The Universe - is it Created? or by Chance?

[Pein]

Law of Physics: "Nothing happens without a cause."

Question: What causes matter to exist?

duha na intawn ka tuig ning akong pangutanaha diri hangtod karon wala pa juy tarong tubag ang mga athiest.

[schmuck]

Law of Physics: "Nothing happens without a cause."

Question: What causes matter to exist?

duha na intawn ka tuig ning akong pangutanaha diri hangtod karon wala pa juy tarong tubag ang mga athiest.

"Nothing happens without a cause." <- Quantum Mechanics begs to disagree.

[bungot25]

wala pa gihapon ni mag human? lols

[bungot25]

Law of Physics: "Nothing happens without a cause."

Question: What causes matter to exist?

duha na intawn ka tuig ning akong pangutanaha diri hangtod karon wala pa juy tarong tubag ang mga athiest.

checkmate na ang atheists ani BAI PEIN?....bravo.. bravo..bravo!

[Tirong-say]

missing link? Not a requirement.
irrefutable? That's unscientific, science must remain falsifiable. Proven is the better term. The evidence is at the genetic level.
from monkeys? Again, if you are referring to the modern animals we call monkeys, then no. Ape-like ancestors, yes.
I can't share this link enough it seems.
YouTube - RDF TV - Why are there still Chimpanzees? - Nebraska Vignettes #2 - Richard Dawkins

Then what would be the proof if the missing link is not a requirement, in what sense and basis?
Anything that is still to be proven we could consider true then until it is proven false, is that it?
Show us all the proof and were settled...........not only from a man who knows no GOD but in a scientific point of view, and it better pass through our senses, one of which is to see is to believe.....

[hitch22]

So the BIG QUESTION is, why would only our ancestral line has intellect? Why chimps or dinosaurs won't talk (oop's I remember Barney and friends)

You think we're not that similar to chimps? Watch this documenatary by Jane Goodal: click here (if the video from that link doesn't stream that fast, then use this link here).

Above video is a production by the Jane Goodall Institute of Canada. Jane Goodall is a British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist, considered to be the world's foremost expert on chimpanzees. She is best known for her 45-year study of social and family interactions of wild chimpanzees in Gombe Stream National Park, Tanzania.

Here's a snippet taken from Jane Goodall's article on About Chimpanzees - So Like Us (click here to read).

Intelligence
The anatomy of the chimpanzee brain and central nervous system is startlingly similar to our own. It should not be surprising, then, that chimpanzees (along with gorillas and bonobos) are capable of intellectual performances once thought unique to humans.

Wild chimps use sophisticated cooperation in hunting. They use tools for more purposes than any other being save humans. And chimps show the beginning of tool-making behaviour.

Chimpanzees are capable of reasoned thought, abstraction and a concept of self. Those who have worked closely with chimpanzees agree that they feel and express emotions such as sadness and happiness, fear and despair–and they know mental as well as physical pain.

Communication
There are uncanny similarities in the nonverbal communication of chimps and humans–--kissing, embracing, patting on the back, touching hands, tickling, swaggering, shaking the fist, brandishing sticks, hurling rocks. And these patterns appear in similar contexts as those in which they are seen in humans.

In captivity, chimpanzees can be taught human languages such as ASL (American Sign Language), learning 300 or more signs. They can master many complex skills on computers.

We tend to say there's a vast difference in intellect between humans and chimpanzees because of how far we've come as a civilization. Remember the lineage of the species Homo Sapiens split off from the chimpanzees' lineage some millions of years ago. So, there's a lot of time for separate development and evolution of the brain and morphology. Actually, if you go all the way back to how early homo sapiens lived, you may see the differences in lifestyle and behavior narrowed down by quite a lot.

Sorry, but there is NO story or acceptable theory for chemical origin of life. Spontaneous generation is nothing more than a myth.

Look, scientists didn't just come up with the idea of Chemical Evolution out of nowhere or as a conspiracy against Theism. They start with observations. And what did they observe? Well, the most striking verification of our relationship with the rest of living things is in our body chemistry. Our body contains the same chemical compounds, derives its energy from the same chemical reactions, and utilizes the same chemical mechanisms as every other life-form. Now, why is that? Why would it be ridiculous to say that we probably have a chemical origin, when our whole body is indeed made up of chemicals? What's more? The rest of life is constituted with the same chemistry. One has to wonder about that common denominator. The logical question then becomes: Could it be because we share the same chemical origin?

You can think of life as arranged in a great ladder, starting with the basic chemical compounds that make up living things, progressing upward to microscopic cells, then to collections of cells that make up organs, organ systems, and finally organisms themselves. Each new organism begins with a single cell, yet within that microcosm lies all the information needed to create the whole organism in all its complexity. In every form of life, a few different atoms and molecules, in cells with the same kinds of architecture, adopt very different designs. And where do we get such complex designs from? How are they read and passed on from generation to generation? We now know, of course, that every living thing on Earth uses the same strategy: All life is based on the same genetic code.

So, we take all these facts together and start finding out the HOW QUESTIONS. The most difficult of these questions obviously has to be the origin of life. To this date, this is largely a work-in-progress project. Maybe we will have an answer in our lifetime, or maybe not.

BUt what's the Theistic alternative. GOD DID IT. He said the magic words, and lo and behold!....LIFE. As you can see, that's not a scientific hypothesis where you can test, observe, and verify.

"It's a very long leap from [mineral] surface chemistry to a living cell." Norman Pace (evolutionary biologist, University of California, Berkeley).

Yes indeed. Nobody said the leap would be a short one.

"On theoretical grounds, however, it [mineral clay synthesis] seems implausible. Structural irregularities in clay that were complicated enough to set the stage for the emergence of Ribonucleic acid: a chemical that directs the manufacture of proteins and sometimes codes for the genetic material within certain organisms.RNA probably would not be amenable to accurate self-replication." (Leslie Orgel)

In the study of Chemical Evolution, the primordial soup theory (or hypothesis if you insist) is just one of many competing attempts at a plausible explanation on how the first living cells could have arose. The primordial soup is often rejected but there is actually no overwhelming consensus on this subject. And there is no decisive evidence for any one of them either.

One of the interesting explanations is the inorganic clay crystals theory by Graham Cairns-Smith. The recently more fashionable one is the view that the conditions under which life first arose were akin to the Hadean habitat of today's thermophilous bacteria and archaea, some of which thrive and reproduce in hot springs.

Today, however, majority of biologists are moving toward the RNA World Theory. And this is probably the most persuasive theory of them all (in my opinion)...although still subject to further tests and research. We have no evidence about what the first step in making life was, but we have some plausible ideas of what the kind of steps it must have been. That's what these hypothesis are there to compete for.

The problem with the primordial soup explanation is that it's only good enough for spontaneous generation of amino acids...and eventually we can expect perhaps polymerization into proteins. This turns out to be less promising. This isn't to deny that proteins are vitally important for life, but there is one thing proteins are bad at: They are completely hopeless at replication. So that leaves the theory that life could've arisen spontaneously from a protein technically not viable. That's just my opinion though...it could be viable for all you know.

What creationists tend to do, however, is to attack the hypothesis that has either a lot of disputes in the scientific community or has little support therein. A classic strawman tactic. But that does not prove that Chemical Evolution---the broader interdisciplinary subject---has failed as a pursuit in explaining the origin of the first life. Again, like the subject on the origin of the universe, the origin of life is also one of the grey areas in science. Scientists are still working on it.

And the grey areas of science are where religious fundamentalists love to place their magic theory as the viable alternative...the God of the gaps. They would say "See, it's impossible to get life with the conditions that science have posited. I have the answer. I know that a powerful invisible magician had to be responsible for that. Omne vivum ex vivo (All life is from life). My magician is alive, eternal, and powerful. Therefore, my all-powerful magician did it."

'There is now overwhelmingly strong evidence, both statistical and Relating to the earth science study of fossil organisms and their related remains.paleontological, that life could not have been started on Earth by a series of random chemical reactions.... There simply was not enough time... to get life going." Niles Eldridge (paleontologist at the American Museum of Natural History).

That quote is a copy-and-paste from creationist websites. That's not even Niles Eldredge's words. I'll tell you where that quote came from and how Eldredge got dragged into it. That quote came from Gerald L. Schroeder, in his book Genesis and the Big Bang (1990). Here's the full quote:

The answers provided by science for life's origins are no more satisfying than those provided for the universe's origins. Since the monumental "Conference on Macro-Evolution" was held in Chicago in 1980, there has been a total reevaluation of life's origins and development. In regard to the Darwinian theory of evolution, the world famous palaeontologist of the American Museum of Natural History, Dr. Niles Eldredge, unequivocally declared, "The pattern that we were told to find for the last one hundred and twenty years does not exist."

There is now overwhelmingly strong evidence, both statistical and paleontological, that life could not have been started on Earth by a series of random chemical reactions. Today's best mathematical estimates state that there simply was not enough time for random reactions to get life going as fast as the fossil record shows that it did.

The only words that belong to Eldredge is the one highlighted and underlined. The rest are from Mr. Schroeder, who is neither an authority in biology nor chemistry. The focus of most of his work is actually more on what he perceives to be an inherent relationship between science and spirituality (check his bio in Wikipedia).

Schroeder's Genesis and the Big Bang is another one of those pieces of theology-fiction. It's written with the express purpose of trying to reconcile the Jewish Torah with accepted science.

Niles Eldredge did indeed make the highlighted remark, but he made it in order to dispute a detail of evolutionary theory, not to debunk the whole Theory of Evolution. How can we tell where Eldredge stands on the Theory of Evolution? Well, take a look at this book which he wrote: The Triumph of Evolution...And the Failure of Creationism. You can buy the book from Amazon (click here).

You really think Eldredge was out to debunk the whole Theory of Evolution? Ha! Nice try. I think that quote (as well as any quote people would copy-and-paste) has to be understood in its proper context. Here's why.

Most of today’s evolutionary scientists focus not on whether evolution occurred, but how it occurred. When Darwin first proposed his theory, he argued that evolution proceeds at a slow, steady rate, and that small changes gradually accumulate to produce large ones. This view is known today as Gradualism.

Eldredge and Gould, on the other hand, proposed an alternative view in the 1970s that goes under the name of Punctuated Equilibrium. In their view, evolution is characterized by long periods of little change, interspersed (punctuated) by short periods of rapid change.

However, the fossil record we currently have simply isn’t good enough to allow us to differentiate between these two competing theories. In some fossil sequences, changes seem to be sudden, but other deposits reveal more gradual shifts. It is likely that evolution proceeds in both gradual and punctuated under different circumstances, but scientists will need more fossil data before they can resolve the issue.

You keep on quoting about synthetic life.
Don't you realize that they just inject artificial gnomes to a living cell?
That means, they cannot simply create a living cell!

The media used that phrase "creating synthetic cell" perhaps to sensationalize the story. I thought of using that phrase as well to stress a point: That the idea of creating the first living cells from scratch is not as far-fetched as you think.

But in any case, it still qualifies as a synthetic cell. A whole genome was written and synthesized using yeast as medium and then transfered to a bacterium where it took over and replaced the host cell's DNA (kinda like how viruses commandeer our cells' DNA in order for it to replicate themselves and invade our system). The result: IT'S ALIVE!...and it's able to replicate using the genetic information from the synthetic genome.

If DNA is called the software of various cells of an organism, genome is the operating system because it's the entirety of an organism's hereditary information.

Does it qualify then as synthetic cell? Yes. Some of the credit goes to the bacterium for providing the machinery to process DNA information. But most of the credit should go to the genome, which essentially instructs how an entire cell is to be constructed. And because the genome itself is synthetic, therefore the cell that got replicated from it should be considered synthetic as well.

I can't help waxing poetic here, but I really do think this is a groundbreaking achievement despite critics who want to downplay it. I would grant that it's not creating a cell from scratch. But is it a far-fetched possibility to really create a living cell from scratch (creating and assembling the cytoplasm, mitochondria, nucleus, etc), given the implications of this breakthrough? I think Venter and co. solved one of the major pieces of this puzzle. There's a long way to go, but I think we're getting there fast.

[kenites]

^^ nice post hitch

[schmuck]

Then what would be the proof if the missing link is not a requirement, in what sense and basis?
Anything that is still to be proven we could consider true then until it is proven false, is that it?
Show us all the proof and were settled...........not only from a man who knows no GOD but in a scientific point of view, and it better pass through our senses, one of which is to see is to believe.....

You want proof that modern apes, monkeys and humans share a common ancestor(missing link)?
As I previously stated, the missing link is not a requirement to prove this. Why?
Think of monkeys as the color orange, and humans the color violet.
The missing link would be somewhere between the graduation of colors from orange to violet. Suppose we found an intermediary fossil(colored red).

orange -- red --- violet

What does that get us? Two more missing links! One between orange and red, another between red and violet. "Aha!" The creationists proclaim. "There are missing links between the previously found missing link. Evolution can't be accepted as true!"

If you continue this exercise of finding "missing links" you soon realize, that what you are looking for, simply cannot be pinned down to just one specific shade of color. Do you know why this is? Because evolution works in very slow graduations. So slow, that the difference in appearance and genetics between one or 2 generations is hardly noticeable.

Imagine a ladder with a thousand rungs(steps). Think of one generation as a rung in a ladder. The higher rung is the parent generation of the lower rung. Think further that the lowest rung is orange, the highest rung is red. The rungs in between is a gradient of colors between orange and red. Imagine you are climbing this ladder. Take note of the color difference between adjacent rungs as you go higher up. I'm pretty sure you won't be able to tell the difference at eye level. You'll end up at the end in red not noticing at which specific point it changed from orange!

Now at this top of the ladder, you notice that there is another way down. You slowly go down this ladder. Taking notes of the color difference between adjacent rungs as you go along. You reach the ground, and realize the last rung is now violet! Again you scratch your head, at which specific rung did this change happen? Ah.. you can not say.

That is how transitional lifeforms(missing links) are, that is how evolution works. Every now and then a rung(transitional fossil) is found, but then you'll realize that there could have been more rungs to be found in between! Seeing as how difficult it is for a fossil to form and the countless transitional lifeforms that have ever existed, there will always be "missing links". That can not be helped. That is why saying that missing links disprove evolution sounds stupid.

So why, if not relying on fossils, are scientists so sure that humans, apes and monkeys shared a common ancestor? The answer is simple, its in the DNA.

Here's a video playlist to get you started
Matching codons for glutamic acid found in closely related species(humans, apes and a rhesus monkey)
YouTube - Evidence for Evolution, Part I

Similar GULO pseudogene(for making vitamin C, but lost functionality in primates)
YouTube - Evidence for Evolution, Part II

Similar retroviral insertions(remnants of a virus invasion that altered the DNA)
YouTube - Evidence for Evolution, Part III

Humor me and tell me you're still not convinced. lol

[orcgod]

Law of Physics: "Nothing happens without a cause."

Question: What causes matter to exist?

duha na intawn ka tuig ning akong pangutanaha diri hangtod karon wala pa juy tarong tubag ang mga athiest.

answer to your question...

Matter: States of Matter

Matter: States of Matter

by Anthony Carpi, Ph.D.
As a young boy, I remember staring in wonder at a pot of boiling water. Searching for an explanation for the bubbles that formed, I believed for a time that the motion of the hot water drew air down into the pot, which then bubbled back to the surface. Little did I know that what was happening was even more magical than I imagined - the bubbles were not air, but actually water in the form of a gas.

The different states of matter have long confused people. The ancient Greeks were the first to identify three classes (what we now call states) of matter based on their observations of water. But these same Greeks, in particular the philosopher Thales (624 - 545 BCE), incorrectly suggested that since water could exist as a solid, liquid, or even a gas under natural conditions, it must be the single principal element in the universe from which all other substances are made. We now know that water is not the fundamental substance of the universe; in fact, it is not even an element.

To understand the different states in which matter can exist, we need to understand something called the Kinetic Molecular Theory of Matter. Kinetic Molecular Theory has many parts, but we will introduce just a few here. One of the basic concepts of the theory states that atoms and molecules possess an energy of motion that we perceive as temperature. In other words, atoms and molecules are constantly moving, and we measure the energy of these movements as the temperature of the substance. The more energy a substance has, the more molecular movement there will be, and the higher the perceived temperature will be. An important point that follows this is that the amount of energy that atoms and molecules have (and thus the amount of movement) influences their interaction with each other. Unlike simple billiard balls, many atoms and molecules are attracted to each other as a result of various intermolecular forces such as hydrogen bonds, van der Waals forces, and others. Atoms and molecules that have relatively small amounts of energy (and movement) will interact strongly with each other, while those that have relatively high energy will interact only slightly, if even at all, with others.

How does this produce different states of matter? Atoms that have low energy interact strongly and tend to “lock” in place with respect to other atoms. Thus, collectively, these atoms form a hard substance, what we call a solid. Atoms that possess high energy will move past each other freely, flying about a room, and forming what we call a gas. As it turns out, there are several known states of matter; a few of them are detailed below.


Solids are formed when the attractive forces between individual molecules are greater than the energy causing them to move apart. Individual molecules are locked in position near each other, and cannot move past one another. The atoms or molecules of solids remain in motion. However, that motion is limited to vibrational energy; individual molecules stay fixed in place and vibrate next to each other. As the temperature of a solid is increased, the amount of vibration increases, but the solid retains its shape and volume because the molecules are locked in place relative to each other. To view an example of this, click on the animation below which shows the molecular structure of ice crystals.

Liquids are formed when the energy (usually in the form of heat) of a system is increased and the rigid structure of the solid state is broken down. In liquids, molecules can move past one another and bump into other molecules; however, they remain relatively close to each other like solids. Often in liquids, intermolecular forces (such as the hydrogen bonds shown in the animation below) pull molecules together and are quickly broken. As the temperature of a liquid is increased, the amount of movement of individual molecules increases. As a result, liquids can “flow” to take the shape of their container but they cannot be easily compressed because the molecules are already close together. Thus liquids have an undefined shape, but a defined volume. In the example animation below we see that liquid water is made up of molecules that can freely move past one another, yet remain relatively close in distance to each other.

Gases are formed when the energy in the system exceeds all of the attractive forces between molecules. Thus gas molecules have little interaction with each other beyond occasionally bumping into one another. In the gas state, molecules move quickly and are free to move in any direction, spreading out long distances. As the temperature of a gas increases, the amount of movement of individual molecules increases. Gases expand to fill their containers and have low density. Because individual molecules are widely separated and can move around easily in the gas state, gases can be compressed easily and they have an undefined shape.

Gaseous matter - steam

A simulation of the behaviour of water molecules entering the gas state.

(Flash required)

Solids, liquids, and gases are the most common states of matter that exist on our planet. If you would like to compare the three states to one another, click on the comparison animation below. Note the differences in molecular motion of water molecules in these three states.



Plasmas are hot, ionized gases. Plasmas are formed under conditions of extremely high energy, so high, in fact, that molecules are ripped apart and only free atoms exist. More astounding, plasmas have so much energy that the outer electrons are actually ripped off of individual atoms, thus forming a gas of highly energetic, charged ions. Because the atoms in plasma exist as charged ions, plasmas behave differently than gases, thus representing a fourth state of matter. Plasmas can be commonly seen simply by looking upward; the high energy conditions that exist in stars such as our sun force individual atoms into the plasma state.

As we have seen, increasing energy leads to more molecular motion. Conversely, decreasing energy results in less molecular motion. As a result, one prediction of Kinetic Molecular Theory is that if we continue to decrease the energy (measured as temperature) of a substance, we will reach a point at which all molecular motion stops. The temperature at which molecular motion stops is called absolute zero and has been calculated to be -273.15 degrees Celsius. While scientists have cooled substances to temperatures close to absolute zero, they have never actually reached absolute zero. The difficulty with observing a substance at absolute zero is that to “see” the substance, light is needed, and light itself transfers energy to the substance, thus raising the temperature. Despite these challenges, scientists have recently observed a fifth state of matter that only exists at temperatures very close to absolute zero.

Bose-Einstein Condensates represent a fifth state of matter only seen for the first time in 1995. The state is named after Satyendra Nath Bose and Albert Einstein who predicted its existence in the 1920’s. B-E condensates are gaseous superfluids cooled to temperatures very near absolute zero. In this weird state, all the atoms of the condensate attain the same quantum-mechanical state and can flow past one another without friction. Even more strangely, B-E condensates can actually “trap” light, releasing it when the state breaks down.

Several other less common states of matter have also either been described or actually seen. Some of these states include liquid crystals, fermionic condensates, superfluids, supersolids and the aptly named strange matter. To read more about these phases, visit the Phase page of Wikipedia, linked to below in the Further Exploration section.


Phase Transitions
The transformation of one state of matter into another state is called a phase transition. The more common phase transitions even have names; for example, the terms melting and freezing describe phase transitions between the solid and liquid state, and the terms evaporation and condensation describe transitions between the liquid and gas state. Phase transitions occur at very precise points, when the energy (measured as temperature) of a substance in a given state exceeds that allowed in the state. For example, liquid water can exist at a range of temperatures. Cold drinking water may be around 4ºC. Hot shower water has more energy and thus may be around 40ºC. However, at 100°C under normal conditions, water will begin to undergo a phase transition into the gas phase. At this point, energy introduced into the liquid will not go into increasing the temperature; it will be used to send molecules of water into the gas state. Thus, no matter how high the flame is on the stove, a pot of boiling water will remain at 100ºC until all of the water has undergone transition to the gas phase. The excess energy introduced by a high flame will accelerate the liquid-to-gas transition; it will not change the temperature. The heat curve below illustrates the corresponding changes in energy (shown in calories) and temperature of water as it undergoes a phase transition between the liquid and gas states.



As can be seen in the graph above, as we move from left to right, the temperature of liquid water increases as energy (heat) is introduced. At 100ºC, water begins to undergo a phase transition and the temperature remains constant even as energy is added (the flat part of the graph). The energy that is introduced during this period goes toward breaking intermolecular forces so that individual water molecules can “escape” into the gas state. Finally, once the transition is complete, if further energy is added to the system, the heat of the gaseous water, or steam, will increase.

This same process can be seen in reverse if we simply look at the graph above starting on the right side and moving left. As steam is cooled, the movement of gaseous water molecules and thus temperature will decrease. When the gas reaches 100ºC, more energy will be lost from the system as the attractive forces between molecules reform; however the temperature remains constant during the transition (the flat part of the graph). Finally, when condensation is complete, the temperature of the liquid will begin to fall as energy is withdrawn.

Phase transitions are an important part of the world around us. For example, the energy withdrawn when perspiration evaporates from the surface of your skin allows your body to correctly regulate its temperature during hot days. Phase transitions play an important part in geology, influencing mineral formation and possibly even earthquakes. And who can ignore the phase transition that occurs at about -3ºC, when cream, perhaps with a few strawberries or chocolate chunks, begins to form solid ice cream.

Now we understand what is happening in a pot of boiling water. The energy (heat) introduced at the bottom of the pot causes a localized phase transition of liquid water to the gaseous state. Because gases are less dense than liquids, these localized phase transitions form pockets (or bubbles) of gas, which rise to the surface of the pot and burst. But nature is often more magical than our imaginations. Despite all that we know about the states of matter and phase transitions, we still cannot predict where the individual bubbles will form in a pot of boiling water.


So these are the Scientific Explanations why Matter Exists.

Now, may I hear your Explanation why your GOD exist?

[emailroy2002]

"God exists 360 degrees like unsolved mysteries your mind controlled by a demonic beast"