found this site:

http://ldolphin.org/mystery/chapt9.html

also found a site that was offering $1million (50,000/year for 20)
for someone to offer a working, peer reviewed, plausible
explanation for a prebiotic mechanism that could make life.
so i think there is work needed for any solid foot hold.
the prize has been suspended for now. I am still looking, but
to this point the origin of life appears implausible naturalistically.
will return when i find something.

thank you for the conversation.

i want to understand if process of evolution is sustainable.

Well, I don’t really understand what “sustainable” means here. If it means “evolution can occur over an indefinite period of time,” the answer is obviously yes, it it can.

but what i am trying to understand is that if in selection (natural/artificial) organizms are made better or less able to survive future changes to their environment?

I guess my answer would be in three parts:

- Some organisms are made better able to survive future changes to their environment.

- Other organisms are made less able to survive future changes to their environment.

- And some organisms change in ways that do not improve or degrade their ability to survive future changes to their environment.

Remember, evolution doesn’t have a goal, and it isn’t prone to achieving any particular outcomes. Evolution is merely the accumulation of small changes over time. The chnages can be good, bad, or neutral, depending on the perspective of the person evaluating them.

is there a limit to the adaptability of organisms? it appears to me the answer is yes.

I would agree. I don’t think that any organism on Earth could adapt to survive in an environment that was six centimeters away from a detonating nuclear weapon. It seems obvious there are some limits.

if the environment changed enough then all life would die, yes?

Obviously.

i think life may not be able to adapt enough to sustain itself, and this can be tested….

Life may not be able to adapt enough to sustain itself if the environment changes in a sufficiently extreme manner, obviously. And yes, this can be tested. But:

and this may make me wonder if evolution is theory i can support as to create life and have it exist on our planet for this long.

Our planetary environment has not changed in such an extreme manner as to kill off all life. What we know of global environmental changes is that some of them have been extreme, some of them have killed off a lot of different species, but none of the changes of which we are aware have been extreme enough to kill off all the different kinds of life on the planet. That’s empirical; what does your support have to do with it? Facts are facts whether we like them or not.

i am reading daily to understand what i can of this science, and i have found no good explanation of the origin of life on our planet. the evidence i have been able to read of dna code and mutations and variability has not convinced me yet, but i am trying to keep open mind…

You should be reading origins research, then, not evolution research. Origins research hypothesizes (with evidence) a pre-DNA state of life, and provides a number of ways that this could have arisen. If your reading has exposed you to discussions of DNA and mutations, that’s great, but it has nothing to do with the origins of life. Life utilizing DNA is already quite evolved.

seems everyone is strong on the belief they have and very little conversation happens about questions to theories… in this way i think the expelled film was on to something, though they are on to thier thing too.

No, there’s plenty of conversation. You just have to become a part of it. Read the peer-reviewed research, or popularized accounts by legitimate science writers like Carl Zimmer.

The Expelled people are amoral liars, who have no connection to science, and have serious problems telling the truth. If you are getting information from them, or their friends, then you’re deeply involved in antiscience superstition. It is your choice whether to join one of the great dialogues of Western Civilization, or consort with a bunch of thugs who haven’t advanced their thinking from the Middle Ages.

i hope at least an honest curiosity is observable.

thank you for clarifying the questions i try to ask.
i want to understand if process of evolution is sustainable.

at first look it appears yes. but what i am trying to understand is that if in selection (natural/artificial) organizms are made better or less able to survive future changes to their environment?

is there a limit to the adaptability of organisms? it appears to me the answer is yes. if the environment changed enough then all life would die, yes? i think life may not be able to adapt enough to sustain itself, and this can be tested and this may make me wonder if evolution is theory i can support as to create life and have it exist on our planet for this long. i

i am reading daily to understand what i can of this science, and i have found no good explanation of the origin of life on our planet. the evidence i have been able to read of dna code and mutations and variability has not convinced me yet, but i am trying to keep open mind… seems everyone is strong on the belief they have and very little conversation happens about questions to theories… in this way i think the expelled film was on to something, though they are on to thier thing too.

i read what you write, and try to understand it as well as i can.
i am sorry i made you attack me by my poor questions.

in specific environments? (sure those too weak die.)

Caused my English degree to spontaneously combust. It must be the Jupiter Effect.

In my own teachings, I’ve noticed that the profoundly ignorant are often interested in and open to subjects which are otherwise beyond their grasp, when explained to them in a down-to-Earth way. It’s the people who are profoundly ignorant by CHOICE who can’t be satisfied.

1. denies the big bang theory of cosmology, and asserts that Fr. Lemaitre, a Catholic priest, who first showed that Einsteins’ field equations of General Relativity predict it, was not only wrong scientifically but also theologically.

2. denies that there is any such thing as dark energy or dark matter.

3. insists that lions and tyrannosaurs were once vegetarians,

4. claims that homo erectus was a human, and that the Australopithecines were apes

5. claims that the United States is founded on Christian principals, despite the fact that most of the founding fathers were not believing Christians (they were non-Christian theists), and despite the fact that the words Christianity, god, Joshua of Nazareth, etc. appear nowhere in the Constitution,

6. points out that the word creator appears in the Declaration of Independence but provides no evidence that Thomas Jefferson, the author of that document was referring to the Judeo/Christian god (he could hardly have had that particular god in mind as he was neither a believing Christian or a Jew),

7 insists that we didn’t need methodological naturalism to get to the moon, cure disease, invent microcomputers, etc.,

8. denigrates some of the greatest scientists of the 20th century and claims to speak for god in asserting that the latter is not impressed with them.

Anybody who thinks that this clown is reachable by reason is sadly deluded.

For those whom it would be fruitful to reach, the key may be starting from square one and agreeing on some common terms and concepts. This is time-consuming, of course, if it must be done for each question and each questioner.

first, if profound ignorance is coupled with severe lack of curiosity, the curiosity needs to be piqued first, lest there’s no point.

second, if there is ignorance but unfettered curiosity, a bunch can be done with that it itself.

third, if there is ignorance but curiosity which is not trusted or the student is adverse to pursuing curiosity because they’ve been told or learned it’s bad, as in the first case, that needs to be overcome. if they are really afraid, this needs to be done gently.

1. Anti-science people, denialists, etc.
2. The profoundly ignorant.

I would argue that in order to determine whether answering the questions posed would be fruitful or not, would be to first identify which of the two groups they belong to.

Anyone with a firmly held “belief,” specifically if that belief rests on dogmatic principles, will generally be time wasted when answering those questions. There will be a good chance that they are only asking those questions because they are attempting to lead the professional in a particular way so as to deliver their own punch lines.

Of course there is always the chance that one could answer their questions in such a way so as to make them clearly see and understand the other side of the fence to such an extant that they come away from the experience with a wider understanding of the world in which they live. Low probability would be my guess, however.

For the second group, those that are profoundly ignorant of the subject, it’s always worth the attempt provided there is enough time and space to cover the topics needed. Of course the time and space, one would hope, would be the public schools.