Why do humans kiss?
-- asks Roberto Morabito from Brooklyn, NY.
Kristina Fiore • October 2, 2006
Scientists currently have no explanation for this particular KISS. (CREDIT: Wok)
Her eyes are wide as they stare into yours. You wrap your arm around her waist and pull her in close. She touches your face and you lean in, tilt your head – to the right, of course – and your lips connect. The rushing sensation leaves you little room to wonder, “Why the hell am I doing this anyway?”
Of course, the simplest answer is that humans kiss because it just feels good. But there are people for whom this explanation isn’t quite sufficient. They formally study the anatomy and evolutionary history of kissing and call themselves philematologists.
So far, these kiss scientists haven’t conclusively explained how human smooching originated, but they’ve come up with a few theories, and they’ve mapped out how our biology is affected by a passionate lip-lock.
A big question is whether kissing is learned or instinctual. Some say it is a learned behavior, dating back to the days of our early human ancestors. Back then, mothers may have chewed food and passed it from their mouths into those of their toothless infants. Even after babies cut their teeth, mothers would continue to press their lips against their toddlers’ cheeks to comfort them.
Supporting the idea that kissing is learned rather than instinctual is the fact that not all humans kiss. Certain tribes around the world just don’t make out, anthropologists say. While 90 percent of humans actually do kiss, 10 percent have no idea what they’re missing.
Others believe kissing is indeed an instinctive behavior, and cite animals’ kissing-like behaviors as proof. While most animals rub noses with each other as a gesture of affection, others like to pucker up just like humans. Bonobos, for example, make up tons of excuses to swap some spit. They do it to make up after fights, to comfort each other, to develop social bonds, and sometimes for no clear reason at all – just like us.
Today, the most widely accepted theory of kissing is that humans do it because it helps us sniff out a quality mate. When our faces are close together, our pheromones “talk” – exchanging biological information about whether or not two people will make strong offspring. Women, for example, subconsciously prefer the scent of men whose genes for certain immune system proteins are different from their own. This kind of match could yield offspring with stronger immune systems, and better chances for survival.
Still, most people are satisfied with the explanation that humans kiss because it feels good. Our lips and tongues are packed with nerve endings, which help intensify all those dizzying sensations of being in love when we press our mouths to someone else’s. Experiencing such feelings doesn’t usually make us think too hard about why we kiss – instead, it drives us to find ways to do it more often.
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About the Author
Kristina Fiore
By day, a mild-mannered reporter(former Newsday intern, current Daily Record part-timer); Alter-ego: lover of non-fiction narrative. “If he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, he will, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story.” — Life of Pi
353 Comments
Ambi,
Thanks for bringing up the anthropic principle… I couldn’t remember what it was called.
Hehehe… so many people are trapped in that bubble.
For everyone:
Basically, if you can’t accept the fact that although it is extremely unlikely for life on earth to exist without some “Intelligent Design”, consider that the Universe cannot exist without life on earth, or we would not be here having this conversation.
thanks kami, i’ve appreciated your points too.
if anyone’s interested in who sparked some of these thoughts for me, check out Ravi Zacharias- he has a podcast (search RZIM on iTunes) which has been extremely thought provoking for me.
The odds against life forming here by chance, as shown by Penrose, are represented by a number that cannot be written in full form.
In terms of the beginning events: Not only would these all powerful chemical processes have to form specific patterns (highly unlikely) in an organic soup, there would have to be around 2000 of these highly unlikely events occurring all at once. All at once!
Arguments against this basic point are insubstantial becasue they take as a basis for further conceptualizing basic molecular structure formation like we see today, such as with salt crystals. but how do molecules form MORE COMPLEX structures? Where is the evidence that this is possible? There is none.
Once again, act superior and baffle with BS, they’ll think you know what you are talking about. It’s easy to put me down, guys, I’m just a simple man. But your reasoning doesn’t hold water.
Airtight, indeed!
michael – I’ve already told you that evolution is not a philosophy or a moral code. It simply is.
Please stop conflating evolution and atheism. If you want to debate atheism then fine, I’m your man, but it has nothing at all to do with the theory of evolution.
Noone chalks Stalin up to atheism because he was a corrupt dictator. I do not necessarily attribute historic or recent religious atrocities to religion, because they are perpetrated by twisted and cruel people.
I’m going to repeat this, just as others have done in this discussion, as you seem to be a little hard of thinking – evolution does not imply atheism and, for a followup, atheism does not imply barbarity
What do you mean when you say evolution, michael? Do you mean the fact of diversity and development and the theory of how it all happened? Or do you mean the assertion of a godless universe? They are not the same.
Actually Gothnet brought up the anthropic principle… sorry
gothnet:
i’m interested to hear what i’ve said so far that leads you to believe that i’m prejudiced. i’m assuming you’re using that term with an emphasis on racisim.
i’m also eager to hear you unpack your statement that “the concept of race is somewhat flawed”.
michael:
“if logically followed, if evolution is correct, wasn’t [Hitler] doing the world a favor by removing flawed humans, therefore improving the genepool for generations to come?”
Who said the people Hitler killed were genetically flawed?
Even assuming they were, evolution doesn’t prescribe ethics. It merely states that selective pressures tend to eliminate organisms that are less successful at reproduction. It doesn’t say that this is “good” or “bad”, it just says that it happens. A *person* can decide that this is good, or that it is bad: that is an ethical question, not a scientific one. And if a person did decide that it is good to “improve the gene pool”, they might decide that “improving the gene pool by murdering people is bad”.
Furthermore, it assumes that we even know what “improving the gene pool” means. As far as evolution is concerned, a “better” gene pool consists of organisms that are more successful at reproducing. That doesn’t necessarily translate to people who are more healthy, or smarter, or whatever, especially in modern society when the largest factors influencing one’s reproductive success are probably social.
Also, fitness changes with time. Suppose we wipe out all people who have a genetic tendency to diabetes, on the grounds of “improving the gene pool”. We might find out later that the gene that led to heart disease also would have conferred immunity to some new plague that wipes out our species. Ooops. (For example, the same gene responsible for sickle cell anemia also provides resistance to malaria. Be careful in thinking you know what’s best for “the gene pool”.)
“if there is no ultimate being to be responsible to, why should we not extinguish people who have a family history of having disease, mental disorders, or even alcoholism or obesity?”
People can be and are responsible to each other as well as to their own ethical standards regardless of whether they are also responsible to some “ultimate being”. Why should anyone care about the existence of an ultimate being in determining whether I think something is right or wrong, anyway?
“it’s your word against mine. no one is right, truth is abolished,”
I will note that even monotheists disagree on what is right or true. So people disagree — so what? Maybe you think eating babies is fine; I disagree. There may be no way to prove anyone correct, but I’ll still stop you if I think it’s wrong, whatever you may happen to think. Just because I acknowledge that you may disagree with me doesn’t mean that *I* think that your views are “equally valid” as mine.
“THAT is where evolution leads.”
You are also making the mistake of confusing evolution with atheism. There are people of all faiths who recognize that we evolved from other species.
“who defines what is evil?”
Everyone is capable of defining it for themselves. And as I mentioned, even religious people may disagree on that matter. Absolute morality is fairly irrelevant as far as how people actually behave, no matter how much you may want to claim otherwise.
“man is evil,”
I don’t agree.
“so who is another man to call me evil? wouldn’t that be hypocrisy?”
Is it hypocrisy for me to think that a painting is ugly if you think it’s beautiful? How does an opinion become hypocritical if it relates to morality, but not to, say, aesthetics?
Scott, no problem :)
michael – there is no logical progression from evolution to hitler. Sorry.
And what’s more, let me make this very clear, I do not think you could EVER prove that faith in god leads to a better society than reliance on established fact. Witness the massive development and improvement of the west since religion was largely thrown off as a basis for knowledge.
And even then, if you could prove that, which you can’t, it wouldn’t matter in a discussion of facts.
Kami,
If you want to know how basic molecules form more complex structures, well, its simple really… just chemistry and physics… adhesive and cohesive forces, polar charges, the fact that matter wants to exist in the lowest possible energy state, the fact that our planet is bombarded with high energy particles all the time… okay, so its not simple, but it happens all the time.
my point regarding stalin is that many people attribute war to religion when religion is involved, but no one credits war to atheism when an athiest is involved, despite the fact that the individuals waging that war are operating under their own idealogies equally influenced by their idealogy or religion.
i didn’t attribute evolution to stalin, but hitler was a devout student of darwin.
michael
So hitler was a devout student of darwin, great, please actually read some of the posts replying to you wherein we explain that Hitler still made a (crazy) leap from “selective pressures influence the develpoment of organisms” to “all the jews must die”.
There is no logical progression, please give up your smear campaign.
Scott:
Interesting. your idea of us not being able to discuss this point if we weren’t here kind of echos a thought from an ancient book.
“Should the potter himself be accounted just like the clay? For should the thing made say respecting its maker: “He did not make me?” And does the thing formed actually say resepcting its former: “He showed no understanding?””
Further: Hugh Ross gives 154 narrow, mandatory parameters for the fine-tuning of the conditions on earth to support life, and lists 226 references. An interesting read. You can find it here.
and, michael, when I said prejudiced I didn’t mean racially. I meant prejudiced as in the questions you raise are prejudiced to the answer you want and are in fact irrelevant establishing the factual (or not) nature of evolution.
I’m not accusing you of being a racist, just that you are not actually interested in the answers to your questions, you have already decided the only answer for you is “religion is good, god made everything without evolution”.
Kami:
The point here is that the processes of the creation of the Universe are must be constrained to only those which could have allowed for our existence.
Crap I screwed that up, sorry guys…
Kami.
ANTHROPIC PRINCIPLE
look it up some time. 226 fine tuned factors is nothing compared to the size of the universe.
How easily complex systems are messed up, huh? :D
Kami-MP:
“Read the Emperor’s New Mind, guys. It’s a lot of fun. And it will cause you to (gasp!) question your programming.”
Penrose is a professor in my department. I’ve had a front row seat in many of his talks on the subject. I hate to tell you, but he does not support your views on intelligent design.
His calculations aren’t of life evolving per se, but rather of the universe having the flatness it does (which may be related in an anthropic way to the existence of life). He regards that problem as one to be solved via physics; his famous Weyl curvature hypothesis is part of his proposed resolution of that issue.
“In terms of the beginning events: Not only would these all powerful chemical processes have to form specific patterns (highly unlikely) in an organic soup, there would have to be around 2000 of these highly unlikely events occurring all at once. All at once!”
No, they don’t have to happen all at once. That’s part of why that calculation is so flawed.
“but how do molecules form MORE COMPLEX structures? Where is the evidence that this is possible?”
There are molecules forming into more complex structures all the time in your own cells. Sheesh. Do you think the Hand of God is in there all the time pushing them all together to make sure they react?
michael:
“i didn’t attribute evolution to stalin, but hitler was a devout student of darwin.”
There are Jesuit priests who are “devout” students of Darwin. What evidence is there that Stalin’s purges were motivated by evolutionary theory?
So you’re saying that the (largley unproved and unprovable) concept that the universe is designed to support human life, supports evolution and not belief in an intelligent creator? Ok I’m laughing in my sleeve here guys.
Kami-MP:
“Further: Hugh Ross gives 154 narrow, mandatory parameters for the fine-tuning of the conditions on earth to support life, and lists 226 references.”
Fine-tuning is actually evidence *against* supernaturalism, not *for* it. Since you are a self-professed adherent of probability theory, see here: http://quasar.as.utexas.edu/anthropic.html
Kami:
These are arguments used by “Intelligent Design” advocates, but really they are truisms, or tautologies… They basically don’t mean anything, it’s like saying 5=5. Duhh.
it’s called a rhetorical question, gothnet. it’s a form of argument designed to get a point across.
the term “prejudiced” has an obvious negative implication to it. i think it’s safe to say that the vast majority of us have made up our minds on which side of the fence we sit on regarding the theory of evolution. if you’re suggesting that i’m prejudiced because i know where i stand on it, you’re right. but i believe that’s the case for pretty much everyone in here.
Kami-MP:
“So you’re saying that the (largley unproved and unprovable) concept that the universe is designed to support human life, supports evolution and not belief in an intelligent creator?”
Nobody on the evolution side of this debate has claimed that the universe was “designed to support human life”. The weak anthropic principle merely states that we should not be surprised to see that the universe is conducive to life, because if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t be here. Or as Douglas Adams said, “. . . imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, ‘This is an interesting world I find myself in, an interesting hole I find myself in, fits me rather neatly, doesn’t it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'”
Kami
No, I’m saying if our little corner of the universe wasn’t set up to support human life none of us would be here to talk about it.
And it’s got nothing to do with evolution. You’re conflating the origins of the universe and physical laws with evolution. The two are seperate. Evolution describes how organisms change and develop, it has nothing to do with the laws of physics, thermodynamics, astrophysics or any of the rest.
I’d like to add that nothing in those fields implies a god either, but what you are proposing has absolutely nothing to do with evolution. NOTHING.
There are molecules forming into more complex structures all the time in your own cells. Sheesh. Do you think the Hand of God is in there all the time pushing them all together to make sure they react?
Your attempt at patronization is not welcome. Obviously, I believe my body ot be a machine which carries out pre-designed and pre-programmed processes, many of them automatically. The complex molecular processes going on in my body are a result of the design and function of my body. My question is and always has been during this debate, where do we see such things occuring outside of the frame of currently existing biological structures?
You claim such occurrences are common, but we have already shown that even in a complex laboratory experiment, none of our scientists have been able to demonstrate the formation of even a fraction of the amino chains required for life.
michael
I said your questions were prejudiced, and they are. They imply from the outset that it is accepted that anyone who puts creedence in this evolution thing is both godless and amoral. That is the prejudice. Yes, I did mean it in a negative way.
You tried to set yourself up as an impartial philospher interested in people’s opinions, yet the questions you posed assumed many things about the subject already. That is prejudice.
I made a cell membrame in highschool biology… it was cool
And michael,
you may have made up your mind, I have not. The moment anyone presents me with anything the slightest bit credible, I’ll look at it. I’ll test it to see if it stands up, I’ll criticise it, and if it does get past all that I’ll reevaluate my world view in accordance with the new information.
The people on the ID/creationism side of this debate cannot claim to do the same thing. Kami for one has repeated herself despite having his/her arguments torn to pieces and despite being given links to resources that could inform him/her
“Obviously, I believe my body ot be a machine which carries out pre-designed and pre-programmed processes, many of them automatically.”
You admit that the laws of chemistry alone support the formation of complex biomolecules. So why do you deny that these biomolecules could have formed on the early Earth?
“My question is and always has been during this debate, where do we see such things occuring outside of the frame of currently existing biological structures? You claim such occurrences are common,”
That depends on what you mean by “common”.
“but we have already shown that even in a complex laboratory experiment, none of our scientists have been able to demonstrate the formation of even a fraction of the amino chains required for life.”
As I said before, if you have a laboratory the size of the Earth and wait hundreds of millions of years, and that lab doesn’t have any existing life that will outcompete protolife, then yes, they will form on their own. Otherwise, no.
Kami, if you believe your body to be a programmed machine, why not the whole universe? Why couldn’t the “programmer” have set it all in motion with the big bang (or whatever)?
Is there a reason s/he has to have interefered with his/her own creation all throughout history?
Circular reasoning. We shouldn’t be surprised the universe supports life, because we’re here? That’s the same as saying we shouldn’t doubt there is a creator, because we’re here. Again, sleeve, laughing.
Kami
Nope, sorry, the fact that we observe a universe we can live in means that whatever conditions were needed along the way to get here did happen. It implies nothing about probabilities or creators.
I never stated I believed the creator interfered at all, Gothnet.
How life started is what we’re debating here, not religion. It’s obvious the universe and even our bodies are programmed. I believe they were designed. I don’t believe it all happened on it’s own, by accident. As I said before, if you go to build a car, you don’t start with a bicycle and adapt it into a car, that doesn’t make sense. You start with the raw materials and a plan. Then you build A CAR. Likewise, I think the creator started with the raw materials and built a HUMAN, not a monkey. He had already built monkeys. Let alone trying to start with a single celled organism and hoping it would somehow come out the way he wanted. If an intelligent being designed us, we can see obviously that he is a very specific person – he doesn’t deal in generalities. I think Einstein said it best: “God does not play dice.”
As to whether that creator cares about what he made, I leave it to you to decide: would you care about something so awesome and manifestly intricate and fabulous, had you made it? I think the answer is self evident.
“Circular reasoning. We shouldn’t be surprised the universe supports life, because we’re here? That’s the same as saying we shouldn’t doubt there is a creator, because we’re here. Again, sleeve, laughing.”
Your snickering only shows that you’ve missed the point. The reasoning is not circular, it demonstrates what you can and cannot conclude from the condition that life exists.
Saying that “we shouldn’t be surprised the universe supports life, because we’re here” is *not* the same as “we shouldn’t doubt there is a creator, because we’re here”. The existence of life by itself doesn’t say something one way or another about “creators”. The point of the weak anthropic principle is to debunk the claim that the improbability of life proves a creator.
Imagine for the sake of argument that the universe was created naturalistically, “at random”, and further for the sake of argument that it is extremely unlikely for a life-friendly universe to be formed in this way. The greatest possibility is that there will be no life (and nobody to wonder about this fact). There is a small possibility that life will arise. By your argument, the life in that universe should argue “Hey, our universe is incredibly unlikely, therefore a creator exists”. But they would be wrong: this hypothetical universe was created naturally.
For more on what you *can* conclude from the existence of life, when you condition all your probabilities on the known fact that life exists, see the anthropic link I posted above.
Kami
So much to choose from…
1. You’re right, you wouldn’t start with a bicycle, you’d start with a car. Care to explain the coccyx or the appendix?
2. I thought god was all powerful? Why could he not set the starting conditions perfectly and just watch things go? He’s god, he doesn’t need to hope things turn out ok, he knows!
3. The creator does not care about his creation unless child murder is a form of caring I didn’t know about.
“As I said before, if you have a laboratory the size of the Earth and wait hundreds of millions of years, and that lab doesn’t have any existing life that will outcompete protolife, then yes, they will form on their own. Otherwise, no.”
So we’re intelligent enough to say it all happened by chance, but not intelligent enough to recreate the same thing given our supposed advanced knowledge of chemical processes? you’re saying that something definitely happened by chance billions of years ago, but somehow it can never be proven so we should just believe in it because someone told us to. Great.
I say, show me evidence that complex life forms, even basic ones, can be created through chemical processes in a lab. you can’t, we can’t, many scientists have said that the chances of it happening are beyone statistically impossible, but yet you still hold to this smug attitude that somehow it did all happen, I just must be ignorant because I don’t believe it, ad nauseum.
Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome.
Kami
We can create viruses in the lab, from scratch if necessary. We are only now getting to understand genetic coding well enough to alter it, let alone start from scratch, you expect too much.
Kami-MP:
“It’s obvious the universe and even our bodies are programmed.”
Proof by obviousness, huh? That’s even better by proof by personal incredulity. Well, I’m convinced.
“As to whether that creator cares about what he made, I leave it to you to decide: would you care about something so awesome and manifestly intricate and fabulous, had you made it?”
Maybe the universe is nothing special to the creator. Maybe it was a mistake and the creator has since gone on to better things. Anthocentric arrogance regarding the intentions of a hypothetical entity is amusing, but not even a rhetorical argument.
I don’t know Gothnet, do you care to explain them? Medical science can’t, but they are learning that the things they used to say are just “extras” actually do have a very important function – they just didn’t understand it before. Tonsils, anyone?
The point is the same with the origins of life – the more we learn, the more it seems that life must have been designed.
American astronomer George Greenstein expresses his thoughts:
“As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather, Agency—must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”
This is a hard pill to swallow for someone like you, who humanistically believes that if there were a creator, he would automatically be expected to run down here and fix everything up for us all the time. “Ow I got a bloody nose, Mommy!” Well no, a creator would not necessarily be our nursemaid or daddy to fix up all our problems and bail us out at every turn. We do have free will, right? We are resposible for our own actions (or lack of action) right?
Everything did turn out all right, Gothnet, we are here, life continues as it has for as long as we have had records, against the odds. Apparently, God knew?
gothnet,
as i said before, everyone has their prejudices, or probably better worded, pre-conceived ideas. based on your posts, you obviously have one against religion in general, therefore your opinion, and posts influenced by your opinion may not be as objective as you claim they are. after all, like i said earlier, our behavior is strongly influenced by our world view- of course we all have strong ideas about the beginning of life as we know it- if we were indifferent to it, we wouldn’t be posting on this forum.
Kami-MP:
“So we’re intelligent enough to say it all happened by chance, but not intelligent enough to recreate the same thing given our supposed advanced knowledge of chemical processes?”
That’s a stupid comparison. We’re intelligent enough to understand all kinds of processes that we can’t recreate ourself. We can’t make stars and galaxies, but we can understand how they formed. What does understanding evolution have to do with whether we can cause cells to evolve from amino acids in a lab? It’s precisely our understanding of evolution that tells us that we *can’t* do that. We might be able to fabricate cells ourselves someday, but that’s irrelevant: if we want it to happen the way it happened on Earth, we have to wait.
“you’re saying that something definitely happened by chance billions of years ago, but somehow it can never be proven so we should just believe in it because someone told us to.”
We may never have conclusive knowledge of how the first life formed, although we have some good ideas. We certainly do have proof beyond all reasonable doubt that all life on Earth evolved from single-celled organisms. Of course, creationists make their living from unreasonable doubt.
“I say, show me evidence that complex life forms, even basic ones, can be created through chemical processes in a lab.”
By chance? The way it happened on Earth? They can’t. That’s a PREDICTION of evolution, not a refutation of it.
“many scientists have said that the chances of it happening are beyone statistically impossible,”
Essentially no biologists or chemists have ever made that argument, because they know better. There are, of course, always a few idiots in any discipline. Once again you try to pump up support for evolution, like your amusing claim that there is a debate raging among the biology community as to whether evolution occurred.
“but yet you still hold to this smug attitude that somehow it did all happen, I just must be ignorant because I don’t believe it, ad nauseum.”
Smug? It’s just honest. You are ignorant, we’ve proven it in this thread, and you have outright stated that you don’t WANT to believe that you weren’t designed by a creator.
You obviously missed my point, Ambi. If you create something good, you care about it. Supposing that a creator might consider this to be a mere mistake not only contradicts reason (why are we here if it was a mistake? Obviously something worked well enough for us to exist) it’s nothing more than more anthocentric arrogance. Such as, “we’re so smart as humans, we have decided and discovered we’re nothing more than animals!”
Kami-MP:
“I don’t know Gothnet, do you care to explain them? Medical science can’t,”
Medical science can’t explain what? How viruses work? The genetic code?
“The point is the same with the origins of life – the more we learn, the more it seems that life must have been designed.”
It’s actually the opposite.
“American astronomer George Greenstein expresses his thoughts:”
Yeah, let’s turn to an astronomer for an opinion on biology.
i enjoyed talking with you guys. time to get some work done…
You’re good at insults, Ambi, but you still didn’t address the thrust of my argument – that we have been unable to demonstrate even the beginning of the process that evolution supposedly “predicts.” in fact, such research has been abandoned. Why? Isn’t it true that the more we have learned about even simple biological life forms, the more thos in the know have realized that such an endeavor is impossible. If it is impossible under controlled conditions, how could it possibly occur at random in a barren, lifeless landscape, even over “billions of years”?
The planet is only about 4 billion years old, anyways… How does this fit into the overall idea? If the process took so long, and required such a specific set of criteria for it to occur, would these criteria continue over a long period of time? And would that long period of time even fit into the estimated age of earth?
Kami-MP Says:
“You obviously missed my point, Ambi. If you create something good, you care about it.”
You missed MY point about your arrogant anthrocentrism. It is not a fact that just because you consider the universe to be “good”, that the creator does too. It is also not a fact, for that matter, that if you create something “good”, that you care about it. Maybe you have no emotions and don’t care about anything, regardless of how “good” it is. Maybe you once cared about it, but have since moved on. You are projecting your own opinions of what you think a creator ought to be like.
“Supposing that a creator might consider this to be a mere mistake not only contradicts reason (why are we here if it was a mistake?”
Maybe the creator’s goal was to produce a universe with pretty galaxies, and we’re an unwanted byproduct. Maybe the creator once thought creating humans was a good idea, but no longer believes so. Maybe lots of things. Just because you subscribe to a particular story of a creator doesn’t mean that any of these attributes follow logically.
“Obviously something worked well enough for us to exist) it’s nothing more than more anthocentric arrogance.”
Yes, it is.
“Such as, “we’re so smart as humans, we have decided and discovered we’re nothing more than animals!””
Another non-sequitur.
Kami-MP:
“If an intelligent being designed us, we can see obviously that he is a very specific person – he doesn’t deal in generalities.”
Assumption upon assumption.
“I think Einstein said it best: “God does not play dice.””
Einstein actually vehemently disbelieved in the kind of creator you are describing.
“You’re good at insults, Ambi,”
You aren’t, despite your weak attempts at condescension.
“but you still didn’t address the thrust of my argument – that we have been unable to demonstrate even the beginning of the process that evolution supposedly “predicts.””
The beginning of the process is the hardest to demonstrate. The rest has already been demonstrated.
“in fact, such research has been abandoned.”
This is absurdly wrong. Check out the literature on RNA-world and protein-world scenarios, for instance.
We are never going to reproduce cellular life in a lab from scratch, but we can try to reproduce elements of the original process, such as the formation of self-reproducing molecules. It is unknown at this point whether we can do that in a lab on human timescales, but people are trying.
“Isn’t it true that the more we have learned about even simple biological life forms, the more thos in the know have realized that such an endeavor is impossible.”
No.
“If it is impossible under controlled conditions, how could it possibly occur at random in a barren, lifeless landscape, even over “billions of years”?”
Laboratory abiogenesis experiments are also barren and lifeless. That’s the POINT. The early Earth was not any less conducive to life than a laboratory is, and it was much, much bigger.
“The planet is only about 4 billion years old, anyways… How does this fit into the overall idea?”
Pretty well.
“If the process took so long, and required such a specific set of criteria for it to occur, would these criteria continue over a long period of time?”
The criteria are “enough heat to support chemical reactions, and a supply of chemicals”. Just what do you think happened to the early Earth that would have destroyed life? We have plenty of evidence that life on Earth has survived global catastrophes for billions of years. If anything, the simpler life survives easier; a global catastrophe may wipe out complex organisms, but bacteria are incredibly hardy.
“And would that long period of time even fit into the estimated age of earth?”
Evidently.