Abiogenesis (Origins)

by broken_cynic , Thursday, August 04, 2011, 23:51 (4641 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.