Your comments, then, seem to have nothing to do with my statement, since I said nothing at all about either evolution or the origin of life. I said only that the processes that occur in cells involve ordinary chemistry; the atoms involved do not need have a special “breath-of-life” added to them.
I didn’t say he had started from scratch. I said he’d synthesized a DNA molecule, something you said humans couldn’t do.
1 Like
Did you know that colorless green ideas sleep furiously?
I just don’t think it’s right for people to come here and use BioLogos as a platform to market their strange ideas and sell books. Especially when they won’t answer questions about the nature of their “research.”
Beaglelady, I just offered that information to someone who actually seemed to want to know more about the new branch of science we are proposing.
I have endeavored to portray the basic concepts in a simple manner.
I now have to get back to work.
Hi Thomas,
(1) I asked for a few sentences. I did not request a price list for merchandise. I am astonished that you could not distinguish between the one and the other.
(2) I am also surprised that you are either unable or unwilling to talk about your research in any detail.
Happy Fourth, though.
So, we may be missing this interaction for what it is. From @GodsBiology’s bio:
He has studied at three universities and two institutes. His work background is in engineering, research, construction, international manufacturing, exploration, and now publishing. The education and experiences in these fields helped him in researching and understanding the intelligent physical work required to design, construct, sustain, and maintain living entities.
About The Authors - Darwin's Replacement
If there was any doubt, @GodsBiology’s bio makes it clear. He does not do anything we would recognize as scientific research.
Still, I find this exchange to be enlightening because @GodsBiology’s seems to be a real “vitalist” (see Vitalism - Wikipedia). Is that right @GodsBiology? do you believe, like wikipedia defines it, that “living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they are governed by different principles than are inanimate things?” It seems like you believe that living things require God’s precise intervention at every point to be alive.
I think what @GodsBiology is saying is so hard for us to understand because he may be the first vitalist that any of us have ever encountered. Not even YEC go this far. I, for one, find this whole exchange facinating.
I’m reminded that the Bible has power to bring us to correct knowledge of Jesus, and a saving faith in Him. There should be no doubt, God’s purpose with it is not bring us to correct knowledge or Biology.
1 Like
Chris, There are volumes written about evolution, and none that I have read contain logical steps for the reliable construction of live cells and entities.
This will be my last endeavour for now to simplify, our atomic biology hypothesis:
Living cells are constructed of the right numbers of the right atoms. This requires intelligent selection, counting, and precise, planned placement of the properly selected atoms;
Atoms have no internal means to move themselves into a precise position in a cell;
Therefore, an intelligent external force is required to find, select, count, and precisely place the right numbers of the right atoms to construct each complex part of each complex cell;
Also, these inanimate atoms do not have ‘life’ of their own, therefore life must be added to each new cell (‘the breath-of-life’ without which no cell lives or functions).
Then all the various types of newly constructed cells have to be precisely assembled in proper sequence and hooked up to build the unique entity that the builder (Creator) desires.
If that is not clear enough, then I probably cannot help you.
As far as research is concerned in coming up with a new branch of science that may ultimately replace Darwinisms, and bring God back to our classrooms, I was certainly not sitting on my hands.
I certainly knew there would be resistance from those who do not seem to want God to be acknowledged as the Creator of individual plants and creatures, including us.
Swamidass, it may be a good idea for all scientists to study at least some engineering because planes have to fly and bridges have to stand. Engineers are way past philosophy and speculation. What they do has to be practical and work. You can see from my bio that I was involved with designing things and building or manufacturing things. As an employer, I needed to hire various specialists to help get the work accomplished.
So it is with developing and distributing these newly assembled, practical, and beneficial new concepts. It will take time and work.
I will be spending more time with some of the approximate 113,000 known scientists and medical professionals in the US that already disagree with macro-evolution and are bold enough to admit it.
Of course most of them are not under the anti-science duress to speak only evolution as the cause of life, notwithstanding their disbelief.
I am so happy to see that you are at least open-minded and positive enough to find the concepts of atomic biology to be ‘fascinating’.
Hi Thomas- You have expressed your view quite succinctly and clearly; thanks.
As you continue your endeavors, I want to encourage you to formulate a hypothesis that can be falsified by an experiment. Once you reach the point where you can
-
Enumerate the experiment’s design, equipment, materials, and analysis techniques; and
-
Explain how the experiment will make a unique contribution to the development of biology;
You will be ready to do science. Well, at least that’s what I have heard scientists say. 
I wouldn’t be surprised if a real, live biologist could add something useful, of course.
Cheers,
This is an argument to use on Atheists.
BioLogos supporters INCLUDE those who think God helped get life started by jump-starting the construction of the first viable cells…
@GodsBiology, you might have misunderstood me. I do not agree with your version of Biology at all. I turns out that God endowed atoms with the intrinsic ability to self-assemble exactly as is needed for life to exist. He does not need to specifically guide each atom into place for our bodies to work.
At the same time, it is very interesting to meet someone who things they are an expert in Biology, but does not know this. Rather, you seem to be arguing for “vitalism,” a notion I thought died out with geocentrism.
1 Like
I think it’s “vitalism of the gaps”. Technically speaking, we haven’t modeled a bacterial cell in every detail so we can’t confirm that the chemical processes we’ve characterized in great detail come together into a viable unit. Then again, in the course of investigating the operations of living organisms, we’ve yet to find physical processes in biology that requires vitalistic input. Life appears autocatalytic.
There is also a peculiar focus in his writing on the number and types of atoms going in and out of cells for cell health. However, the carbon in graphite, diamond and glucose has very different bioavailability depending on the molecular form. Mammals don’t extract energy from elemental carbon.
There’s some very basic knowledge of biochemistry that seems missing from the formulation of ‘Atomic Biology’. Simply put, running cells and tissues through an atomic absorption spectrometer isn’t going to reveal a lot about the dietary needs or workings of a cell. In terms of elemental composition, L-glucose and D-glucose are identical. However, D-glucose makes for a sugary snack that your body can absorb while L-glucose causes diarrhea and isn’t metabolized by human cells.
1 Like
I assume these were specialists in engineering or related fields? Not biologists.
Indeed, lots of questions come up. Where is the intelligence in the rabbit’s digestive system? They are hindgut fermemters, and can’t digest their food in one pass. They have to poop it out the first time and then eat their poops for a second pass.
And why not give humans the ability to digest cellulose? It is so abundant! It would stop people from starving to death.
And why give us humans a pseudogene for making vitamin C? Why not a real working gene, so we don’t get scurvy when we don’t get enough vitamin C from our food.
And if God has to poof the breath of life into every cell, why not make sure cells die when they are supposed to (apoptosis), instead of sometimes becoming malignant? Ever seen a tumor? It certainly isn’t the right number of cells. Did you know that half of all men in the USA will get cancer?
I’m confused by this article. Dennis says it’s “misguided” to use the absence of a full materialistic explanation for genetic information as an apologetic argument, but he doesn’t explain why.
Also, I was hoping to find a good treatment of the Intelligent Design arguments, but when the author implies that the design inference is derived from the mere fact that much “remains for science to discover about” the origins of genetic information - ie, that it is a god-of-the-gaps argument - I become very nervous that Intelligent Design is about to be straw-manned rather than engaged. Indeed, the subtitle’s mention of “gaps” confirms this suspicion.
Intelligent Design, and any other inference, is not a god-of-the-gaps argument just because one favors its explanatory power over that of a competing theory. Really, how silly is that? The criterion for being a god-of-the-gaps argument is not that a competing idea is thought to be wrong - or else every idea is in trouble - but that an idea is thought to be correct because a competing idea is wrong. That simply is not the structure of the Intelligent Design argument from information.
Swamidass, if you put all the elements for the assembly of a carrot into a large beaker, and you even put in exactly the right proportions of each element, including adding some water, and place where it can receive some sunshine, do you think the atoms therein will assemble themselves into a carrot? Yes or no.
The idea of atoms self-assembling themselves into even one live cell, is a pipe dream.
I don’t understand why so many in this discussion are adamant about not giving our Creator the credit for Creating.
Perhaps you have never thought this through before.
George, I beg you (and all reading this) to think through exactly what has to happen after you plant a carrot seed (for example) in a garden. What decisions and physical works are performed in finding, sorting, and selecting the right atoms from the wrong ones in the soil, and counting the right numbers of atoms of each element for building the first root hair cell; then precisely assembling these selected atoms into each vital part of each root cell (the nucleolus, chromatin, nuclear pore, nuclear envelope all for the nucleus, the rough endoplasmic reticulum, ribosomes, peroxisome, golgi apparatus, smooth endoplasmic reticulum, mitochondrion, secretory vesicle, plasma membrane, etc.) precisely assembling these parts into each complete root cell; then beginning the assembly of each cell for the body of the carrot and the leaves by finding, sorting, selecting and precisely assembling the right number of the right atoms for each complex part of each complex body and leaf cell; doing all this precision work in sequence; then hooking up all the cells with the essential ‘plumbing’ to deliver nutrients to each cell, etc.
There is brilliant physical work, care, and nanotechnology involved. It does not just happen by magic, electromagnetism, or straight chemical reactions.
The study of this brilliant work is the purpose of atomic biology.
Great question! Absolutely, “yes.”
If you put the right ingredients, they WILL assemble into a carrot all by themselves. You can do this yourself and see it happen yourself. The right ingredients are a carrot seed, fertile dirt, some water, air, and sunshine. In time this will self assemble, on its own, into a carrot. Amazing really. I agree.
It turns out that scientist have been studying this exact process for over a 100 years, and we can see clearly how God has endowed the atoms in carrots the ability to assemble themselves, without appearing to require His continual intervention. Carrot atoms are formed into carrot molecules that know how to manufacture more carrot molecules, all on their own.
No one, not even you, has been able to demonstrate that a carrot requires God’s direct intervention to grow. Of course, as Christians, we believe God sustains all things, including the carrot. In this case, most Christians are convinced that God sustains the carrot through the intrinsic properties God has granted the carrot’s atoms. Amazing really, but it appears to be true.
I know you are a vitalist, so this must seem like the most unbelievable and non-intuitive nonsense imaginable. Great. Science is not intuitive. No surprise there. Go about your work in peace. We harbor no ill will to you. Just remember, you worship God no less than the theistic evolutionist, whom God has granted the confidence to recognize evolution as His creative and beautiful work.
Peace.
4 Likes
I think your discussion would be more in dispute if you were speaking with an atheist.
I, and so many other supporters of BioLogos, are not surprised at the miraculous in the natural world around us.