Author:
Wade A. Tisthammer
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Date Posted: 04/29/05 11:41am
In reply to:
Damoclese
's message, "Pomp" on 04/28/05 8:45pm
>>Nonetheless, you have avoided the question. And I
>>don't think what you say is true. If it a theory's
>>veracity is known to be "highly probable," why
>>wouldn't it be rational to believe?
>
>Because what people evaluate as "highly probable"
>varies from person to person.
In this scenario, the odds of getting the right order of the cards is less than 1 in 10^67. The fact that one person might think a theory is not highly probable is irrelevant. If the theory actually is highly probable, it is rational to believe.
>>>Well, on the one hand you use the fact that humans
>>>intervene as evidence that life needs help, but when I
>>>point out that life in fact doesn't need help quite
>>>frequently, you begin to shift the question back to
>>>life vs nonlife.
>>
>>What do you mean "shift"? That's what I've been
>>talking about all along!
>
>No you haven't.
Yes I did.
>You've specifically talked about how
>PEOPLE can intermediate and make life and that that
>somehow lends credibility to the idea that life needs
>interlopers in order to exist
Huh?
>but you've ignored the
>fact that life proceeds quite nicely without any
>interference whatsoever from designers of any kind
>even as we speak.
Life does not at all proceed "quite nicely" from non-life. Again, without the benefit of pre-existing biochemical machinery there is no known means to evolve life from non-life without artificial intervention. You're either arguing an irrelevant point or are simply confused as to what I've been talking about (or both).
>>Because the biochemical machinery used to create more
>>life was not present for organic evolution.
>>The means isn't there.
>
>Wow. I guess they'd better stop looking!
I never said that. You asked "if life doesn't need help to make more life, why should it need to have help concerning non-life?" My answer is that life has a means, non-life does not (evidently). Should we still keep looking? Sure. But if the problems of the old paradigm still remain unresolved, I think we should switch to a known paradigm that solves those problems.
>>An experiment demonstration showing a means where life
>>evolves from non-life via undirected chemical
>>reactions. This would show that artificial
>>intervention is not necessary and absolutely demolish
>>ID.
>
>So that's it eh?
That would do it. It would certainly falsify ID with devastating effectiveness.
>>But those things are evidence. If predictions
>>were not evidence, we'd never be accepting physical
>>laws.
>
>Predictions are not evidence themselves.
Yes they are. That's a big reason why physical laws are rational to believe. They make heavily confirmed, falsifiable predictions.
>>>And I've responded that what I'm stating is not a
>>>"philosophical principle of simplicity". It's an
>>>empircal truth. Simple explanations work better more
>>>frequently. Do you deny that?
>>
>>Well, then we have to junk QM because (however it
>>arose) that doesn't give simple explanations.
>
>QM is the end result of many simple assumptions which
>were tested rather painstakingly over a relatively
>large amount of time.
Even so, it is complicated. My point? Being complicated isn't enough of a reason, especially when the added "complication" yields explanatory power and makes repeatedly confirmed falsifiable predictions of data that are otherwise problematic.
>>Besides, ID really isn’t that complicated. The
>>essence of it is very simple and can be summed up in a
>>few sentences (e.g. the notion that artificial
>>intervention is necessary).
>
>Terse descriptions are not evidence of simplicity.
It is a simple concept.
>>Affirmative. One assumption (or implication) if
>>artificial intervention is necessary: an intelligent
>>designer. This isn't as complicated as you seem to
>>make it out to be.
>
>No? Then perhaps you'd care to explain why we should
>suppose a designer instead of say pure random
>processes
Purely random processes are insufficient for many aspects of life (as I demonstrated in my last post).
>or perhaps some sort of fundamental
>universal law that trends towards lower entropy
>resulting in life
I explained why appealing to such undiscovered laws would not be reasonable in explaining the origin of biological information. And let’s not forget the second law of thermodynamics.
>>And let's use a counterexample: the robots on Pluto.
>>Does the existence of unanswerable questions means
>>science should pretend that they weren't designed?
>
>But those questions aren't unanswerable permanetly.
Why not? Sounds like special pleading to me.
>>Think of it this way: what's the origin of matter?
>>Anyone can ask that question when a theory involves
>>the existence of matter. Does the fact that such a
>>question cannot be answered make the theory
>>illegitimate? Obviously not.
>
>Cannot be answered EVER is different than cannot be
>answered.
How so? Both cannot be answered.
>>Not only that, but the same criticism can be applied
>>for organic evolution. If natural processes created
>>life, one could ask what the origin is for natural
>>processes. And if one uses the Big bang (or any other
>>explanation) one can ask the same question for
>>that explanation. What you seem to be
>>proposing would destroy the existence of any
>>explanations whatsoever. That surely is a high price
>>to pay just to throw out ID.
>
>That's because you've misunderstood what I've proposed.
That you've been doing special pleading?
>>So says you. There are reams of empirical
>>observations and arguments that give reasons why
>>artificial intervention is necessary.
>
>Reams huh? Maybe you'd like to point to a
>non-creationist scientist who says "artifical
>intervention is necessary beyond a shadow of a doubt."
That's going to be difficult if you define "creationist" as someone who believes that artificial intervention is necessary. If not, Behe would be an example I believe.
>>Chance is an impotent explanation. Consider the case
>>of a short protein 100 amino acids in length (a
>>typical protein consists of about 300 amino acids,
>>some are very much longer). Amino acids must be
>>L-form amino acids (as opposed to D-form amino acids,
>>which are the mirror image of L-forms). They occur
>>with roughly equal probability (as they did in
>>Miller's experiment). The probability of getting them
>>all right by chance is (1/2)^100, or about one chance
>>in 10^30. A similar problem occurs with getting the
>>right type of chemical bond (peptide bonds), and
>>employing chance yet again (since they occur with
>>roughly equal probability) is 1 in 10^60.
>
>Probability, when it comes to cosmic time scales and
>mechanisms which are RANDOM at their core (QM) is not
>a very good thing to lean on to rule out randomnality
>as the source of life. Billions of years in an ENTIRE
>UNIVERSE makes large numbers pale by comparision.
Not when it comes to numbers such as these. Even a million billion years is only about 10^23 seconds for example. Also note the number of atoms estimated to exist in this universe. Even chance has its limits.
>>Now this is the part where
>>"law!" comes into play. Unfortunately for
>>abiogenesis, there is no known law or combination of
>>laws to solve the problem. No experiment has
>>demonstrated how the right amino acids could be
>>selected and used to form proteins (via undirected
>>chemical reactions).
>
>If they were random, the experiment would have had to
>have run for a few billion years with a universe to
>play in for it to REALLY be accurate.
>
>>But that's okay, because there
>>are such laws and we just haven't discovered them yet.
>>So the problem is neatly swept under the rug.
>
>I'm very glad that you stayed away from experimental
>science with that attitude.
Alas, many abiogenesis adherents have exactly the same attitude I satired. "The problem is not fatal, because there could be undiscovered laws..."
>>Is "meaningful." Similarly, the sequence of amino
>>acids must be so that has useful biological activity.
>>While there is some tolerance of differentiation (i.e.
>>the sequence doesn't have to be exactly right, though
>>it does have to be sufficiently close), the biochemist
>>Robert Sauer of MIT calculated that the probability of
>>achieving a functional sequence of amino acids is 1
>>chance in 10^65 (10^65 is an estimation of how many
>>atoms there are in the visible universe).
>
>The "visible universe" is unquestionably a very small
>portion of THE universe.
Do you know what the phrase "visible universe" means? The Big Bang theory implies that the universe has only a finite amount of matter. "Visible universe" encompasses all the matter this universe contains. Amino-acid combinations obviously can't work without matter.
We can of course appeal to infinitely many unobservable universes (a similar approach has been used to counter the "fine-tuning" of physical constants) but that seems a rather desperate ploy to avoid design.
>>Chance is
>>clearly impotent.
>
>Say it three times, and it might come true.
>
>
>
>>Chance is
>>impotent, and undiscovered laws seem unlikely.
>
>There you go, the third time made it true.
Yes, saying that is much easier than actually addressing the evidence I gave. Please don't handwave. It doesn't do anybody any good.
>>Additionally, there are chemical problems of getting
>>the first protein. Hooking amino acids together
>>chemically requires the removal of a water molecule.
>>Conversely, the presence of water strongly inhibits
>>amino acids from forming proteins. How to get around
>>this problem? One theory Sidney Fox proposed is that
>>some amino acids washed up onto a very hot surface,
>>such as the edge of the volcano, that was able to boil
>>the water away. Experimental demonstrations show that
>>heating the amino acids gives smelly dark brown tar,
>>but apparently no proteins. Fox demonstrated that
>>when one amino acid exists in an extra large amount
>>among a purified mix of amino acids and heated the
>>mixture in a laboratory oven, they do join together.
>>However, even then they still do not make proteins.
>
>Universe, billions of years...laboratory oven...
>hmmmm....
Saying that doesn't make the chemical problems go away. Even if you heat the amino acids for billions of years all over the universe, you are not going to get proteins. The laws of chemistry don't work that way. Another means is needed to create proteins.
>>Damoclese: There are other alternative besides
>>design.
>>
>>>>I disagree. What other answer would they be willing
>>>>to accept (given that life had a beginning)?
>
>That there is a physical law that tends to lead
>towards life? That random chance created life?
I said other alternative. All those you mentioned are still organic evolution. "So there is indeed an alternative I'd accept to organic evolution besides design....organic evolution." But methinks you just forgot the context of my quote.
>>Such as? Can you think of one other possibility? Do
>>you remember the game of inference to the best
>>explanation?
>
>See above.
See above.
>>>However, I wouldn't be so brash as to automatically
>>>accept design as the answer in lieu of organic
>>>evolution.
>>
>>So the answer appears to be no, in spite of the
>>overwhelming evidence and the game of inference to
>>the best explanation.
>
>The only explanation is not "the best" explanation.
Well, yes it is, since there would indeed be no better explanation.
>>Will it always be the case—no matter how long
>>ID’s falsifiable predictions are confirmed and how
>>long abiogenesis still has its unresolved problems
>>(when ID predicts the existence of such problems)—that
>>ID is not a better explanation? That ID should never
>>be accepted no matter how long this goes on? Even
>>when ID has a known means but abiogenesis doesn’t?
>
>You keep touting the "known means" as though that
>somehow makes the theory better.
Confer my scenario of twentieth-century forensics: Criminal X's fingers are the only known means for Criminal X's fingerprints. ID being the only known means certainly does help the theory to at least some degree, even if you don't consider it to be enough for rational acceptance.
By the way, is your answer to my question yes? It seems to be.
>>Here’s one of my reasons why such an approach is not
>>rational. Take for instance the point in this
>>scenario where ID has a known means but abiogenesis
>>does not. Why is this important? Let’s take the
>>example of twentieth-century forensics. Criminal X’s
>>fingers are the only known cause for Criminal X’s
>>fingerprints. Therefore, X’s prints on the murder
>>weapon suggest that Criminal X’s fingers touched the
>>murder weapon.
>
>But even here the known means aren't exactly known.
>One could mimic criminal X's fingerprints and have
>them not be criminal X's ACTUAL fingerprints.
Let's put you in the twentieth-century and have you argue that in a court of law, when you have no known means by which that could happen. Think you'd convince a jury? I doubt it.
Or how about, "This wasn't murder. There could be undiscovered natural processes that could have killed the man and we just haven't discovered it yet." Think you'd convince a jury with that one?
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