| Subject: When you present something worth solving |
Author:
Damoclese
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Date Posted: 05/16/05 7:58pm
In reply to:
Wade A. Tisthammer
's message, "How about addressing the problems I pointed out?" on 05/16/05 3:27pm
>>
>No, amino acids are not made from "pieces of life" but
>non-living chemicals. Remember the Urey-Miller
>experiment in the 1950s? No parts from living
>organisms need to be extracted. The molecules can be
>made purely synthetically.
Except they weren't really made synthetically in this experiment. This experiment was intended to emulate the conditions of prehistoric Earth. The goal was NOT to synthetically make molecules but to try to make conditions similar to see if life building blocks could arise naturally.
Are you saying that a designer needed to emulate the conditions of prehistoric Earth in order to make life? That sounds like an added complication to me.
>
>Illogical. How else did life get here?
Just because something had a beginning does not mean that we can therefore make that thing. That is what is illogical in your argument, and that is my point here.
>
>Well, DNA and RNA for example. But ID generally
>proposes that it made the entire thing (i.e. the first
>living cell here on Earth).
So are you saying an intelligent designer started with pieces like amonia and hydrogen like in the Urey-Miller experiment?
>
>Out of the pre-existing chemicals, the kinds that we
>human scientists can use to make amino acids,
>proteins, nucleotides, DNA etc.
So an intelligent designer starts with WHAT chemical? What MEANS is there to design life?
>
>It was from an MIT scientist. Do you have any actual
>evidence that the calculations are wrong?
Do you have any actual evidence that you do not owe me a million dollars?
>
>It likely did not emulate all pieces of Earth, but it
>did calculate the odds of it coming about by chance.
How can you measure chance if you aren't sure how much of a role chance is actually playing?
>The only alternative is some deterministic law (or
>combination thereof) that determines the sequence of
>amino acids. But that has problems as I explained
>earlier (problems you appear to have ignored).
Nah, you really haven't ever explained why unexplained laws are problematic other than to indicate they are unexplained. That doesn't warrant much comment from me.
>Not really. The MIT scientist did not at all
>presuppose a creator when calculating the odds.
I really don't care that he didn't. I'm saying that he didn't bother to calculate the odds of a designer actually being the way that life came about.
>
>I attack the problem one at a time.
I think you attack the problem in such a way that you can pull the wool over the eyes of most of the people most of the time.
Remember, ID
>predicts that chance and undirected chemical reactions
>are insufficient.
Yeah, but it predicts this BASED on the idea that there is in fact a creator that might neatly explain the problem. The only thing is, ID NEVER CALCULATES THE ODDS THAT A DESIGNER MIGHT EXIST. Do you deny this? Do you see why this is a problem since odd calculation on abiogenesis is what your whole argument rests upon?
So we investigate to see if this
>prediction holds true. We know one thing: chance is
>inadequate.
No, we don't know that chance is inadequate because first of all we haven't any idea of how large a role chance really had to play in the first place. It's foolish to assign odds to something when one doesn't understand the proper role of chance initially.
>
>Besides, why not use the same technique I proffered
>earlier (e.g. the card trick example) for deducing
>odds for ID?
I don't know. Why don't you try it and see what sort of numbers you come up with. I think you'd be the first to actually assign real probabilities to the chance that a creator exists. If you can justify such calculations, you'd be guaranteed academic fame.
>
>Additionally, what about the robots on Pluto example?
>Here it is known that undirected chemical reactions
>etc. are not reasonably sufficient.
It is only known because you have SUPPOSED IT TO BE SO. Do you understand the difference between SUPPOSING something to be so and it actually being so? It appears not.
>
>So is that a yes? Remember how I defined "inference,"
>it is a belief/conclusion/theory "derived from facts
>or premises." In that sense, all scientific theories
>are inferences (as from empirical data) by definition.
If all scientific theories are inferences, then they are not necessarily rational.
>
>Again, are you saying atomic theory is not rational?
>Are you saying evolution is not rational?
If it is an inference, it is not necessarily rational.
>
>That doesn't make sense given the circumstances,
>because experience and outcomes factor into
>calculating probability.
They factor in, but they do not make an outcome. The outcome is what is important. Something can be highly super probable and if it doesn't happen, guess what? It's irrational the moment that thing happens to hold anything else contrary to what is happening.
Probability alone was enough
>to determine rationality here.
No, it never was, and it never will be.
Notice that the odds
>themselves changed in the scenario I described. After
>I win, the chance that I have won the lottery is now
>100% ex hypothesi.
Certainty is not probability. Probability measures a certain degree of uncertainty. The moment something becomes certain, probability isn't needed.
>
>So now we're back to where we were. Note that it was
>rational to believe--based on probability alone--that
>I would not win.
If you only use probability to define rationality, then I suppose you are right. Of course, you'd be wrong to do that.
After I won, it was rational to
>believe that I had won--again based on probability
>alone. Then we go back to the original problem:
No, probability has absolutely nothing to do with an outcome once it is certain. We have no need of measuring the odds if we always have a royal flush.
>
>Nonetheless, it is rational at that time to
>believe that I would win. Again, rationality does not
>equal infallibility.
No, rationality equals whatever a situation spits out. That's been my point all along.
>
>But again, if I won, the probability that I have won
>is now 100%. (Remember, outcomes can easily play a
>factor in determining probabilities.)
A 100% probability is meaningless. It simply becomes certainty.
>
>Your kidding, right?
It isn't MY kidding, no.
Nanites aren't exactly exclusive
>to ID. It’s a very common technological belief (like
>faster computers). I just offered that up as a
>possible means.
So now nanites have gone from something commonly held by physicists as being capable of producing artifical life to something that is just a technological belief?
>
>True, but such a matter is beyond what is
>scientifically testable.
How so? A designer IS life just like life on Earth IS life.
>
>First, that abiogenesis created that life form would
>be pure speculation; because it is untestable.
It's exactly the same question that one would ask about life on Earth. A designer is alive after all, right?
>
>Second, what you said does not logically follow. It
>could be that life on Earth has a kind of complexity
>to it that cannot be made naturally, but the aliens
>that created life on Earth are entirely different so
>that undirected chemical reactions could make them.
>Still speculation, but it's enough to show that what
>you said is not necessarily true.
Now THAT sounds like special pleading. You've held onto the fact that life must be thus and so for many threads now, and suddenly NOW you decide that MAYBE not all life has to be quite like that. NOW you suddenly decide that there might be other possibilities and configuations for life.
>
>We don't know if something did or did not design the
>designers, remember? It’s beyond the reach of
>testable science.
If the designers are alive, then according to your own edicts, they had a beginning, right? If they had a beginning, according to yourself, it has to be that they are either designed or occurred naturally, right? Do you not like your own arguments? I could certainly understand why.
>
>"Well, we don't know where the designers came from, so
>let's all pretend these robots weren't artificially
>created."
Neato. A straw man.
>
>Does that actually sound rational to you?
When you make it so strawish, amazingly no it doesn't!
>
>Given ex nihlo nihil fit probably not.
So designers are always designed?
>
>But then again, think of my robots on Pluto scenario.
>Would you really reject ID in that scenario merely
>because we don't know where the designer came from
>etc.?
Put succintly, yes.
>
>True, but (one) you nonetheless stated a
>tendency towards lower entropy, the second law
>implies an opposite tendency.
Yeah, and later on I explained that I meant this in a relative way. I think you are choosing to forget that fact.
>
>Yes, the very thing under discussion.
Yes, but life on Earth is an example where entropy decreased in one place but INCREASED elsewhere.
>
>The designer could have, and that's enough.
>Remember, what were discussing in this case was a
>known possible means, which ID has here and
>abiogenesis doesn't.
Evolution is as much of a means as a guy maybe having a beaker is.
>
>
>
>So is that a yes?
No, it's a possiblitiy. You know what one of those is? You did just a little bit ago when we were talking about designers.
>
>Remember, for functional proteins to naturally form
>five million years ago you still need to
>overcome the same problems and known barriers I
>pointed out. Merely claiming there was some magical
>moment a long, long time ago when it was possible
>doesn't do the job.
No, you're right, it's better to pull a designer out of hat instead.
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