scrappy

Depends on what you mean by "even ground." I regard Washington's new "everything but marriage" law as providing "even ground" for straights and gays in the category of domestic partnerships. Is the principle of "separate but equal" invoked by Washington's new law? That's purely a matter of opinion. My opinion is negative, other's may be different. But as far as all relevant legalities go—and as far as all domestic partnerships go—gays and straights are now on "even ground" in the Evergreen State.

Today Washington's state legislature passed the "everything but marriage" bill. This is exactly what I support. It’s the fairest of all solutions for legalizing same-sex domestic partnerships. And it preserves the titular treasure that many heterosexuals hold so dearly. Now everybody’s happy in Washington state, where we all respect the rights of everyone. Why isn’t Washington’s new law a model of things to come for the remaining 45 states that still prohibit same-sex civil unions?

You need to take a better look at what you’re saying. I don’t even know what you mean by “non-living chemicals.” Is RNA a non-living chemical? Is NaCl a non-living chemical? I’d say both are non-living chemicals' date=' including DNA. I’d like you to explain exactly what a “living chemical" is, please. And I’m not so impressed by your websites because they don’t address the need for genetically directed protein synthesis in living systems. If you know of a living system that gets along in life without genetic information I’d love to hear about it. OK, I’ll assume from what you say that the “needed” proteins can be made directly with AAs and heat. But that doesn’t get you abiogenesis from scratch. Of course, you can also get Directed protein synthesis by messenger ribonucleoprotein and ribosomes from different mammalian species, but you’d need a few live cells with ribosomes and mRNP. Where are you going to find those in your primordial soup before abiogenesis has occurred? Reproduce what? You’ve haven’t even addressed the need for the emergence of a digital genetic code. Do you think that genetic code just comes along like magic? You cannot have abiogenesis until you have a cell with the ability to pass on its genetic material to its progeny. Just making “protocells” and filling them with proteins won’t get the job done. I’m astonished that one in your position would say this. If what you say is true then please show the evidence that those little gene-less critters actually did pop out as the “bottom line.” I’m still wondering how you can get “reproduction” in life without being concerned about genetic inheritance. Do your “protocells” just sort get their genetic information by osmosis? No, that wouldn’t work in abiogenesis because there would be no ambient genetic information to absorb. All your meaty little “protocells” can do is play like prions, and that won’t get them much more than a fatal disease. ROFL! You just made that up, didn't you? Nobody but creationists argue so strongly against abiogenesis. According to you, it matters very much if there is a god. Without one, you claim there is no way to get life! So your whole arguments here contradict your own position as a non-theist! This statement is unbecoming of a “Biology Expert Moderator.” How can you refute my claim of being an untheist? Who would know better than I? Suggesting that I am a creationist is shameful, worthy of suspension. This is just more evidence that you are insecure about your position in this debate.

But protein synthesis requires a lot of nucleic-acid transcription and translation of genetic code. You’d need a living cell with a genetic code, a transcription/translation system, and a few ribosomes to get the proteins you need. But you can get lipids from sea scum. Sorry, lucaspa, but this is NOT the same thing as synthesizing life from scratch. Sure, you can make even a polio virus from mail-order genes; it's already been done. And Craig Venter's lab is now making artificial bacteria but stringing together the proper nucleotides to make a genome. He calls it ”digital life design”. But this is not in any way a duplication of abiogenesis. Well, yes, so long as you have a nice collection of spare nucleotides or mail-order genes. But I don’t call that “from scratch,” It’s from a “cake mix.” I happen to be an untheist: one who believes that it doesn't matter if there is or isn't a god.

I have no quibble with nature's many ways of making fancy bubbles. You can call them "protocells" if you want to, but more than lipid membranes are needed to make a living cell. What more is there to address in the subject data? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Mokele, you and I are walking down a street and we stop in front of a house. You say, "scrappy, you see that red house there?" I say, "Well, I see a house with its front side painted red. But I'd have to see all the sides painted red to call it a red house." You say, "Oh, come one, now you're making things too difficult. It's a red house, anybody can see that." I say, "Let's take a walk all the way around that house and then we'll see what color it really is." You say, "Only a troll would dicker over such a silly matter. It's a red house, anybody can see that." I say, "What's the harm in checking out that house more thoroughly. Maybe it's a green house, or white house with a red front. How can we know what color it is unless we look at all its sides?" You say, "OK, scrappy, if you insist." Moral: A scientist's job is NOT to accept anything at face value. When it comes down to abiogenesis there are no minimal assumptions. As such, Occam's Razor is useless without a face for it to shave. But there is no evidence of an Earthly abiogenesis. The fact that life is here does not allow any more assumptions than that Earth is now bio-friendly. We simply do not know if Earth was also friendly to abiogenesis, simply because we do not know anything about how abiogenesis happened.

But, aside from the obviously needed chemicals, does anybody really know what the necessary precursors were that enabled abiogenesis? No, I'm questioning the assumptions you're making about what you claim to really know. I'm saying we don't know enough yet to get very far toward explaining abiogenesis. If that's all you need to believe in an Earthly abiogenesis then you don't require very much in the way of relevant facts. Pseudoscience, ah? You're assuming that an Earthly abiogenesis is a better theory because it entails less complications, such as the need for space travel in the panspermia theory. OK, Occam's Razor may want to take a whack at that. But your theory is no less encumbered by whiskers, one of which is so geocentric as to be pre-Copernican. Specifically, that is the assumption that since life is already here it must have started here in the first place. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Hey, I'm fine with the bubble-making machines. Those protocells are really neat. But you need more than suds to make life from scratch, you need to come up with a digital language and an information storage and processing system, too.

I did respond to your post; it's in my post #36.

1. Please explain how the difference between early Earth conditions and modern conditions account for an Earthly abiogenesis. Do you know of even one condition that made a difference? 2. Other than speculation, what evidence do you have that "any stray biotic matter is gobbled up by microorganisms" and that "the extant life is out-competing any viable protobionts." What you are saying has only bold assumptions to back it up. Whew! With the evidence you have available you could just as easily conclude that God made life out of His special genesis mud. Just because we're here doesn't prove that life originated here. Maybe it originated on Mars and slopped over to Earth by way some interplanetary space vehicle. You do know about the Murchison meterorite, don't you? Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged But that doesn't necessarily get you abiogenesis; it only gets you cocktails of floating complex chemicals. Pure speculation. Show me the evidence. We don't even know what parameters we need. Abiogenesis is as mysterious to us as the Big Bang (actually, it's much more mysterious). I never said life didn't "evolve on Earth"; I said we don't know it abiogenesis ever happened on Earth. I'm good for that, but then how do you assume something as seemingly complex as abiogenesis happened here on Earth? Where's your evidence? You mean to say that the evidence for an Earthly abiogenesis is greater than the evidence for panspermia? So then we just assume the origin of life occurred here on Earth because we don't know how it happened? We don't even know what the essential conditions were. Please, "the origin of complex chemicals" doesn't get us very far. Well, if you've got better evidence for an Earthly abiogenesis then I'd like to see it.

If microbes in the upper atmosphere impress you then consider microbes on the moon. A colony of Streptococcus mitis survived for 30 years on the moon unprotected from thermal extremes, UV, and other radiation. Here’s what Apollo 12 Commander Pete Conrad said about the little stowaways: "I always thought the most significant thing that we ever found on the whole...Moon was that little bacteria who came back and lived and nobody ever said [anything] about it." There is little doubt in my mind that NASA has flung microbes all over the solar system and probably out into deep space. This doesn’t do much to quell the speculation on panspermia. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Those watery soups are not exclusive to Earth. Furthermore, we don't know enough about abiogeneis to say that Earth's watery soups were (are) primordially poetent. So you're ready to conclude from this that abiogenesis must have happened on Earth? Fine. But then why isn't abiogenesis happening now? Why has it never been detected? Or parameters not know to have ever occurred on Earth, which may be the key ones we are overlooking. This seems like pre-Copernican geocentrism to me. Why do you think Earth is so special? Besides, there is only one form of life on Earth, only one genetic alphabet. Why are other forms not here? Maybe Earth just got the biological trash, the lowlifers, while other planets got the good stuff.

Hi iNow, Your link provides an interesting read on the formation of “protocells,” which, for all practical purposes, could be called fancy organic bubbles. But you can make fancy bubbles from a whole lot of concoctions. Life is not about fancy bubbles; life is about communicating in recorded digital code from one generation to the next. Life is about the survival of genes, because only genetic code moves forward in time, while the chemicals come and go ephemerally. What I what to know is how did a genetic language get installed inside those hopeful bubbles. All of those pre-abiogenesis chemicals and their bonding energies and thermodynamics and so forth are good for explaining only chemicals. They don’t explain biological life. Tell me how a digital language with an alphabet got in there? That’s the trick that eludes those who are preoccupied with their primordial soups and amino-acid bubbles. And why did it all have to happen here on Earth, anyway?

Just a few points of clarifcation: 1. We are NOT EVEN close to being able to create life from scratch; in fact, we don’t even have the first clue as to how to do it. 2. There is no functional equivalent to the Miller-Urey experiment that will create life from scratch. 3. “Primordial soup”? What “primordial soup”? There is precisely the same evidence for “primordial soup” as there is for a “Creator,” and that evidence sums to zero. 4. You don’t have to have a copying error to mutate a gene into another allele; you can get the same result directly from physical sources like irradiation and trama. But for it to survive (most don’t) the new allele must be replicated (copied) after it has mutated. 5. There is not a shred of evidence that abiogenesis happened on this planet, so the “primordial soup” myth continues to be just that.

In a sailing magazine I read regularly—Latitude 38—there was a Letter to the Editor from a circumnavigator (sorry, I can’t recover it), stating that Somalia’s fishing grounds have been devastated by large-scale commercial fishing from other nations. Adding to that, other nations have used large areas off Somalia’s coast to dump their toxic and hazardous wastes. I don’t think this justifies piracy, if it is true, but it adds to the complexity of the issue

No need for "home team" members to argue amongst themselves. It looks bad to the viewing audience. This thread has produced profoundly empirical evidence showing that if you buck the "home team" and argue against SFN dogma then you will be called a troll or worse, including threats of suspension. But I'm already on record for supporting same-sex DPs. Hell, I'm already on record for supporting SSM in Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts, California, and DC. But even that isn't good enough for the "home team." They want me post same-sex love notes with XXXs and OOOs and smily faces. Well, I send my kisses in the form of a rigorous philosophical debate. Someone should have told me sooner that rigorous debating is too much of a bother for the "home team," and that its members will become upset if their arguments are not agreed to in every detail by every poster. When I study the posts of this thread and others I find convincing evidence of who's really trolling around here... (iNow: that be you!)

Bad choice of words "dogmatic belief." Don't you think this forum carries dogmatic belief about the issue of SSM? And all the while I was thinking we were talking about legal principles? When was that changed? I missed it. I think many of the “home team” here are rendered self-righteous by their microcosm of opinionation. There is also a macrocosm of opinionation, which I try to illuminate, but the “home team” doesn’t want to hear of it. Everything I argue here is tactical, circular, unfair, irrelevant—a bigoted strategy to undermine the favored POV. But of course hyperbole is OK; so is complaining to the big cheese if you can’t win an argument. Doesn’t anybody here enjoy hardball debating? Or is this a forum for patty cakes?

And if you’re not fighting for constitutional principles and the values of a constitutional republic then you’re probably an anarchist. Depends on how you’re fighting. But all I’m saying is that they believe in their convictions (rightly or wrongly) just as fervently as you believe in yours. Only a supreme court’s interpretation of a state’s constitution stands between the two of you (4 states down, 46 to go!). I know; it’s always back to the “colored people” and the Nazis and all. If I were a gay person I would want to avoid any suggestion that my miserable lot in life was anything whatsoever like the plight of the “colored people.”

My opinion is simple: if a state’s supreme court rules in favor of the constitutionality of SSM then I’m on board. If it doesn’t then I’m on board with that, too. Because I am not so arrogant as to believe that my opinion on an issue concerning its constitutionality in any state should trump the opinion of that state’s supreme court. Can you say the same thing, either way a state’s supreme court might decide? NARTH seems to acknowledge your point. At least one religious organization is asking: WILL SAME-SEX MARRIAGE LEAD INEVITABLY TO THE LEGALIZATION OF POLYGAMY? “Multi-sexers”? I thought only the fungi could do that. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Well, excuse me all the way the hell, but your polygamous same-sex relationship is a bit shocking to me. I'm still trying to adjust to SSM in Iowa, and now you're throwing group sex among men at me like it was the thing to do in prison or in a locker room. Maybe you're right. I've already sampled your grasp of evolutionary principles. Why should anything change regarding your grasp of legal principles?.

Funny, but I don't remember if gays were ever enslaved. If they were, then they deserve reparations, just like the black people. If they weren't then they ought to be spanked for their hyperbole. You don't seem to understand that our republic's Constitution begins with the words: "We the people of the United States..." Yes, I can. I'd call Mr. and Mrs. Smith to the stand for their testimony. If they claimed harm, emotional, whatever harm, why isn't that evidence of harm? Why are they wrong and you're right?

It’s New Year’s Eve, 2099, and you’re in your sky condo with the one you love, toasting the passing of the twenty-first century. What were the greatest events of that century, events that change the course of history? To help frame this question in political terms, I recall an observation of historical succession—generally agreed to by Toynbee, Sorokin, and Durant—that civilization evolves cyclically: monarchy —> aristocracy —> democracy —> dictatorship —> monarchy —> etc. Between democracy and dictatorship, they collectively observed, there was always an occurrence of extreme anarchy. I would probably make a toast for the anarchy that broke out worldwide in 2019 and ended democracy, as we knew it. And I would probably be required to do that, and also to pay homage to The Great Google of Oz (or Whomever) in my toast, because democracy will be just a sweet memory and we’ll need a benevolent and loving dictator to protect us from the street predators who kill us and eat us on our way to the grocery store. All this will be the harvest of seeds sown before 2019; seeds that were evident even in 2009, when sea piracy occurred with impunity off Somalia's coast on a daily basis. They’re just as invincible as the Al-Qaeda and the suicide bombers. But there were other great events in the twenty-first century. Any speculations that would be remembered in a toast on New Year’s Eve 2099?

Who's ground rules? What consistency? If the same-sexers were consistent about their principles regarding marriage why aren't they screaming bloody murder about legalizing polygamy? It's the same principle, isn't it? And the fact that they don't is proof that they are being inconsistent. The same-sexers are just as inconsistent as the dif-sexers in that respect; it's all a matter of where you stand the landscape of opinion.

Do you mean ALL social deregulation, or just the kinds you support? Polygamy? Prostitution? Pot? Strip poker? And how do you determine if a specific social deregulation does or does not infringe on a person's liberties? How would you know? What about those people who claim (rightly or wrongly, according to the shifting sands of opinion) that SSM affects their liberties? What about John and Jane Smith out in Iowa who worry that SSM will somehow influence their teenagers to try homosexuality? Even if they are off base, according to some, doesn't that count for "infringing of a person's liberties," because it makes those people sad, angry, worrisome or worse? Ah, but let's not bother about Mr. and Mrs. Smith. They don't count anyway. Never in their wildest dreams did they ever think that questioning the marriage between two gay men was somehow wrong or bigoted. So, screw them if they think the meaning of their marriage has been degraded by SSM. It's a new world now in Iowa, and if they feel a loss that they shouldn't feel then it's probably because they're just a couple of sod-sucking farmers who don't know any better. Didn't someone here resurrect that old bumper sticker: "Your rights end where mine begin"?

Deregulation, that's the answer. Say, wasn't deregulation the fourth pillar of Reaganomics? It won't be long before polygamy, prostitution, and pot are deregulated, owing to this cultural tidal wave of deregulation. It's freedom, brother, ya gotta love it!

OK, DOA. But I'd like to know of a Catholic Church that will marry gay people but not divorced people. This marriage business is becoming a yard sale; all the more reason for the government to get the hell out of it. (So, we're back to that old question again.)

All good points. Not yet. According to your position in this debate (or of those who have argued for SSM) there would be no difference if a church segregated its drinking fountains or if it declined to officiate in SSM. Remember? Separate-but-equal is unconstitutional in either case?

I don't mean to dismiss you lightly; I thought were had already covered the issue. Your post was all about the word "support," which I already agreed was not adequate to the task. If one doesn't agree with a constitutional right then one doesn't support it. In the passive sense one's support or opposition would be opinion; in the active sense it would be activism. But if someone were to oppose the constitutional rights of another, wouldn't they be in violation of the Pledge of Allegiance? "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which its stands [which means its constitution], one nation, under God [or not], indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged You seem to be all about words today. Now you're picking at crumbs.

If you know of a single case wherein the SSM crowd called for extending marriage rights to polygamists I'd liked learn about it. The fact is there isn't. I'm afraid in your case absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.