Fine Tuning

[Peter1000]

This has been none.

What is your point?

Are you saying 'there has been none' experiments or observation that prove that abiogenesis is anything but a theory?

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

I am not here to critique abiogenesis, I am just asking an important question about 1 part of the theory.

You don't know what 'part 1 of the theory' is.

Worse than that, you don't know what the theory is at all.

Worse still, you don't even know what the word 'theory' means in a scientific context.

As such, you don't have a clue what an 'important question' about this subject would even look like, let alone the means to articulate it accurately.

Put down the creationist propaganda for a few hours and educate yourself. Otherwise, by all means, keep making an example of yourself.

 

[Larniavc]

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton-to-electron_mass_ratio

From your link.

'Reinhold et al. (2006) reported a potential 4 standard deviation variation in μ'.

Did you read your link?

 

[Larniavc]

Are you saying 'there has been none' experiments or observation that prove that abiogenesis is anything but a theory?

There has been no scientific experiment or scientific observation that has confirmed the ability for random, unintelligent, non-living chemicals to swirl around in a soup-like solution and eventually produce 1 simple living cell with the capability to reproduce itself.

But then a single cell is hardly simple.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

There has been no scientific experiment or scientific observation that has confirmed the ability for random, unintelligent, non-living chemicals to swirl around in a soup-like solution and eventually produce 1 simple living cell with the capability to reproduce itself.

But then a single cell is hardly simple.

Nor is it what anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of abiogenesis has ever proposed.

Again - fully formed organisms magically popping into existence with all biological functions intact is what creationists believe. Not scientists.

 

[Mobezom]

"There exists a stable macromolecule which, in the presence of suitable material, can catalyze the synthesis of another macromolecule with the same chemical structure."
"At one point in the universe, there once existed a soup of suitable materials with sufficient surrounding energy."
"The aforementioned macromolecule was spontaneously formed."

There. That's all you need for abiogenesis. Do we have to take some things on faith? Well, we assume that such a macromolecule could exist, since AFAIK we don't have that particular chemical available. But it's a well-grounded assumption - we know that RNA is both a carrier of genetic information and capable of catalyzing reactions.

So which is a better assumption: self-replicating RNA was spontaneously produced, or an invisible and untestable God created a world with starlight already on its way (or untestably, infinitely fast in our direction only!), fossils already in the ground (or miraculously arranged!). This God, even though we can't test anything, is benevolent and wants us to follow its instructions as written down, personally (or infallibly by human hand!) in the Bible, and if we don't, he'll kick us into eternal torment.

...I think I'll go with the former.

 

[Peter1000]

Do you have evidence of this?

I got this information 1 in 10^37 from this site:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html

They got their information from a book called:
The Creator and the Cosmos (p. 115) written by
Hugh Ross.
Hugh Ross is an Astrophysicist, with a BS in physics from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D in Astrophysics from the University of Toronto.

 

[Peter1000]

"There exists a stable macromolecule which, in the presence of suitable material, can catalyze the synthesis of another macromolecule with the same chemical structure."
"At one point in the universe, there once existed a soup of suitable materials with sufficient surrounding energy."
"The aforementioned macromolecule was spontaneously formed."

There. That's all you need for abiogenesis. Do we have to take some things on faith? Well, we assume that such a macromolecule could exist, since AFAIK we don't have that particular chemical available. But it's a well-grounded assumption - we know that RNA is both a carrier of genetic information and capable of catalyzing reactions.

So which is a better assumption: self-replicating RNA was spontaneously produced, or an invisible and untestable God created a world with starlight already on its way (or untestably, infinitely fast in our direction only!), fossils already in the ground (or miraculously arranged!). This God, even though we can't test anything, is benevolent and wants us to follow its instructions as written down, personally (or infallibly by human hand!) in the Bible, and if we don't, he'll kick us into eternal torment.

...I think I'll go with the former.

That's because you misunderstand and misrepresent the Latter.

Since AFAIK we dont have that particular macromolecule, either by experiment or observation, all we have then is a well-grounded assumption. Which means that a whole lot of atheist scientists got together and created a consensus of opinion and over time they forged that opinion into a well defined scientific fact.

Forget what the truth is, we have our godless remedy for life. Now lets force it down everybody's throats and take no prisoners.

If you are going to say, 'an invisible and untestable God', you must say, 'invisible and untestable self-replicating RNA'.

For both of us, 'faith' is the guiding light. Because you do not have the magic macromolecule, you must have faith that life started from non-life. Since I have never seen God, I must have faith that He started life. I just think that it takes more faith to believe in a non-life macromolecule being able to self start itself into a living entitiy with the ability to replicate, than it is to believe there is a Superior Being with the knowledge, capable of making a universe and an earth come into existence, even using natural phenomena to His advantage.

I do believe that one day science and religion will come together into 1 discipline. You have to remember that God is has degrees in all the sciences and knows all things. Look at the word 'omniscience'. It is:
omni = all
science = knowledge

How did God come to know everything? Just look at the knowledge you have gained in 30 years. What if you lived for 30,000,000 years, do you think you would acquire more knowledge. If you lived long enough could you learn all knowledge? Yes.

 

[Peter1000]

From your link.

'Reinhold et al. (2006) reported a potential 4 standard deviation variation in μ'.

Did you read your link?

The key word is 'potential'. Not exact science, but close. (probably within a standard deviation of 4) He probably got paid $10,000,000 to prove that there was a varience long ago and this would prove that this constant was not the same then as now, and therefore God does not exist. However, when he got into it, he found it to be much more problematic than it looked. How can a proton and an electron have the same mass for billions of years for numberless protons and electrons? What a stupid idea huh.

Well, it turns out to be true, but he could not go back to his atheist donors and tell them it was true, so he came up with a scientists version of dodge the bullet. He announced to the world that there was a 'potential' 4 standard deviation for u. How beautiful can it be. For some people, when a scientist says, 'potential' it means it's a fact, and over time the word 'potential' is dropped and it just says 'u has a 4 standard deviation varience. So his donors are happy, he gets to keep his $10,000,000 and the truth is shuffled to the side. Besides, it was not truth that he was investigating anyway.

 

[Peter1000]

Do you know how long the Cambrian explosion took?

Was it actually a long time?

Did it take long enough for minute/invisible incremental genetic mutations to bring about the life of all the animals whose fossils are in the Cambrian rock? No.

That is why scientists call this period the Cambrian explosion. It can not be explained in terms of Darwin evolution (i.e. slow, minny steps, incremental development). It was fast and furious and very little if no intermediate specimans. Many of the animal fossils show us that animals today have the same bone structure and are, in fact the same animal, all the way from 580M BC to today.

 

[Mobezom]

I got this information 1 in 10^37 from this site:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html

They got their information from a book called:
The Creator and the Cosmos (p. 115) written by
Hugh Ross.
Hugh Ross is an Astrophysicist, with a BS in physics from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D in Astrophysics from the University of Toronto.

Oh, indeed, if the universe's constants were different, then life (as we know it) could not exist. But if we allow ourselves to, just for a moment, not answer with "Goddidit!", then we get some rather interesting conclusions.

Let us define consciousness as the ability to perceive and communicate; that is, an entity which receives information from its surroundings, analyzes it, and alters its surroundings in order to convey information to other entities. This is rather anthropomorphic, but it works for now.

Let us suppose that the universe had wildly different constants. Suns, planets, galaxies could not form. Then life can't exist, right? Well... not life as we know it. But couldn't some pattern originate which impressed its pattern on its surroundings with slight error? And might these patterns be occasionally broken, and might there not be limited "space" or "holding power" of this pattern's "habitat"? Then evolution can happen, and life exists. Sort of.

And could such a pattern not eventually evolve something similar to consciousness? Then we would have observers.

=====================

So we have established that other universes could conceivably hold life... but not that they do. What does this serve?

There are three scenarios:

1. All potential universes can result in consciousness.

The argument from design is completely meaningless.

2. Some (more than one, less than all) potential universes can result in consciousness.
3. Only one potential universe can result in consciousness.

In these scenarios, is it any wonder that a consciousness finds itself in a universe and location suitable for consciousness? Of course not! Where else would it find itself? This is, in essence, the anthropic principle.

(4. No potential universes can result in consciousness, because we only think we're thinking! ...probably not.)

=====================

As a more concrete example, let's imagine a type of fish, called a pondfish. This fish can only live in one pond, because reasons. One pondfish is born in this pond, and wonders at how it happened to be born in the right place for it to live. "A miracle!" it exclaims.

This isn't perfect, as the pondfish was born from a pondfish. Let's suppose that the pondfish only develops consciousness at one year of age, and can only live to one year of age in the special pond.

A pondfish suddenly finds itself aware of its consciousness. "Amazing!" it says. "I am a fish who can think!" It notices that it is in the only pond in which pondfish can become self-aware. "If I were but a single meter to the south," it said, "I would have been in another pond, and I wouldn't be self-aware. This means that it is incredibly improbable that I just so happened to be in this pond. No, I rather must have been placed here!"

Do you see the flaw in the pondfish's thinking?

 

[Mobezom]

That's because you misunderstand and misrepresent the Latter.

Oh, I can't wait to hear how I did that!

Since AFAIK we dont have that particular macromolecule, either by experiment or observation, all we have then is a well-grounded assumption. Which means that a whole lot of atheist scientists got together and created a consensus of opinion and over time they forged that opinion into a well defined scientific fact.

Forget what the truth is, we have our godless remedy for life. Now lets force it down everybody's throats and take no prisoners.

...there are so many things wrong with this sentence.

"...atheist scientists..."
No, not "atheist scientists," scientists. Scientists, by definition, use scientific processes and the scientific method to develop models, laws, theories, and hypotheses and test them. This inherently excludes "miracles" that are defined to be unobservable.

"...created a consensus of opinion..."
Do you know how science works? Many people thought of many potential ways that life could have come about; some did not stand up to inquiry, and were rejected. Our best theory so far is the RNA World.

"...and over time they forged that opinion into a well defined scientific fact."
No. They used facts (i.e., observations) to test their hypotheses (life originated this way), and the hypotheses that survived were developed into theories (an explanation of how life originated). They didn't just "define" it well and then decide "Oh, this looks good, let's choose this one!"

If you are going to say, 'an invisible and untestable God', you must say, 'invisible and untestable self-replicating RNA'.

God is inherently untestable, because God is meta-physical. The same applies for miracles. Self-replicating RNA can be inferred from observation.

For both of us, 'faith' is the guiding light. Because you do not have the magic macromolecule, you must have faith that life started from non-life. Since I have never seen God, I must have faith that He started life.

I have faith, based on observation, on the efficacy of the scientific processes. (Science - it works.) We know that life must have come about somehow, and the current best explanation is an RNA world. Do I know that the RNA world was real? Hell no. That's not how science works. I don't have faith in any particular model or theory. I don't 'believe in evolution.' I believe that thinking scientifically works. That's all.

If you define faith to be "inference," then yes I have faith in our theories. But that's a rather peculiar definition.

I just think that it takes more faith to believe in a non-life macromolecule being able to self start itself into a living entitiy with the ability to replicate, than it is to believe there is a Superior Being with the knowledge, capable of making a universe and an earth come into existence, even using natural phenomena to His advantage.

Why is that? One can be explained with our current sciences, one makes only a few assumptions about chemicals, one does not invoke a Greater Power (which is inherently unscientific), one actually makes testable predictions (and its predictions have been true, as verified by scientists, not this-one-guy-I-knew-a-few-thousand-years-ago), one makes solely materialistic inferences... abiogenesis is well-supported by the science.

I do believe that one day science and religion will come together into 1 discipline. You have to remember that God is has degrees in all the sciences and knows all things. Look at the word 'omniscience'. It is:
omni = all
science = knowledge

How did God come to know everything? Just look at the knowledge you have gained in 30 years. What if you lived for 30,000,000 years, do you think you would acquire more knowledge. If you lived long enough could you learn all knowledge? Yes.

Am I allowed to question, to doubt, to call the "Word of God" incorrect? Oh, no, you call that heresy? No thanks, I'll stick with science.

...still waiting on how I misrepresented your god...

 

[Larniavc]

Nor is it what anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of abiogenesis has ever proposed.

Again - fully formed organisms magically popping into existence with all biological functions intact is what creationists believe. Not scientists.

Double post.

 

[Larniavc]

I know that.

 

[Larniavc]

I got this information 1 in 10^37 from this site:
http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/designun.html

They got their information from a book called:
The Creator and the Cosmos (p. 115) written by
Hugh Ross.
Hugh Ross is an Astrophysicist, with a BS in physics from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D in Astrophysics from the University of Toronto.

You link only asserts that the values are fine tuned.

It does not supply supporting evidence.

It's possible I've missed it. Could you (in your own words) briefly summarise the evidence that has convinced you?

The links you provide are not supporting your assertion.

All the best.

 

[Larniavc]

The key word is 'potential'. Not exact science, but close. (probably within a standard deviation of 4) He probably got paid $10,000,000 to prove that there was a varience long ago and this would prove that this constant was not the same then as now, and therefore God does not exist. However, when he got into it, he found it to be much more problematic than it looked. How can a proton and an electron have the same mass for billions of years for numberless protons and electrons? What a stupid idea huh.

Well, it turns out to be true, but he could not go back to his atheist donors and tell them it was true, so he came up with a scientists version of dodge the bullet. He announced to the world that there was a 'potential' 4 standard deviation for u. How beautiful can it be. For some people, when a scientist says, 'potential' it means it's a fact, and over time the word 'potential' is dropped and it just says 'u has a 4 standard deviation varience. So his donors are happy, he gets to keep his $10,000,000 and the truth is shuffled to the side. Besides, it was not truth that he was investigating anyway.

What a creative story.

I think I'm done here.

Good day.

 

[Larniavc]

Did it take long enough for minute/invisible incremental genetic mutations to bring about the life of all the animals whose fossils are in the Cambrian rock? No.

That is why scientists call this period the Cambrian explosion. It can not be explained in terms of Darwin evolution (i.e. slow, minny steps, incremental development). It was fast and furious and very little if no intermediate specimans. Many of the animal fossils show us that animals today have the same bone structure and are, in fact the same animal, all the way from 580M BC to today.

So you don't know how long it is.

This is like debating with a child.

Good day (again).

 

[Peter1000]

Oh, indeed, if the universe's constants were different, then life (as we know it) could not exist. But if we allow ourselves to, just for a moment, not answer with "Goddidit!", then we get some rather interesting conclusions.

Let us define consciousness as the ability to perceive and communicate; that is, an entity which receives information from its surroundings, analyzes it, and alters its surroundings in order to convey information to other entities. This is rather anthropomorphic, but it works for now.

Let us suppose that the universe had wildly different constants. Suns, planets, galaxies could not form. Then life can't exist, right? Well... not life as we know it. But couldn't some pattern originate which impressed its pattern on its surroundings with slight error? And might these patterns be occasionally broken, and might there not be limited "space" or "holding power" of this pattern's "habitat"? Then evolution can happen, and life exists. Sort of.

And could such a pattern not eventually evolve something similar to consciousness? Then we would have observers.

=====================

So we have established that other universes could conceivably hold life... but not that they do. What does this serve?

There are three scenarios:

1. All potential universes can result in consciousness.

The argument from design is completely meaningless.

2. Some (more than one, less than all) potential universes can result in consciousness.
3. Only one potential universe can result in consciousness.

In these scenarios, is it any wonder that a consciousness finds itself in a universe and location suitable for consciousness? Of course not! Where else would it find itself? This is, in essence, the anthropic principle.

(4. No potential universes can result in consciousness, because we only think we're thinking! ...probably not.)

=====================

As a more concrete example, let's imagine a type of fish, called a pondfish. This fish can only live in one pond, because reasons. One pondfish is born in this pond, and wonders at how it happened to be born in the right place for it to live. "A miracle!" it exclaims.

This isn't perfect, as the pondfish was born from a pondfish. Let's suppose that the pondfish only develops consciousness at one year of age, and can only live to one year of age in the special pond.

A pondfish suddenly finds itself aware of its consciousness. "Amazing!" it says. "I am a fish who can think!" It notices that it is in the only pond in which pondfish can become self-aware. "If I were but a single meter to the south," it said, "I would have been in another pond, and I wouldn't be self-aware. This means that it is incredibly improbable that I just so happened to be in this pond. No, I rather must have been placed here!"

Do you see the flaw in the pondfish's thinking?

Yes I can.

But now you have brought up the multiuniverse argument against a Superior Being that specially designed this universe.

Stephen Hawking is the big atheist advocate for this theory. He has said that this universe is so special and so precision that it looks like there should be some kind of a Superior Designer, so his thoughtful argument to that ghastly concept centers around his multiuniverse theory.

He says that because there are countless universes, it only makes sense that 1 of them would have the special qualities that this universe has.

Therefore, he is able to keep 'the chance happening' scenerio alive, and knock God out of the equation with one single theory. How convenient. Now I can keep sinning and carrying on in any manner that I wish, because there is no God to worry about, you know consequences for my actions, and all that stuff.

The only problem is that there is not one shred of evidence that has been brought forth to confirm a 2nd universe, let alone countless universes. Remember it is just a theory, it is not reality, yet.

I say yet, because we may very well find a 2nd universe, some time in our future. But I will suggest, to the horror of people like Stephen Hawking, that the 2nd universe will be as special a universe as the one we live in and that a Superior Being designed it too. Wow, what a scientific mind blower.

As for the pondfish, he was right. It was incredibly improbable that he was placed in that pond. But he was wrong about the pond 1 meter to the south. It too had fish that could think and were aware of themselves, just like him. It is because that pond was designed by the same Superior Being that designed his pond, and his form, and his existence.

So when we think of multiuniverses, it does not eliminate God, it expands His presence. He is all in all.
It is a beautiful study, how God uses nature to accomplish His purposes. Change your paradigm just a little to include a Superior Being in your theories, and see how answers to questions just start popping out in regular cadence. Your life will be different.

 

[Peter1000]

So you don't know how long it is.

This is like debating with a child.

Good day (again).

Do you actually know how long it was?

Remember we are talking 580,000,000 years ago. How much do we actually know about things that existed 580,000,000 years ago.

I suspect there are a lot of scientific theories and I suspect that those theories have been around long enought to pretty much become fact in the eyes of the godless, but again we are talking about 580,000,000 years ago.

You need to keep a prospective on that date. It wasn't last week, it wasn't 10 years ago, it wasn't even 1,000 years ago, it was 580,000,000 years ago.

The only evidence you have for what happened 580,000,000 years ago is some fossils in rock. The rock was dated approximately 580,000,000 years ago. Was it a perfect measurement of time, no. Could it be off by millions of years, yes. Could it be off by tens of millions of years, yes. Could it be off by hundreds of millions of years, yes.

What flimsy evidence there is points to an explosion of life fully formed, not a slow, plodding, incremental evolutionary path to higher life. Remember, nature has a tendancy toward decay, and rot, and being out of sync, not increasing in complexity.

So don't be so high and mighty about your science, when you are standing on such thin ice, and using such flimsy evidence. You only make yourself look silly to us adults.

But I do appreciate the discussion anyway.

 

[Ed1wolf]

No... "spontanous generation" is a completely different model as opposed to "abiogenesis".

His "experiments" didn't even touch anything remotely connected to abiogenesis. Most of the stuff connected to that field wasn't even known in his day and age.

Explain the difference other than your magical belief in time.