Hypothetical ancestors

[Ron at]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Curtis Clark" <jcclark at CSUPOMONA.EDU>
To: <TAXACOM at USOBI.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2002 6:02 PM
Subject: Re: Hypothetical ancestors


> At 02:43 PM 2/12/2002, STEPHEN MANNING wrote:
> >Our traditional paradigm is that life
> >originated only once, and this is sometimes dogmatically put forth, but
if
> >the early earth's environment was more conducive to life originating
once,
> >why would it not be more likely to have happened multiple times in that
> >environment?  If we do chemical reactions in test tubes, we don't then
say
> >that the products of those reactions, which may be indistinguishable,
had
> >to come from a common ancestor.  In the "primeval soup", life's
progenitors
> >may well have been hardly more distinguishable from each other than two
> >pieces of plastic from the same manufacturer.  So don't fall into the
trap
> >of being almost as dogmatic as the creationists are by insisting on
> >monophyly to the exclusion of parallel evolution.
>
> But there's evidence. All life (that we know of) shares the apomorphy of
> the basic genetic code. Even if one accepts recent studies showing that
the
> actual genetic code is one of the most redundant (and thus a likely
result
> of selection), there are still other redundant genetic codes that life
> *could* have evolved (and perhaps did). Multiple origins or not, all the
> evidence points to extant life being a single lineage.
>

The big word in all this is IF.  Today we have come  so far in genetic
engineering that we can now see something evolutionists did not see 100
years ago at all.  First we see that genes, molecules, atoms, are not only
building blocks - but tools totally workable in the hands of "someone" who
knows how to manipulate them.  We can now visualize a universe far from now
where we as humans can go to a lifeless planet, go to our box of organic
parts and construct any kind of organism we want.  That is a creation.  We
as a species are just at the tip of this "technology" -- making mice glow
red by inserting Jelly Fish genes into them (and that is creation).   The
what if should now be much more plausible to the scientific mind than it
was 50 to 100 years ago.  What if what we see as something all life (here)
shares is The evidence that it was all constructed by the same Maker from
the same tool kit?  We can not envision ourselves being galactic "miricle"
workers eons from now and at the same time deny that someone or ones have
already been there and done that.

We pay money to see movies like Matrix because all it takes for something
like that to be reality is a few what IFS.  I do not believe in miracles.
I believe in technology.  I mean I _really_ believe in it.   I think man is
_still_ in intellectual primeval soup. Man has always called what he does
not understand a miracle.  There are too many what IFs - being raised by
science itself - for a true intellectual to be the type of evolutionist
today that is the equivalent of the closed minded cleric of the 1400s.

Honestly, I think the number one reason many people do not even consider
any kind of "creation" is because they have made up their minds and closed
them to any possibility of a "creator".   Therefore two PhDs with the same
education and technical understanding operate in two totally opposite
directions based solely on their personal prejudices.  To one his knowledge
opens up doors of what if there is a far advanced being or beings who even
move in time as well as space.  The other simply uses his education to
reinforce his own denial.  One says - it could be if...  The other says -
no way because...  This is all very relevant to our studies in biology and
evolution.  IF there is something at 'the beginning" or in the now that
affects, drives, regulates, or is totally random we should know about it.
Hypothetical ansestors -- indeed!

Ron Gatrelle

PS  Several years ago a young lady in my church was found by her doctor to
have a tumor in her female parts the size of a grapefruit.  I laid my hand
on her and prayed for her healing.  The next week when she went to the
doctor it was completely gone.  If this can be done by a Christian, a
Buddist, an athiest (and these "paranormal" things are done all the time by
all sorts of people) it is evident that something well outside the realm of
understanding not only exists but works.   Now, if an existent mass of
tissue can be caused to _go out of existence_ (vainish into nothing)  by
some unknown force or law -- then the opposite is logically true also.
That where there is nothing atomic, molecular, organic - matter can be
brought  _into existence_.   I have prayed for a lot of people and nothing
happened (the vast majority actually). .  Why sometimes something very
tangible does happen is beyond me.  I do not see these as miracles - just
as some unknown reality (technology) at work.

A wise man once said "If what I know met what I do not know, what I know
would be highly embarrassed."