Higher math and Darwin (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, 19:16 (5337 days ago) @ xeno6696

Matt has argued that in relation to the origin of life, chance versus design is a false dilemma.-MATT: I don't know another way to say it: If chance becomes part of the process, then you can't separate it from the cause. This is due to a mathematical fact--consider that we look at the entire string of chances that makes life exist. Life is some number in this context. If at any point on the line of its history, one of these events was completely random, than that number is permanently a factor, and its effect is greater and greater over time. If you factor out this number, it ceases to be life. This makes the question harder, because its not chance vs. design, it's "how much is chance, and how much is design?" In a sentence: You're turning a gray question into black and white.-I seem to remember you saying once that mathematicians think differently from everyone else! The point of the chance v. design debate is to ascertain whether there may or may not be/have been a designer. Atheists believe that the original mechanism for life, reproduction, adaptability and innovation came about by chance. Most theists believe it was designed by God. Black and white. However, even with your scenario, my non-mathematical, agnostic mind has to ask you: "if at any point on the line of its history, one of these events" was designed, doesn't that mean there has to be/have been a designer? The question "how much is chance, and how much is design?" therefore becomes as irrelevant as a girl protesting her innocence because she is only slightly pregnant. If there is ANY design, there is/was a designer. The very real dilemma is therefore still between chance and design, not between proportions of each. -As regards the second half of your post, I'm sorry if I misconstrued your argument concerning research into the origin of life. I hadn't realized that you thought "the goal should be to create life ... any kind of life, even if it doesn't resemble our own ... and then work from THAT point." Perhaps the goal depends on WHY you want to find out what was the origin of life. No matter what approach you use, though, you still won't prove or disprove the existence of a designer (in your scenario, he/she will be human). If the quest is for "the truth", you have argued that we can never know the original conditions or forms, in which case we can never be sure that what we invent/discover will be "the truth" anyway. I'm all in favour of us trying to create life ... and of the similar project of trying to create a brain ... but I still see nothing wrong with also researching into life as we know it, as well as looking for forms that we don't yet know. Until the research is finished (will it ever be?), who can even guess what it might uncover?