DARWIN VS. GENESIS

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So we have empirical evidence of rapid strata creation,during short time.
Therefore theory of slow strata creation must be rejected,due to empirical evidence against.
But somehow,I believe that Evolutionists would ignore this,since its in contradiction with their belief system.

I don't follow you. What previous forms of communism? Dialectical materialism is not a form of communism. It is Karl Marx's system of metaphysics.

Not all forms of metaphysics are totalitarian or rest on totalitarian assumptions.

That would be like being a physicist and being ignorant of the laws of thermodynamics.

Not so. Darwinism was precisely that - an attempt to classify life forms.

Again, not true. All systems of metaphysics, by definition, assume that universals, or abstract concepts, are real. Nominalism is antimetaphysical because it rejects that assumption.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science, traditionally, cosmology and ontology. It is also concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of being and the world.

The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, defines nominalism as "the doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names." Nominalism has also been defined as a philosophical position that various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name.

All systems of metaphysics, by definition, assume that universals, or abstract concepts, are real. Nominalism is antimetaphysical because it rejects that assumption.

But other components of the strata, such as the build-up of sedimentary beds (coal, limestone, etc) clearly took millions of years. The rise of the Himalayas clearly occurred as the Indian Subcontinent collided with India; this took many millions of years, and is still visibly happening.

On the other hand catastrophism is a religiously inspired notion that the Earth is relatively young (a few thousand years), and that current landscapes are either from the original act of creation, or from catastrophe's such as the (Noah) flood and recent volcanos.

Uniformitarianism is accepted by geology. Catastrophism is not. Your selective use of geologic evidence suggests that you don't really understand what geologists believe, or that you are twisting it to support a non-rational agenda.

Dialectical materialism is off course not communism as such.It has communism as its integral part.

I meant 'totalitarian' in philosophical,not political sense. As attempt to encompass entire totality of reality.

Laws of thermodynamics can be empirically tested,but you cannot test metaphysical research program.

Nope. Darwinism goes beyond classification,and try to determine origins of life forms,and causes of their current state.

Again, not true. All systems of metaphysics, by definition, assume that universals, or abstract concepts, are real. Nominalism is antimetaphysical because it rejects that assumption.

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that investigates principles of reality transcending those of any particular science, traditionally, cosmology and ontology. It is also concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of being and the world.

The American Heritage Dictionary, Fourth Edition, defines nominalism as "the doctrine holding that abstract concepts, general terms, or universals have no independent existence but exist only as names." Nominalism has also been defined as a philosophical position that various objects labeled by the same term have nothing in common but their name.

Therefore Nominalism say something about nature of being and world by saying that there are no abstract concepts.

How come that you "Nominalist" believe in Evolution,since by definition of Nominalism you cannot even believe in existence of species?

Since species are general terms and universals.

And if Nominalism deny existence of general terms,how can you believe in theory of origins of these universals (species)?

And then you speak about 'modern synthesis' and 'modern paradigm' - all universal and abstract terms???

Also you mentioned 'laws of thermodynamics',but you as Nominalist shouldn't even believe in them,since 'laws in physics' are generalizations and abstractions from empirical experience,and as generalizations are not real.

From empirical observation,we can see that strata can be created in very short time.
On other hand claims of 'clearly took millions of years' belong to speculation,not observation.
Therefore such claims are not scientific.

I don't care about Creationist Woodoo, what I care is that theory of long historic sedimentation is not empirically valid,and there is alternative to slow strata creation,and that is empirically observable.
Therefore strata sedimentation theory is empirically tested,and paradigm must be changed.

Rapid sedimentation is evidence that Evolutionist concept in Geology is not valid ...

Are you Geologist?

If you are saying that evolution cannot be tested, I would suggest that you are incorrect. Biologists have replicated evolution in the laboratory many times.

Organic chemistry is a specific discipline within chemistry which involves the scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation (by synthesis or by other means) of chemical compounds consisting primarily of carbon and hydrogen, which may contain any number of other elements, including nitrogen, oxygen, halogens as well as phosphorus, silicon and sulfur.

Arguably Sidney Fox's best-known research was conducted in the 1950s and 1960s, when he studied the spontaneous formation of protein structures. His early work demonstrated that under certain conditions amino acids could spontaneously form small peptides—the first step on the road to the assembly of large proteins. The result was significant because his experimental conditions duplicated conditions that might plausibly have existed early in Earth's history.

Further work revealed that these amino acids and small peptides could be encouraged to form closed spherical membranes, called microspheres. Fox has gone so far as to describe these formations as protocells, protein spheres that could grow and reproduce. They might be an important intermediate step in the origin of life. Microspheres might have served as a stepping stone between simple organic compounds and genuine living cells.

Darwin & Pasteur

By the middle of the 19th century Pasteur and others had demonstrated that living organisms did not arise spontaneously from non-living matter; the question therefore arose of how life might have come about within a naturalistic framework. In a letter to Joseph Dalton Hooker on February 1, 1871, Charles Darwin made the suggestion that the original spark of life may have begun in a "warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes". He went on to explain that "at the present day such matter would be instantly devoured or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed."[9] In other words, the presence of life itself makes the search for the origin of life dependent on the sterile conditions of the laboratory.

There is no truly "standard model" of the origin of life. But most currently accepted models build in one way or another upon a number of discoveries about the origin of molecular and cellular components for life, which are listed in a rough order of postulated emergence:

1. Plausible pre-biotic conditions result in the creation of certain basic small molecules (monomers) of life, such as amino acids. This was demonstrated in the Miller-Urey experiment by Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey in 1953.
2. Phospholipids (of an appropriate length) can spontaneously form lipid bilayers, a basic component of the cell membrane.
3. The polymerization of nucleotides into random RNA molecules might have resulted in self-replicating ribozymes (RNA world hypothesis).
4. Selection pressures for catalytic efficiency and diversity result in ribozymes which catalyse peptidyl transfer (hence formation of small proteins), since oligopeptides complex with RNA to form better catalysts. Thus the first ribosome is born, and protein synthesis becomes more prevalent.
5. Proteins outcompete ribozymes in catalytic ability, and therefore become the dominant biopolymer. Nucleic acids are restricted to predominantly genomic use.

The origin of the basic biomolecules, while not settled, is less controversial than the significance and order of steps 2 and 3. The basic chemicals from which life was thought to have formed are:

* methane (CH4),
* ammonia (NH3),
* water (H2O),
* hydrogen sulfide (H2S),
* carbon dioxide (CO2) or carbon monoxide (CO), and
* phosphate (PO43-).

Miller's experiments

Main article: Miller experiment

In 1953 a graduate student, Stanley Miller, and his professor, Harold Urey, performed an experiment that proved organic molecules could have spontaneously formed on Early Earth from inorganic precursors. The now-famous “Miller-Urey experiment” used a highly reduced mixture of gases - methane, ammonia and hydrogen – to form basic organic monomers, such as amino acids. Whether the mixture of gases used in the Miller-Urey experiment truly reflects the atmospheric content of Early Earth is a controversial topic. Other less reducing gases produce a lower yield and variety. It was once thought that appreciable amounts of molecular oxygen were present in the prebiotic atmosphere, which would have essentially prevented the formation of organic molecules; however, the current scientific consensus is that such was not the case. See Oxygen Catastrophe.

Simple organic molecules are, of course, a long way from a fully functional self-replicating life form. But in an environment with no pre-existing life these molecules may have accumulated and provided a rich environment for chemical evolution ("soup theory"). On the other hand, the spontaneous formation of complex polymers from abiotically generated monomers under these conditions is not at all a straightforward process. Besides the necessary basic organic monomers, compounds that would have prohibited the formation of polymers were formed in high concentration during the experiments.

It can be argued that the most crucial challenge unanswered by this theory is how the relatively simple organic building blocks polymerise and form more complex structures, interacting in consistent ways to form a protocell. For example, in an aqueous environment hydrolysis of oligomers/polymers into their constituent monomers would be favored over the condensation of individual monomers into polymers. Also, the Miller experiment produces many substances that would undergo cross-reactions with the amino acids or terminate the peptide chain.

As of 2007, no one has yet synthesized a "protocell" using basic components which would have the necessary properties of life (the so-called "bottom-up-approach"). Without such a proof-of-principle, explanations have tended to be short on specifics.

The modern concept of abiogenesis has been criticized by scientists throughout the years. Astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle did so based on the probability of abiogenesis randomly occurring. Physicist Hubert Yockey did so by saying that it is closer to theology than science.

Other scientists have proposed counterpoints to abiogenesis, such as, Harold Urey, Stanley Miller, Francis Crick (a molecular biologist), and Leslie Orgel's Directed Panspermia hypothesis.

Beyond making the trivial observation that life exists, it is difficult to prove or falsify abiogenesis; therefore the hypothesis has many such critics, both in the scientific and non-scientific communities. Nonetheless, research and hypothesizing continue in the hope of developing a satisfactory theoretical mechanism of abiogenesis.

[edit] Hoyle

Sir Fred Hoyle, with Chandra Wickramasinghe, was a critic of abiogenesis. Specifically Hoyle rejected chemical evolution to explain the naturalistic origin of life. His argument was mainly based on the improbability of what were thought to be the necessary components coming together for chemical evolution. Though modern theories address his argument, Hoyle never saw chemical evolution as a reasonable explanation. Hoyle preferred panspermia as an alternative natural explanation to the origin of life on Earth.

[edit] Yockey

Information theorist Hubert Yockey argued that chemical evolutionary research faces the following problem:

Research on the origin of life seems to be unique in that the conclusion has already been authoritatively accepted … . What remains to be done is to find the scenarios which describe the detailed mechanisms and processes by which this happened. One must conclude that, contrary to the established and current wisdom a scenario describing the genesis of life on earth by chance and natural causes which can be accepted on the basis of fact and not faith has not yet been written.[36]

In a book he wrote 15 years later, Yockey argued that the idea of abiogenesis from a primordial soup is a failed paradigm:

Although at the beginning the paradigm was worth consideration, now the entire effort in the primeval soup paradigm is self-deception on the ideology of its champions. … The history of science shows that a paradigm, once it has achieved the status of acceptance (and is incorporated in textbooks) and regardless of its failures, is declared invalid only when a new paradigm is available to replace it. Nevertheless, in order to make progress in science, it is necessary to clear the decks, so to speak, of failed paradigms. This must be done even if this leaves the decks entirely clear and no paradigms survive. It is a characteristic of the true believer in religion, philosophy and ideology that he must have a set of beliefs, come what may (Hoffer, 1951). Belief in a primeval soup on the grounds that no other paradigm is available is an example of the logical fallacy of the false alternative. In science it is a virtue to acknowledge ignorance. This has been universally the case in the history of science as Kuhn (1970) has discussed in detail. There is no reason that this should be different in the research on the origin of life.[37]

Yockey, in general, possesses a highly critical attitude toward people who give credence toward natural origins of life, often invoking words like "faith" and "ideology". Yockey's publications have become favorites to quote among creationists, though he is not a creationist himself (as noted in this 1995 email).

[edit] Abiogenic synthesis of key chemicals

A number of problems with the RNA world hypothesis remain. There are no known chemical pathways for the abiogenic synthesis of nucleotides from pyrimidine nucleobases cytosine and uracil under prebiotic conditions.[38] Other problems are the difficulty of nucleoside synthesis (from ribose and nucleobase), ligating nucleosides with phosphate to form the RNA backbone, and the short lifetime of the nucleoside molecules, especially cytosine which is prone to hydrolysis.[39] Recent experiments also suggest that the original estimates of the size of an RNA molecule capable of self-replication were most probably vast underestimates.[citation needed] More-modern forms of the RNA World theory propose that a simpler molecule was capable of self-replication (that other "World" then evolved over time to produce the RNA World). At this time however, the various hypotheses have incomplete evidence supporting them. Many of them can be simulated and tested in the lab, but a lack of undisturbed sedimentary rock from that early in Earth's history leaves few opportunities to test this hypothesis robustly.

[edit] Homochirality Problem

Main article: Homochirality

Another unsolved issue in chemical evolution is the origin of homochirality, i.e. all monomers having the same "handedness" (amino acids being left handed, and nucleic acid sugars (ribose and deoxyribose) being right handed). Chiral molecules exist in nature as homogenous mixtures balanced approx. 50/50. This is called a racemic mixture. However, homochirality is essential for the formation of functional ribozymes and proteins. Proper formation is impeded by the very presence of right-handed amino acids and/or left-handed sugars in that they create malformed structures.

Clark has suggested that homochirality may have started in space, as the studies of the Amino acids on the Murchison meteorite showed L-analine to be more than twice as frequent as its D form, and L glutamic acid was more than 3 times its alternative counterpart. It is suggested that magnetically polarised light has the power to destroy one enantiomer within the proto-planetary disk. Once established chirality would be selected for[40].

Work performed in 2003 by scientists at Purdue identified the amino acid serine as being a probable root cause of the organic molecules' homochirality.[41] Serine forms particularly strong bonds with amino acids of the same chirality, resulting in a cluster of eight molecules that must be all right-handed or left-handed. This property stands in contrast with other amino acids which are able to form weak bonds with amino acids of opposite chirality. Although the mystery of why left-handed serine became dominant is still unsolved, this result suggests an answer to the question of chiral transmission: how organic molecules of one chirality maintain dominance once asymmetry is established.

"Reality" is a universal or abstraction. As a nominalist, I would say that there is no such thing as reality. That is why I do not subscribe to a metaphysical system.

Nominalists look at relationships between particulars. Once notions of reality and essence are discarded, one can focus on the origins of various biological lines without being concerned over realist issues like permanence and form.

I know some of the folks in the biology department where I work. (I am in the sociology department.) Most of them are nominalists. They treat species as useful linguistic conventions.

Some strata can be created quickly. Not all. I used the word clearly to indicate that that scientific community has observed, theorized, measured and come to the clear conclusion that coal beds were not generally laid down quickly by floods or volcanoes.

An (fallacious) appeal to authority argument has the basic form:

1. A makes claim B;
2. there is something positive about A,
3. therefore claim B is true.

The first statement is called a 'factual claim' and is the pivot point of much debate. The last statement is referred to as an 'inferential claim' and represents the reasoning process. There are two types of inferential claim, explicit and implicit. Arguments that (fallaciously) rely on the objectionable aspects of the person for the truth of the conclusion are discussed under ad hominem.

An appeal to authority is a logical fallacy: authorities can be wrong, both in their own field and in other fields; therefore referencing authority does not automatically imply truth.

Geographer, training in physical geography and methods (GIS/remote sensing). I've taught geomorphology at university level, done research on soils and karst (limestone) topography, currently I am providing mapping services for a variety of clients, mostly in the energy sector.

What I have learned from scientific methodology class is that if there is even one empirically confirmed alternative to existing paradigm,then existing paradigm must be rejected.

The 'scientific community argument' so commonly used by you and many other proponents of evolution is logical fallacy known as Appeal To Authority:

There was once a very strong belief that the formation of complex organic compounds required a 'vital force' or life energy. People like Miller showed that this was not true- that the formation of complex organic compounds necessary for life can occur spontaneously.

By the middle of the 19th century Pasteur and others had demonstrated that living organisms did not arise spontaneously from non-living matter;the question therefore arose of how life might have come about within a naturalistic framework.

The deposition of ash from a volcano or sediment by a flood are not 'alternatives' to the existing paradigm. These have always been a part of the ideas of how strata are built. No one ever said that every single strata is laid down slowly, and your ability to disprove that idea that no one has asserted proves nothing.

How long did these strata take to form?

It would be easy to think millions of years. However, the bottom layer formed in 6 hours on 18th May 1980, the middle layer was formed on 12th June 1980 and the top layer by mud flow in March 1982, following the eruption of Mt St Helens.

And if I said that thousands of investigations have been carried out, and that the scientific community has settled the question of what causes tuberculosis, is that an appeal to authority?

You have lots of advanced philosophical concepts, but no clarity. Reminds me of a Steve Martin comedy bit - he took just enough philosophy in college to be confused.

What I have learned from scientific methodology class is that if there is even one empirically confirmed alternative to existing paradigm,then existing paradigm must be rejected.

You cannot 'investigate' claim that something was created 'by millions of years',since that claim goes beyond investigation.Therefore this claim is not scientific.

Have you actually read my links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

However,clearly there a more then few people that deny evolution,but I haven't heard of anybody that denies Newtonian laws of physics (even most deranged 'Bible freaks')

I have seen most of these 'evidences'.
Like 'Miller experiment','protocells' or 'drug resistant bacteria'....and others.

All of them are flawed.

If you claim that there is a causal chain from A to D,you must also observe every step in causal chain.

If there is not such thing as reality,then why you try to prove evolution so much?
If there is not reality,why you create messages on this forum?
Evolution try to say something about reality,but you say that there is no such thing as reality.

Using your nominalist logic,I could say that YOU do not exist,since you are just abstraction made up of tissues and organs.

So,basically Biology is a linguistic course?

No one denies laws of thermodynamics.

However,clearly there a more then few people that deny evolution,but I haven't heard of anybody that denies Newtonian laws of physics (even most deranged 'Bible freaks').

What I have learned from scientific methodology class is that if there is even one empirically confirmed alternative to existing paradigm,then existing paradigm must be rejected.

That sounds like Popper, whom you quoted before as your authority on the scientific method. I have two questions for you:

Do you rely entirely on Popper's criteria for what science is?

In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (SSR) (1962) Kuhn argued that science does not progress via a linear accumulation of new knowledge, but undergoes periodic revolutions, also called "paradigm shifts" (although he did not coin the phrase)[2], in which the nature of scientific inquiry within a particular field is abruptly transformed. In general, science is broken up into three distinct stages. Prescience, which lacks a central paradigm, comes first. This is followed by "normal science", when scientists attempt to enlarge the central paradigm by "puzzle-solving". Thus, the failure of a result to conform to the paradigm is seen not as refuting the paradigm, but as the mistake of the researcher, contra Popper's refutability criterion. As anomalous results build up, science reaches a crisis, at which point a new paradigm, which subsumes the old results along with the anomalous results into one framework, is accepted. This is termed revolutionary science. In SSR, Kuhn also argues that rival paradigms are incommensurable—that is, it is not possible to understand one paradigm through the conceptual framework and terminology of another rival paradigm. For many critics, this thesis seemed to entail that theory choice is fundamentally irrational: if rival theories cannot be directly compared, then one cannot make a rational choice as to which one is better.Whether or not Kuhn's views had such relativistic consequences is the subject of much debate;

Do you consider quantum mechanics to be science?

We can investigate the age of a tree that is older than any living human. Even though no one can go back in time to see it sprouting, we can still determine when that was if we understand tree rings and can count.

other phenomenon like carbon isotope decay or oxygen isotope levels in fossils, we can conclusively say things about what the Earth was like thousands or millions of years ago.

Carbon dating was developed by a team led by Willard Libby. Originally a carbon-14 half-life of 5568±30 years was used, which is now known as the Libby half-life. Later a more accurate figure of 5730±40 years was determined, which is known as the Cambridge half-life. However laboratories continue to use the Libby figure to avoid inconsistencies when comparing raw dates and when using calibration curves to obtain calendrical dates.

While that disproves the Medieval idea of the rapid spontaneous generation of advanced life forms, it does not speak to evolution or abiogenesis on the scale of millions of years.

Yes, there is a flat-Earth society that is biblically based. They believe that the Earth is flat, and that the Sun orbits the Earth.

In this article, Flat Earth mythology refers to the modern belief that the prevailing cosmological view during the Middle Ages saw the Earth as flat, instead of spherical. Today it is widely recognized among professional medievalists and historians of science that the "medieval flat Earth" is a misconception, and that the few verifiable "flat Earthers" of the period were the exception.

As is expressed by Stephen Jay Gould, "there never was a period of “flat earth darkness” among scholars (regardless of how many uneducated people may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth’s roundness as an established fact of cosmology.[1] David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers also write: "there was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference."

The 19th century was a period in which the perception of an antagonism between religion and science was especially strong. The disputes surrounding the Darwinian revolution contributed to the birth of the conflict thesis[1], a view of history according to which any interaction between religion and science almost inevitably would lead to open hostility, with religion usually taking the part of the aggressor against new scientific ideas.[4] During this time, the conception of a European "Dark Age" gave much more prominence to the Flat Earth model than it ever possessed historically.

The first accounts of the legend were traced to the 1830s. In 1828 Washington Irving wrote the work of historical fiction The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus. The book was confused by many as providing an actual historical account of Columbus life. As a recourse to make his romance more compelling, Irving "...invented the indelible picture of the young Columbus, a 'simple mariner,' appearing before a dark crowd of benighted inquisitors and hooded theologians at a council of Salamanca, all of whom believed, according to Irving, that the earth was flat like a plate." There was indeed a meeting in Salamanca, but Irving's account for what happened there was entirely fictional.[3]

Let's see - you are against cosmology and astrophysics, evolution, the idea of fossils, plate tectonics, tree-ring analysis, sedimentology, carbon isotope dating, and any other branch of science that tells us about the past.

Because you as a philosophy student have unlocked the secrets of what can be known, and what cannot.

You just simply happen to have all their misguided, illogical objections to science, for different reasons.