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Does 16s rRNA gene prove all Abrahamic religions wrong? - (Mar/15/2012 )

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I am agnostic, never believed in any religion or faith. If according to Abrahamic books there were an Adam and Eve, made from clay by God, then how do religious scientists explain 16s rRNA gene. I can't consider anyone as scientist if they are religious.

I think there is already enough proof in the world for intelligent people. It's just that some brains still can't handle the reality.

I read somewhere that 60% of American scientists are agnostic.

-Curtis-

Hey curtis! Interesting question, but you need to look at the context of the original writings. A totally pre-scientific time, when everyone "knew" the earth was the centre of everything, and was flat to boot. Male semen actually contained tiny, tiny fully-formed people that just grew inside a woman. Blood was a complete mystery, but the blood of animals contained the essence of that animal (drinking it would give you the characteristsics of that animal: lion's blood, anyone?).

Remember that the creation account in Genesis was written down over 3500 years ago, and the scientific method has only been around for 500 years or so, and I think I am being generous there. Considering the fact that even in the early-middle 20th century science still thought that proteins, rather than nucleic acid, constituted the hereditary material, you might want to cut other people a bit of slack...

Speaking as an committed Christian, all I can say is that Christianity should not be thought of as a philosophy or a way of thinking, but as the response to historical events (I would also guess that Jews and Muslims would say the same thing). And as for your comments about religious people not really being scientists, I think that Michael Faraday, John Lennox (who has destroyed Dawkins' arguments on a number of occasions) and Francis Collins (who led the public Human Genmoe effort, and who now runs the NIH), just to name three, may dispute your statement...

-swanny-

I totally agree with Curtis: how can you be a scientist if you are not open minded? (I cannot see how somebody who believes in God is open-minded). Personally, I was an atheist since I was 10 and I was told that atheists are those people who believe in evolution. It was a thought choice then, but between denying evolution and denying God (at that time both absolute truths to me), the child in me chose to believe the evolution thing. I do not say that I still believe that one negates the other (I grew up in between :) ), what I am saying is that religion pushes some beliefs as facts. These beliefs might make it difficult for scientists to accept new ideas or new discoveries. This is why it is advisable, in my opinion, for scientists not to be religious. I go so far as saying that, when I'll be a professor or group leader (in a future, far-far from now), I will ask during the interview the future PhD student whether he/she believes in God and/or evolution. I know, it is illegal in most countries to do so because you get sued the hack out of you. But still... I cannot see myself giving the PhD title to people who are religious. (this comes from bad experience in my lab now with a fellow PhD student, that in the meantime got her degree, that, being very religious stated that evolution is a just a theory; so, is gravity, but, I don't see her jumping off buildings :) )

However, swanny has a point as well: religion did not prevent good scientists doing great work. Bottom line: whatever one does/believe at home is fine with me as long as this does not affect his/her intellectual performance or belief in scientific facts.

Coming back to 60% American scientists are agnostic: is it a lot, or little? What about 20-30% of Americans (I do not remember the exact numbers but <50%) believing in evolution, the rest in creationism? Or how about this political candidate (a very religious one) that recently said that women who are raped for real do not get pregnant (and I do not believe that he was the only one thinking so; I believe that a lot of his followers said: if Akin says so...it must be so).

Andreea

-ascacioc-

Curtis on Fri Mar 16 04:37:04 2012 said:


If according to Abrahamic books there were an Adam and Eve, made from clay by God, then how do religious scientists explain 16s rRNA gene.


Just for the sake of the argument: challenge accepted! I will try my best to argue the other side:

You state that 16S rRNA being conserved enough, is direct proof of evolution. Phylogenetic trees are constructed based on sequencing this gene.

My counterargument is: in recent years, it was shown that 16S rRNA gene can be horizontally transferred. This makes all the phylogenetic trees built on sequencing this gene questionable. This makes evolution (as scientists accept it) questionable. Check this recent article as an example:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22902729
The creationisms state: God created one original 16S rRNA gene that was transferred (horizontally) in all the other organisms after their creation by viruses.

Ball in your court :)

-ascacioc-

Without wanting to get things started on the wrong foot, but I just can't help myself here , ascacioc, isn't your attitude a bit closed minded? ("...how can you be a scientist if you are not open minded? (I cannot see how somebody who believes in God is open-minded)."). Not saying anything, just saying...

I think both curtis and ascacioc are forgetting a very significant factor: the hardline creationists who hold to a literal 7-day creation are not the major voice in Christianity.I am convinced that they are misusing the text as an argument "for" just as much as hardline evolutionists misuse the text as an argument "against". Remember how I said that the text was written 3500 years ago, before the modern understandig of the world? Clearly, that means evolutionists cannot use the text as a proof text by comparing what was written with what we now know (For myself, I can't see how an old earth with the evolution of species can be wrong). It also means that creationists are mistaken when they try to make the document (which was written as Hebrew poetry) into a modern historical summation of how things have come to be as they are.

Seriously, this is a total red herring when it comes to reasonable discussions about religion. No religion at all is centred on its creation narrative, but on the teachings of its leaders. As I said before, Christianity is not a philosophical position: anyone who tries to argue through it or against it (or for it) as though it is a philosophical position is going to come to false conclusions. The only way to get to know what Christianity (or Judaism, or Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, or even Flying Spaghetti Monsterism!) is about is to actually do the research yourself and read the book, in your native language. As you say, ball's in your court...

ascacioc, it is a great ptiy that you were told such a simplistic statement about an atheist being someone who believes in evolution. Even more than that, your fellow PhD student gave a very poor response to you. I am most glad though that you were not involved in my PhD, nor that of people like Lennox and Collins... And I will lob the ball straight back : when God created life, he introduced differences in the 16S RNA as a means to separate the different species. (That last point was made tongue in cheek...)

-swanny-

swanny on Thu Aug 30 23:53:27 2012 said:


Remember how I said that the text was written 3500 years ago, before the modern understandig of the world?


But it is supposed to be the word of God, not man, isn't it? And surely he would have known all about DNA and RNA, given that he created it, no? So it is irrelevant what we knew or didn't know.

-leelee-

leelee on Fri Aug 31 04:17:38 2012 said:


swanny on Thu Aug 30 23:53:27 2012 said:


Remember how I said that the text was written 3500 years ago, before the modern understandig of the world?


But it is supposed to be the word of God, not man, isn't it? And surely he would have known all about DNA and RNA, given that he created it, no? So it is irrelevant what we knew or didn't know.

But any piece of writing has to mean something to the people of that time, or else it would not be written. Have you ever heard of a piece of writing from the past that was predicated in modern-day concepts? By that I mean concepts that have only come about recently. No, all writings have to make sense to the people to whom it was written. So, straight back at you, it doesn't matter that God already knew all of the nuances of RNA and DNA, they weren't included in the narrative because the people he addressed had no concept of them.

As to the Bible being God's word, it describes itself as being written by men (and therefore meaningful to their own contemporaries) as they were carried along by God's spirit. That is not to say they were in some kind of trance state when they wrote, but their thoughts were directed or guided to communicate God's words. I suppose some might then protest about how we know that they didn't just write down anything and call it "the word of God". Well, that is where you need to consider how a letter or a book fits into the rest of what God has said. In the 3rd century, several councils met to discuss what should, and should not be included in the Christian Bible, and I believe a similar thing happened centuries before with the Jewish Bible. But even before that, during the late 1st and early 2nd centuries, the various church leaders wrote to each other frequently, discussing what was God's revelation, and what wasn't, and it wasn't just a matter of tossing a coin... Documents were compared very carefully, and those documents that were rejected were rejected for a number of reasons.

If you really want an example of God's word, though, you need go no further than his own "logos" (whence we get "logic" and the suffix "-ology"), Jesus. Like I said, you have to do the research for yourself, you can't just rely on other people's filtering of what they have read about what others have thought about what they have read.

-swanny-

swanny on Fri Aug 31 05:21:51 2012 said:


you have to do the research for yourself, you can't just rely on other people's filtering of what they have read about what others have thought about what they have read.


But isn't that exactly what organised religion is? Relying on religious leaders to filter what they have read and been told to decide what the congregation (or whatever) is told?

I think your point that God wouldn't include them because the people of the time wouldn't understand is valid. But I wasn't saying that there was a need for DNA or RNA and all the complexities that discussing those would introduce to be discussed in any text. Rather that the text needs to be consistent with these things.

-leelee-

leelee on Fri Aug 31 05:35:47 2012 said:



But isn't that exactly what organised religion is? Relying on religious leaders to filter what they have read and been told to decide what the congregation (or whatever) is told?


Actually that is what a dead religion is all about. Unfortunately, that probably means many religions are dead, relying on unthinking compliance to what you are told... I guess I've been fortunate to never go to church where that attitude rules.

I'm not sure that the text has to be consistent with what we understand about the universe. It was, after all, the jewish people's understanding of how everything has come t obe as it is. And how would you write the account to make it consistent with 16S data? God first made a bacteia (something invisible until the microscope was invented), then He changed it again and again and again, making bigger and bigger and more different creatures, turning some into fish, some into birds, sone into... Kinda clunky, don't you think?

-swanny-

to support a bit the Biblical creation, even though they did not know too much at the time, they got smth right: according to Genesis (as far as I remember so do correct me), God created fish and birds before other animals (mammals?). Isn't this the order in the evolution? On the other hand, plants were there before anything else, one eon before. A bit of mistake there.

My bottom line is: with a bit of thinking, Bible can be explained in accordance to nowadays knowledge. Even the 16S RNA: either a virus made horizontal transfer or God created everything in an order and built on the previous created organism by changing a bit to label the differences between organisms. If we want to negate religion/creationism, we must come up with stronger arguments.

@swanny: I know I am not open-minded. I would like to be more tolerant. But, nobody is totally open-minded (there are quite a few studies about discrimination and racism that prove that everybody has his/her limit of non-discrimination). Extreme religion (not the moderate one that accepts evolution) is my weak point towards which I cannot be open-minded. My reason tells me that I should be accepting other opinions since I do not hold the absolute truth. But I cannot. This is why I am trying to keep the people who do not share my anti-religion views away from me: to protect them from me. In the long run, if I would have to interact with such a person every day of my life and at some point would have to take the final decision in a situation in which a religious person has a fight (or similar decision) with a non-religious person (in a both right and both wrong situation, not black and white), I am afraid I will be biased. We all are biased a bit (not conscious) towards people who share the same opinions as us. If I have learned something from the discrimination research I have read is that you cannot prevent yourself from discriminating, but you can learn to take care not to put yourself in situations in which you will discriminate which leads to discriminating from the beginning... Nothing is perfect.

-ascacioc-
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