You're quote mining, Spear.
I do hope that you realise by doing so, you're misrepresenting my argument, and that would be a violation of the FUA.

I am not making an argument for any alternative Creation Myth.
Is that clear?

The real point of this thread is to show that Abiogenesis is a Creation Myth, and like the others is based not on solid facts but supposition.

This is almost hilarious, there's so much wrong with that statement.

It's really quite obvious that, given what we know about the development of the universe, the formation of the solar system and our planet, life must have somehow begun in the past. Either here on earth, or elsewhere, it still has to have begun at some point. At the least, life as we know it, life that we are linked to by common descent. There comes a time in the past where the universe is so hot and dense that atoms can't exist and so, chemical reactions can't take place. These are just facts and they have nothing to do with supposition.

This is not to say we know how life began. In that sense, I don't think we can know. Technically, we will forever have to remain agnostic on the question "how did life on earth begin?". This is a natural consequence of a 4.5 billion year old planet with active plate-tectonics. Whatever evidence could have been left over from the origin of life, if it even arose here, is now long gone, destroyed and recycled in the earth's crust.

But there's a different question we can ask, which is "how could life have begun?". And we can look for clues in life as we see it now, and the oldest evidence of life we can find, and try to answer that question when combining it with research in prebiotic chemistry and physics. This is what we are doing. You'll have to explain to me where in this a "creation myth" lies?

It seems to me to call the attempt to answer that question "a creation myth" is the obese mother of all equivocations. A creation-myth would be to invent a story in spite/regardless of what the evidence tells us, because it makes us feel good, and then declare it true and the question solved by fiat. Can you explain to me where this has been done in research into abiogenesis, Rainbow?

Hit the alert button but don't make false accusations, Rainbow - that could just as easily be seen as a violation of the FUA.

Is that clear?

Spearthrower wrote:Hit the alert button but don't make false accusations, Rainbow - that could just as easily be seen as a violation of the FUA.

Is that clear?

No.

You've taken a piece of what I've written out of context, and that is quote mining.

Whether I wish to take this up with the mods happens to be my prerogative alone.

Then why are you warning Spearthrower that it's a FUA violation?

Because it is.

Biggest bullshit a-going.

What Rainbow doesn't like is that I have exposed his summation of the intent of this thread to be different to his earlier claims about the intent of this thread.

There's no quote-mine, I haven't snipped out anything relevant or taken it out of context at all.

Typical slippery behaviour.

Just so people can decide for themselves: Rainbow earlier explained the intent of this thread:

First page:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... tml#p22882

rainbow wrote:

natselrox wrote:Just a reminder, rainbow. You aren't refuting Calilasseia here. You are refuting those bracketed numbers.

It is a Critique, not a Refutation. Please be aware of the difference.

Second page:

rainbow wrote:

OgreMkV wrote:rainbow,

I'm not sure what you're driving at here. You seem intent on picking apart every little bit.

Clearly you don't understand the meaning of a 'Critique'. The definition is available on the internet if you're not sure.

I will however try to explain it to you in my own words:

It is an evaluation of another work, not necessarily critical. It does however examine in detail the arguments presented and offers a comment on them.
It is NOT intended as argument for another point of view. If I wish to present an alternative Thesis, I've done this elsewhere.

Page 8's much later and very different summation of what this thread was about:

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... ml#p923456

rainbow wrote:
The real point of this thread is to show that Abiogenesis is a Creation Myth, and like the others is based not on solid facts but supposition

In other words, it's no longer being portrayed as a critique anymore (see Rainbow's earlier definition of critique), but a refutation.

Dictionary definition: Refute 1. To prove to be false or erroneous; overthrow by argument or proof:



The post which result in the accusation Rainbow makes against me that I am misrepresenting him or quote mining him:


http://www.rationalskepticism.org/gener ... ml#p923456

Spearthrower wrote:

rainbow wrote:
The real point of this thread is to show that Abiogenesis is a Creation Myth, and like the others is based not on solid facts but supposition.

Huh? That's not what you said throughout the beginning of this thread:

rainbow wrote:It is an evaluation of another work, not necessarily critical. It does however examine in detail the arguments presented and offers a comment on them.
It is NOT intended as argument for another point of view. If I wish to present an alternative Thesis, I've done this elsewhere.

Is it a) an evaluation of a work, or b) an argument that Abiogenesis is a myth?
Does it a) merely offer comments, or b) argue that the points made were not based on solid facts?
Does it a) offer contrary facts to question the claims (i.e. 'show'), or b) examine arguments?
Is it a) NOT an argument for another point of view, or is it b) intended to show that Abiogenesis is a myth?

These are mutually exclusive claims. Of course, it's plausible that the intent changed over the duration of the thread; that's really the only way that your final summary can tally with your earlier comments.

I rest my case.

Rainbow wrote:
The real point of this thread is to show that Abiogenesis is a Creation Myth, and like the others is based not on solid facts but supposition.

Yeah, but it is a really good supposition that is unavoidable. One that cannot be logically denied as Rumraket pointed out.

As for abiogenesis being a creation myth; It doesn't fit the criteria:

Several features are found in all creation myths. They are all stories with a plot and characters who are either deities, human-like figures, or animals, who often speak and transform easily.[8] They are often set in a dim and nonspecific past, what historian of religion Mircea Eliade termed in illo tempore.[7][9] Also, all creation myths speak to deeply meaningful questions held by the society that shares them, revealing of their central worldview and the framework for the self-identity of the culture and individual in a universal context.[10] - Wiki

I'd also like to point out that creation myths don't try to examine how life began, they "explain" how humans were created by God or gods.

You could say that abiogenesis is just a myth, you are entitled to your own opinion, but you would be wrong. Abiogenesis is a logical conclusion drawn from scientific data.

Spearthrower wrote:I rest my case.

You'd better rest it.
It doesn't have a leg to stand on.

rainbow wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:I rest my case.

You'd better rest it.
It doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Have you got something substantive to say, or are you just looking for a reaction?

I've told you already: got a problem - alert the mods, but stop basely accusing me without justification.

Is that clear?

Spearthrower wrote:

rainbow wrote:

Spearthrower wrote:I rest my case.

You'd better rest it.
It doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Have you got something substantive to say, or are you just looking for a reaction?

I've absolutely nothing to say about your misrepresentation of my posting.
Subject closed.

Hmm, maybe this was an invitation to critique...OK!

"It was Darwin himself who first speculated about the origins of life," actually, it was Ibn Khaldun who first outlined a radical notion he called "transformation patterns." Incredibly he also speculated that evolution would continue, "the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group." All this was written 500 years before Darwin and Wallace.

Source: The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (The Classic Islamic History of the World) by Ibn Khaldun (b.1332-d.1406), pg 74-75 (published 1967)

http://www.gettextbooks.co.uk/isbn_9780691120546.html

Lots of ancient Greek schools of thought had ideas on the naturalistic emergence of life. The atomists actually alighted (on entirely erroneous grounds) that all terrestrial life had emerged from the water!

Grace wrote:Hmm, maybe this was an invitation to critique...OK!

"It was Darwin himself who first speculated about the origins of life," actually, it was Ibn Khaldun who first outlined a radical notion he called "transformation patterns." Incredibly he also speculated that evolution would continue, "the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group." All this was written 500 years before Darwin and Wallace.

Source: The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History (The Classic Islamic History of the World) by Ibn Khaldun (b.1332-d.1406), pg 74-75 (published 1967)

http://www.gettextbooks.co.uk/isbn_9780691120546.html

The emergence of life though is about abiogenesis not evolution.