Re: [asa] Harvard study

"Presumably all that's involved are just chemical reactions, so they shouldn't require great spans of time." - Don

  Just a small sound byte in reply to the distinguished professor of chemistry and chemical biology at X university (who is obviously self-promoting his own fields of study - as if they hold answers to 'important' questions or are less reductionistic than other discilpines/fields).
   
  "It's all chemistry; no soul please."
   
  Such is a recipe for (pick your ism, e.g. naturalism or anti-soulism), isn't it? The play on words comes from soul or 'syel,' which can translate as 'salt'.
   
  Is the 'salt of the earth' un-necessary for ethical human living or even human existence?
   
  Arago
   
  OoLUI - Origins of Life in the Universe Initiative, a.k.a. Origins of Life Under the Influence of...Reductionists
   
  
Don Winterstein <dfwinterstein@msn.com> wrote:
            Burgy,
   
  I take it you found the following quote offensive:
      “My expectation is
    that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of
    logical events that could have taken place with no divine
    intervention.”
   
  If so, why? Lots of phenomena of nature at one time were thought to be effected directly by God or angels. Origin of life is certainly a prime one. I hear the yahoo simply saying he thinks there's a scientific explanation. That's the necessary bias of all scientists working on such project. Did you hear, "Let's crucify God again!"?
   
      Just because it's his expectation doesn't make it so; but if it is so, I for one would like very much to know.
      It seems on the face of it that it should be much easier to generate life in a well-controlled
      lab environment than it was to generate it in nature; and once you have the recipe,
      you should be able to do it over and over. Presumably all that's involved are just chemical
      reactions, so they shouldn't require great spans of time.
   
  On the other hand, if they don't get anywhere in the lab, that will tell us something also.
   
  Don
   
    ----- Original Message -----
  From: burgytwo@juno.com
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2006 9:07 AM
  Subject: [asa] Harvard study
  

Latest AIG blurb, with which I have some sympathy. Too bad they did
not identify the yahoo from Harvard whose quote they lifted.

Q: Is an Ivy League school really spending millions of dollars to
prove there’s no God?

A: These days it seems as though everyone is jumping into the
creation/evolution debate. Not wanting to be left out, Harvard
announced a new multimillion dollar research project, the “Origins of
Life in the Universe Initiative.” They’re setting aside $1 million a
year to try to prove what they already believe.

Listen to what a Harvard professor of chemistry and chemical biology
told the New York Times about the origin of life: “My expectation is
that we will be able to reduce this to a very simple series of
logical events that could have taken place with no divine
intervention.”

For all the PhDs that Harvard may hand out—and for all the good
science they may do—none of it is important when it comes to
eternity. If they’re producing atheists, then what’s the point in the
long run?

As Matthew 16 tells us, “What profit is it to a man if he gains the
whole world, and loses his own soul?”
 
Burgy

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Received on Sun Oct 29 10:09:52 2006