Abiogenesis (Origins)
Abiogenesis is the hypothesis that life emerged spontaneously from non-living material by natural processes. It's a key element in atheism, but as David says, "There are 60+ years of research into abio so far, and all we know is how it doesn't work." Whateverist is "content to assume there is a natural explanation for the natural world even before the details are completely understood."-In my post concerning the somewhat obscure article that David referred to, I quoted a Wikipedia reference, which on reflection I realize is guilty of precisely the presumptuousness that Tony (balance-maintained) often complains about. They call it: "the study of how biological life arose from inorganic matter through natural processes." We don't know that it did. The obscure article seems to make the same presumption, and in my view it is absurd to conclude even that "abiogenesis is rare in the universe", because we don't know that abiogenesis has ever taken place anywhere.-Whateverist: "I would like to know how we got here. It would be fascinating to find that out. But for me personally, not much rides on it."-I feel the same way as far as my personal life is concerned, but the curiosity that motivates me takes me a step or two further than it takes you. The details have not been even remotely understood, let alone "completely", but we have become so familiar with terms like DNA, primordial soup, and even the word "life" that they lull us into thinking that they explain themselves. They don't. (As you say under "Asking of the Designer...", language is a mixed blessing.) The abiogenesis hypothesis asks us to believe that various chemicals swirled around in the water/the wind/volcanic vents, and somehow linked themselves together in a manner that enabled them to replicate themselves. We humans with all our intelligence haven't even managed to create such an organism. But the lucky break doesn't end there. Those original blobs of matter just happened upon a mechanism of replication that would not only enable them to form new combinations (though they hadn't yet got any autonomous form of locomotion), but also to adapt to changing conditions, and to produce organs and faculties that had never existed before, until eventually they managed even to become conscious of themselves. Every step along the road from bacteria to us constitutes amazing inventions to be traced back to that original mechanism. All you need is lots of time, say the believers. Well, in a sense I agree ... because I think evolution did happen. We ARE made of matter ... even theists will not deny that we have bodies and without bodies we cannot reproduce ... but for me anyone who assumes that the original mechanism that created such vast complexities could assemble itself by chance simply hasn't grasped what is involved. (Message to Matt: this is indeed an often argued point specially for you!)-Of course the same applies to a designer. There is no escaping the fact that any designer must have an intelligence far exceeding ours, so if we can believe in its own spontaneous emergence or its everlasting existence, we can believe anything. -I hope that is a fair summary of the abiogenesis problem.
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 
, Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 02:00 (4645 days ago) @ dhw
I can't really add to it. It's a big black box, and your final supposition sums it up, though not really final--I remember one of the things you said in your original treatise was "Who created the creator?"
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 17:03 (4644 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 17:17
dhw: Abiogenesis... a key element in atheism-Er, no. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. Nothing more.-Abiogenesis is an entirely seperate idea and it is simply the best explanation to date for the very limited evidence we have. We have a general idea what made up the earth and its environment prior to the existence of life, and we know what came after. The process that led from one state to the other is unclear. There is certainly no evidence to suggest outside intervention, either supernatural or alien. So we go with the simplest explanation that fits the available data. When more data becomes available, that explanation will be adjusted as necessary. That's how a scientific hypothesis works. We aren't assuming the lack of a designer, a designer is simply unnecessary so Occam's Razor cuts them Right Out. -Science is ok with stating what is known and saying of the rest 'we don't know.' We make our hypotheses and test them out, but do not assume them to be true until they are well supported by evidence (see laws and eventually theories.)
Abiogenesis
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, August 02, 2011, 23:41 (4644 days ago) @ broken_cynic
dhw: Abiogenesis... a key element in atheism > > Er, no. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. Nothing more. > -A lack of belief in a intelligent creator presumes Abiogenesis. (Somewhere down the line, regardless of how far back you go, you either have to put your vote with one or the other. Unfortunately, there is no third option. Either life arose on its own, or it had help.- > Science is ok with stating what is known and saying of the rest 'we don't know.' We make our hypotheses and test them out, but do not assume them to be true until they are well supported by evidence (see laws and eventually theories.)-This is all well and fantastic and probably completely understood within the scientific community. However, the scientific community is responsible for how they represent that data to the public. If they 'simply do not know' then they should say 'we simply do not know', or 'this is the only thing we can come up with other than god. We don't know if it is possible. We don't know how it works. We have never observed it, and we can't test it, and we can't do it ourselves.' -This is not what they DO, though. Instead, they present all of these hypotheses to the PUBLIC as if there is some factual basis for making the claim, just like the arguments for black holes, dark matter, life seeded by meteors, and multi-verses. When someone calls their hand on it, they generally revert back to the same line you just tossed out.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 00:34 (4644 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
As I read some of the older posts I knew you and I would be butting heads sooner or later Balanced. I've got half an hour or so, let's see what kind of a response I can put together on my phone...-> > > dhw: Abiogenesis... a key element in atheism > > > > broken_cynic: oEr, no. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. Nothing more. > > > > Balance_Maintained: A lack of belief in a intelligent creator presumes Abiogenesis. (Somewhere down the line, regardless of how far back you go, you either have to put your vote with one or the other. Unfortunately, there is no third option. Either life arose on its own, or it had help.- I would agree that atheism implies abiogenesis "somewhere down the line." However, it is still not a "key element." I suspect I shall repeat this many times, but atheism is merely the lack of belief in god(s). You can extrapolate the implications of that lack of belief in any context you like, but you won't be outlining pillars of atheism, just exploring its intellectual consequences. > > > > broken_cynic: Science is ok with stating what is known and saying of the rest 'we don't know.' We make our hypotheses and test them out, but do not assume them to be true until they are well supported by evidence (see laws and eventually theories.) > > Balance_Maintained: This is all well and fantastic and probably completely understood within the scientific community. However, the scientific community is responsible for how they represent that data to the public. If they 'simply do not know' then they should say 'we simply do not know', or 'this is the only thing we can come up with other than god. We don't know if it is possible. We don't know how it works. We have never observed it, and we can't test it, and we can't do it ourselves.' > > This is not what they DO, though. Instead, they present all of these hypotheses to the PUBLIC as if there is some factual basis for making the claim, just like the arguments for black holes, dark matter, life seeded by meteors, and multi-verses. When someone calls their hand on it, they generally revert back to the same line you just tossed out.-You aren't taking issue with the scientific community, but rather with the media, and also with human nature. -The scientific community is largely composed of the pocket protector brigade from high school and many of them don't relate to the rest of the world any better now than they did back then. There are exceptions (Sagan, deGrasse Tyson, etc...) but they are rare (and invaluable!) 'They' (scientists) rarely make dramatic and absolutist claims, rather they stick to in-depth papers on obscure details of a hypothesis. It is the media which oversimplifies and sensationalizes. Combine this with a tendency among the public to see everything in black and white, one side or the other when the real world isn't like that at all (see "species") and you have is a failure to communicate, en masse.-Your proposed summary however is disingenuous, bordering on outright dishonest. I'll get back to that when I've got a proper keyboard handy.
Abiogenesis
by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 04:08 (4644 days ago) @ broken_cynic
As I read some of the older posts I knew you and I would be butting heads sooner or later Balanced. I've got half an hour or so, let's see what kind of a response I can put together on my phone... > > > > > dhw: Abiogenesis... a key element in atheism > > > > > > broken_cynic: oEr, no. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. Nothing more. > > > > > > > Balance_Maintained: A lack of belief in a intelligent creator presumes Abiogenesis. (Somewhere down the line, regardless of how far back you go, you either have to put your vote with one or the other. Unfortunately, there is no third option. Either life arose on its own, or it had help. > > > I would agree that atheism implies abiogenesis "somewhere down the line." However, it is still not a "key element." I suspect I shall repeat this many times, but atheism is merely the lack of belief in god(s). You can extrapolate the implications of that lack of belief in any context you like, but you won't be outlining pillars of atheism, just exploring its intellectual consequences. > > -Then perhaps you miss out on comments by front line atheists like Dawkins and Hawking. I don't retract what I said, and it is in fact a key element. Atheism that rejects abiogenesis on earth is merely pushing the problem further back in time, not changing the problem, and ultimately it become a matter of faith with Chance as your god of gaps. -> > > > > broken_cynic: Science is ok with stating what is known and saying of the rest 'we don't know.' We make our hypotheses and test them out, but do not assume them to be true until they are well supported by evidence (see laws and eventually theories.) > > -> You aren't taking issue with the scientific community, but rather with the media, and also with human nature. > > The scientific community is largely composed of the pocket protector brigade from high school and many of them don't relate to the rest of the world any better now than they did back then. There are exceptions (Sagan, deGrasse Tyson, etc...) but they are rare (and invaluable!) 'They' (scientists) rarely make dramatic and absolutist claims, rather they stick to in-depth papers on obscure details of a hypothesis. It is the media which oversimplifies and sensationalizes. Combine this with a tendency among the public to see everything in black and white, one side or the other when the real world isn't like that at all (see "species") and you have is a failure to communicate, en masse. > > Your proposed summary however is disingenuous, bordering on outright dishonest. I'll get back to that when I've got a proper keyboard handy.-Again, read some of the so-called Atheists works by 'scientists', not media hounds, like Dawkins and Hawking and then tell me I am wrong, disingenuous, or dishonest. You sir, I think are being dishonest, but not with me, with yourself. -In fact, a book written by a so-called atheist scientist was entitled The God Delusion. You do not get much more blatant or straight from the horses mouth than that.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 18:09 (4643 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Balance_Maintained: "Then perhaps you miss out on comments by front line atheists like Dawkins and Hawking."-If you care to put forward particular comments (context appreciated as well) then I'll be happy to offer my own take/response. Atheism is anything but a dogmatic monolith and I'm not under any obligation to stand by all statements by all atheists, no matter how famous they are. I think well of Dawkins and Hawking, and even moreso of Hitchens and Harris, and while I wouldn't argue too strongly with Dawkins on evolution, Hawking on cosmology or Harris on neuroscience, still I can easily come up with major points on which I disagree with each of them. If you insist on trying to address me by way of third parties, then I would suggest you try PZ Myers or Daniel Dennett as my views tend to line up pretty well with theirs. However, even in those two cases, they are their own individuals as am I, and I may not agree even with them on all particulars. How about you present a specific comment (your own or someone else's) and we go from there?-> "Atheism that rejects abiogenesis on earth is merely pushing the problem further back in time, not changing the problem..."-Agreed. Thus my reference to 'somewhere down the line' in the comment you quoted.-> "...and ultimately it become a matter of faith with Chance as your god of gaps."-There's a difference between having faith in the fantastic in the absence of evidence and accepting (tentatively, pending new evidence) the evidence at hand and the conclusions that appear when you apply the law of parsimony to that evidence.-> "Again, read some of the so-called Atheists works by 'scientists', not media hounds, like Dawkins and Hawking and then tell me I am wrong, disingenuous, or dishonest. You sir, I think are being dishonest, but not with me, with yourself. In fact, a book written by a so-called atheist scientist was entitled The God Delusion. You do not get much more blatant or straight from the horses mouth than that."-I have read 'The God Delusion.' Beyond that, what do you consider to be "the so-called Atheists works by 'scientists', not media hounds?" You seem to want to be dismissive of them and yet at the same time you are saying that I should be reading them? There is a big difference between the work a scientist writes on the subject of their professional expertise and the work they write on the subject of religion and/or atheism. No book on the subject of atheism that I have read stakes their conclusions on the author's authority, as a scientist or otherwise.-What exactly am I supposed to be telling you that you are wrong about? You didn't address much of anything I said about the idea that the way public understanding of science develops might be more complicated than just 'what scientists say' beyond a general 'nuh uh!' and I'm a little confused as to what point you're even trying to make at this point.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 23:30 (4643 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained
Balance_Maintained: "This is all well and fantastic and probably completely understood within the scientific community. However, the scientific community is responsible for how they represent that data to the public. If they 'simply do not know' then they should say 'we simply do not know', or 'this is the only thing we can come up with other than god. We don't know if it is possible. We don't know how it works. We have never observed it, and we can't test it, and we can't do it ourselves.'-> This is not what they DO, though. Instead, they present all of these hypotheses to the PUBLIC as if there is some factual basis for making the claim, just like the arguments for black holes, dark matter, life seeded by meteors, and multi-verses. When someone calls their hand on it, they generally revert back to the same line you just tossed out."-This may get confusing, but I'd like to keep this response where it belongs in the hierarchy of the thread. This is the summary I was referring to as "disingenuous, bordering on outright dishonest" and it was more than I could manage to compose a reply to it on my phone, but I did want to get back to it when I could do it some justice.-The reason scientists do not say the things you propose is because it would be false. You are twisting things badly. You confuse incomplete knowledge for complete ignorance. If you are asked to prove a complex mathematical formula, and you make significant progress, but are unable to finish the task, have you then accomplished/learned nothing? You may well find, when the complete proof is revealed to you, that you made some errors along the way and some changes need to be made to finish the thing by the route you had been on, but simply failing to close the deal does not necessarily invalidate the work done so far. Indeed, if the partial work proves sound and can be built upon to continue to make progress on other, lesser proofs, then it is even useful. -So they present what they do know, and they present their hypotheses about what might possibly one day get them from that knowledge to the answer they seek. Those hypotheses are honestly presented as such, even if they don't always come across that way in the popular media.-Your list of further examples are a widely varying mish-mash. Black holes are a real and relatively well understood phenomena (even if they are nothing like the ones in sci fi.) Dark matter is less well understood, but progress is being made in leaps and bounds in that department of late. Life seeded by meteors and multi-verses on the other hand are pure hypotheses, guesses which (arguably) fit the available data, but have no significant supporting evidence and will be discarded in a moment if an alternative hypothesis gains serious evidentiary support.-You need to bone up on the distinction between data, evidence, hypothesis, law and theory.
Abiogenesis
dhw: Abiogenesis... a key element in atheism-broken_cynic: Er, no. Atheism is the lack of belief in gods. Nothing more.-Agnostics also lack belief in gods. Atheism is the belief that there are no gods, which = a conviction, something much stronger than neither believing nor disbelieving, which = agnosticism (see "What do we need a deity for"). Atheism therefore expressly rejects the existence of a designer and hence the theory of design, which leaves abiogenesis as the only alternative. Broken_cynic: Abiogenesis is an entirely seperate idea and it is simply the best explanation to date for the very limited evidence we have. We have a general idea what made up the earth and its environment prior to the existence of life, and we know what came after. The process that led from one state to the other is unclear. There is certainly no evidence to suggest outside intervention, either supernatural or alien. So we go with the simplest explanation that fits the available data. When more data becomes available, that explanation will be adjusted as necessary. That's how a scientific hypothesis works. We aren't assuming the lack of a designer, a designer is simply unnecessary so Occam's Razor cuts them Right Out. Let us take this point by point. The process that led from life to non-life is "unclear". Agreed. There is no evidence to suggest outside intervention. Agreed. There is also no evidence to suggest that chance is capable of creating the astonishingly complex mechanisms I have described elsewhere. "We go with the simplest explanation." But if the simplest explanation (applying Ockham's razor) entails believing in something which has no scientific evidence to support it, why not withhold belief until there IS evidence? "When more data becomes available, the explanation will be adjusted as necessary." Yes indeed. "A designer is unnecessary": that is an assumption, since you have no idea how life began. Until there is evidence to the contrary, I myself cannot believe that chance is capable of creating the mechanisms of life and evolution. You evidently can, as you have closed the door on the alternative. Like you, I can't believe in a supernatural creator either. And so I leave both doors open. Broken_cynic: Science is ok with stating what is known and saying of the rest 'we don't know.' We make our hypotheses and test them out, but do not assume them to be true until they are well supported by evidence (see laws and eventually theories.)-Excellent. But science has never claimed that life was the product of chance. Science has never claimed that there is or isn't a God. That is not the province of science, whose task is to examine the material world. (I hope you do not equate science with individual scientists, who of course have their own beliefs.) And so the moment you claim that God does not exist, and opt for the claim that life is not the product of design but of chance, you leave the realm of science and enter into the realm of subjective belief. Let me ask again, why don't you wait for the evidence before you make up your mind?-****************-This was drafted before I read the exchange between yourself and Tony (balance_maintained). You say that abiogenesis is not a pillar of atheism, and that we are "just exploring" the "intellectual consequences" of atheism. Did you reach your atheist conclusions without even considering the enormous problem of how life originated? Without even considering the extraordinary mystery of consciousness? Without even considering psychic phenomena or mystic experiences which appear to extend the boundaries of consciousness beyond the range of our physical senses? Your post suggests that an atheist doesn't have to think about such things before he reaches his decision to reject the design theory. I will not insult you by taking such a suggestion seriously, as I'm sure you have thought long and hard about them. However, it really doesn't matter if you insist that abiogenesis is not a "key element" in your atheist thinking. If you prefer to think of your faith in such an unproven theory as an "intellectual consequence", let us simply discuss the intellectual consequences. -There is no need for any of us to accuse others of dishonesty. This is a frank (and very lively!) discussion between people who clearly hold strong views, and I would like to think we may learn from one another's arguments, but there is nothing to be learned from ad hominems.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 18:21 (4643 days ago) @ dhw
I have noted earlier in this conversation that my take is that atheist refers to a position regarding belief whereas agnostic refers to a position regarding knowledge. By straight dictionary definition however, agnosticism is a belief position: one that believes that the answers to questions regarding the existence of god(s) (and perhaps many other questions as well) are ultimately unknowable. It is already apparent that you do not find your experience of agnosticism to be constrained by the dictionary, so please accept that I as an atheist may also not fit precisely in either the dictionary or your own notion of what an atheist is, believes and thinks.-> dhw: "Atheism therefore expressly rejects the existence of a designer and hence the theory of design..."-Agreed.-> "...which leaves abiogenesis as the only alternative."-Pretty much. As Balance correctly pointed out, even if it didn't happen here on Earth, the buck has got to stop somewhere/time.-> "Let us take this point by point. The process that led from life to non-life is "unclear". Agreed. There is no evidence to suggest outside intervention. Agreed. There is also no evidence to suggest that chance is capable of creating the astonishingly complex mechanisms I have described elsewhere. "We go with the simplest explanation." But if the simplest explanation (applying Ockham's razor) entails believing in something which has no scientific evidence to support it, why not withhold belief until there IS evidence? "When more data becomes available, the explanation will be adjusted as necessary." Yes indeed.-You talk about "believing in something which has no scientific evidence to support it," but I don't 'believe in' anything in this scenario. I don't hold to any particular theory of abiogenesis as I am not nearly well enough educated on the subject to stake a claim. I don't dogmatically 'believe in' the idea in general. I merely observe and accept that (as you have illustrated) in the absence of the supernatural, abiogenesis in some form is likely to be the source of life in this universe. I also accept that life on this planet kicked off so long ago and at such a small scale that hard evidence for exactly how that occurred is unlikely to be forthcoming anytime soon. So the only point where belief comes into this at all is way before these considerations even come up in the broader analysis when I note that all of the deities on the table are 1) utterly ridiculous, 2) irrelevant to our existence or 3) both, and that furthermore, beyond the lack of supporting evidence the concept of the supernatural is fundamentally incoherent.-What 'astonishingly complex mechanisms' do you suggest that chance must supply? All that is necessary to begin with is imperfect self-replication. If we assume, for the sake of argument, the classic protein in a warm chemical soup then there may well have been an effectively infinite number of proteins over billions of years before that one oddball with a lucky difference. There may even have been billions that turned that particular trick, but only one that thrived. There's a good chance we will never know the details.-> ""A designer is unnecessary": that is an assumption, since you have no idea how life began. Until there is evidence to the contrary, I myself cannot believe that chance is capable of creating the mechanisms of life and evolution. You evidently can, as you have closed the door on the alternative. Like you, I can't believe in a supernatural creator either. And so I leave both doors open."-'A designer is unnecessary' is not an assumption at all. Adding the idea of a designer to the body of knowledge we currently have doesn't add anything to our understanding, therefore it is not necessary. I'm not suggesting that I know the details of how it happened and there wasn't a designer involved, I'm simply saying that that by the law of parsimony a creator is extraneous complexity and is therefore dismissed. The idea of a creator adds complexity vastly above and beyond that required for chance to do the job, as instead of just trying to figure out where a very simple self-replicating organic mechanism came from you now need to explain the origins of something that operates outside of our entire realm of experience. As you have apparently asked before on this board: who created the creator? A creator is not even an alternative hypothesis, it's just a way of passing the buck so far along that one no longer need bother even attempting to see where it stops.-I'm not asking you to 'believe in' chance, only to grant that given our current state of knowledge it is the explanation which requires the least assumptions. Beating huge odds is something we know happens in the real world. Magic isn't.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Thursday, August 04, 2011, 15:42 (4642 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> What 'astonishingly complex mechanisms' do you suggest that chance must supply? All that is necessary to begin with is imperfect self-replication. If we assume, for the sake of argument, the classic protein in a warm chemical soup then there may well have been an effectively infinite number of proteins over billions of years before that one oddball with a lucky difference. There may even have been billions that turned that particular trick, but only one that thrived. There's a good chance we will never know the details.-I must step in. You have admitted that you are not well-read in this area of science. The 'classic protein' was tossed out a long time ago. Going from inorganic molecules to organic alone is a giant step, and the Earth started as inorganic. -One of the world's leading experts, Robert Shapiro believes in an inorganic energy cycle is a reasonable starting point. His book, 'Origins', is the best place to start an understanding as to how complex the process must be.-http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7358/full/476030a.html- > The idea of a creator adds complexity vastly above and beyond that required for chance to do the job, as instead of just trying to figure out where a very simple self-replicating organic mechanism came from you now need to explain the origins of something that operates outside of our entire realm of experience. As you have apparently asked before on this board: who created the creator? A creator is not even an alternative hypothesis, it's just a way of passing the buck so far along that one no longer need bother even attempting to see where it stops.-After 65 years of research we have no idea of how to get to that 'simple molecule' and Shapiro doubts it is anything like RNA:-"Deamer's thesis diverges from the standard RNA-world concept. He focuses not on the generation of a naked RNA-like polymer, but on the formation of a simple cell-like compartment, or vesicle. Modern cells are enclosed by a complex fatty membrane, which prevents leakage. Vesicles with similar properties have been formed in the lab from certain fatty acids. Deamer holds that the spontaneous formation of vesicles, into which RNA could be incorporated, was a crucial step in life's origin. Unfortunately, his theory retains the improbable generation of self-replicating polymers such as RNA. Nevertheless, Deamer's insight deflates the synthetic proofs put forward in numerous papers supporting the RNA world. He ends First Life by calling for the construction of a new set of biochemical simulators that match more closely the conditions on the early Earth. Unfortunately, the chemicals that he suggests for inclusion are drawn from modern biology, not from ancient geochemistry. We should let nature inform us, rather than pasting our ideas onto her."
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Thursday, August 04, 2011, 22:25 (4642 days ago) @ David Turell
David Turell: I must step in. You have admitted that you are not well-read in this area of science. The 'classic protein' was tossed out a long time ago. -Fair point. I made what was intended to be a broad analogy too specific. The "protein" was simply meant to illustrate the important bit: "All that is necessary to begin with is imperfect self-replication." I don't even know that (even if we knew the complete history/process) it would make sense to define one specific event as the transition from non-life to life. Conway's Game of Life demonstrates how simple of a system can lead to 'reproduction' and change over time. It is not necessary for anything we would recognise today as a living thing to spontaneously develop, only as noted above, for a self-replicating system to form. -> Going from inorganic molecules to organic alone is a giant step, and the Earth started as inorganic. -I am a little confused as to what you mean by going from inorganic to organic since, in chemistry terms, organic just means that carbon is involved? It smacks of vitalism, but perhaps I misunderstand you.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Friday, August 05, 2011, 03:04 (4642 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> > Going from inorganic molecules to organic alone is a giant step, and the Earth started as inorganic. > > I am a little confused as to what you mean by going from inorganic to organic since, in chemistry terms, organic just means that carbon is involved? It smacks of vitalism, but perhaps I misunderstand you.-I meant exactly what I stated. Inorganic chemical reactions are child's play compared to organic reactions. It is much more than carbon is the key atom. It involved heat, enzymes, both metallic and organic. The molecules of life are huge and highly organized, To understand you would literally need some study of biochemistry.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 00:28 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
> > > David Turell: Going from inorganic molecules to organic alone is a giant step, and the Earth started as inorganic. > > > > broken_cynic: I am a little confused as to what you mean by going from inorganic to organic since, in chemistry terms, organic just means that carbon is involved? It smacks of vitalism, but perhaps I misunderstand you. > > David Turell: I meant exactly what I stated. Inorganic chemical reactions are child's play compared to organic reactions. It is much more than carbon is the key atom. It involved heat, enzymes, both metallic and organic. The molecules of life are huge and highly organized, To understand you would literally need some study of biochemistry.- All well and good, but I wasn't talking about the processes or even the results. I meant that the materials and the laws that govern their interaction are the same stuff all the way down. In short, there is no élan vital to distinguish the inert from the living, the difference is all in the pattern of the dance (the arrangement and interaction of the same basic pieces.)
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:42 (4638 days ago) @ broken_cynic
All well and good, but I wasn't talking about the processes or even the results. I meant that the materials and the laws that govern their interaction are the same stuff all the way down. In short, there is no élan vital to distinguish the inert from the living, the difference is all in the pattern of the dance (the arrangement and interaction of the same basic pieces.-We define life as something very different than inorganic matter. I can well ask the question, are you living? Or do you consider yourself a mobile structure? Do you have consciousness? Going from inorganic material to living matter is a giant step we cannot explain. Frankly I don't know what you consider e'lan vital.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 02:04 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
All well and good, but I wasn't talking about the processes or even the results. I meant that the materials and the laws that govern their interaction are the same stuff all the way down. In short, there is no élan vital to distinguish the inert from the living, the difference is all in the pattern of the dance (the arrangement and interaction of the same basic pieces. > > We define life as something very different than inorganic matter. I can well ask the question, are you living? Or do you consider yourself a mobile structure? Do you have consciousness? -I do consider myself to be living and conscious. Yet I am made up of bits and pieces of both organic and inorganic matter. It comes down to patterns (emergent properties if you prefer) not some fundamental difference. There is no hard, bright line between alive and not. Even today we see discussions about whether viruses are 'alive' in the same way we are. Yet viruses may well be (must be by my guess) more complex than whatever could be said to have been the first unique step on the road to 'life.'-> Going from inorganic material to living matter is a giant step we cannot explain. Frankly I don't know what you consider e'lan vital.-We're not doing too bad for being billions of years removed from the event with no direct evidence and only having just recently figured out the whole evidence based rationalism thing! -So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life?
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 18:10 (4636 days ago) @ broken_cynic
Even today we see discussions about whether viruses are 'alive' in the same way we are. Yet viruses may well be (must be by my guess) more complex than whatever could be said to have been the first unique step on the road to 'life.'-Viruses are living parasites that enter a living cell and use the genetic material in that cell to reproduce itself. If one claims that the full definition of life requires the organism to be totally self-sustaining and self-reproducing, then viruses are not truly 'fully' live.-> > So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life?-There are conflicting definitions; mine is simple. Grow to a certain size, maintain that structure, reproduce itself, using a chemical digestive system for protein production and energy consumption.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Saturday, August 13, 2011, 01:27 (4634 days ago) @ David Turell
Viruses are living parasites that enter a living cell and use the genetic material in that cell to reproduce itself. If one claims that the full definition of life requires the organism to be totally self-sustaining and self-reproducing, then viruses are not truly 'fully' live.-Ok... so who/what says that the first steps to life as we know it had to be 'fully' live on our terms?-> > So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life? > > There are conflicting definitions; mine is simple. Grow to a certain size, maintain that structure, reproduce itself, using a chemical digestive system for protein production and energy consumption.-As above, what if the process that led to a living thing/population (by your definition) were simpler than that... but still got there in the end? (Or the beginning as it were.)
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Saturday, August 13, 2011, 03:26 (4634 days ago) @ broken_cynic
Viruses are living parasites that enter a living cell and use the genetic material in that cell to reproduce itself. If one claims that the full definition of life requires the organism to be totally self-sustaining and self-reproducing, then viruses are not truly 'fully' live. > > Ok... so who/what says that the first steps to life as we know it had to be 'fully' live on our terms? > > > > So how do you draw a line between living and not? What is your definition for life? > > > > There are conflicting definitions; mine is simple. Grow to a certain size, maintain that structure, reproduce itself, using a chemical digestive system for protein production and energy consumption. > > As above, what if the process that led to a living thing/population (by your definition) were simpler than that... but still got there in the end? (Or the beginning as it were.)-You are simply raising the same issues we all have. We know many of the secrets of life today. No one knows how we got to this point. Starting in a less complex fashion is a reasonable proposition, but it hasn't worked so far in the labs, starting in the mid-1950's.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Saturday, August 13, 2011, 03:41 (4634 days ago) @ David Turell
You are simply raising the same issues we all have. We know many of the secrets of life today. No one knows how we got to this point. -Fair enough. Just making sure we're at least on the same page up to a point.-> Starting in a less complex fashion is a reasonable proposition, but it hasn't worked so far in the labs, starting in the mid-1950's.-No, it hasn't. That neither surprises, nor bothers me. We've been working on the problem for 60 years and while we may have the 'advantage' of intelligence, the original experiment was run on such an incomprehensibly massive scale (both time and numbers-wise) that 'advantage' is far outweighed. Brute force does have a certain, well... power. =)
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 18:45 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
Kent, > I am a little confused as to what you mean by going from inorganic to organic since, in chemistry terms, organic just means that carbon is involved? It smacks of vitalism, but perhaps I misunderstand you.-Organic chemistry is a sub-branch of chemistry yes, but the interactions in just O.Chem alone are much more involved than they are in traditional inorganic chemistry. -I assume you're used to more earth chemistry, where for example, crystals are made under varying conditions of cooling and the reconfiguration of compounds. you are also clearly used to chemistry related to gases (from what you do for a living) but in all these instances, the reactions are incredibly simple. -As you (might) remember my first degree path was supposed to be biotechnology, where I studied organic and biochem in order to (hopefully) create new things. In organic chemistry, you begin to see for the first time chemical yields, where you only get x% of some output for a reaction. The only way to fully "turn over" the reaction you need to have some catalyst (enzyme) present in order to finish the job. The problem that exists for abiogenesis, is several fold. Life now---the simplest life--requires 20 amino acids in order to exist. From what we currently know, 12 of the 20 need to be somehow synthesized, but organic chemistry under the conditions currently inferred to exist result in an impossibility, precisely because certain catalysts are necessary. -For me, this doesn't necessarily open a door to a creator to me, but in this particular environment, we are 99.999% unlikely to synthesize the necessary amino acids by pure chance, meaning that the right parts just sit around in the soup for enough years that the right amino acids just fortuitously appear. I dislike faith more than I dislike Gods. That's all I'm saying. I can't believe in this chance scenario any more than I could believe in the God of Abraham. -I agree in everything that you've said in regards to how science works. -But a small question... what are the essential assumptions we make in order to use the scientific method?
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Friday, August 19, 2011, 15:38 (4627 days ago) @ xeno6696
The problem that exists for abiogenesis, is several fold. Life now---the simplest life--requires 20 amino acids in order to exist. From what we currently know, 12 of the 20 need to be somehow synthesized, but organic chemistry under the conditions currently inferred to exist result in an impossibility, precisely because certain catalysts are necessary. > > For me, this doesn't necessarily open a door to a creator to me, but in this particular environment, we are 99.999% unlikely to synthesize the necessary amino acids by pure chance, meaning that the right parts just sit around in the soup for enough years that the right amino acids just fortuitously appear. -Science is trying to answer Matt's comments. We have 20 left-handed amino acids that are essential for life as we know it. Since organic reactions make resultant products that are 50/50% right and left-handed we can't use half the product. But we'll skip that issue. What has been discovered by computer analysis is how special are the 20 a-a's we know about? The authors conclude that the 20 are perfect, and were selected by natural selection. (Of course, what else could do it if you are a Darwinist.) Problem, we have only found eight of the a-a's in the meteors that have hit Earth, as naturally synthesized. We MUST find the other 12 to show a natural process that could have created life on Earth, an inorganic planet at first after its formation. Of course we could guess that the eight a-a's got together, held hands, and danced around in a circle creating the others. Fat chance!- http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-08-amino-acid-alphabet-soup.html
Abiogenesis
KENT: It is already apparent that you do not find your experience of agnosticism to be constrained by the dictionary, so please accept that I as an atheist may also not fit precisely in either the dictionary or your own notion of what an atheist is, believes and thinks.-I do most certainly accept that, and the whole point of these discussions is for us to find out what we all think and why. Just to set the record straight, it would of course be absurd to reject Huxley's definition of his own coinage. I should have indicated that the middle-road definition is an ADDITIONAL meaning, since in an epistemological context most people would agree that it is impossible to KNOW whether God exists, and that would make us all agnostics, as you indicated in your post of August 2 at 16.37 under "What do we need..."-Dhw: "Atheism therefore expressly rejects the existence of a designer and hence the theory of design..." KENT: Agreed. Dhw: "...which leaves abiogenesis as the only alternative." KENT: Pretty much. As Balance correctly pointed out, even if it didn't happen here on Earth, the buck has got to stop somewhere/time.-This is an important step forward. KENT: You talk about "believing in something which has no scientific evidence to support it," but I don't 'believe in' anything in this scenario. I don't hold to any particular theory of abiogenesis [...] I don't dogmatically 'believe in' the idea in general. I merely observe and accept that (as you have illustrated) in the absence of the supernatural, abiogenesis in some form is likely to be the source of life in this universe. This is where language begins to muddy the waters. There are many theories as to how abiogenesis may have occurred, but abiogenesis itself is the hypothesis that living organisms first arose spontaneously from non-living matter. If you categorically reject deliberate design, it is not a matter of accepting that abiogenesis in some form is LIKELY to be the source. You have agreed there is no alternative. Then may I ask why, if you accept it, you don't 'believe' it?-KENT: So the only point where belief comes into this at all is way before these considerations even come up in the broader analysis when I note that all of the deities on the table are 1) utterly ridiculous, 2) irrelevant to our existence or 3) both, and that furthermore, beyond the lack of supporting evidence the concept of the supernatural is fundamentally incoherent.-I prefer to put "supernatural" in inverted commas, because I'm not satisfied that we actually know what constitutes "natural". More in a moment. In your discussions with me, I would ask you to discount the conventional tales and concepts of God and/or the gods ... I'm not going to defend them, though I would not dream of calling all of them "ridiculous". Nor will I argue that any kind of God is "relevant" to my own life. I can live quite happily on my fence. You say of chance that: "Beating huge odds is something we know happens in the real world. Magic isn't." I don't believe in magic either. Nor do I know of anyone on this forum who does, including our theists. IF there is some sort of super-intelligence out there, I could only conceive of it as a form of energy different from what we know, but consciously and scientifically constructing life in the same way as we construct computers. IF this were so, I could then conceive of human consciousness as a similar form of energy, channelled through the material brain, and I could link this energy to the many mystic and/or psychic experiences that remain unexplained. This scenario does not involve the supernatural, but would be an extension of the natural. Just as a dog hears real things I don't, maybe some human minds also perceive real things I don't. This is just a maybe, but since we know so little about the universe, I for one am not prepared to assume that we have exhausted all the possibilities of what constitutes "Nature". KENT: What 'astonishingly complex mechanisms' do you suggest that chance must supply? I have set out the case (for both sides) in my post of August 1 at 13.42.*** *** I see David has given us some important information on this subject in his latest post. David also updates us regularly on the latest research into such subjects as the genome, epigenetics etc. (See "Brain complexity", for instance.) KENT: 'A designer is unnecessary' is not an assumption at all. Adding the idea of a designer to the body of knowledge we currently have doesn't add anything to our understanding, therefore it is not necessary. I'm not suggesting that I know the details of how it happened and there wasn't a designer involved, I'm simply saying that that by the law of parsimony a creator is extraneous complexity and is therefore dismissed. You have already said there wasn't a designer involved (see above). You are quite right that "a creator is extraneous complexity", and I have indeed asked who created the creator, quoting Dawkins. That is a potent reason for my non-belief (as opposed to your disbelief). But if by applying Ockham's razor we are left with too many unanswered questions (there are too many for me, but not for you), we are forced to consider the possibility ... no more ... that the razor may have cut out the very heart of the matter.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Thursday, August 04, 2011, 23:29 (4642 days ago) @ dhw
dhw: "If you categorically reject deliberate design..."-I do not. However, I won't spend any time giving serious consideration to the hypothesis until someone produces some evidence in favor of it simply because it is many orders of magnitude more (unnecessarily) complex than the only serious alternative and thus parsimony/Okham bid me ignore it as I would tales of giant sparkly purple unicorns pissing out the great rivers of the world and consuming virgins by the score.-> Then may I ask why, if you accept it, you don't 'believe' it?-I do not 'accept it' full stop. I accept that it is the only alternative on the table which A) fits the available evidence and B) doesn't hinge on a giant cruft of an unsupported idea with its roots in mythology. (Or in other words, doesn't involve orders of magnitude more unnecessary complexity.) Yes, there is a theme here. -> I don't believe in magic either. Nor do I know of anyone on this forum who does, including our theists.-Interesting statement. How do you distinguish the things theists believe from magic? -> IF there is some sort of super-intelligence out there, I could only conceive of it as a form of energy different from what we know, but consciously and scientifically constructing life in the same way as we construct computers.-So a sufficiently powerful or advanced alien would satisfy your notion of deity?-> IF this were so, I could then conceive of human consciousness as a similar form of energy, channelled through the material brain, and I could link this energy to the many mystic and/or psychic experiences that remain unexplained. This scenario does not involve the supernatural, but would be an extension of the natural-And therefore an extension of science. And a loss for every religious belief system on earth, though I'm sure the liberal strains of each would adapt just fine and the conservative strains would just dig themselves in deeper. What is this scenario supposed to suggest? It seems to me as if you are conflating 'natural' and 'scientific' with 'what we know/understand today.' -> I have set out the case (for both sides) in my post of August 1 at 13.42.-The original Abiogenesis post? I certainly don't see a balanced treatment of two sides in that post, nor do I see specifics regarding what you think 'chance has to provide' which you find equal in (un)likelihood with gods?-> You are quite right that "a creator is extraneous complexity", and I have indeed asked who created the creator, quoting Dawkins. That is a potent reason for my non-belief (as opposed to your disbelief). But if by applying Ockham's razor we are left with too many unanswered questions (there are too many for me, but not for you), we are forced to consider the possibility ... no more ... that the razor may have cut out the very heart of the matter.-Applying the razor (well put by the way) doesn't leave us with any additional questions compared to what we had before using it. In fact it eliminates the bulk of them and leaves the core few, big, but relatively simple questions. Those questions are still there when you add the idea of a designer back on, only now you have all kinds of new questions about the designer to answer too. Yet somehow those questions get a free pass?
Abiogenesis
Wednesday 3 August at 18.21: Dhw: Atheism therefore expressly rejects the existence of a designer and hence the theory of design. KENT: Agreed.-Thursday 4 August at 23.29: dhw: "If you categorically reject deliberate design..." KENT: I do not. -I hope you will understand my confusion. Are you an atheist or not?-Dhw (on the theory of abiogenesis) Then may I ask why, if you accept it, you don't 'believe' it?-KENT: I do not 'accept it' full stop. I accept that it is the only alternative on the table which A) fits the available evidence and B) doesn't hinge on a giant cruft of an unsupported idea with its roots in mythology. (Or in other words, doesn't involve orders of magnitude more unnecessary complexity.) -If you accept that abiogenesis is the ONLY alternative that fits the evidence, and you reject the only other alternative, do please explain to me WHY you do not accept it or believe it. But please do not spend time attacking the alternative of design ... you have made that side of your argument abundantly clear.-Dhw: I don't believe in magic either. Nor do I know of anyone on this forum who does, including our theists. KENT: Interesting statement. How do you distinguish the things theists believe from magic? You have quoted my answer below. As for the theists on this forum, I will leave it to them to explain their own views if they wish to.-Dhw: IF there is some sort of super-intelligence out there, I could only conceive of it as a form of energy different from what we know, but consciously and scientifically constructing life in the same way as we construct computers. KENT: So a sufficiently powerful or advanced alien would satisfy your notion of deity?-If by 'alien' you mean a physical creature from another planet, no, because we would then have the same problem of accounting for its origin. I'm talking of some unknown form of energy: expressions like "life force", "élan vital" come to mind, perhaps associated vaguely with electromagnetism, but there's no point in pushing me on this. I have no clear concept, which is scarcely surprising. And I'm fully aware that we will always come back to the unanswerable question of origin.-Dhw: IF this were so, I could then conceive of human consciousness as a similar form of energy, channelled through the material brain, and I could link this energy to the many mystic and/or psychic experiences that remain unexplained. This scenario does not involve the supernatural, but would be an extension of the natural.-KENT: And therefore an extension of science. [...] What is this scenario supposed to suggest? It seems to me as if you are conflating 'natural' and 'scientific' with 'what we know/understand today.'-I am merely suggesting that there MAY be things in the natural world which we do NOT know/understand today. I don't know that science is or ever will be equipped to find out all the forms of energy and materials that make up our universe. String theory proposes 11 dimensions, the multiverse theory proposes who knows how many universes? It may simply be that the answers to the big questions are unknown to us because there are forms or dimensions that are unknown to us. These may include a form of conscious energy that some folk call "God".-Dhw: I have set out the case (for both sides) in my post of August 1 at 13.42. KENT: The original Abiogenesis post? I certainly don't see a balanced treatment of two sides in that post, nor do I see specifics regarding what you think 'chance has to provide' which you find equal in (un)likelihood with gods?-Then in my totally subjective view, you have "not grasped what is involved". Like yourself, I am not versed in biochemistry, and so I would prefer to leave the "specifics" to David, who is. However, you do not need to be a biochemist to realize that, if you believe in evolution as I do, every stage leading from bacteria (or whatever is now regarded as our first ancestor ... theories keep changing) to the walking, seeing, hearing, thinking beings we are today involves adaptations and innovations that are still beyond our understanding, let alone our capability of consciously producing.-Dhw: [...] if by applying Ockham's razor we are left with too many unanswered questions (there are too many for me, but not for you), we are forced to consider the possibility ... no more ... that the razor may have cut out the very heart of the matter. KENT: Applying the razor (well put by the way) doesn't leave us with any additional questions compared to what we had before using it. In fact it eliminates the bulk of them and leaves the core few, big, but relatively simple questions. Those questions are still there when you add the idea of a designer back on, only now you have all kinds of new questions about the designer to answer too. Yet somehow those questions get a free pass?-I have already agreed with all of this, except the description of the big questions as "relatively simple". The questions concerning the designer do not get a free pass. You are arguing as if I had advocated belief in a designer. Please reread the conclusion of my initial post on abiogenesis.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:05 (4638 days ago) @ dhw
Dhw: Atheism therefore expressly rejects the existence of a designer and hence the theory of design. >KENT: Agreed. (Wednesday 3 August at 18.21)->>>dhw: "If you categorically reject deliberate design..." >>KENT: I do not. (Thursday 4 August at 23.29)-> dhw: I hope you will understand my confusion. Are you an atheist or not?-Even as I begin to try and simplify the pages of discussion currently standing between us, this bit deserves a direct response.-1. I am indeed an atheist. 2. I do not see everything, even questions like this, through some kind of lens of atheism. 3. If I were to be really pedantic I could say that no, atheism does not expressly reject the possibility of a design/er, only the silly/impossible/limited human formulations of gods. An intelligent being in an 'outer' universe intentionally creating this universe isn't out of the question. But that would be a discussion more about definition than (conjectural) substance and likely not worth having. 4. (most relevant answer) Due to my own take on the context of each, I answered the first question as if it were a question about atheism and the second as if it were a question about science. Atheism does reject the designers that religions posit, full stop. From a scientific perspective, no hypothesis that doesn't contradict the data is off the table until one has enough evidence to cobble together a good theory (and even then, it remains happily vulnerable to an improved theory with greater accuracy and predictive power.)
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 17:48 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
Kent,-Sorry for not participating so much in this conversation, I'm still catching up as I recuperate from surgery. -Add to your reading list the book "Origins" by Robert Shapiro. He's the scientist I talked to you about that was primarily engaged in origin of life research. He has some new ideas concerning origins, but by and large the landscape of the endeavor is so unchanged from that book was first printed (in '88) that many of his criticisms still stand. He details the history of the field and offers several of what he considers good avenues. -It's been out of print for some time, but I managed to find a copy at a bookstore. -It forces you to fully come to terms with the reality of how bleak the state of the science is.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 18:11 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
Kent, > > Add to your reading list the book "Origins" by Robert Shapiro. He's the scientist I talked to you about that was primarily engaged in origin of life research. He has some new ideas concerning origins, but by and large the landscape of the endeavor is so unchanged from that book was first printed (in '88) that many of his criticisms still stand. -I cannot recommend this book highly enough. His current idea is to find an inorganic circular mechanism that creates energy and then look for a mechanism that can shift it to organic molecules.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 00:22 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
I initially confused him with James Shapiro (of your youtube link on facebook and David's post today) and I was about to dismiss this out of hand. Apparently I'm not the only one to confuse them, and both are used and/or abused to support creationist positions... however, on figuring out my mistake, this does look like it might be more worthwhile and I'll keep it mind.
Abiogenesis-earliest life?
by David Turell , Monday, August 22, 2011, 13:31 (4625 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> I'm not asking you to 'believe in' chance, only to grant that given our current state of knowledge it is the explanation which requires the least assumptions. Beating huge odds is something we know happens in the real world. Magic isn't.-If the Earth cooled down enough to allow some early exotic form of life as described in this article, it was allowed to happen in a short period of geologic time. The odds become enormous, the shorter the time frame.-http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/science/earth/22fossil.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 03, 2011, 18:26 (4643 days ago) @ dhw
"But science has never claimed that life was the product of chance. Science has never claimed that there is or isn't a God. That is not the province of science, whose task is to examine the material world.-Again, you are talking as if either I or "science"* are dealing in absolute declarations. As you say, science examines the material world and thus, with a few religiously motivated exceptions, all of the (limited) investigations into the origins of life are concerned with that material world, not supernatural intervention. They default to the chance explanation, though I agree that they (rightly) have not declared this to be an absolute certainty.-*What do you mean when you refer to science this way? Science is a method for learning, used to winnow knowledge from data, practiced by individuals and by way of very messy and very human consensus making, eventually forming a (malleable) body of knowledge. Is it fair to assume you are referring to the currently accepted body of knowledge?-> "And so the moment you claim that God does not exist, and opt for the claim that life is not the product of design but of chance, you leave the realm of science and enter into the realm of subjective belief. Let me ask again, why don't you wait for the evidence before you make up your mind?"-NOMA, huh? Show me the first piece of evidence that there is anything but the material world to be accounted for and I will re-consider whether perhaps there is some realm which science cannot touch. Until that point, I will continue to follow wherever the available evidence leads. If you consider that prejudiced against some possible future revelation, well, so be it. I don't see the need to hedge my understanding of the world against every supernatural bogeyman and what-if that can possibly be imagined.-> "Did you reach your atheist conclusions without even considering the enormous problem of how life originated? Without even considering the extraordinary mystery of consciousness? Without even considering psychic phenomena or mystic experiences which appear to extend the boundaries of consciousness beyond the range of our physical senses? Your post suggests that an atheist doesn't have to think about such things before he reaches his decision to reject the design theory. I will not insult you by taking such a suggestion seriously, as I'm sure you have thought long and hard about them."-I initially rejected the Christian faith I had grown up in, and once strongly claimed for myself, for a purely agnostic position. For several years I was an apologist for believers of all stripes and non-believers alike, determined to correct each side's misapprehension of the other. It was only as I became more of a skeptic and rationalist that I moved from that middle ground. Before, during and after that transition I have indeed considered many of these questions. Some of my conclusions have changed along with my take on religion, others have not. Just to address the items you list, consciousness is indeed extraordinary, but as with abiogenesis there is no evidence to suggest that it will require a non-material explanation. The better we understand it, the better we will also understand "psychic phenomena or mystic experiences" as those can be attributed to one of two things: the imperfect ways that our consciousness interacts with the world and with itself, or to tricks  (intentional or otherwise) played by other people upon the same.-> "However, it really doesn't matter if you insist that abiogenesis is not a "key element" in your atheist thinking. If you prefer to think of your faith in such an unproven theory as an "intellectual consequence", let us simply discuss the intellectual consequences."-There is no 'faith' at work any more than there is 'belief' (at least not in the sense you are using it the word.)-> "There is no need for any of us to accuse others of dishonesty. This is a frank (and very lively!) discussion between people who clearly hold strong views, and I would like to think we may learn from one another's arguments, but there is nothing to be learned from ad hominems."-If Balance is intentionally misrepresenting the state of (body of knowledge) science in order to create a straw man to beat upon, then he is being dishonest. Further, even if I misunderstand his intention or am entirely incorrect in my analysis, to so accuse him is not ad hominem! Ad hominem would be if I suggested that he were a scum-sucking bastard... and therefore his argument is wrong. It's a logical fallacy, not a get-out-of-being-called-out-on-your-shit-when-it-stinks card.-Btw, as you seem to prefer given names to screen names, I am Kent.
Abiogenesis
Dhw: But science has never claimed that life was the product of chance. Science has never claimed that there is or isn't a God. That is not the province of science, whose task is to examine the material world.-KENT: Again, you are talking as if either I or "science"* are dealing in absolute declarations. As you say, science examines the material world and thus, with a few religiously motivated exceptions, all of the (limited) investigations into the origins of life are concerned with that material world, not supernatural intervention. They default to the chance explanation, though I agree that they (rightly) have not declared this to be an absolute certainty. *What do you mean when you refer to science this way? Science is a method for learning, used to winnow knowledge from data, practiced by individuals and by way of very messy and very human consensus making, eventually forming a (malleable) body of knowledge. Is it fair to assume you are referring to the currently accepted body of knowledge?-No. By science I mean the study of the natural (material) world, and I am trying to separate science from the individuals who practise it, and from whatever non-scientific conclusions they may draw from it. In searching for the origin of life, theist scientists and atheist scientists will study the same materials. No-one is claiming that physical life is not physical! There is no default position. If scientists ever do crack the codes and explain to us how the various chemicals combined to create the mechanisms for life and evolution, no doubt the atheist will say chance did it, and the theist will say God did it. At that moment, they will both have left the realm of science and entered into the realm of subjective belief.-KENT: Show me the first piece of evidence that there is anything but the material world to be accounted for and I will re-consider whether perhaps there is some realm which science cannot touch.-It has proved all too obvious during the short life of this forum that different people have different ideas of what constitutes "evidence". Some would consider the mechanisms of life and evolution as too complex to have been created by chance. Their existence is therefore regarded as evidence of a designer. The same applies to consciousness. The unexplained (as opposed to fraudulent) mystic and psychic experiences recorded over the centuries are seen as evidence. A realm which science cannot touch? What do you mean by touch? Of course scientists can investigate, and they can assume/hope that they will eventually find a material explanation. But they haven't done so. Maybe they will never do so. Your argument will still stand, of course...the material explanation will always be round the corner. But our theists' argument will also stand. Science hasn't explained it because there is something beyond the material world (as we know it). You and they will have a different interpretation of what constitutes evidence.-KENT: I initially rejected the Christian faith I had grown up in, and once strongly claimed for myself, for a purely agnostic position. For several years I was an apologist for believers of all stripes and non-believers alike, determined to correct each side's misapprehension of the other. It was only as I became more of a skeptic and rationalist that I moved from that middle ground. I'm most grateful to you for identifying the agnostic position with the "middle ground". It appears that your concept of agnosticism is the same as mine after all. -Thank you also for the background. My own went in a slightly different direction: I was brought up in a Liberal Jewish household, turned atheist in my teens, then read The Origin of Species and became an agnostic. I am still trying to correct each side's "misapprehension" of the other, and am therefore frequently manhandled by both sides! Dhw: However, it really doesn't matter if you insist that abiogenesis is not a "key element" in your atheist thinking. If you prefer to think of your faith in such an unproven theory as an "intellectual consequence", let us simply discuss the intellectual consequences."-KENT: There is no 'faith' at work any more than there is 'belief' (at least not in the sense you are using it the word.)-Nothing provokes an atheist more than the word "faith"! (I put on my horns and swing my cloven hoof when I use it.) Let me repeat your own words: "Show me the first piece of evidence that there is anything but the material world to be accounted for and I will re-consider whether perhaps there is some realm which science cannot touch." Why "re-consider"? Does this not mean that your considered opinion is that there is nothing but the material world to be accounted for? That your considered opinion is that there is no realm which science cannot touch? And that your considered opinion is that life is the product of chance and not of design? Why say such a thing if you don't believe it?
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Thursday, August 04, 2011, 23:51 (4642 days ago) @ dhw
broken_cynic: Is it fair to assume you are referring to the currently accepted body of knowledge?-> dhw: No. By science I mean the study of the natural (material) world, and I am trying to separate science from the individuals who practise it, and from whatever non-scientific conclusions they may draw from it. -Scientific study is an action conducted by cognitive beings. That action can't 'claim' anything, only the beings can do that. There is no magically objective and perfect "science" going on which we are misinterpreting somehow. So I'm still confused as to what you mean when you say "science has never claimed that life was the product of chance."-> There is no default position. Yes there is... the null hypothesis. ;)-> If scientists ever do crack the codes and explain to us how the various chemicals combined to create the mechanisms for life and evolution, no doubt the atheist will say chance did it, and the theist will say God did it. At that moment, they will both have left the realm of science and entered into the realm of subjective belief.-If they both made that statement as an absolute and unqualified certainty, then I would agree with you to a point. However, I suspect that if you unpack their statements, the theist means 'the specific god I pray to did it' while the atheist means 'look dude, material processes all the way down, give it (your extraneous unnecessarily complex explanation) a rest.' Do you find those statements equally silly?-> It has proved all too obvious during the short life of this forum that different people have different ideas of what constitutes "evidence". Some would consider the mechanisms of life and evolution as too complex to have been created by chance. Their existence is therefore regarded as evidence of a designer. The same applies to consciousness. The unexplained (as opposed to fraudulent) mystic and psychic experiences recorded over the centuries are seen as evidence. -"I can't can't explain X" (the argument from ignorance) is not evidence for Y. Period. If we can't agree on that, it will be awfully difficult to proceed.-> A realm which science cannot touch? What do you mean by touch? Ie: 'the spirit realm' or faerie or some other parallel reality which plays by different rules.-> Of course scientists can investigate, and they can assume/hope that they will eventually find a material explanation. But they haven't done so. -They haven't found an explanation for what? 'Unexplained psychic phenomenon' is a completely empty phrase. Every single 'psychic phenomenon' that has ever been explained has been a trick. Every. Single. One. The fact that an infinite number of them can continue to be posited doesn't show anything. We don't have to knock them all down before certain things start becoming clear. (Just as mathematicians do not have to count all the numbers before reaching the conclusion that there are certain regular patterns in them.) You can say 'but maybe the next one will be different' and technically you're correct, but you're also a fool.-> I'm most grateful to you for identifying the agnostic position with the "middle ground". It appears that your concept of agnosticism is the same as mine after all. -It's not the concept as I usually use it, but there's no use getting wrapped up in minutia if we want to make any progress.-> I was brought up in a Liberal Jewish household, turned atheist in my teens, then read The Origin of Species and became an agnostic.-It is funny that you went that direction on reading a book that scared the hell out of the church and convinced many that the idea of a creator/god was finally unnecessary. -> Nothing provokes an atheist more than the word "faith"! (I put on my horns and swing my cloven hoof when I use it.) Let me repeat your own words: "Show me the first piece of evidence that there is anything but the material world to be accounted for and I will re-consider whether perhaps there is some realm which science cannot touch." Why "re-consider"? Does this not mean that your considered opinion is that there is nothing but the material world to be accounted for? That your considered opinion is that there is no realm which science cannot touch? And that your considered opinion is that life is the product of chance and not of design? Why say such a thing if you don't believe it?-As above: my considered opinion is that the null hypothesis is the default position.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Friday, August 05, 2011, 03:19 (4642 days ago) @ broken_cynic
b_c: They haven't found an explanation for what? 'Unexplained psychic phenomenon' is a completely empty phrase. Every single 'psychic phenomenon' that has ever been explained has been a trick. Every. Single. One. -There is currently no explanation for near-to-death or out-of-body experiences,and a large number of the ND's have third party verification, much of which we have discussed in the past. > dhw: I was brought up in a Liberal Jewish household, turned atheist in my teens, then read The Origin of Species and became an agnostic.-So was I: became agnostic in medical school and changed back to panentheist believing in a UI, after reading innumerable books on cosmology, particle physics, standard model, string theory, evolution, philosophy, and atheism.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 00:38 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
b_c: They haven't found an explanation for what? 'Unexplained psychic phenomenon' is a completely empty phrase. Every single 'psychic phenomenon' that has ever been explained has been a trick. Every. Single. One. > > David: There is currently no explanation for near-to-death or out-of-body experiences,and a large number of the ND's have third party verification, much of which we have discussed in the past.-Did you miss the part where said "Every... that has ever been explained?"-That said, I'd put a pretty penny on one or a combination of these three items being plenty sufficient to cover all the explanation you will ever need for stories of that type:- A) your mind isn't as reliable as you'd like to think it is, even when in good working order B) sometimes minds aren't in good working order C) sometimes someone has something to gain by convincing you to see things that aren't there
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:48 (4638 days ago) @ broken_cynic
b_c: They haven't found an explanation for what? 'Unexplained psychic phenomenon' is a completely empty phrase. Every single 'psychic phenomenon' that has ever been explained has been a trick. Every. Single. One. > Did you miss the part where said "Every... that has ever been explained?"-Did you miss the part where I said I have examples of third party corroboration?- > A) your mind isn't as reliable as you'd like to think it is, even when in good working order > B) sometimes minds aren't in good working order > C) sometimes someone has something to gain by convincing you to see things that aren't there.-C I can accept in many cases of human relations. A&B fit the examples of eye witnesses all seeing different things at a crime scene. But you will have to review my examples before we settle this issue.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 02:09 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
Did you miss the part where I said I have examples of third party corroboration?-Kind of like Christians have for their Jesus stories? And saint stories?
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 05:52 (4638 days ago) @ broken_cynic
Did you miss the part where I said I have examples of third party corroboration? > > Kind of like Christians have for their Jesus stories? And saint stories?-No. The first Gospel is 60-80 years after Jesus is dead. Corroboration is eye witness ,and you should know that. The NT is all oral history, exaggerated and written down years after the so-called facts.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 00:43 (4637 days ago) @ David Turell
Did you miss the part where I said I have examples of third party corroboration? > > > > Kind of like Christians have for their Jesus stories? And saint stories? > > No. The first Gospel is 60-80 years after Jesus is dead. Corroboration is eye witness ,and you should know that. The NT is all oral history, exaggerated and written down years after the so-called facts.-I do know that. I also know what Christian apologists argue when defending their 'extraordinary evidence.'-People can be tricked. People can fool themselves. People want to believe many things and will ignore the obvious intentionally or otherwise. People is plural, not singular.
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 18:50 (4637 days ago) @ David Turell
b_c: They haven't found an explanation for what? 'Unexplained psychic phenomenon' is a completely empty phrase. Every single 'psychic phenomenon' that has ever been explained has been a trick. Every. Single. One. > > There is currently no explanation for near-to-death or out-of-body experiences,and a large number of the ND's have third party verification, much of which we have discussed in the past. > > > dhw: I was brought up in a Liberal Jewish household, turned atheist in my teens, then read The Origin of Species and became an agnostic. > > So was I: became agnostic in medical school and changed back to panentheist believing in a UI, after reading innumerable books on cosmology, particle physics, standard model, string theory, evolution, philosophy, and atheism.-While I've been pretty open on the forum, Kent and I are really getting reacquainted. -I started out Christian until George Carlin when I was 15; after that I was a dogmatic atheist until about 2002-2003 when I realized with distaste that certain atheistic positions required me to use faith. At about this time I also discovered Buddhism and began practicing it, lapsing in about 2007 only to resume it again this year. Religiously speaking, I'm a firm agnostic: I see no need for a creator, but I can't epistemologically say no creator exists.
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 18:58 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
> I started out Christian until George Carlin when I was 15; after that I was a dogmatic atheist until about 2002-2003 when I realized with distaste that certain atheistic positions required me to use faith. At about this time I also discovered Buddhism and began practicing it, lapsing in about 2007 only to resume it again this year. Religiously speaking, I'm a firm agnostic: I see no need for a creator, but I can't epistemologically say no creator exists.-Then as I have written to Kent, whatever it is that we find our existence occurring in, must be eternal. And there is no 'first cause'.
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 18:29 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
Kent, -I'm still catching up on all of this (and I'm about to take this OT from Abiogenesis) but your words here caught me. -> > DHW: Of course scientists can investigate, and they can assume/hope that they will eventually find a material explanation. But they haven't done so. > > KENT: They haven't found an explanation for what? 'Unexplained psychic phenomenon' is a completely empty phrase. Every single 'psychic phenomenon' that has ever been explained has been a trick. Every. Single. One. The fact that an infinite number of them can continue to be posited doesn't show anything. We don't have to knock them all down before certain things start becoming clear. (Just as mathematicians do not have to count all the numbers before reaching the conclusion that there are certain regular patterns in them.) You can say 'but maybe the next one will be different' and technically you're correct, but you're also a fool. > -The kinds of experiences he's talking about David has discussed in his own book. Not as evidence for a creator, but just unexplained phenomenon. As a prep (don't whip out your 'crock' hammer just yet!) it pertains to OBE/NDE, something to which I've never experienced and am highly skeptical about.-However, these again are part of the world we have been faced with, and some of these claims while being extraordinary--are normal enough and beg to be explained. -There are several reports of Blind people having experienced NDE/OBE. In one example, I recall reading that a blind woman saw a shoe with a hole in it 3 stories above the ER where she was kept. -The social worker she reported this to thought she was nuts, but the woman was so insistent that she went out to go look, and after craning her neck out of a window (the shoe wasn't on an easily accessible location) she discovered the artifact. More cases have involved blind people being able to "see" to the point of detailing the position of each person in the room. (though still being unable to say anything regarding color.)-Taken individually, I would agree, there would appear to be some trick working. -But (and this is a fact I've found interesting...) those who experience NDE's only ever report about seeing dead people. (Of interest, in eastern cultures they tend to see more deities than people.) In some of these cases the temporarily deceased reported seeing dead people that they had no idea had actually died. -I strongly feel that most people don't wish to lie, and while skeptical, I feel that these claims must be addressed. And the sheer weight of people that have experienced them... this is a hell of a trick, or there are alot of people who are pathological liars. -These are the kinds of psychic events that dhw discusses when treading these waters. Myself, I ignored these for so long because of the fact that they are neither reproducible and are highly subjective. But I'm starting to tread into these areas because of my delving the depths of my own consciousness... but that's a different discussion that we've already had! 
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 19:28 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
> There are several reports of Blind people having experienced NDE/OBE. In one example, I recall reading that a blind woman saw a shoe with a hole in it 3 stories above the ER where she was kept. > > The social worker she reported this to thought she was nuts, but the woman was so insistent that she went out to go look, and after craning her neck out of a window (the shoe wasn't on an easily accessible location) she discovered the artifact. -Not exactly: the woman was having a heart attack in the ER. She floated out of her body, went up 2-3 stories, saw the sneaker with a shoe lace under the heel and reported it. the social worker is Kimberley Clark and a psychiatrist (Bruce Greyson) who know her corroborates in his book.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 00:41 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
What exactly is it about this particular event, or any other that you think sets it apart from all the ones that have been blown apart at the seams?-Lack of an explanation is not an argument for anything. Period.-In your NIN example, I can think of a perfectly mundane explanation: a radio playing outside the room. Especially in the sort of mindset you describe such a source could seem un-directional or even entirely subliminal. (Hell, it could be that you heard the song at some remove days before and it caught in your memory even though you weren't consciously aware of it at the time.)
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 00:57 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
What exactly is it about this particular event, or any other that you think sets it apart from all the ones that have been blown apart at the seams? > > Lack of an explanation is not an argument for anything. Period. > > In your NIN example, I can think of a perfectly mundane explanation: a radio playing outside the room. Especially in the sort of mindset you describe such a source could seem un-directional or even entirely subliminal. (Hell, it could be that you heard the song at some remove days before and it caught in your memory even though you weren't consciously aware of it at the time.)-Except that I took that into consideration at the time. By that age I had already gotten used to lucid dreams that never predicted anything useful. Its so bad that when I have these experiences as an adult, I have a metanarrative about my metanarrative. (No joke...)-I recall hearing the song *vividly.* NOT muffled. At the time I had no radio, and though I lived in an apartment, I lived in a west Omaha ghetto. My upstairs neighbor was a prostitute, and I can still recall the muffled sounds of her... work. There are a few psychic phenomenon, that while not making me any more likely to believe in a God, make me skeptical about everything we think we know. That includes ideas like synchronicity. -That said, I can assuredly tell you that the song I heard was not preceded or followed by any typical radio jargon. It didn't sound like something that came from a car outside, either. I recognize that my recollection could be shallow, but when it came to weird things, I always zeroed in like a fox. I would accept the radio signals being interpreted through my braces before the near hallucination you posit, because I'm aware of the power of the part of the mind we term unconscious.-You may know that I have a recording studio in my basement. If its one thing I [K]NOW its discerning audio. I can tell you (again) that the audio I heard was NOT muffled in any way.-I would sooner believe that I wrote the same song before believing I didn't hear it as clearly as I did. The lyrics to that song had a special meaning to me at that stage, and I truly felt I had stirred something within myself... when I finally heard that song some two years later, I was rapt... with disappointment as well as awe.-[EDITED]
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 01:02 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
I recognize that my recollection could be shallow...-Re-read this. Everything else is rationalization.-> I would accept the radio signals being interpreted through my braces before the near hallucination you posit, because I'm aware of the power of the part of the mind we term unconscious.-That is also a possibility. I didn't present my suggestion as 'the answer,' but as a possible, mundane explanation. This is another. Either are many orders of magnitude more reasonable than 'my brain magically tuned into Trent Reznor's/some mass psychic experience of my time.'
Abiogenesis
by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 01:22 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
There explanations that everyone can agree with (science) and there's nonreproducible experiences that defy rationalizaton. We can deride them (Blakemore, Harris) or we can accept their subjectivity and move on. -I am open that consciousness may not be restricted to my own body. I won't discount all stories as automatically false.-The rest of my post you deride as "rationalization." Because you think I should only consider the mundane? Your suggestion of an outside radio is a rationalization.-Have you HAD lucid dreams?
--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"
\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 01:43 (4637 days ago) @ xeno6696
There explanations that everyone can agree with (science) and there's nonreproducible experiences that defy rationalizaton. We can deride them (Blakemore, Harris) or we can accept their subjectivity and move on. -> The rest of my post you deride as "rationalization." ->Because you think I should only consider the mundane? Your suggestion of an outside radio is a rationalization.-Er, what do you mean by rationalization? You appear to have switched definitions midstream here?-> I am open that consciousness may not be restricted to my own body. I won't discount all stories as automatically false.-You're welcome to be open to it all you like, but don't expect a skeptic and a rationalist (a different word than I was using in the last post, hopefully this is clear in context) to be interested in the idea in the absence of evidence. Your positive claim. Ball is in your court.-> Have you HAD lucid dreams?-Yes. They are fun. Do I trust them to tell me anything about anything outside my own mind? Not a bit of it.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Friday, August 05, 2011, 23:31 (4641 days ago) @ dhw
We're going around in circles on a couple of points and I'm going to try to condense my various conversations with you (dhw) into one reply. I'm not sure if I'll succeed, I am a wordy bastard. In the meantime, here's a very apropos Pharyngula quote from yesterday:-"2. Life has never been observed to come from non-life.-Ooh, better. This claim is literally true and not a flat-out lie. It's also irrelevant. One of the things you'll discover as you get deeper and deeper into biology is that it's chemistry all the way down. There are no vital agents working away inside a cell, adding intelligent guidance: it's all stoichiometry and reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. In a sense, all life is built of non-life and denying it is like seeing the Lego Millennium Falcon and arguing that it couldn't possibly be made of little tiny plastic bricks. Yeah, it is.-But it's true that we haven't seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there's a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life's building blocks that form nowadays don't last long — they're lunch. We also have only rudimentary ideas of what prebiotic chemicals were reacting in ancient seas, so we can't even simulate early chemistry in an organism-free test tube, yet. Scientists are busily tinkering, though, and we do have protocols that spontaneously produced complex organic chemicals from inorganic sources, we just haven't found the formula for a chemical replicator yet.-But it's an irrelevant objection, anyway. Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren't even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they're done." -PZ Myers
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Saturday, August 06, 2011, 02:42 (4641 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> "2. Life has never been observed to come from non-life. > > Ooh, better. This claim is literally true and not a flat-out lie. It's also irrelevant. One of the things you'll discover as you get deeper and deeper into biology is that it's chemistry all the way down. There are no vital agents working away inside a cell, adding intelligent guidance: it's all stoichiometry and reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. -Nice use of big words, going nowhere. Non-life is very different than living material. They are entirely dissimilar. Life involves coordinated activity by millions of enormous molecules, and the very giant difference is that this coordination runs on information in the genome. Life produces its own energy internally. Life reproduces itself. > > But it's true that we haven't seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there's a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life's building blocks that form nowadays don't last long — they're lunch. -This is strawman junk. We don't know if life can pop up from simple chemicals, as PZ notes. We really know only what doesn't work in the laboratory.- > But it's an irrelevant objection, anyway. Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren't even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they're done." -PZ Myers-This paragraph of PZ is irrelevant also. But he has pointed out that life is here. And he is right, there are only two choices for 'how', natural chances or a miraculous happening. And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened.-My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle. PZ's polemics aren't worth anything. Use your reasoning, not his, to reach your own decisions. I promise not to quote anyone to you except scientists quoting their results and their conclusions, and I may well disagree with their conclusions, but agree that their results look valid. We were taught Sir William of O in med school as a way to reach accurate diagnoses. I trust my own brain every time, even if I am the oldest person on this forum and I know my brain is shrinking. ;> ))
Abiogenesis
"Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren't even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they're done."[/i] -PZ Myers-DAVID: This paragraph of PZ is irrelevant also. But he has pointed out that life is here. And he is right, there are only two choices for 'how', natural chances or a miraculous happening. And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened. My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle.-I agree totally with your analysis of this article, but your conclusion has come as a surprise to me, and somewhat contradicts the point I made to broken_cynic (Kent) that not even the theists on this forum believe in "magic"! Intelligent design is a far cry from supernatural miracles, and I would have thought that the Universal Intelligence that you have so often referred to would create the mechanisms of life and evolution by using science rather than crying "Abracadabra!" But perhaps your understanding of these terms is different from mine.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Saturday, August 06, 2011, 15:50 (4640 days ago) @ dhw
"Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren't even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they're done."[/i] -PZ Myers > > DAVID: This paragraph of PZ is irrelevant also. But he has pointed out that life is here. And he is right, there are only two choices for 'how', natural chances or a miraculous happening. And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened. > My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle. > > I agree totally with your analysis of this article, but your conclusion has come as a surprise to me, and somewhat contradicts the point I made to broken_cynic (Kent) that not even the theists on this forum believe in "magic"! Intelligent design is a far cry from supernatural miracles, and I would have thought that the Universal Intelligence that you have so often referred to would create the mechanisms of life and evolution by using science rather than crying "Abracadabra!" But perhaps your understanding of these terms is different from mine.-I've left the entire entry. Of course the contested phrase 'life appears to be a supernatural miracle' has always been the first step in my reasoning. The God of religions is supernatural. Life has appeared against all odds. Life requires an injection of intelligence and information to function. This is one of the legs that supports my contention that God must be a 'Universal Intelligence', and we are still in the supernatural realm, by definition. My answer to b_c was an introduction to my reasoning, which I suspect he has not reviewed.
Abiogenesis
I expressed surprise at David's alternative explanations of life as chance versus a "miraculous happening".-DAVID: I've left the entire entry. Of course the contested phrase 'life appears to be a supernatural miracle' has always been the first step in my reasoning. The God of religions is supernatural. Life has appeared against all odds. Life requires an injection of intelligence and information to function. This is one of the legs that supports my contention that God must be a 'Universal Intelligence', and we are still in the supernatural realm, by definition. My answer to b_c was an introduction to my reasoning, which I suspect he has not reviewed.-Before I apologize to Kent (b_c) for misrepresenting our theists, let me make another effort to understand your thinking. I have no difficulty understanding your objection to chance, and I don't mind "life appears to be...", which is nicely ambiguous, but until now this whole discussion was based on chance v. intelligent design. My problem lies in understanding what you mean by "miraculous happening", especially since you talk of an injection of intelligence and information. Here, then, are some questions for you:-1) Intelligence and information about what? 2) Am I wrong in assuming that you believe God invented the scientific laws that govern Nature? 3) Or are you saying that God did not invent them, but is able to circumvent them? You have not used the word 'magic', but Kent (b_c) does, and I don't think it's inapt, used in conjunction with "miraculous happening". The gist of it is: God the scientist v. God the magician (in the sense of a wizard, not a trickster). To put it another way, do you think God said: "Let there be life" and there was life? Or do you think he worked it out?-*******-DAVID: I like to keep dhw on his toes, his rump is so tender from the picket fence.-I like to keep David on his toes. I enjoy sitting on my picket fence and watching him run round and round the divine labyrinth.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Sunday, August 07, 2011, 18:15 (4639 days ago) @ dhw
I expressed surprise at David's alternative explanations of life as chance versus a "miraculous happening".-> I have no difficulty understanding your objection to chance, and I don't mind "life appears to be...", which is nicely ambiguous, but until now this whole discussion was based on chance v. intelligent design. My problem lies in understanding what you mean by "miraculous happening", especially since you talk of an injection of intelligence and information. Here, then, are some questions for you: > > 1) Intelligence and information about what?-Life requires information to be life and manage its reactions and processes. That information can only come from intelligence. No one has ever seen a code formulated by chance, and no one ever will. > > 2) Am I wrong in assuming that you believe God invented the scientific laws that govern Nature?-No. The universe appears to run by pre-existing laws, which can be explored by the use of math, as Einstein has pointed out. Einstein's writings are confusing but the best explanation I have is that he is Spinozan in his philosophy: the 'old man' is all of the infomation and intelligence in nature. The UI created those laws. > > 3) Or are you saying that God did not invent them, but is able to circumvent them?-I don't know how much God can change what was created. I think we just have to accept what we see and impute nothing else. > > You have not used the word 'magic', but Kent (b_c) does, and I don't think it's inapt, used in conjunction with "miraculous happening". The gist of it is: God the scientist v. God the magician (in the sense of a wizard, not a trickster). To put it another way, do you think God said: "Let there be life" and there was life? Or do you think he worked it out?-God is not a magician. That bemeans the concept of a greater power, one of the phrases I use for the UI. As Adler puts it, "God is a personage like no other person we can imagine or think of. I believe the appearance of life is miraculous, and calls to view the infinite impossiblity of chance. > > ******* > I like to keep David on his toes. I enjoy sitting on my picket fence and watching him run round and round the divine labyrinth.-dhw is shifting from buttock to buttock. He has never crawled up the hill to ponder God as Adler has done. I don't agree with Adler and his 'personage' usage. I think that is a weazel word. We must exclude all religious definitions and take only what science offers: the evidence for intelligence. To me that evidence is overwhelming. Leslie concludes: Only choices are God and/or multiverses, and this conclusion comes from looking at our Universe and not the biological side of reality. He doesn't define 'God'.-My conclusion: only a UI can create what we see in reality: our cosmos and life as it exists. Only an intelligence can take inorganic molecules and create life. The Big Bang is a creation. From what we don't know. Guth reminds us, we only know what happened after the Bang.-dhw please come down to Earth, and plant your ideas with two firmly placed feet. You continue to teeter back and forth, with your insistence on, 'I can't know anything, so why should I choose between the only two obvious choices'. You, yourself, have said that you cannot accept chance. What else is there?
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:44 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
David: God is not a magician. That bemeans the concept of a greater power, one of the phrases I use for the UI. As Adler puts it, "God is a personage like no other person we can imagine or think of. I believe the appearance of life is miraculous, and calls to view the infinite impossiblity of chance.-This brings up two questions for me.-1) I'm confused. Are you using the terms God and UI interchangeably? If not, are you positing a UI which extends beyond the universe, creating the rules we play by and a 'God' which is constrained by those rules as we are?-2) Wouldn't a simpler* resolution to your quandary be to assume that the success of chance at creating life is your one miracle rather than compounding extra inexplicable miracles on top of extraordinary miracles to explain that single one that so bugs you?-* I originally typed 'the simplest,' but I can suggest one simpler. ;)
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 15:14 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> 1) I'm confused. Are you using the terms God and UI interchangeably? If not, are you positing a UI which extends beyond the universe, creating the rules we play by and a 'God' which is constrained by those rules as we are?-See my current reply to Matt. God and UI are one and the same for me. I am a panentheist, believe in first cause. The UI is eternal and therefore within and without the universe. > > 2) Wouldn't a simpler* resolution to your quandary be to assume that the success of chance at creating life is your one miracle rather than compounding extra inexplicable miracles on top of extraordinary miracles to explain that single one that so bugs you? > > * I originally typed 'the simplest,' but I can suggest one simpler. ;)-I think simplest is a fine word. You and I have two choices: chance or design. Further either the UI is eternal or the universe is eternal. Science is attempting to prove the latter, i.e., Penrose and his CMB circles, etc. I'll agree with you when science proves eternity for space-time or phase space, which ever it is,thank you, Smolin. All my conclusions depend on the science presented, not the Bible.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 00:48 (4637 days ago) @ David Turell
> > 1) I'm confused. Are you using the terms God and UI interchangeably? If not, are you positing a UI which extends beyond the universe, creating the rules we play by and a 'God' which is constrained by those rules as we are? > > See my current reply to Matt. God and UI are one and the same for me. I am a panentheist, believe in first cause. The UI is eternal and therefore within and without the universe.-Then you contradict yourself as you said (in the same post) that UI created the rules, but God was bound by them.-> > 2) Wouldn't a simpler* resolution to your quandary be to assume that the success of chance at creating life is your one miracle rather than compounding extra inexplicable miracles on top of extraordinary miracles to explain that single one that so bugs you? > > > > * I originally typed 'the simplest,' but I can suggest one simpler. ;) > > I think simplest is a fine word. You and I have two choices: chance or design. -I think we have infinite choices, but only one so far that fits the evidence without excessive unnecessary complications. (One complication, but 'boggling the mind' isn't exactly the most overwhelming obstacle any theory has ever faced.)-> Further either the UI is eternal or the universe is eternal. Science is attempting to prove the latter, i.e., Penrose and his CMB circles, etc. I'll agree with you when science proves eternity for space-time or phase space, which ever it is,thank you, Smolin. All my conclusions depend on the science presented, not the Bible.-I... what? Where on earth do you ground the assumption that one or the other must be eternal??? What do you even mean by eternal given that time as we experience and (sort of) comprehend it is a concept which starts and ends with our universe!-And where did the Bible come into this?
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:36 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
PZ: Ooh, better. This claim is literally true and not a flat-out lie. It's also irrelevant. One of the things you'll discover as you get deeper and deeper into biology is that it's chemistry all the way down. There are no vital agents working away inside a cell, adding intelligent guidance: it's all stoichiometry and reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. > > David: Nice use of big words, going nowhere. Non-life is very different than living material. They are entirely dissimilar. -How are they different? Ok, that's too broad and is generally what you were getting at with the rest of your paragraph, so how about this: can you put your finger on the crux of the difference?-> David: Life involves coordinated activity by millions of enormous molecules, and the very giant difference is that this coordination runs on information in the genome. -Life at the level we now observe it does. It is certainly not clear that the first stirrings of a transition from 'non-life' to 'life' would have needed anything so extravagant. Also... 'runs on?' How about, enacts a pattern instantiated from the genome... which then runs. -> David: Life produces its own energy internally. Life reproduces itself. -Er, what? Funny, I thought that all life on this planet got its energy (directly or indirectly) from the sun... and here I learn that we are all perpetual motion machines! (I'm sure that can't be how you meant that... so do enlighten me.)- > > But it's true that we haven't seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there's a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life's building blocks that form nowadays don't last long — they're lunch. > > David: This is strawman junk. We don't know if life can pop up from simple chemicals, as PZ notes. We really know only what doesn't work in the laboratory.-It's not a straw man at all. He's not saying 'life re-evolves constantly and gets eaten before we notice,' he's saying that the bits and pieces that make up life wouldn't have a hope in hell on their own as they don't have the benefit of millions of years of evolved cooperation/defenses. > > But it's an irrelevant objection, anyway. Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren't even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they're done."[/i] -PZ Myers > > David: This paragraph of PZ is irrelevant also. But he has pointed out that life is here. And he is right, there are only two choices for 'how', natural chances or a miraculous happening. -Er, at no point does he say that their are only two options (he may or may not agree with that thought, but it isn't addressed here.)-> David: And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened.-You are right, it certainly wouldn't mean that 'it happened exactly this way.' It simply demonstrates (proves is a sticky word) that such things are feasible given the chemistry that was available. (Again, meaning the basic materials and rules, not necessarily that we had the starting conditions correct.) It would be a small, but significant step. > David: My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle. -Choice? Is a considered opinion really something you can choose to adopt or not? -> David: PZ's polemics aren't worth anything. Use your reasoning, not his, to reach your own decisions. I promise not to quote anyone to you except scientists quoting their results and their conclusions, and I may well disagree with their conclusions, but agree that their results look valid.-As you will, but I have no qualms using the words of others. The sciences, and biology in particular fascinate me, but words will always be my primary domain. If someone is more knowledgeable than I or has simply turned a phrase well, I will borrow (with attribution) at will.-> David: We were taught Sir William of O in med school as a way to reach accurate diagnoses. I trust my own brain every time, even if I am the oldest person on this forum and I know my brain is shrinking. ;> -That may actually be a pretty foundational distinction here. I do not trust my own brain. When my own conclusions and understandings run hard up against well-supported disagreements, investigation is called for.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 20:07 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> > David: Nice use of big words, going nowhere. Non-life is very different than living material. They are entirely dissimilar. > > How are they different? Ok, that's too broad and is generally what you were getting at with the rest of your paragraph, so how about this: can you put your finger on the crux of the difference?-Matt has covered this today with a very well-explined entry.-> Er, what? Funny, I thought that all life on this planet got its energy (directly or indirectly) from the sun... -Plant and animal organisms injest material or chemicals and then make their own internal energy. Of course the original energy is from the sun. I hope the above comment of yours was serious.- > > > But it's true that we haven't seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there's a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life's building blocks that form nowadays don't last long — they're lunch.-Pure supposition. No experimental proof of the assertion. -> > > David: And another problem is that even if a brilliant scientist makes a form of life in his lab from inorganic matter, what has he really proven? Intelligent design can make life! And we won't even know if that's how it really happened. > > You are right, it certainly wouldn't mean that 'it happened exactly this way.' It simply demonstrates (proves is a sticky word) that such things are feasible given the chemistry that was available. (Again, meaning the basic materials and rules, not necessarily that we had the starting conditions correct.) It would be a small, but significant step. > > > David: My conclusion: the odds against chance are truly astronomical, approaching infinity. I respect your opinion that chance did it. But you have to respect my choice based on my knowledge of biochemisty and genetics that life appears to be a supernatural miracle. > > Choice? Is a considered opinion really something you can choose to adopt or not? -Of course I can choose what to believe, just as you do.-> If someone is more knowledgeable than I or has simply turned a phrase well, I will borrow (with attribution) at will.-Fair enough, in this case if the statement is backed up by science.-> I do not trust my own brain. When my own conclusions and understandings run hard up against well-supported disagreements, investigation is called for.-Absolutely agreed with.
Abiogenesis
KENT (b_c): We're going around in circles on a couple of points and I'm going to try to condense my various conversations with you (dhw) into one reply. I'm not sure if I'll succeed, I am a wordy bastard.-You're right ... about the circles, I mean. And I'm even wordier than you, though I'm far too polite to myself to call myself a bastard. It would help us both if you could clarify the points of confusion, which I think you can easily identify from our conversations so far. -As regards the PZ Myers quote (thank you for that), I think David has effectively dealt with the science, although as you will see from my post, I was surprised by his conclusion. I would, though, elaborate on one point: Even if life is made of "little tiny plastic bricks", the crucial question for me is not why we haven't seen life re-evolving, but how those little tiny plastic bricks put themselves together in the first place to create the mechanisms for life and evolution. "We just haven't found the formula for a chemical replicator yet." He might have added, "let alone a replicator capable of adapting and innovating as it goes along". If it's simple enough for chance to accomplish, how come our own intelligent designers find it so difficult?-That, of course, is a major and recurring sticking point between you and me, but let me forestall the usual response by agreeing that "creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins". I am not championing the creationist cause. I do not (cannot) believe in either cause. I shall now look forward to the condensed responses in due course, and will do my best to reciprocate.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Saturday, August 06, 2011, 16:03 (4640 days ago) @ dhw
> As regards the PZ Myers quote (thank you for that), I think David has effectively dealt with the science, although as you will see from my post, I was surprised by his conclusion. -I like to be surprising, but I don't like having polemicist bombast thrown into the fray. Give me good science and good reasoning every time. When I see garbage posing as science, I will step in and oppose it every time I spot it. Since everyone on this forum uses his own brain to express his thoughts, I know Kent will want to also.-The dhw surprise is covered in my previous entry. I like to keep dhw on his toes, his rump is so tender from the picket fence.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 01:49 (4638 days ago) @ David Turell
I like to be surprising, but I don't like having polemicist bombast thrown into the fray. Give me good science and good reasoning every time. When I see garbage posing as science, I will step in and oppose it every time I spot it. Since everyone on this forum uses his own brain to express his thoughts, I know Kent will want to also.-Don't mind me... just over here standing on the shoulders of giants. ;)-It would be more productive it you actually pointed out how precisely you disagree with PZ (he, unlike me, is a professor of biology) instead of just responding to your opinion of the man.
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 09, 2011, 19:14 (4637 days ago) @ broken_cynic
> Don't mind me... just over here standing on the shoulders of giants. ;) > > It would be more productive it you actually pointed out how precisely you disagree with PZ (he, unlike me, is a professor of biology) instead of just responding to your opinion of the man.-Kent, he is not a giant, just a bombastic atheist. I take the position that I don't know anymore than he does, whether he or I the correct solution. Dawkins is the same. I have an MD degree and five years of training after that, over 30 years of clinical practice, and 30 years of reading in the areas I have described. But I am quiet about it. My curriculum vitae is an my website; but I don't advertise it. Frankly, PZ doesn't know any more than I do in biology.-Don't use him, use yourself, as I stated before.
Abiogenesis
by broken_cynic , Wednesday, August 10, 2011, 00:58 (4637 days ago) @ David Turell
> > Don't mind me... just over here standing on the shoulders of giants. ;) > > > > It would be more productive it you actually pointed out how precisely you disagree with PZ (he, unlike me, is a professor of biology) instead of just responding to your opinion of the man. > > Kent, he is not a giant, just a bombastic atheist. I take the position that > I don't know anymore than he does, whether he or I the correct solution. Dawkins is the same. I have an MD degree and five years of training after that, over 30 years of clinical practice, and 30 years of reading in the areas I have described. But I am quiet about it. My curriculum vitae is an my website; but I don't advertise it. Frankly, PZ doesn't know any more than I do in biology. > > Don't use him, use yourself, as I stated before.-Of course PZ isn't a giant... he's a small, fuzzy teddy bear. I wasn't referring to him (at least not alone,) but rather to the accumulated knowledge of humanity, (nearly?) all of which has been piled up by way of the scientific method in either formal or informal guise.-Bombastic? Yes. As I can be (thus my affinity for him.) So what? Again, tackle the content. Fuck the tone.-I have a great deal of respect for your study and your work, but if you were focused on the medical world, then in the realm of biology you are certainly NOT the equal of someone who has put in the same sort of time specializing in that specific arena!
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Tuesday, August 16, 2011, 05:35 (4631 days ago) @ broken_cynic
I have a great deal of respect for your study and your work, but if you were focused on the medical world, then in the realm of biology you are certainly NOT the equal of someone who has put in the same sort of time specializing in that specific arena!-You don't think the people I treated were biologically alive? Medicine is living biology. Unles you haven't studied organic chemistry, you don't have enough learned thought patterns to think clearly with. Just the faith that you want to be right.- Try on this description of the problems of origin of life. You are able to follow it, and should; let there be light!:-http://www.uncommondescent.com/origin-of-life/a-substantial-conundrum-confronting-the-chemical-origin-of-life/
Abiogenesis
by David Turell , Friday, August 19, 2011, 20:24 (4627 days ago) @ David Turell
Kent: I have a great deal of respect for your study and your work, but if you were focused on the medical world, then in the realm of biology you are certainly NOT the equal of someone who has put in the same sort of time specializing in that specific arena! > > You don't think the people I treated were biologically alive? Medicine is living biology. Unles you haven't studied organic chemistry, you don't have enough learned thought patterns to think clearly with. Just the faith that you want to be right.- Kent: Try this on for size. Both Matt and I are trying to educate you a bit on organic chemistry, especially biochemistry. Note this article which describes the very essential folding of giant protein molecules so they function properly. Part of the process is the 3-d shape of the various amino acids, part of it is the charge on the individual amino acid molecules and part are the chaparone molecules who make sure the folds are correct. The final 3-d shape dictates functionality. These chaparones are in the earliest forms of life we can study. That implies abiogenesis had chaparones as part of the process. More odds against chance falling together of the right proteins to make living matter.-http://www.c4id.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=239:new-research-on-protein-folding-demonstrates-intelligent-design&catid=52:frontpage&Itemid=1