ATP synthase motor - brilliant design by the master designer

Faith & Science Conversation
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Dear All,
I hope you are all well.
Apart from yesterday, I haven’t visited this website for some time.
I have very little available time to spend on this site but will attempt to get back to it when sufficient opportunity arises.

A quick search of the Biologos Forums using the terms ‘ADENOSINE TRIPHOSPHATE SYNTHASE MOTOR’ only produced ONE result, and it was displaying the ‘padlock’ closed symbol.

Because, all life on Earth is powered by the Adenosine TriPhosphate (ATP) Synthase Motor, a nano-machine found in ALL cells), it’s well overdue that this amazing biological nano-technology is examined in some detail on this web forum, not the least because it’s abundantly clear to me that God’s awesome creativity is clearly evident, (to me at least ), but also because the brilliance in the complexity and the optimal 100% efficiency inherent in the design of this electric motor, that is constructed at the atomic and molecular level, speak infinite volumes about the fateful error of believing that this amazing nano-machine came into existence through small step iterations over eons of ‘deep time’, in other words via ‘evolution’.

I understand that what I believe may be quite different to what many on this website believe. Thus for those that aren’t familiar with my beliefs, I testify that I am a person who believes that Jesus Christ is the Creator of the universe, that He died on the cross and rose again on the third day, conquering death and offering Himself as the blameless sacrifice for ALL of humanities sins from Adam and Eve forward to every human being that ever has, does or will live. I believe that Adam and Eve were REAL people and that Adam is the Federal Head of ALL humanity.

I believe that Adam was created blameless and innocent, as was Eve who was also created by God from Adam’s rib; but of his own volition, Adam rebelled and sinned against God, and as a consequence of that rebellious act, because of God’s Holy, Perfect, Justice, all of Adam’s descendants are born into this world that is now cursed by God, through that single action of Adam in the very real Garden of Eden. Yes, there was a talking serpent, and a very real tree of the knowledge of good an evil and also the tree of life, as the Bible ever so plainly informs us. I truly believe God ensured the words he inspired the author to write convey the meaning He intended for BOTH the original audience and to ALL people thereafter who read the Holy Scriptures with a contrite and searching heart, open to the Holy Spirit.

I believe that Jesus is the Creator of the universe, He is the Son of the Holy Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He came to Earth as a fully human person, so that He was legally able to pay the penalty of death Himself for ALL of humanity, that His Personal Righteous Justice demanded.

He caused Himself to be born into this cursed creation, incarnate as Jesus Christ, because we are ALL sinners, guilty and deserving of death; this profound reality is made all the more clear when standing before our Holy God Who is perfect Love, Truth, Righteousness and Justice. He sees everything that occurs here on Earth, He is watching everyone of us right now, and He yearns for us to all tun from our wicked ways and come to Him.

I believe that we can only be saved by the Grace of our Lord Jesus, through faith, that He is the Son of God, the Creator, the Saviour, Who through His infinite LOVE for us ALL, has provided a way whereby we can be saved from eternal separation from Him. It is NOT by any act that we ourselves can perform that we are saved, it is only through His infinite Love for us ALL that He gave His blameless Earthly life up so we could be reconciled to Him. O Lord, I thank thee for thy pure Love for me.

Now, you know what I believe, it is time we examine the ATP Synthase Motor in more detail.

In each of our bodies there are roughly a million billion ATP Synthase Motors continually producing adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and that chemical energy is what keeps all of our cells alive. Without ATP we die very rapidly, thus ATP is essential for life.

From what we know about how ALL biological life functions we can safely predict that the ‘assumed’ very first self-reproducing single celled life form that it is ‘assumed’ arose out of the primordial ooze, needed to have some way, some mechanism to power itself.

It also would have needed to have information writing, storage, reading, decoding and utilising software and nano-machinery to be able to pass on the blueprint instruction information to the next generation that included how to build and operate the mechanism to power itself.

That information had to be fully functional and complete in every aspect right from the start, with the ‘assumed’ very first living cell from which it is ‘assumed’ ALL living things evolved. For example, if the information to write, store and read the information was miraculously all present in the first living cell capable of reproduction, but the machinery to act on that information isn’t present, then it is all useless and the organism immediately becomes extinct. The same thing applies to every one of the other parts of the chain from information to action within the cell, and even in a simple microbe, those parts are many and all need to be operating correctly the very first time, else extinction occurs and planet Earth would remain as lifeless as the moon.

But how is that even conceivable let alone plausible from what we now know about information theory, and even more importantly, probability, where those who CHOOSE to believe that evolution occurred, MUST adopt a FAITH position on this very matter, as the probability of having all the information writing, storage, reading, decoding and utilising software and nano-machinery arising spontaneously out of nothing, WITHOUT ANY NATURAL SELECTION WHATSOEVER, can only ever be a faith position.

For Natural Selection to operate, successful reproduction is a prerequisite.

The odds of all the highly complex information writing, storage, reading, decoding and utilising software and nano-machinery that includes reproductive capability, spontaneously arising by itself for the very first time, in a complete manner capable of passing on the information to the next generation is even more unlikely than having a thousand billion, billion people all choosing the same 10 numbers in a lottery that asks to guess the winning numbers in a range from 0 to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 OR more simply put, from what we know about probability law, it is far easier to simply say, it’s impossible!

I have very little time available, to embark on an endless saga about this matter.

However, it is well overdue that this forum examines the empirical reality of how ALL life is powered and relevantly as an adjunct to that, examining the structures, machinery and software that performs the role of information transmission between generations of ALL life on Earth.

God Bless,
jon

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I don’t doubt that you believe this and find it convincing, as do many other people. From a scientific point of view, there is really nothing in your descriptions that allow us to dig our teeth into the topic. All you present is appearances, rhetoric, and semantics. There’s no data to work from. It reminds me of Flat Earthers who continually say “When I go outside and look around the Earth appears to be flat”, and cite this appearance as conclusive and unassailable evidence for a flat Earth.

No such assumption exists. If the first life was created by God and then evolved into the biodiversity we see today, nothing in the theory of evolution would need to change.

This is what I mean by rhetoric and semantics. You are basing an argument on the labels you give things. In science, this just isn’t a viable argument.

Universal Common Descent is not assumed. It is a conclusion based on evidence, such as the phylogeny of tRNA and tRNA synthetases, shared codon usage, shared metabolism, and so forth. What we see in the data is exactly what we would expect to see if all life shared a common ancestor. If you think common ancestry would look different than what we see, I encourage you to discuss it.

We could also discuss a hybrid model. This model would have God creating the first life that would include certain features like ATP synthases. It could be the version we see today is modified from the original version, so we may even model what we would expect to see in this situation. From those first created organisms we then have the evolution of life we see today as described by the mechanisms accepted by both atheist and theist biologists.

Empirical indicates measurements, and I’m not seeing any of those in your post. What I do see is your subjective descriptions and opinions which are not empirical.

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The ATP synthase motor evolved through modular evolution, where two initially independent subunits, a DNA helicase with ATPase activity and a proton-powered motor, combined to form a functional enzyme. This process likely occurred early in cellular evolution, as the same basic structure and function of ATP synthase are found across all domains of life. The divergence of ATP synthase into F- and A/V-type lineages is also thought to be an early event, potentially predating the diversification of Archaea and Bacteria. (ScienceDirect.com)

I wonder if @T_aquaticus or @glipsnort know enough about modular evolution to give an explanation of it. It seems to involve the timing of developmental processes and the independent evolution of different parts of integrated systems.

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If you had asked me on the street what modular evolution was, I may have guessed that it is the combination of two or more genes into a single gene. That appears to be what it is:

I know from my experience with designing recombinant proteins that you can combine more than one protein into a single protein that still has the function of both original proteins, including enzymatic activity. That this could happen early in life’s history, including with RNA enzymes, isn’t too surprising.

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HiJon,
Thank you for your post.
Im writing this on my phone and before ive looked at the other 6 responses.
Ive been on these forums for a little while, long enough to be able to guess what those responses will likely be.

Despite my agreement with you arguments above, there remains a single problem…

“We are here”

An atheist can simply make the above claim as evidence that our best scientific efforts use that fact [that we are here] to build the theory of Darwinian evolution and the associated cosmology that preceeds it.
I suspect that if, in the future AI turns out to be capable of self awareness (terminator movies), then creatonists are going to have some significant hurdles to climb over.

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After all this time on these forums, you think the evidence for evolution is “we are here”? Just for clarity, here are 29+ pieces of evidence for evolution, none of which are “because we are here”.

Also, speaking as an atheist I suspect we share at least some agreement on why we are here. Have you been taught about the “birds and the bees”? Do they use that euphemism in in the wonderful country of Oz?

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Cosmology predates evolutionary theory does it not? People here separate the two when its convenient, now you are conflating the two.

Darwinian evolution, which explains how life evolves through natural selection, does not directly encompass the primordial soup theory. While the primordial soup theory is a hypothesis about the origins of life, Darwinian evolution describes the mechanisms that drive the diversification and adaptation of life after it has already emerged

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The bible has almost 4000 years of historical statements, defended largely by real archeology that supports Jons veiw but that you completely ignore preferring instead to use atheistically driven scientific hypothesis.

Again i remind that even Stephen Hawking mirrored similar statements from other well known individuals, that there is no room for God in science.

Stephen Hawking, a prominent physicist, identified himself as an atheist and believed that science offers a more convincing explanation for the universe than the idea of a creator God. He argued that the laws of physics, such as gravity, explain why the Big Bang occurred and that a self-sufficient universe doesn’t require a divine creator. While he acknowledged the human need for a sense of purpose and belonging, he suggested that this need is often met by religious belief, not by a literal God.

(Quotes are from google AI)

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Well, Steven Hawking is quite the compelling authority for his field of expertise in science. Forgive me if I don’t exactly find him any kind of compelling authority about God … much less the God revealed to us in Christ.

Why should science be singled out to “find room for God”? Have you been haunting Wall Street to make sure accountants are finding room for God? Or hairdresser school - do you support theistic hair-dressers or automechanics? I don’t remember any part of my shop class making room for God as I was being taught to weld or do woodworking - apparently all secular activities then to be held suspect. So why do scientists need to provide “the God box”? And if once we found a god that we could stuff in there, who is it that would worship such a god? I guess some Christians do - they have all sorts of other boxes that they imagine must contain God after all.

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Hi T_aquiticus,
thanks for your reply.

A fundamental fact regarding ALL of our continued existences here on Earth, minute by minute in the world of the living for adult humans is the production of dozens of kilograms (or even more pounds if you wish) of ATP every single day. Proportional to weight that applies to all living things on Earth.
I see that as the result of a common design, by a common designer, the Creator Who is our Lord and Saviour.

When discussing an event that occurred a very long time in the past, for me thousands of years, for you millions to billions of years, it is obviously not possible to have the same degree of confidence and reliance as we can have on empirical data that is collected in the laboratory in the present.

All we can do is surmise, imagine, guess and assume, and then build models based on that very same very shaky data; models that are designed in alignment with whatever worldview the researcher holds to. Sure, many careers have been made in science, doing just that, the old ‘publish or perish adage’, but the immutable fact remains that whatever we choose to dream up regarding the origins of biological life type questions, it is at best, always based upon pre-held axioms and a bunch of assumptions.

It is also valid to note that some experiments performed in the present to obtain that data about events that occurred in the distant past, (that you protest, I am not providing), are unintentionally performed in a manner that by their very design inadvertently affect the result. Then more often than is warranted for rigorous research, that data is heralded as a possible explanation for how life commenced. And so it goes, on and on, ad infinitum…

I take a completely different approach, as a Bible believing Christian who has seen enough of this world and the unseen spiritual battle raging all around us for the hearts/minds of men and women, I know deep within my heart that we were created by our loving Lord God Who created this entire universe for His Glory in six ordinary days and for us to inhabit it and know Him in Love and Truth.

Can I provide empirical evidence that would convince you of that?
The short answer to that is No, I cannot, that is between you and your maker.

But T_aquaticus, don’t you see what you are doing here?

You state that no assumption exists, then in the very next breath you state ‘IF’.

Your worldview is entirely predicated upon that very BIG ‘IF’ “the first life was created by God and [IF it] then evolved into the biodiversity we see today,”…

Firstly, I don’t know whether you can see the glaring irony here or not, but, it is sufficient to say that whether you agree or disagree, the FACT remains that assumptions are indeed made.

Secondly, I did not say or imply that anything “in the theory of evolution would need to change", the obvious reality I was hoping to convey, that it appears you missed, is that the very first self-reproducing single celled life form by necessity needed to have some way, some mechanism to power itself.

This comment really does not warrant a response, however as a courtesy to you I will attempt to address the core issue here. But I must state that I am at a loss as to why it appears you do not understand that the very first single celled organism it is assumed existed in evolutionary theory, needed to be able to reproduce successfully and of obvious necessity needed to have a means of passing on the heritable information, to power cellular activity and reproduction in the next generation.

rhetoric and semantics???
Everything we talk about is based upon names, labels if you will.
That is how communication works! We all know the code, in this case the English language made up of 26 letters, we write down words and others can read them and know the message the writer was conveying.

And again, in relation to the following words of my post:

Here, you erroneously state, “In science, this just isn’t a viable argument.” so I ask you, why? I am merely making an obvious observation based upon simple logic. I am not attempting to write a thesis, but are merely making what I believe to be an obvious conclusion from what we observe, if evolution were real.

But T_aquaticus, in context, my post is about the amazing ATP Synthase Motor and how, right from the ‘assumed’ very first single celled form of life, the mode of transfer of the prodigious volumes of information to power the cell, that is, to keep it alive, and the prodigious volumes of information to reproduce and pass on that information to the next generation had to be present in some form right from the very first living organism in evolutionary theory.

Not only did that ‘assumed’ very first single cell form of life need to have information writing, storage, reading, decoding and utilising software and nano-machinery to be able to pass on the blueprint instruction information to the next generation, but it also had to have inbuilt repair systems to repair damage to the information, that we know occurs constantly in information storing structures within all living cells we observe today, and it ALL had to be operating in a complete and integrated manner.

As I have already stated, the odds of all that coming together in the first life form from non living chemicals is an insurmountable problem for evolution theory in the secular world.
Yes, I understand that some here will invent any number of rescue devices for this intractable problem and make the claim that God put all the information in place for the first cell and let the process proceed over ‘deep time’ to arrive at us.

But the problem with that is, it goes against everything written in the Holy Scriptures. Why is it so hard for so many to accept what God has made ever so clear right at the beginning of the Bible.

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.”

That single sentence of Holy Scripture alone, utterly demolishes any possible belief in evolution! Because a world full of eons of death and survival of the fittest can NOT be described by our Holy, Righteous, Just and Loving Creator God as very good.

Also, it is well worth emphasizing here that the Gospel of Salvation through our Lord Jesus selfless act of atonement for our sins upon that very REAL cross is irreparably damaged if ‘Nephesh’ animal death existed prior to Adam’s rebellion in the Garden of Eden, i.e., Adams rebellion was not the reason that sin and death entered the world!
Jesus Himself, the Son, the Creator, our Saviour confirmed the historical reality of Adam and Eve,the Global Flood and our desperate need for Salvation.

If evolution is how God made the diversity of life on Earth, and ‘Nephesh’ animal death and suffering was ever present for billions of years, then there is absolutely no scriptural basis by which Jesus can rescue us from eternal separation from Him, by paying the ransom for the wages of sin that is the second death.

Prior to Adam’s rebellion that was a sin against God, there was no Nephesh’ animal death and Adam was innocent and blameless before God.

Empirical indicates measurements, and I’m not seeing any of those in your post. What I do see is your subjective descriptions and opinions which are not empirical.
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The empirical measurement of substances and processes that are alleged to have occurred millions to billions of years ago are I would have thought quite obviously not possible, as the scientific method does not have a crystal ball or a time machine to go back and make such precise empirical measurements as we regularly do today in a laboratory.
As a consequence any measurements provided for events that allegedly took place millions of ears ago are fraught with guesswork and assumption and models based upon that guesswork and assumption that are designed to confirm a particular worldview, whether intentional or not, are liable to be wrong, very wrong!

As I see it, the battle is here for all to see, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities in high places. Unfortunately, and I sincerely wish it was not so, but there are some on this website, that will contort and make self-serving claims about hermeneutics of the Holy Scriptures, invoking atheist secular ideas of ANE culture to justify their secular worldview, but as for me, the Holy Scriptures were written being inspired by God Himself as His Holy Word for honest, simple, unpretentious people from all generations to know Him, be they from the past, present or future. The Holy Scriptures are profound proceeding forth from God.

I understand from my previous posts on this website, that through a considerable volume of mental gymnastics and brutal forcing onto the Holy Scriptures a worldview that is not supported by Scripture is promoted, over and over again, I guess in the very real hope that many will be swayed by the seemingly persuasive arguments that teach what is not written in the Holy Scriptures.

Although I am unworthy, I humbly pray the Holy Spirit reveal the abiding TRUTH of the Holy Scriptures to all people on this site and elsewhere in the name of Jesus our Lord and Saviour.

I wish you well,
God Bless,
jon

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That is so totally awesome.

When read as literal history, the Bible is extensively contradicted by archaeology, at least up to the time of Solomon (with movements toward the time of David).

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Complete and utter patent nonsense.

Measurement and guesswork are the exact polar opposites of each other.

Measurement is completely independent of your worldview. It works according to strict rules that are exactly the same for Christians and atheists alike.

And you CANNOT just cry “assumptions” as if it were some sort of magic get-out-of-jail-free card to let you fob off any and every scientific fact thjat you don’t like. In order to challenge a scientific finding by questioning its assumptions, you MUST do ALL THREE of the following:

  1. State exactly, in precise mathematical terms, what those assumptions are.
  2. Make sure that it really does make the assumptions that you are claiming that it makes, and that there isn’t any newer corroborating research that has found a way round the assumptions in question.
  3. Explain how the assumptions could have been violated in such a way as to give the exact same measurements and patterns in the data, including such factors as cross-checks and correlations between them.

Anything less is lying.

Again, complete and utter patent nonsense.

The rules of mathematics and measurement have nothing whatsoever to do with atheism. As I said, they are exactly the same for Christians and atheists alike.

The Holy Scriptures say this:

13 Do not have two differing weights in your bag—one heavy, one light. 14 Do not have two differing measures in your house—one large, one small. 15 You must have accurate and honest weights and measures, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. 16 For the Lord your God detests anyone who does these things, anyone who deals dishonestly. — Deuteronomy 25:13-16

If you want to deny that evolution is an indisputable fact, or that the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, your justification for doing so MUST obey these verses. Accurate and honest measurement is non-negotiable, for the simple reason that anything else is lying.

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Hi Adam,
thanks for your reply, it is most welcome.
I must admit, that I’m somewhat at a loss as to what precisely what you are getting at here.

I understand that it is no surprise that people who believe in evolution will and do use the reality that we are here, BUT and it is a very BIG BUT,
Christians who believe the Bible as it is written can do precisely the same thing by stating that ‘We are here’ because as we are faithfully informed in the Bible, we were created by God in His image, both male and female, He created the first people on Earth.
Thus the only question that I see arising out of this is simply which one of these two differing worldviews is correct.

Now all I can do is state what I personally believe.
I have carefully weighed the evidence of both worldviews and can confidently state that the Biblical worldview of origins is far ahead on every count for sheer credibility, consistency and honesty that there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the Bible can be trusted to say what God means, and to mean what God says.

The Bible is the Word of our Lord God, so much so that in the spiritual realm it is literally the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Our Lord God does not hide His Truth such that His Word can only be understood by scholars of ancient language; rather our gracious ALL KNOWING GOD, Who knows the end before the beginning has made sure the Truth is revealed to those humble people, considered to be the least in the world and hidden from those who consider themselves superior in education, worldly knowledge and the Holy Scriptures.

Although I am unworthy, I thank God for your faithful presence on this site Adam, and for your unwavering Love for the many people here at Biologos, may our Lord bless you and strengthen you in faith, wisdom and Love.

With regard to your statement:

It is obvious to me that self awareness involves vastly more than a computer can ever achieve.

AI will never have a soul, a spirit a conscience, a connection with God, all it can ever be is a very sophisticated calculator, good data in, good data out, bad data in, bad data out,.

In the future, AI may give the impression to some that it is self-aware but that will always be an illusion, a complex, and almost certainly a very clever illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.

God Bless,
jon

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Hi Mervin,

please forgive me for pointing this out, and please know that many times I am equally guilty, but far from being constructive here about the subject matter of this post, as a site moderator, all I see from your fairly out of context words, is lack of the Love that is demonstrated by Jesus our Lord every day towards us.

I see that as we progress further into the future, peoples Love will and is gradually, almost imperceptively, waning, becoming colder year by year.

To hopefully get this post back on track, the topic here is about the amazing ATP Synthase Motor that is keeping everyone of us very much alive RIGHT NOW, and the utterly impossible improbability of how the ‘assumed’ very first living cell would have had to already possess an efficient functioning means of producing energy for cellular functions that keep it alive long enough to grow strong enough to flourish to then expend the relatively enormous amount of its energy and resources to accurately reproduce itself in a manner that allowed the offspring to grow and do the same, hence an information drafting, coding, writing, reading, and transferring system and structure was obviously of necessity required.

Yes, we can ignore this INCONVENIENT REALITY but that won’t make it go away.

Mervin, I would recommend that you and anyone else interested in examining the impossible improbability inherent in the origin of the ATP and implications of the reality of the ATP Synthase Motor further to watch the scientifically accurate interview at the following link titled: AMAZING ROBOTICS IN ALL LIVING CELLS

God Bless,
jon

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Wrong. It can do quite a bit more than that. It can learn to do things better than we can do them and thus teach us how to do them better than we ever did them before.

You can teach an AI to say the words “I have a soul” just as you have been taught to say them. But I think that is the only reality to this belief of Plato, Gnostics and reincarnation religions.

I don’t know. For sure I think living things have a spirit. AI are not alive.

Not so sure about that one either. You can probably teach an AI to do one of those pretty good too.

Do you believe that is a capability of yours?

I think all the capability in that regard is found in God alone and He can make a connection with whatever HE chooses.

I don’t know what you think “self-aware” means but the words sound to me like having access to information about ones own state of being. That is not difficult to include in a computer program. But then how self-aware are we really? We definitely have some but it seems clear to me that we also lack a great deal of self-awareness. Thus a computer program could easily be more self-aware than we are (percentage-wise that is).

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Dear Roymond,
from the research that I have performed on this subject, the artifacts still present in the Holy Land categorically and unequivocally support the veracity of the Holy Scriptures as accurate and true historical narrative accounts.

To claim otherwise misrepresents the facts, for example:

At Beth Shan there are still standing remaining sections of fortress walls built by the Israelites well over three thousand years ago.

At Dan, the ruins of bull calf pagan worship buildings for Baal are still there to this day for anyone who cares to take the time to look to see.

Also, at Beth Shan the city ruins where Saul and his sons were impaled on the city wall by the Philistine’s are still there if you care to look.

At Samaria the ruins of Ahab and Jezebel’s palace and a Baal worship temple are there for all to see, plain as day.

At Shiloh the remains of buildings that were destroyed by the Philistines during Samuels time here on Earth, and during that same period, extensive ruins of walls and buildings at Beth Shemesh.

The still standing and currently present water system that was utilized by Joab to overrun the Jebusite fortress under the ruins of the city of David, not to mention the still present extensive limestone retaining walls that completely underpinned the city of David in today’s Jerusalem.

At Bozrah, remnants of the capital city of Edom.

At Megiddo just south of Phoenicia (now Lebanon) the steps that lead up into Megiddo in Solomon’s day.

At En Gedi the desert oasis that David used when in hiding from Saul, is still there with abundant potable water.

Within museum custody today, the Babylonian Chronicle, a text covered stone that describes Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of Jerusalem and at Bethlehem, ruins from the time of Ruth.

More recently in the present epoch, the fallen building stones from when the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD.

At Jerusalem, Hezekiah’s tunnel is still there for all to see in the old city.

Extensive ancient ruins at Ephesus, including the vast theatre and the columned lined road leading down to where the harbour on the Mediterranean Sea once was.

I could go on but it’s very well known that ancient ruins and artifacts confirm not only events recorded as historical narrative in both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, but also the geography of the Bible is confirmed as authentic by the existing and easily observed reality in the Holy Land today.

God Bless,
jon

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I don’t doubt you see it that way, but science can’t use subjective opinions like the one you are putting forward. This would only mean that Intelligent Design isn’t scientific.

Correct. There may never be enough empirical evidence to tell us how life started on Earth. The best science may be able to do with abiogenesis is to find viable pathways that life could emerge, but we may never know if that is how it happened on Earth.

Could you give an example?

Which only means your view isn’t scientific. That’s fine.

I think one of the traps many ID or YEC supporters run into is that they hold science above faith. This is why you often see them try to discount certain theories by claiming they are based on faith because they see faith as being inferior to science. If nothing else, BioLogos demonstrates that science and faith can stand shoulder to shoulder.

A hypothesis is not an assumption.

I am looking at both sides of the argument and seeing what impact they would have. If life arose through natural processes then we would have the theory of evolution we see today. If life arose through God creating life then we would have the theory of evolution we see today. No matter how that first life arose, the theory of evolution would be unaffected.

If you think I am wrong, I would love to hear why.

First, we don’t assume life existed. We have a fossil record that demonstrates it did.

Second, it is quite obvious that the first life would need to replicate. What it needed specifically to replicate is completely unknown. You seem to be making the assumption that what life requires now is what it required in the past. I don’t see why that assumption is necessary. For example, RNA can serve as both an enzyme and a genetic molecule. Have you considered an RNA based replicator?

In science, we don’t test hypotheses by the labels we attach to something. Communication is rhetoric and semantics. Science is testing hypotheses using empirical measurements, not rhetoric and semantics. As the adage goes, if you can’t but a number on it then it’s just an opinion.

As stated above, in science you don’t test hypotheses by what labels you attach to something. Science works from empiricism, not rhetoric and semantics.

It’s not assumed. We have a fossil record.

That’s just rhetoric and semantics.

You never showed any calculations, just assertions. Also, nothing in the theory of evolution requires abiogenesis. All evolution requires is the presence of life, and we have evidence for the presence of life in the fossil record. No assumptions.

Scriptures don’t falsify scientific theories. If that were the case then you would be a Geocentrist.

What we don’t have to assume is that there was simple single celled life 4.2 billion years ago.

It is no different than the mental gymnastics needed to explain scriptures that say the Earth doesn’t move with secular Heliocentrism that states the Earth moves about the Sun.

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In other words, you have no answer to his challenge and thus turn to ad-hominem in order to deflect it.

Let’s reiterate the question because I think it is important. Why do you complain that science doesn’t make room for God when you do not do the same for so many other things? And frankly all us scientists can see no love demonstrated in your unreasonable attack upon science in this way.

And frankly it isn’t even true, because otherwise I would not believe. The truth is, science doesn’t make room for the role YOU have decided to give God, just as Christianity doesn’t give room for the role so many others like to give God. Perhaps you should simply learn that these are the wrong role to demand of God. The discovery in quantum physics that science is not a causally closed system meant there was room for a God who played a role in the events of our life. Now that is important. But this room you demand for God to do things you say in the way you insist God had to do them is NOT.

Burrawang, I would recommend that you and anyone else interested in honestly and truthfully examining the the origin of the ATP and implications of the reality of the ATP Synthase Motor further to NOT watch the propaganda of a religious ministry but to examine the scientific work done on this topic. Is that Dr. Jonathon Sarfati? No. His studies are in chemistry and his research is in spectroscopy and condensed matter. But most of his time seems to be devoted to playing chess and writing polemic in support of YEC.

Not even close. God saw how evolution (as he had set up for living things to develop) demonstrated that cooperation was the most effective survival strategy and thus He said “it is good.” And God saw how man had evolved from this process with the capability of the abstract communication of language as well as love and imagination (like could be His very own children) and so He said it is very good.

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I wasn’t talking about cosmology.

I’m relying on empirical evidence that anyone can access.

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