Canada's Smartest Person - Seeking nominees.

[Kevin Pacey]

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Here might be a nominee for Canada's Smartest Person, someday when the political climate has changed enough for manmade global climate change to be regarded as at least an open question again:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Ball

[Kevin Pacey]

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Fwiw, here's a link with an estimate of the percentage of atheists worldwide:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_atheism


Were it not for my own personal religious experiences (naturally unprovable), I would possibly still be agnostic/open-minded, as I was when I left college. One thing that seemed clear to me even back then was that atheism is a belief system. A proper scientific position would seem to me to be in effect an agnostic one, in that claims about anything supernatural would seem normally outside of the realm of possible testing, via lab experiments. At least that's what my high school physics teacher told our class.


Also fwiw, I've got my own numerous religious beliefs (and some anecdotes) described in an entry on my blog on the CFC website's Discussion Board, which I backed up heavily with wikipedia links where they seemed at all appropriate. My set of beliefs is unorthodox as a whole; in particular I distrust the notion of biblical inerrancy, to some extent:

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/en...s-experiences)

[Paul Bonham]

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Maybe this is only a question of vocabulary, and we are not talking about the same thing. I am 60 and left high school long ago, so I do not know what is taught in biology class nowadays. As far as I remember, evolution was not trying to explain the origin of life when I was a student. Do you know or does anybody know a link showing how evolution theory is actually taught today in a high school course?

Well, in one sense it IS a question of vocabulary. Instead of saying "evolution was not trying to explain the origin of life when I was a student" you should be saying "people were not using evolution to explain the origin of life when I was a student". Whether they are doing so today at the high school biology level is not clear to me, but if Hawking is any indication, it's very possible, in modern developed nations at least.

Back when we were students, there weren't that many atheists in the world, or at least not nearly as many openly-admitted atheists. But atheism is growing rapidly now, it would seem.

[Louis Morin]

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Closer to the truth is that both theories should be taught, because it must be one or the other. I don't know of any third theory to to explain the origin of life.

Maybe this is only a question of vocabulary, and we are not talking about the same thing. I am 60 and left high school long ago, so I do not know what is taught in biology class nowadays. As far as I remember, evolution was not trying to explain the origin of life when I was a student. Do you know or does anybody know a link showing how evolution theory is actually taught today in a high school course?

[Louis Morin]

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did the first spark of life happen out of the blue? Was it a total fluke or were there precursors (like the chemical soup and the energy source, blah, blah)?

As far as I know, science has not found any answer to this question yet. If I am wrong and some scientist claims to have such an answer, please give me the link.

[David Ottosen]

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I suggest anyone applying for the show not include their responses in this thread as part of their application

[Paul Bonham]

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So evolution would try to explain how life arose? I was not aware of that. At least this is not in Darwin's writings.

Evolution is change in the heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations. It works with already living matter. At least, this is what I think since I went to high school.

Evolution doesn't try to explain.... PEOPLE do! Why do you think I wrote that evolution theory has been hijacked?

Creationism is a religious explanation based on belief rather than evidence (God's existence cannot be proven), and has no credentials in biological circles. For this reason, it should be taught in a religion course, not a biology course.

Evolution hijacked to explain the origin of life itself is likewise based on belief (the initial spark of life cannot be created). Therefore it too, based on your conclusion, should have no credentials in biological circles and should not be taught in a biology course.

Closer to the truth is that both theories should be taught, because it must be one or the other. I don't know of any third theory to to explain the origin of life. Bacteria arriving from outer space still requires live to have originated, just somewhere else besides Earth.

Mathieu Cloutier seems to think that if both theories should be taught, then all versions of creationism should be taught including Flying Spaghetti Monster. Well, no, let people discover all the versions for themselves and make up their own mind, but no need to teach them all in school. But the overall concept of creationism is on equal footing with the concept of life having evolved from lifelessness through a purely physical process, regardless of whether Cloutier likes that or not.

[Peter McKillop]

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So evolution would try to explain how life arose? I was not aware of that. At least this is not in Darwin's writings.

Evolution is change in the heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations. It works with already living matter. At least, this is what I think since I went to high school.

Creationism is a religious explanation based on belief rather than evidence (God's existence cannot be proven), and has no credentials in biological circles. For this reason, it should be taught in a religion course, not a biology course.

I'm not an astrophysicist or a biologist. I'm just a little old country boy trying to understand all this sophisticated back and forth. But you lost me, Louis. You seem to be saying that if the first spark of life occurred at time t = 0, then that's when the evolutionary clock started ticking too. But did the first spark of life happen out of the blue? Was it a total fluke or were there precursors (like the chemical soup and the energy source, blah, blah)? You seem to be saying that the precursors that were simmering away at time t = - 1/1,000,000 weren't part of the continuum of life. That seems to be similar to the argument that.you can kill a baby while it's in the womb, because it's not human yet, but you can't kill it once it has been evicted.

[Louis Morin]

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By the way, I don't think we can excuse Hawking for his being an astrophysicist. He is very well aware of the competing theories of evolution and creationism to explain how life arose. As an objective scientist who is being given a TV show to answer deep questions, he should have mentioned both theories.

So evolution would try to explain how life arose? I was not aware of that. At least this is not in Darwin's writings.

Evolution is change in the heritable traits of biological populations over successive generations. It works with already living matter. At least, this is what I think since I went to high school.

Creationism is a religious explanation based on belief rather than evidence (God's existence cannot be proven), and has no credentials in biological circles. For this reason, it should be taught in a religion course, not a biology course.

[Mathieu Cloutier]

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By the way, I don't think we can excuse Hawking for his being an astrophysicist. He is very well aware of the competing theories of evolution and creationism to explain how life arose. As an objective scientist who is being given a TV show to answer deep questions, he should have mentioned both theories.

And here we go! Teach the controversy!

And, by the way Paul, can you disprove the Flying Spaghetti Monster? He created the Universe and life and everything. Because according to your logic, someone should be entitled to believing this. And that would then have to be considered among the other theories, right?

Wrong. Having an opinion on a matter doesn't mean it suddenly becomes a fact or a controversy or a debate. Some 'opinions' aren't really opinions and are thus flat out wrong. Creationism, in its current form, is just a fallacy and nothing else. And I said 'in its current form'. Because there would be ways to defend creationism without going against the gigantic amount of scientific information we have at hand.

[Paul Bonham]

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Hi Louis. Yes, I agree, if you saw my response to Bob Gillanders in this thread just 2 days ago. I agree that evolution is a fact, since DNA mutation is a proven fact.

This still doesn't explain how LIFE STARTED. Evolution does not explain how lifeless molecules become living entities.

I think Mathieu was just being his usual trolling self. He's reduced now to saying that RNA replication is the "most likely" explanation for why we are here..... which of course, is mere opinion, whereas Hawking was trying to present his explanation as fact to answer the question "What are we?". Not once in his show did Hawking mention creation as a possible explanation.

So yes, evolution a fact. No, not proven as an explanation for the spark of life.

By the way, I don't think we can excuse Hawking for his being an astrophysicist. He is very well aware of the competing theories of evolution and creationism to explain how life arose. As an objective scientist who is being given a TV show to answer deep questions, he should have mentioned both theories.

[Paul Bonham]

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Actually, all what Mathieu did is to repeat what most biologists and biochemists believe (evolution is a proven fact). See this link for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0sszxXlzlY

About the Hawking's experiment to prove that life naturally comes from non-living things, remember that he is an astrophysicist, not a biologist... Maybe he should stick on astrophysics when he talks about science, and let biologists defend evolution in a more astute way...

Hi Louis. Yes, I agree, if you saw my response to Bob Gillanders in this thread just 2 days ago. I agree that evolution is a fact, since DNA mutation is a proven fact.

This still doesn't explain how LIFE STARTED. Evolution does not explain how lifeless molecules become living entities.

I think Mathieu was just being his usual trolling self. He's reduced now to saying that RNA replication is the "most likely" explanation for why we are here..... which of course, is mere opinion, whereas Hawking was trying to present his explanation as fact to answer the question "What are we?". Not once in his show did Hawking mention creation as a possible explanation.

So yes, evolution a fact. No, not proven as an explanation for the spark of life.

[Egidijus Zeromskis]

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About the Hawking's experiment to prove that life naturally comes from non-living things, remember that he is an astrophysicist, not a biologist... Maybe he should stick on astrophysics when he talks about science, and let biologists defend evolution in a more astute way...

I have not seen the show though it's hard to discuss what Hawking wanted to really show - maybe an appearance of bacteria from outer space started the life on Earth. Though this does not answer the question how those bacteria were born in the first place.

[Louis Morin]

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you're probably going to keep trying to push your evolutionist agenda using RNA as some kind of a proving ground. You can fool some of the people some of the time....

Actually, all what Mathieu did is to repeat what most biologists and biochemists believe (evolution is a proven fact). See this link for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0sszxXlzlY

About the Hawking's experiment to prove that life naturally comes from non-living things, remember that he is an astrophysicist, not a biologist... Maybe he should stick on astrophysics when he talks about science, and let biologists defend evolution in a more astute way...

[Mathieu Cloutier]

Re: Canada's Smartest Person - Seeking nominees.

Again, these are just building blocks, they are not life. The proof of LIFE appearing spontaneously from primeval soup and input of energy is still non-existent.

Obviously it would be a huge news event if some scientist ever made this happen. It's an open question as to whether such a proof would invalidate religions that profess God to have created life, because an argument could still be made that the creation of life actually began with the Big Bang. Again, that is something Hawking left out of his show.

Given enough time, nucleotides and amino acids will eventually form self-replicating molecular structures such as RNA.

You can deny all you want, but this is the most likely explanation for why we are here, 4 billions years after the whole process started.