, Chris J. Bennett, Yoshihiro Osamura, Nigel J Mason and Ralf. I Kaiser, The Astrophysical Journal, 626: 940-952 (20th June 2005)

[13] The Lifetimes Of Nitriles (CN) And Acids (COOH) During Ultraviolet Photolysis And Their Survival In Space by Max P. Bernstein, Samantha F. M. Ashbourne, Scott A. Sandford and Louis J. Allamandola, The Astrophysical Journal, 601: 3650270 (20th January 2004)

[14] The Prebiotic Molecules Observed In The Interstellar Gas by P. Thaddeus, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Part B, 361: 1689-1702 (7th September 2006)

[15] Molecular Asymmetry In Extraterrestrial Chemistry: Insights From A Pristine Meteorite by Sandra Pizzarello, Yongsong Huang and Marcelo R. Alexandre, Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 105(10): 3700-3704 (11th March 2008)

[16] Organic Compounds In Carbonaceous Meteorites by Mark A. Sephton, Natural Products Reports (Royal Society of Chemistry), 19: 292-311 (2002)

[17] Peptides By Activation Of Amino Acids With CO On (Ni,Fe)S Surfaces: Implications For The Origin Of Life by Claudia Huber and Günter Wächtershäuser, Science, 281: 670-672 (31st July 1998)

[18] Carbonyl Sulphide-Mediated Prebiotic Formation Of Peptides by Luke Leman, Leslie Orgel and M. Reza Ghadiri, Science, 306: 283-286 (8th October 2004)

[19] Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 2001, was awarded to William S. Knowles, Ryoji Noyori and K. Barry Sharpless, for their work establishing the existence of asymmetric catalysts and chiral catalysis - see the Nobel Lecture by William S. Knowles here

[20] Homogeneous Catalysis In The Decomposition Of Diazo Compounds By Copper Chelates: Asymmetric Carbenoid Reactions[/i] by H. Nozaki, H. Takaya, S. Moriuti and R. Noyori, Tetrahedron, 24(9): 3655-2669 (1968)

[21] Prebiotic Amino Acids As Asymmetric Catalysts by Sandra Pizzarello and Arthur L. Weber, Science, 303: 1151 (20 February 2004)

[22] Homochiral Selection In The Montmorillonite-Catalysed And Uncatalysed Prebiotic Synthesis Of RNA by Prakash C. Joshi, Stefan Pitsch and James P. Ferris, Chemical Communications (Royal Society of Chemistry), 2497-2498 (2000) [DOI: 10.1039/b007444f]

[23] RNA-Directed Amino Acid Homochirality by J. Martyn Bailey, FASEB Journal (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), 12: 503-507 (1998)

[24] Catalysis In Prebiotic Chemistry: Application To The Synthesis Of RNA Oligomers by James P. Ferris, Prakash C. Joshi, K-J Wang, S. Miyakawa and W. Huang, Advances in Space Research, 33: 100-105 (2004)

[25] Cations As Mediators Of The Adsorption Of Nucleic Acids On Clay Surfaces In Prebiotic Environments by Marco Franchi, James P. Ferris and Enzo Gallori, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 33: 1-16 (2003)

[26] Ligation Of The Hairpin Ribozyme In cis Induced By Freezing And Dehydration by Sergei A. Kazakov, Svetlana V. Balatskaya and Brian H. Johnston, The RNA Journal, 12: 446-456 (2006)

[27] Mineral Catalysis And Prebiotic Synthesis: Montmorillonite-Catalysed Formation Of RNA by James P. Ferris, Elements, 1: 145-149 (June 2005)

[28] Montmorillonite Catalysis Of 30-50 Mer Oligonucleotides: Laboratory Demonstration Of Potential Steps In The Origin Of The RNA World by James P. Ferris, Origins of Life and Evolution of the biosphere, 32: 311-332 (2002)

[29] Montmorillonite Catalysis Of RNA Oligomer Formation In Aqueous Solution: A Model For The Prebiotic Formation Of RNA by James P. Ferris and Gözen Ertem, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 115: 12270-12275 (1993)

[30] Nucelotide Synthetase Ribozymes May Have Emerged First In The RNA World by Wentao Ma, Chunwu Yu, Wentao Zhang and Jiming Hu, The RNA Journal, 13: 2012-2019, 18th September 2007

[31] Prebiotic Chemistry And The Origin Of The RNA World by Leslie E. Orgel, Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 39: 99-123 (2004)

[32] Prebiotic Synthesis On Minerals: Bridging The Prebiotic And RNA Worlds by James P. Ferris, Biological Bulletin, 196: 311-314 (June 1999)

[33] RNA Catalysis In Model Protocell Vesicles by Irene A Chen, Kourosh Salehi-Ashtiani and Jack W Szostak, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127: 13213-13219 (2005)

[34] RNA-Catalysed Nucleotide Synthesis by Peter J. Unrau and David P. Bartel, Nature, 395: 260-263 (17th September 1998)

[35] RNA-Catalyzed RNA Polymerization: Accurate and General RNA-Templated Primer Extension by Wendy K. Johnston, Peter J. Unrau, Michael S. Lawrence, Margaret E. Glasner and David P. Bartel, Science, 292: 1319-1325, 18th May 2001

[36] RNA-Directed Amino Acid Homochirality by J. Martyn Bailey, FASEB Journal (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology), 12: 503-507 (1998)

[37] RNA Evolution And The Origin Of Life by Gerald F. Joyce, Nature, 338: 217-224 (16th March 1989)

[38] Sequence- And Regio-Selectivity In The Montmorillonite-Catalysed Synthesis Of RNA by Gözen Ertem and James P. Ferris, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 30: 411-422 (2000)

[39] Synthesis Of 35-40 Mers Of RNA Oligomers From Unblocked Monomers. A Simple Approach To The RNA World by Wenhua Huang and James P. Ferris, Chemical Communications of the Royal Society of Chemistry, 1458-1459 (2003)

[40] Synthesis Of Long Prebiotic Oligomers On Mineral Surfaces by James P. Ferris, Aubrey R. Hill Jr, Rihe Liu and Leslie E. Orgel, Nature, 381: 59-61 (2nd May 1996)

[41] The Antiquity Of RNA-Based Evolution by Gerald F. Joyce, Nature, 418: 214-221, 11th July 2002

[42] The Roads To And From The RNA World[/i] by Jason P. Dworkin, Antonio Lazcano and Stanley L. Miller, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 222: 127-134 (2003)

[43] A Self-Replicating Ligase Ribozyme by Natasha Paul & Gerald F. Joyce, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA., 99(20): 12733-12740 (1st October 2002)

[44] Emergence Of A Replicating Species From An In Vitro RNA Evolution Reaction by Ronald R. Breaker and Gerald F. Joyce, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 91: 6093-6097 (June 1994)

[45] Ribozymes: Building The RNA World by Gerald F. Joyce, Current Biology, 6(8): 965-967, 1996

[46] Self-Sustained Replication Of An RNA Enzyme by Tracey A. Lincoln and Gerald F. Joyce, ScienceExpress, DOI: 10.1126/science.1167856 (8th January 2009)

[47] The Origin Of Replicators And Reproducers by Eörs Szathmáry, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Part B, 361: 1689-1702 (11th September 2006)

[48] Darwinian Evolution On A Chip by Brian M. Paegel and Gerald F. Joyce, Public Library of Science Biology, 6(4): e85 (April 2008)

[49] Formation Of Bimolecular Membranes From Lipid Monolayers And A Study Of Their Electrical Properties by M. Montal and P. Mueller, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 69(12): 3561-3566 (December 1972)

[50] Lipid Bilayer Fibres From Diastereomeric And Enantiomeric N-Octylaldonamides by Jürgen-Hinrich Fuhrhop, Peter Schneider, Egbert Boekema and Wolfgang Helfrich, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 110: 2861-2867 (1988)

[51] Molecular Dynamics Simulation Of The Formation, Structure, And Dynamics Of Small Phospholipid Vesicles by Siewert J. Marrink and Alan E. Mark, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 125: 15233-15242 (2003)

[52] Simulation Of The Spontaneous Aggregation Of Phospholipids Into Bilayers by Siewert J. Marrink, Eric Lindahl, Olle Edholm and Alan E. Mark, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 123: 8638-8639 (2001)

[53] The Lipid World by Daniel Segré, Dafna Ben-Eli, David W. Deamer and Doron Lancet, Origins of Life And Evolution of the Biosphere, 31: 119-145, 2001

[54] Replicating Vesicles As Models Of Primitive Cell Growth And Division by Martin M. Hanczyc and Jack W. Szostak, Current Opinion In Chemical Biology, 8: 660-664 (22nd October 2004)

[55] RNA Catalysis In Model Protocell Vesicles by Irene A Chen, Kourosh Salehi-Ashtiani and Jack W Szostak, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 127: 13213-13219 (2005)

[56] Coevolution Of Compositional Protocells And Their Environment by Barak Shenhav, Aia Oz and Doron Lancet, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Part B, 362: 1813-1819 (9th May 2007)

[57] Computational Models For The Formation Of Protocell Structures by Linglan Edwards, Yun Peng and James A. Reggia, Artificial Life, 4(1): 61-77 (1998)

[58] Coupled Growth And Division Of Model Protocell Membranes by Ting F. Zhu and Jack W. Szostak, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131: 5705-5713 (2009)

[59] Evolution And Self-Assembly Of Protocells by Ricard V. Solé, The International Journal of Biochemistry & Cell Biology, 41: 274-284 (2009)

[60] Formation Of Protocell-Like Structures From Glycine And Formaldehyde In A Modified Sea Medium by Hiroshi Yanagawa and Fujio Egami, Proceedings of the Japan Academy, 53: 42-45 (12th January 1977)

[61] Formation Of Protocell-Like Vesicles In A Thermal Diffusion Column by Itay Budin, Raphael J. Bruckner and Jack W. Szostak, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 131: 9628-9629 (2009)

[62] Generic Darwinian Selection In Catalytic Protocell Assemblies by Andreea Munteanu, Camille Stephan-Otto Attolini, Steen Rasmussen, Hans Ziock and Ricard V. Solé, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Part B, 362: 1847-1855 (2007)

[63] Kin Selection And Virulence In The Evolution Of Protocells And Parasites by Steven A. Frank, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Part B, 258: 153-161 (1994)

[64] Nutrient Uptake By Protocells: A Liposome Model System by Pierre-Alain Monnard and David W. Deamer, Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere, 31: 147-155 (2001)

[65] Synchronisation Phenomena In Internal Reaction Models Of Protocells by Roberto Serra, Timoteo Carletti, Alessandro Filisetti and Irene Poli, Artificial life, 13: 123-128 (2007)

[66] Synchronisation Phenomena In Protocell Models by Alessandro Filisetti, Roberto Serra, Timoteo Carletti, Irene Poli and Marco Villani, Biophysical Reviews and Letters, 3(1-2): 325-342 (2008)

[67] Synthetic Protocell Biology: From Reproduction To Computation by Ricard V. Solé, Andreea Munteanu, Carlos Rodriguez-Caso and Javier Macia, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society Part B, 362: 1727-1739 (October 2007)

[68] Template-Directed Synthesis Of A Genetic Polymer In A Model Protocell by Sheref S. Mansy, Jason P. Schrum, Mathangi Krisnamurthy, Sylvia Tobé, Douglas A. Treco and Jack W. Szostak, Nature, 454: 122-125 (4th June 2008)

[69] The Emergence Of Competition Between Model Protocells by Irene A Chen, Richard W. Roberts and Jack W. Szostak, Science, 305:1474-1476 (3rd September 2004)

[70] Thermostability Of Model Protocell Membranes by Sheref S. Mansy and Jack W. Szostak, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 105(36): 13351-13355 (9th September 2008)

Oh, by the way, if you want to arrange an E-Mail drop for those scientific papers (and more) on abiogenesis, I now have no less than 213 of them. 149 megabytes, if you don't mind spending two hours downloading them.

You could always accept the book. And then every few days or so send him messages along the lines of: "look at this bit of ignorant drivel here..." etc. to point out that your are finding more and more creotard crap the more you read! Perhaps implying that your impression of creationism is worsening the more you read.

And then maybe he will at least get sick of your negative-proselytizing and drop the effort of trying to convert you. He may even learn a little something.

ADParker wrote:You could always accept the book. And then every few days or so send him messages along the lines of: "look at this bit of ignorant drivel here..." etc. to point out that your are finding more and more creotard crap the more you read! Perhaps implying that your impression of creationism is worsening the more you read.

And then maybe he will at least get sick of your negative-proselytizing and drop the effort of trying to convert you. He may even learn a little something.

I like it.
"Thank you for sending me that book, it has really opened my eyes. Every single thing I checked on showed the author to be shockingly ill-informed, or possibly straight-out dishonest. The process of investigation it sent me on has shown me just how solid the science is which demonstrates evolutionary biology. Now I understand just how wrong creationism is and how so-called creation scientists are simply deceivers out to confuse people who don't understand science particularly well. Thank you again for recommending it to me, I can't wait 'til you get a chance to read it."

Institutional access

Apart from asking if a taxpayer has funded something, why isn't it the default position that it is freely available, might this institutionalised behaviour actually be allowing false ideas to flourish?

Clive Durdle wrote:

Institutional access

Apart from asking if a taxpayer has funded something, why isn't it the default position that it is freely available, might this institutionalised behaviour actually be allowing false ideas to flourish?

Which is precisely my objection to paywalls.

Stellar rebuttals, Calilasseia! That was an excellent read!

A Redditor was actually able to access the original Science article for me through his university.... As I suspected, no such mention of paleontologists finding "modern birds" in the same strata as archaeopteryx - they found fossils that "RESEMBLED modern birds", but only creationists would be stupid or dishonest enough to equate the two, and think that this is a problem for evolution.

The mini-article on archaeopteryx is on the third page. Sorry, they're scans: http://imgur.com/a/2IurI#0

So as for my response to my cousin's book... I'm thinking of just doing a general rebuttal of the first point (the "evolution = time + lightning + dirty water" rubbish), explain why it's wrong, and ask him why I should even dedicate more time to the book if it can't even get the definition of "evolution" right in the first chapter?

I will then explain how I plucked a random "scientific fact" from the book ("modern bird fossils were found with archaeopteryx"), tell him about the hoops I had to jump through just to gain access to the article they were citing, and explain why the creationist interpretation of this data is bullshit. Again, I ask... if I can just pick a claim at random and it turns out to be totally bunk, why on earth should I read another page of this book?

Somewhere prior to the archaeopteryx example, I will probably have to give my cousin a mini crash-course in evolution (as is always required when debating creationists, because they clearly don't understand it in the first place... otherwise, they wouldn't be creationists )... I understand evolution well enough to explain it to someone who has an open mind and a bit of a grounding in biology, but how do I dumb it down enough so that even a creationist could get it? I think my biggest hurdle is going to be getting my point across without any of it going over his head.

Sheradon, you might find it a good idea to take a look at my list of busted creationist canards before you do so. In particular, Canard [11], which deals with the tiresome creationist conflation of evolutionary theory with abiogenesis (which is explained in more detail as you peruse that admittedly long exposition). Basically, you'll find most of the standard creationist canards dealt with in that list.

At some point, I'm going to have to post the properly formatted version that was posted over at the now-defunct Richard Dawkins Forums ...

Calilasseia wrote:Sheradon, you might find it a good idea to take a look at my list of busted creationist canards before you do so. In particular, Canard [11], which deals with the tiresome creationist conflation of evolutionary theory with abiogenesis (which is explained in more detail as you peruse that admittedly long exposition). Basically, you'll find most of the standard creationist canards dealt with in that list.

At some point, I'm going to have to post the properly formatted version that was posted over at the now-defunct Richard Dawkins Forums ...

I was a frequenter of RDF forums.. it's a damn shame they didn't just archive the threads there. So much good information lost..

Dunno if you got my PM but I'm very interested in those abiogenesis papers.

You have mail.

Sheradon wrote:So as for my response to my cousin's book... I'm thinking of just doing a general rebuttal of the first point (the "evolution = time + lightning + dirty water" rubbish),

As small point but an important one: unless I missed it when copying the original article, there's no mention of time. The lunatic says

There was some gravel around, along with some dirt. Nearby was some water, and overhead a lightning storm. The lightning hit the dirty water and made living creatures complete with DNA. They not only had their complete genetic code, but they were also immediately able to eat, digest food, move about, perform enzymatic and glandular functions, and all the rest.

If you allow time, creationists will just say their drivel was a rather florid metaphor. Admittedly, you could then take them to task for including time that they don't believe in, but why take two goes at slapping them down.

There's no point in discussing anything with a creotard, their "mind" is made up and no amount of evidence will sway them. They find it comforting to sit at the pinnacle of creation, knowing they'll get a mansion of pearls with floors of gold when they pop their clogs. You can't fix stupid. I'd have better luck explaining special relativity to my dog then trying to discuss evolutionary theory with a 6 Day Creotard.

My brother-in-law has a family member who's a Happy-Clappy Catholic, she constantly goes on about Gawd and Jebus and Hell and all that horseshit whenever she's around. I just leave the table and go sit outside. Better to be eaten alive by mosquitoes and die from Eastern Equine Encephalitis then listen to that drivel.

I have institutional access, please feel free to PM me so I can send you the papers.