Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

[True_Blue]

But there is. It's the same difference between "Did you win the lottery?" and "Will you win the lottery?". The first is a yes or no question. You either did win the lottery, or you didn't. For the other, you can assign a probability to you winning the lottery. The probability from the second question has no meaning in the context of the first.

You also seem very close to pulling the gambler's fallacy. I'd watch that if I were you.

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one, lest we endlessly repeat the same arguments.

 

[us38]

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one, lest we endlessly repeat the same arguments.

*sigh*

One last time: if I won the lottery, the fact that I won the lottery does not change my odds of winning the lottery again, and the odds of winning the lottery again do not change the fact that I already won it. You're actually pulling a reverse gambler's fallacy with your model.

I find it quite sad that you made a probabalisitic model of chemistry without either understanding probability or chemistry, and, in fact, not wanting to.

 

[Psudopod]

The "complexity" of a snowflake stems from the fact that removing energy to freeze the water causes the water molecules to form the lowest energy shape. Chemistry is no different. Atoms want to obtain complete valence shells and form the least reactive molecular compounds available.

Any complexity present in snowflakes stems from the complexity inherent in the underlying laws of the universe. In other words, the natural laws of the universe have inherent complexity. The gravity equation is inherently orderly. Whatever equation drives the formation of symmetrical snowflakes is also inherently orderly.

If you understand this much, what's your problem with the rest of chemistry?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

There's no difference between asking if abiogenesis could happen again given assumed conditions in the past, and asking what the probability of abiogenesis happening in the first place.

Yes, there is: the first question yields a 'yes' or 'no' response, whilst the second yields a number. The first does not deal with probability, only certainty. It's a subtle difference, but an important one.

 

[Tiberius]

My reasoning is that with the passage of time, barring the action of an exogenous intelligence, all objects and systems progress from order to disorder. Chance is too unlikely to constitute a countervailing force. God is infinitely complex, and is the ultimate order as Himself. Thus, Christianity and the Bible are consistent with natural law, whereas evolution/atheism/abiogenesis is not.

*SIGH*

If you'd bothered to do any research on this topic at all, you'll know that EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM CHANCE.

 

[thaumaturgy]

The "complexity" of a snowflake stems from the fact that removing energy to freeze the water causes the water molecules to form the lowest energy shape. Chemistry is no different. Atoms want to obtain complete valence shells and form the least reactive molecular compounds available.

But you DO realize that crystallization "reaction" carries a decrease in entropy term, right?

Any complexity present in snowflakes stems from the complexity inherent in the underlying laws of the universe. In other words, the natural laws of the universe have inherent complexity.

And what, exactly, does that mean to the discussion. You have unilaterally decreed an ice sculpture is "complex" while ice isn't. I have shown you an "ice sculpture" that is quite natural and occurs spontaneously. No "design" necessary.

The gravity equation is inherently orderly.

What?

Whatever equation drives the formation of symmetrical snowflakes is also inherently orderly.

It's called physical chemistry. It's part of a larger field called chemistry and includes significant input from crystallography.

I highly recommend you learn some of this before suggesting how it should be re-done.

The odds of a snowfake occurring are obviously 100%, provided, of course, that the natural laws allowing the snowflake have been created.

Are you about to shift the goal posts to "creation of the natural laws"? Because that is what this looks like here. You have been shown how the chemical rules can create, spontaneously, complexity and order from disorder, all without the use of a supernatural force, so you are pushing the "God of the Gaps" back into a smaller crevice further back.

I see.

An evolutionist has to make the a priori assumption that life is somehow part of the natural order of the universe.

And how, pray tell, would you differentiate that which is natural and unnatural in the natural world? Is it because of your "gut feelings"?

That's what [some] Hindus believe. A chemist who believes that natural chemistry works in the favor of the evolution of life is essentially a Hindu evolution + an impersonal god.

-sigh-

[I acknowledge there are hundreds of types of Hinduism--I'm referring to the George Lucas kind].

NOTE TO HINDUS: Your religion, being probably as old or older than Judaism, has now been relegated to a late 20th century director's hack writing style by a member of an heretical sect of judaism that has only been in existence less than half of the time your religion has!

(NOTE: I loved Star Wars circa 1977-83, so I can't really make too much fun of Lucas, but upon review his stories and scripts were pretty awful)

Yet an impersonal god is incapable of intelligence, creativity, and inventiveness, and those traits are an inherent attribute of life. That is one reason I believe God is real and God is personal.

You are free to believe in God however you wish to. That has nothing to do with understanding the science you are debating against. There are many scientists around here who are Christians and they function quite well. That's because they have taken the time to learn the science from the ground up instead of assuming their "gut feelings" and "sincerest wishes" would trump any fact presented to them.

 

[thaumaturgy]

50%. However, if you want to use Socratic Method, please conclude with your entire point after two posts. Otherwise, the thread will be too attenuated for the other users of Christian Forums.

I do enjoy Socratic Method, so we can engage in that manner via private messages.

I think you missed his point. The probability of a head, when the coin has landed heads up is exactly 100%.

Oh, and please go back and explain your math in the OP. Upon closer examination, I see it seems to start off at the bottom as P(E[sub]n[/sub]) = 1/2[sup]n[/sup]

But when you get up to n=6 for some reason it is following a different form. Could you please explain what form your probability calculation is taking? Because somewhere between n = 3 and n=6 we seemed to changed "probabilities". It appears to propogate up the line.

P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E25000) = 1/ 1.78^7526.
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E12500)= 1/ 1.33^3763
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E6250)= 1/ 3.65^1882
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E3125)= 1/ 1.91^941
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E1563)= 1/ 3.09^471
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E781)= 1/ 7.86^236
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E390)= 1/ 3.96^118
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E195)= 1/ 1.99^59
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E98)= 1/ 3.15^30
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E49)= 1/ 1.77^15
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E24)= 1/ 5.9^8
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E12)= 1/ 24,400
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3) * ... * P(E6)= 1/156
P(E1) * P(E2) * P(E3)= 1/8
P(E1) * P(E2)= 1/4
P(E1)= ½

Maybe I'm missing something here, or maybe someone already addressed this.

Thanks in advance.

 

[just another skeptic]

When they cure Mad Cow Disease on the basis of prion theory, I will be thoroughly convinced. Right now, I'm undecided, and not thoroughly convinced.

Nice discussion you all have. Sadly I only discover these discussions when they are already dozens of pages long.

Well I´m a biochemist and I worked a long time in finding a cure for BSE, Alzheimer, nvCJD and diseases alike.
The prion theory is surely true, but I have to say prion proteins are not self replicating as you might think, enemypart II. There is an existing protein non-infectious and all the infectious prion protein is doing is inducing a refolding of the protein chain of the non-infecious one to get a new infectious prion protein and so on. Not quite the common understanding of self replication. We have injected infectious material in mice and get mice dying of Brain damage caused by the infected proteins "replicating". You could get the mice immune to the disease by switching off the gene for producing the non-infectious prion. No proteins to transform, no "replication".
I could tell you more if you want, but i will first read up to the end of the discussion.

 

[thaumaturgy]

We're gonna have to agree to disagree on this one, lest we endlessly repeat the same arguments.

Actually True_Blue, I think you guys are aguing past each other. US38 has a valid point that an event that has already occurred is not subject to a probability analysis, but indeed if you wish to start from first principles a probability analysis is a reasonable approach.

BUT, and here's the big but of which Sir Mix-a-lot does not speak; the big factor here is that you have constructed your probability calculation without reference to the chemistry that underlies it.

That's what everyone has been telling you. You made up strangely chosen biases that had no underpinning from chemistry or biochemistry and you said you were being generous to the outcome for abiogenecists. But in fact you were compounding error upon error by blowing past the underlying chemistry and the proven likelihood of chemosynthesis of simple organic building blocks for life.

Remember Naraoia pointing out that it isn't a series of sequential coinflips? Well, that's a huge key to this discussion. It isn't "sequential" and I have pointed out it isn't a series of "Bernoulli Trials" of unrelated independent events.

This is an immensely complex undertaking (and I don't mean complex as in only God can do it, I mean complex in that it is a model with NUMEROUS "interaction" terms and polynomial terms). And you have drawn a conclusion that is not, in any way, founded on the complexity of the system or even a simple understanding of the system.

The fact that we have been working on it for 50 years or so is a drop in the bucket. Remember, advanced analyses and the ability to do some of the higher level chemistry is still, itself, evolving.

Fifty years and we still haven't made a human in a petri dish and you call it a failure of the hypothesis?

Need I remind you that you have had 2 millenia to prove Christianity is the only true religion. I don't see that the entirety of the world has agreed to your hypothesis. Have you failed?

Motes and beams.

 

[just another skeptic]

For the "simple" to "complex" part:
With "life" are dealing with far-from-equilibrium Thermodynamics, since the sun has a lot of energy to give away and the earth is far from thermodynamical equilibrium. I recommend some good reads about this:
nobel price winner Ilya Prigogine has done some work on far-from-equilibrium thermodynamics like:
Order Out of Chaos
(with I. Stengers)
Bantam Books, New York
1983
or
Self-Organization in Non-Equilibrium Systems: From Dissipative Structures to Order Through Fluctuations
(with G. Nicolis)
J. Wiley & Sons, New York
1977
or
Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics
Wiley-Interscience, New York
1962

all good reads and maybe they clear things up, that "order" (the thermodynamical one, not the "uh, it looks so fancy orderly" one) can arise out of disorder rather easily by applying basic principles and chaotic/complex interactions.

 

[True_Blue]

*sigh*

One last time: if I won the lottery, the fact that I won the lottery does not change my odds of winning the lottery again, and the odds of winning the lottery again do not change the fact that I already won it. You're actually pulling a reverse gambler's fallacy with your model.

I find it quite sad that you made a probabalisitic model of chemistry without either understanding probability or chemistry, and, in fact, not wanting to.

You're right in your statement--the two lotteries are independent of each other. However, probability applies where there is uncertainty. If you yourself are uncertain, probability applies. Once you turn on the TV and see that you've won the lottery ticket, now you've discovered that you've beat the one in a million odds. As human beings, we don't get to see the TV until the afterlife. Until then, the atheists are hoping that their lottery ticket is a winner. I'm not a betting man--I'm betting that there is a God and there is a Heaven and a Hell. That's why I've never gone to Vegas, and why I've never bought a lottery ticket or ever bet money on a game of chance (to my knowledge).

 

[mpok1519]

I still dont understand how the average joe is more likely to be right about scientific matters than a scientists is....

 

[True_Blue]

But you DO realize that crystallization "reaction" carries a decrease in entropy term, right?

And what, exactly, does that mean to the discussion. You have unilaterally decreed an ice sculpture is "complex" while ice isn't. I have shown you an "ice sculpture" that is quite natural and occurs spontaneously. No "design" necessary.

And how, pray tell, would you differentiate that which is natural and unnatural in the natural world? Is it because of your "gut feelings"?

Here's some reading on snowflakes and thermodynamics. The formation of snow flakes does not run counter to the 2nd law--that would be a miracle.

We can't check our common sense at the door, Thaumaturgy. Science is not a purely rational system because people are not purely rational. A heavy component of wisdom is required in the discussion of science. If you find a natural part of the world in which environmental processes cause life to form spontaneously, I would convert to your belief system. But we don't see such a thing. Spontaneous generation is no longer considered a true idea. If you believe a snowman is less complex that simple snow after a snowfall, then again, we can't have a conversation. I can't prove or explain compexity to someone who won't understand. This whole thread presupposes that you understand complexity. I'm sure if we were discussing a spiritually or politically neutral topic, we'd be able to see eye-to-eye. But the reality is that we're having a spiritual discussion, not a scientific discussion, and spiritual forces predominate in this realm. I'm not saying you lack common sense. Far from it. I am saying that our respective spiritual beliefs completely dominate our view of the world and our view of science, and the level of our perception and the sharpness of our thinking with respect to matters of science that relate to spirituality are influenced by spiritual forces beyond our control.

 

[mpok1519]

Science is SUPPOSED to be rational; whats irrational is all those people who think humankind emerged from two people only and the earth was made in literally seven days.

Thats irrational.

 

[Naraoia]

No, because there is absolute truth that exists independent of a person's state of mind and belief system.

Right. That's more or less what I was trying to say. That nature works whether or not we know how it works, and us (or the world) not knowing the rules doesn't prevent the world from following them. Why should current limitations of human understanding prevent chemicals from coming alive?

For the same reason, certain individual actions are wrong regardless of whether a person or society wants them to be wrong.

I hope this isn't an attempt to derail this thread into a discussion of morals. I'm not game.

 

[thaumaturgy]

Here's some reading on snowflakes and thermodynamics. The formation of snow flakes does not run counter to the 2nd law--that would be a miracle.

I never said snowflakes ran counter to the second law. If you knew chemistry you'd understand what I said.

The process of crystallization carries with it a negative entropy term. The key is that the overall system entropy increases. The entropy of crystallization is always negative. The entropy of the universe or of a closed system is always positive.

My point, if you could follow it, is that entropy doesn't always and everywhere increase all the time for everything. The important part of the Second Law is that in a closed system the entropy increases. But individual members of a system can carry entropy decreasing terms.

I recommend this ppt presentation from Purdue University:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/xray/cleeg2.ppt

Please, do read what is being posted.

 

[us38]

You're right in your statement--the two lotteries are independent of each other. However, probability applies where there is uncertainty.

Probability and uncertainty are very different things. Certainty refers to the strength of a belief. Probability refers to the outcome of an event. While probability may help us determine our certainty of an outcome that we don't know, it never affects the actual outcome of the event.

Once you turn on the TV and see that you've won the lottery ticket, now you've discovered that you've beat the one in a million odds.

If I won the lottery and don't check the TV, I still won the lottery. That I don't know it, and in fact know that it's unlikely, doesn't change the fact that I still won.

As human beings, we don't get to see the TV until the afterlife. Until then, the atheists are hoping that their lottery ticket is a winner. I'm not a betting man--I'm betting that there is a God and there is a Heaven and a Hell.

From this I gather that you only believe in god because of possible punishment/reward, am I correct?

BTW, abiogenesis and evolution have nothing to do with god, heaven, or hell. Stop creating a false dichotomy.

 

[Naraoia]

I still dont understand how the average joe is more likely to be right about scientific matters than a scientists is....

Technically he didn't say that He only said that the scientist isn't more likely to be right. That could include equal likelihood.

Minutiae aside, you aren't the only one who's curious about that assertion.

 

[True_Blue]

I never said snowflakes ran counter to the second law. If you knew chemistry you'd understand what I said.

The process of crystallization carries with it a negative entropy term. The key is that the overall system entropy increases. The entropy of crystallization is always negative. The entropy of the universe or of a closed system is always positive.

My point, if you could follow it, is that entropy doesn't always and everywhere increase all the time for everything. The important part of the Second Law is that in a closed system the entropy increases. But individual members of a system can carry entropy decreasing terms.

I recommend this ppt presentation from Purdue University:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/xray/cleeg2.ppt

Please, do read what is being posted.

K, I read your presentation, and I fully understand what you are trying to communicate. Let me approach this problem from a different angle--nature is full of "crystals," which for purposes of this discussion I am defining very broadly. The valence shells around nuclei are "crystals." The eletrons around the nucleus like to arrange themselves in particular patterns based on the fundamental mathematics governing atoms. Atoms resist successive increases in the number of electrons surrounding the nucleus, and it gets increasingly more difficult to add electrons beyond the stable equilibrium. Nuclei themselves resist successive attempts to add additional protons to the nucleus. The more protons a human being tries to add to the nucleus, the more unstable the atom becomes. An artificially large atom is more complex than a smaller natural atom, and the artificial atoms are increasingly more unstable. Atomic nuclei can be properly thought of as crystalline structures of protons and neutrons.

There is both a fundamental complexity and a fundamental simplicity to naturally occurring "crystals." They are complex to the extent of their governing math. They are simple to the extent that their properties in nature cannot exceed certain natural limits, absent astronomically high improbabilities. Thus, snowflakes have natural size limits--you'll never go walking outside and see a three-foot snowflake. Human beings might be able to construct a three-foot snowflake, so if I saw one, I would conclude that it was the result of intelligent design.

 

[True_Blue]

Technically he didn't say that He only said that the scientist isn't more likely to be right. That could include equal likelihood.

Minutiae aside, you aren't the only one who's curious about that assertion.

Thank you for making that point, Naraoia.

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven."