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Comment by spiritplumber | Hacker News Reader

I wonder what the creationists will say about this :P

See, this is what bothers me. Too many people seem to think that there is a conflict between evolution and creationism. The thing is, both can in fact be true. Who's to say that there isn't a creator orchestrating processes? Such a being wouldn't work by magic, but by a profound understanding of natural processes. How would this be any different from us discovering how life was created and then using that understanding to create it ourselves? The whole back and forth over evolution between religious and non-religious folk is ridiculous. Neither side will ever get anywhere because the whole premise of the debate is a non sequitur.

You might be less bothered if you took creationist in this context to imply "young earth creationist," which is almost certainly what's intended.

Yeah, that's what I meant, sorry. YEC are really the ones making most of the noise and raising most of the money for stuff like school board electiosn, so...

There isn't sufficient (any) evidence to justify belief in a creator, magical or not. You are free to believe that there might be a creator, but it isn't any more rigorous than believing in unicorns or flying spaghetti monsters. I realize this isn't r/atheism, but it bothers me that otherwise scientifically minded people allow themselves a soft spot in their ontology to incorporate cultural myths.

I never stated whether I believe in a creator being or not, nor will I since it is not relevant to this conversation. The belief that a creator is orchestrating things is what's known in science as a theory. The point I was making is that neither theory is mutually exclusive. It does not follow that if one is true, then the other is not.

Also, if you are indeed scientifically minded then you must be open minded to all theories that explain the state of things unless there is sufficient evidence to the contrary. It is not enough to say that there isn't sufficient evidence. Remember, the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. To rule out a theory that could explain our observations without evidence is not scientifically minded at all.

To have a productive conversation, if you believe that the two theories are mutually exclusive then please explain what about one of them being true, means the other cannot be. If you don't believe they are mutually exclusive then my original point stands that the statement by 'spiritplumber' is a non sequitur.

I'll simply repeat what I said already: the belief in a creator is as arbitrary as belief in unicorns or the flying spaghetti monster. The only thing that distinguishes it is its long running place in cultural mythology. I highly doubt you'd be presenting the point were it not for your personal belief.

>>> musings >>>

Let's invert the question: can we create, in our labs or in computer simulation, artificial life that could not reliably trace its origins to us specifically?

What would it take to create a (seemingly) self-contained, self-organized environment for the artificial life to live in?

<<< musings <<<

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