Inevitable problem with abiogenesis

[dmmesdale]

Falsifiablility is the standard for what? Only for scientific propositions, as I understand it. I'm not sure why you would wish to reduce the existence of God to the status of a falsifiable proposition. The second time of what? The second time you have failed to explain to me why you subscribe to such an irreligious view?

Your 32. You. ''That "God did it" cannot be disproven by science, no matter what phenomenon it is invoked for. That's what I mean by unfalsifiable. Nor can it be an explanation, because there is no "how" to it. unfalsifiable. "God did it" does not do that.''

If you use that standard to eliminate God then by the same standard you can eliminate yourself because your existence is unfalsifiable by you. It is an absurdity. Now it sounds like you are doing damage control. Non believers and their apologists always use double standards. I don't know how i can make it anymore simpler. Science is about what is false. That means alternatives hypos are eliminated. The purpose of science is to deduce a cause for a given effect even if they do not know how. They do not know how the pyramids were built. That does not eliminate an intelligent source for their construction and not knowing how God constructed the universe or formed life does not eliminate the reasonable inference of the God hypo as the best explanation. So that is a bogus standard which cannot be applied consistently. It is manufactured out of thin air. Prove the 'how' is a universal standard in science. Otherwise you are pulling it out of thin air.

 

[Speedwell]

Your 32. You. ''That "God did it" cannot be disproven by science, no matter what phenomenon it is invoked for. That's what I mean by unfalsifiable. Nor can it be an explanation, because there is no "how" to it. unfalsifiable. "God did it" does not do that.''

If you use that standard to eliminate God...

Hello! What I am trying to tell you is that God cannot be eliminated. But you, on the other hand, want to reduce the great truth of God's existence the the provisional and uncertain status of a scientific theory.

 

[AV1611VET]

But you, on the other hand, want to reduce the great truth of God's existence to the provisional and uncertain status of a scientific theory.

What goes around, comes around, eh?

 

[dmmesdale]

Hello! What I am trying to tell you is that God cannot be eliminated.

Why not? If God cannot be falsified then [according to you] God cannot be verified. If both those are true then God can be eliminated and that is what they erroneously do and you abet them. Below

He's right, though. "God did it" is an unfalsifiable proposition;

If life from exclusive nonlife is true then God is falsified. Therefore God can be falsifled and your statement above is false.

Nor can it be an explanation, because there is no "how" to it. The purpose of a scientific explanation is to explain how a phenomenon came about. "God did it" does not do that.

This is your second error which you failed to explain, again. Scientists do not need an explanation to deduce a cause and the so-called standard is ginned up nonsense which cannot be applied consistently. If SETI recieves coded signals from deep space when decoded reveals space ship building instructions then they do not need to know how ET did it to deduce an intelligent living cause. It is manufactured nonsense.

But you, on the other hand, want to reduce the great truth of God's existence the the provisional and uncertain status of a scientific theory.

You already set the precedent for that when you said

''God did it" is an unfalsifiable proposition; you can't do science with unfalsifiable propositions.''

Once again a double standard meaning do as you say and not as you do. You were printing God cannot be the first cause of biolife here because the God proposition cannot be falsified, cannot be explained and does not explain how God did it. Now you are printing God cannot be eliminated and i am asking, why not?

 

[dad]

Even so, how could you rule out the possibility that God had taken exactly the same role (whatever that is) in your experiment as He had in the original abiogenesis event? .

I could rule it out by reading His word and how Jesus created it all.

 

[AV1611VET]

The existence of God cannot be falsified.

Looks to me like science can take a hike.

 

[Speedwell]

Looks to me like science can take a hike.

Better not say that. It's beginning to look to me like Dmmsdale has to prove God's existence with science or he can't believe in Him.

 

[AV1611VET]

Better not say that. It's beginning to look to me like Dmmsdale has to prove God's existence with science or he can't believe in Him.

Oh-oh!

 

[Chriliman]

Why not? If God cannot be falsified then [according to you] God cannot be verified. If both those are true then God can be eliminated and that is what they erroneously do and you abet them. Below

If life from exclusive nonlife is true then God is falsified. Therefore God can be falsifled and your statement above is false.


This is your second error which you failed to explain, again. Scientists do not need an explanation to deduce a cause and the so-called standard is ginned up nonsense which cannot be applied consistently. If SETI recieves coded signals from deep space when decoded reveals space ship building instructions then they do not need to know how ET did it to deduce an intelligent living cause. It is manufactured nonsense.

You already set the precedent for that when you said Once again a double standard meaning do as you say and not as you do. You were printing God cannot be the first cause of biolife here because the God proposition cannot be falsified, cannot be explained and does not explain how God did it. Now you are printing God cannot be eliminated and i am asking, why not?

Falsifiability means something could be shown to be false. God doesn't fall into that category because God can never be shown to be false. IOW, he's always true.

 

[dmmesdale]

Falsifiability means something could be shown to be false. God doesn't fall into that category because God can never be shown to be false. IOW, he's always true.

Then you agree with the critics here...

1) the God hypo, in origin of life, is unscientific because it cannot be falsified?

2)Therefore need not be considered when seeking a first cause of biolife here?

 

[Astrophile]

Its not possible to demonstrate that life came from non-life.

Think with me for a second: imagine scientists finally successfully demonstrate how life came from non-life and everyone celebrates the amazing proof for abiogenesis. What they may not realize is, had there not been a living conscious being to perform the demonstration then there'd be no demonstration, therefore the demonstration would actually prove life came from a living being, not non-life.

Now, despite this clear logic, you may still desire to believe life originated from non-life somehow, but you should realize that any demonstration showing life arise from non-life, actually logically requires an intentional living being as the cause.

Note: I'm not against evolution, so please refrain from discussing it on this thread. Thanks!

I don't think so. The fact that nowadays modern chemists would have to synthesise non-living organic compounds and put them together in a suitable environment for them to react to produce a living organism doesn't prove that these organic compounds couldn't have originated non-biologically in space or on the early Earth or that the same suitable environment couldn't have existed on the early Earth. In short, the experiment would show that the presence of intentional living beings was a sufficient condition for abiogenesis but perhaps not a necessary one.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Scientists do not need an explanation to deduce a cause and the so-called standard is ginned up nonsense which cannot be applied consistently. If SETI recieves coded signals from deep space when decoded reveals space ship building instructions then they do not need to know how ET did it to deduce an intelligent living cause.

We know how to send radio messages. That is not a phenomenon that requires an explanation. We have one already. The same cannot be said for abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis is explained by ______.

Just filling the blank with a noun doesn't explain anything, whether you fill it with aliens, gods, or impersonal forces.

 

[Speedwell]

Then you agree with the critics here...

1) the God hypo, in origin of life, is unscientific because it cannot be falsified?

Not unscientific--non-scientific. You use "unscientific" as if it was a bad word. All unfalsifiable means is that there is no scientific research or experiment you could do to prove it wrong--no job for science there at all.

2)Therefore need not be considered...

You can consider it or not, as you like. Science can't rule it out.

...when seeking a first cause of biolife here?

I don't know why this is so difficult.


Scientists are working to discover how life first arose from non-life.

Some people think God was behind it, some don't.

Science can't answer that question.

It's just that simple.

 

[dmmesdale]

We know how to send radio messages. That is not a phenomenon that requires an explanation. We have one already. The same cannot be said for abiogenesis.

Abiogenesis is explained by ______.

Just filling the blank with a noun doesn't explain anything, whether you fill it with aliens, gods, or impersonal forces.

If you are looking for the first cause of life here then the most reasonalbe is a living source and not an inverse. Again, it does not have to explain anything to eliminate its competing hypo. In this case all life from exclusive nonlife. Once cause is established and the competing hypo is eliminated then they can go to identity, not before. That is what you are doing, here. You got the cart before the horse.

It is akin to discoverig a dead body, multiple stab wounds, a knife sticking out of her chest, blood all over and bloody footprints exiting to room and assuming we cannot deduce a murder because we do not know the identity of the perp. Therefore it must be natural causes. In both cases, you have your mind made up in spite of the evidence. Not because of the evidence.

 

[essentialsaltes]

If you are looking for the first cause of life here then the most reasonalbe is a living source

If it is the first cause of life here, then the solution can't be here and alive.

It is akin to discoverig a dead body, multiple stab wounds, a knife sticking out of her chest, blood all over and bloody footprints exiting to room and assuming we cannot deduce a murder because we do not know the identity of the perp. Therefore it must be natural causes. In both cases, you have your mind made up in spite of the evidence. Not because of the evidence.

As long as we're throwing misleading analogies around, it is more like saying that Italy must have been carved by aliens because it looks like a boot. And what are the odds of that?

 

[AV1611VET]

As long as we're throwing misleading analogies around, it is more like saying that Italy must have been carved by aliens because it looks like a boot. And what are the odds of that?

Of aliens wearing boots? probably slim.

And for the record, Italy looks like a hammerhead shark to me.

 

[dmmesdale]

If it is the first cause of life here, then the solution can't be here and alive.

True.

As long as we're throwing misleading analogies around, it is more like saying that Italy must have been carved by aliens because it looks like a boot. And what are the odds of that?

Appeals to sacrcasm not a logical argument and nothing wrong with the dead corpse analogy. The real problem is elsewhere.

 

[pshun2404]

Why not? If God cannot be falsified then [according to you] God cannot be verified. If both those are true then God can be eliminated and that is what they erroneously do and you abet them. Below

If life from exclusive nonlife is true then God is falsified. Therefore God can be falsifled and your statement above is false.


This is your second error which you failed to explain, again. Scientists do not need an explanation to deduce a cause and the so-called standard is ginned up nonsense which cannot be applied consistently. If SETI recieves coded signals from deep space when decoded reveals space ship building instructions then they do not need to know how ET did it to deduce an intelligent living cause. It is manufactured nonsense.

You already set the precedent for that when you said Once again a double standard meaning do as you say and not as you do. You were printing God cannot be the first cause of biolife here because the God proposition cannot be falsified, cannot be explained and does not explain how God did it. Now you are printing God cannot be eliminated and i am asking, why not?

Popper said that “statements or systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of conflicting with possible, or conceivable observations” (Popper 1962, 39) which in plain English means that he rejected “verifiability” as a criterion for a scientific theory or hypothesis to be accepted as possibly true.


However, the truth is, because something cannot be falsified does not equal it being false, AND if something can be VERIFIED it actually IS true. Herein lays the dilemma with the idea itself. The mass of Zinc IS 65.38 u ± 0.002 u and this has been verified for a long, long, time. It cannot be falsified but that this IS its mass IS scientific (because it indeed has been verified), Now when they did not know it was not asked “Well it might not be 65.38 u ± 0.002 u?" Instead it was demonstrated to be true by OBSERVATION, and thus VERIFIED to be a proven fact. No one can be idiotic enough to say because the mass of zinc cannot be falsified that it is not scientific.


Popper’s demarcation criterion (though clung to as the ONLY legitimate criteria by Evolutionary Biologists) has been criticized both for excluding legitimate science (Hansson 2006) and for giving some pseudosciences the status of being scientific (Agassi 1991; Mahner 2007, 518–519).


In 1976 Popper himself based on his own theory of falsifiability declared that “Darwinism is not a testable scientific theory, but a metaphysical research program” (In Popper’s, Unended Quest, London: Fontana, 1976) and was of course bombarded with criticism from EBs all over the world that Popper misrepresents evolution.


Popper, Karl, 1, 962. Conjectures and refutations. The growth of scientific knowledge, New York: Basic Books.


For a few scientific rebuttals see:

Hansson, Sven Ove, 2006. “Falsificationism Falsified”, Foundations of Science, 11: 275–286

Agassi, Joseph, 1991. “Popper’s demarcation of science refuted”, Methodology and Science, 24: 1–7

Mahner, Martin, 2007. “Demarcating Science from Non-Science”, pp 515-575

 

[pshun2404]

After all, abiogenesis cannot be falsified yet is called scientific and is believed to be true by many. That there was a universal common ancestor is not falsifiable, because it cannot be shown to actually have existed or not existed, yet it is called scientific and believed to be true. That speciation only produces variation in the same organism has been verified over and over again, in nature and in the lab, and the opposing HYPOTHESIS cannot be falsified, yet it 100% believed to be what happened and is alleged to be “scientific”. Really? Hmmm? Maybe Popper was right after all.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Its not possible to demonstrate that life came from non-life.

Think with me for a second: imagine scientists finally successfully demonstrate how life came from non-life and everyone celebrates the amazing proof for abiogenesis. What they may not realize is, had there not been a living conscious being to perform the demonstration then there'd be no demonstration, therefore the demonstration would actually prove life came from a living being, not non-life.

Now, despite this clear logic, you may still desire to believe life originated from non-life somehow, but you should realize that any demonstration showing life arise from non-life, actually logically requires an intentional living being as the cause.

Note: I'm not against evolution, so please refrain from discussing it on this thread. Thanks!

They would be replicating the conditions which brought about the first life form. It wil be a simulation of what happened.

For example, if you want to prove that a royal flush is a possible hand then you could pick out the cards. That seems to be what you think they'd be doing - like they'd have some machine delicately stringing a molecule together. I agree - that would not be acceptable, though it would be progress. But what they're doing is more like shuffling and dealing the cards repeatedly until the hand emerges. And that is the proof of concept.