"Now as I said before I think labs have been able to make a combination of compounds into a primitive organism. (or maybe I'm confused with the fact that they were able to produce the amino acids that are the building blocks)..."
Amino Acid Synthesis (1953). Stanley Miller produced a few amino acids from chemicals, amid a continuous small sparking apparatus. But the experiment actually had disproved the possibility that evolution could occur.
The amino acids were totally dead, and the experiment only proved that a synthetic production of them would result in equal amounts of left- and right-handed amino acids. Since only left-handed ones exist in animals, accidental production could never produce a living creature (R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution, 1990, p. 274).
One more note on DNA:
At the Wistar Institute Symposium (1966),Murray Eden of MIT explained that life could not begin by "random selection." He noted that, if randomness is removed, only "design" would remain,--and that required purposive planning by an Intelligence. He showed that it would be impossible for even a single ordered pair of genes to be produced by DNA mutations in the bacteria, E. Coli (which has very little DNA), with 5 billion years in which to produce it. Eden then showed the mathematical impossibility of protein forming by chance. He also reported on his extensive investigations into genetic data on hemoglobin (red blood cells). Hemoglobin has two chains, called alpha and beta. A minimum of 120 mutations would be required to convert alpha to beta. At least 34 of those changes require changeovers in 2 or 3 nucleotides. Yet, Eden pointed out, if a single nucleotide change occurs through mutation, the result ruins the blood and kills the organism! For more on the Wistar Institute, read the following book: Paul Moorhead and Martin Kaplan (eds.), Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, Wistar Institute Monograph No. 5.
jlanger:
You had mentioned the Neanderthal in an earlier post. Isn't the Neanderthal considered human? Also, wasn't their brain 17% larger than a current human brain is today? I read that a couple of days ago and found that interesting.
Dave Andrews and Sam Sampson:
Thank you for finally getting around to (I think) what you were hinting at with the Double Blind Study. (Reguarding Darwin and somebody coming up the same theory at the same time.)
However, it isn't much of an arguement. Statistically, there is a very good chance that 2 out of millions of people can have the same idea at the same time.
