Kylie's Pool Challenge

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Nothing on the fuzzy boundary that is the reason
these various definitions are being quoted?

I'm not sure what you're asking. I quoted the definitions as examples to support my statement that different people in the field had different views on how life should be defined.

 

[Astrid]

I'm not sure what you're asking. I quoted the definitions as examples to support my statement that different people in the field had different views on how life should be defined.

Your friend got into NASA and definitions of life to
show that my statement about "no bright line
distinction" is stuoid wrong and arrogant.

I dont care to engage further, but thought you
might have run across some such reference.

Mostly its something i remember from o- chem.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Your friend got into NASA and definitions of life to
show that my statement about "no bright line
distinction" is stuoid wrong and arrogant.

I dont care to engage further, but thought you
might have run across some such reference.

Mostly its something i remember from o- chem.

Ah - I agree; as I said earlier, the closer you look, the fuzzier it becomes. Ultimately there's no bright line distinction; although that doesn't mean definitions of life are useless, any more than the distinction between young and old is useless.

I don't have an explicit reference, but there's bound to be some out there (in philosophy and/or biology).

 

[Astrophile]

I have another challenge. Imagine you are walking through the forest, when suddenly you come across a patch of berry bushes.
Above the berry bush is a sign that reads "DANGER! DO NOT EAT! POISON! (This message is a warning from God. Please heed it!)

Standing next to God's sign is a guy eating berries. You look at the sign, look at the guy, and out of the goodness of your heart, you say to the guy "Dude! Those berries iz poison man! Read the sign!" The guy laughs and says "Ha! I laugh at your ignorance! I am a scientist! I have 1,000 peer-reviewed books proving that these berries are not at all poisonous! In fact, they are quite healthy and delicious! Here, try some!"

Do you:

A: Eat some berries.
B: Trust the sign.

When I was a child, my mother warned me not to eat the laburnum that grew in our garden because it was poisonous. I obeyed my mother's instructions, with the happy result - speaking for myself - that my life has been preserved into my 70s. Also, the books and magazines that I read as a child were full of warnings against eating unfamiliar plants or wild fungi, because many of them are poisonous. I suspect that Genesis 2:17 is an early version of this sort of parental warning.

If you want to take this farther, there is a very good book Plants that Kill: A Natural History of the World's Most Poisonous Plants, by Elizabeth A. Dauncey and Sonny Larsson (Kew Publishing, 2018). The book A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury 2015) is also interesting. Out of 14 poisons described in the book, nine are derived from plants. It makes me wonder why God created so many poisonous species of plants and fungi; one might suspect that, being unable to run away, they evolved poisons to protect themselves against being eaten by animals.

 

[Astrid]

When I was a child, my mother warned me not to eat the laburnum that grew in our garden because it was poisonous. I obeyed my mother's instructions, with the happy result - speaking for myself - that my life has been preserved into my 70s. Also, the books and magazines that I read as a child were full of warnings against eating unfamiliar plants or wild fungi, because many of them are poisonous. I suspect that Genesis 2:17 is an early version of this sort of parental warning.

If you want to take this farther, there is a very good book Plants that Kill: A Natural History of the World's Most Poisonous Plants, by Elizabeth A. Dauncey and Sonny Larsson (Kew Publishing, 2018). The book A is for Arsenic: The Poisons of Agatha Christie by Kathryn Harkup (Bloomsbury 2015) is also interesting. Out of 14 poisons described in the book, nine are derived from plants. It makes me wonder why God created so many poisonous species of plants and fungi; one might suspect that, being unable to run away, they evolved poisons to protect themselves against being eaten by animals.

Berries are not poisonous to the species selected
to distribute the seeds therein.

 

[Kylie]

If you mean the documentation says “ evolution is as close to a fact as you can get without proof”, when the same person admits he has “no idea whatsoever how life started , but it must have been like this….”( he didn’t notice the self contradiction) then , yes, the documentation is bunk.

This makes the incorrect assumption that evolution involves how life started. It does not. Evolution explains how life changes over time. It does not require an understanding of how life started.

 

[Mountainmike]

This makes the incorrect assumption that evolution involves how life started. It does not. Evolution explains how life changes over time. It does not require an understanding of how life started.

But your analogy ( not mine) was whether there was a “break” + propagation to explain the present placing. Abiogenesis is the “break”, if you use your analogy on “life” in particular rather than the universe in general. Evolution is just the moving of the balls.( if you accept that it explains all life propagating from there).

 

[Kylie]

1 Kings 13:2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.

From Adam Clarke's Commentary:

This is one of the most remarkable and most singular prophecies in the Old Testament. It here most circumstantially foretells a fact which took place three hundred and forty years after the prediction; a fact which was attested by the two nations. The Jews, in whose behalf this prophecy was delivered, would guard it most sacredly; and it was the interest of the Israelites, against whom it was levelled, to impugn its authenticity and expose its falsehood, had this been possible. This prediction not only showed the knowledge of God, but his power. He gave, as it were, this warning to idolatry, that it might be on its guard, and defend itself against this Josiah whenever a person of that name should be found sitting on the throne of David; and no doubt it was on the alert, and took all prudent measures for its own defence; but all in vain, for Josiah, in the eighteenth year of his reign, literally accomplished this prophecy, as we may read, 2 Kings 23:15-20.

Let's ignore the fact that there is no mention outside the Bible of "The House of David" except for one fragment that has only the last syllable.

How about the fact the genealogy of Jesus is so accurate that we have two different versions of it. And even if one of them is true, it goes down to Joseph - who is not actually related by blood to Jesus at all. And even if we go with the interpretation that it's talking about the minor, non-royal, line of David through Solomon's brother Nathan as it is recorded in the Gospel of Luke chapter 3. This, however, is entirely undocumented in the Hebrew Bible. So you'll forgive me if I suspect that its inclusion in there is a case of someone writing it in after the fact to try to make it look like it was fulfilled.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... one might suspect that, being unable to run away, they evolved poisons to protect themselves against being eaten by animals.

A pedant writes, "they evolved poisons that protect them against being eaten by animals."

Subtle difference.

 

[Astrid]

This makes the incorrect assumption that evolution involves how life started. It does not. Evolution explains how life changes over time. It does not require an understanding of how life started.

Almost like about every field of study incl
chemistry and auto mechanics

 

[Kylie]

But your analogy ( not mine) was whether there was a “break” + propagation to explain the present placing. Abiogenesis is the “break”, if you use your analogy on “life” in particular rather than the universe in general. Evolution is just the moving of the balls.( if you accept that it explains all life propagating from there).

That is a terrible analogy because it falsely assumes that the course of evolution is determined solely by the circumstances present at the time of the break. It is not. There are all sorts of forces acting on the way organisms evolve that are continuously fluctuating. it's more like tossing a bunch of ping pong balls into a river. You can look at the way the river flows around rocks and how it changes speed as different parts of the river widen and narrow, grow deeper or grow shallower, and make estimates about how such things will influence that flow and movement of the balls. But none of that requires you to know what the source of the river is. You don't even need to know how the balls ended up in the river, or how far upstream they entered.

 

[Mountainmike]

I agree your analogy is terrible of likening either the development of the universe or life , to a pool game.
It wasn’t my analogy.

- but in the context of life, the break is abiogenesis.
- in the context of the universe, the break is big bang.
The propagation from there in either case is not as simple as pool or ping pong balls.

That is a terrible analogy because it falsely assumes that the course of evolution is determined solely by the circumstances present at the time of the break. It is not. There are all sorts of forces acting on the way organisms evolve that are continuously fluctuating. it's more like tossing a bunch of ping pong balls into a river. You can look at the way the river flows around rocks and how it changes speed as different parts of the river widen and narrow, grow deeper or grow shallower, and make estimates about how such things will influence that flow and movement of the balls. But none of that requires you to know what the source of the river is. You don't even need to know how the balls ended up in the river, or how far upstream they entered.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I agree your analogy is terrible of likening either the development of the universe or life , to a pool game.
It wasn’t my analogy.

- but in the context of life, the break is abiogenesis.
- in the context of the universe, the break is big bang.
The propagation from there in either case is not as simple as pool or ping pong balls.

Correct. Not as simple. So what? Complexity is not evidence of intelligence. Simplicity is more often evidence of an intelligence behind something. Once again, what evidence do you have for your beliefs? Let me be a bit more specific. This is a scientific question so scientific evidence applies:

What scientific evidence do you have for your beliefs?

There is scientific evidence for abiogenesis. We may have to go over the basics of evidence for you to understand that. I am willing to do so. Understanding evidence would make you a better debater. But it has the downside of making it more likely that you would realize that you are wrong.

 

[SelfSim]

- but in the context of life, the break is abiogenesis.
- in the context of the universe, the break is big bang.

and;
- In the context of mainstream abiogenesis hypotheses, there is no need for a break from 'no life' to 'life'.
Evolvability requires a sustained error prone self-replication process (and not necessarily template based). Metabolism may be optional.

 

[Kylie]

I agree your analogy is terrible of likening either the development of the universe or life , to a pool game.
It wasn’t my analogy.

- but in the context of life, the break is abiogenesis.
- in the context of the universe, the break is big bang.
The propagation from there in either case is not as simple as pool or ping pong balls.

Stop trying to turn your lack of scientific literacy into a problem with my analogy. Evolution is not determined solely by initial conditions.

In any case, you are extending the analogy beyond what it was intended. It was intended as nothing more than whether it was justifiable to accept documentation for something when there is no real world evidence to show that the documentation's account is the best, or even only, explanation.

 

[Subduction Zone]

I agree your analogy is terrible of likening either the development of the universe or life , to a pool game.
It wasn’t my analogy.

- but in the context of life, the break is abiogenesis.
- in the context of the universe, the break is big bang.
The propagation from there in either case is not as simple as pool or ping pong balls.

But evolution does not rely on natural abiogenesis. It would occur if an alien started life. If a God started life. All it requires is a start to life. Now one could call any start to life "abiogenesis" if one wished, but then by that standard even creationists believe in abiogenesis.

Meanwhile I have as of yet to see you deal with the fact that there is scientific evidence for abiogenesis and yet no one has shown any scientific evidence for creation or other religious beliefs. Now I am not making the error of creationists of assuming that because the other side can't provide evidence that they are automatically wrong, but one has to admit that it looks very very bad for creationists.

 

[Mountainmike]

Your lack of scientific literacy

You too are out. Why is it atheists are incapable of civil discussion?

The many references I quote prove I am indeed scientifically literate. Perhaps too much so. I have travelled so far through it I see the cracks in the edifice of scientific realism.

 

[Mountainmike]

deal with the fact that there is scientific evidence for abiogenesis

There is not. There is plausibility evidence for bits of a conjectured process , but there is nothing at all for the critical step. The step that leapt from random chance meeting of non living chemicals to the hideous complexity of self replicating, self evolving cells. So far, all there is is conjecture.

Indeed the opposite is so far true: the conjectured chemical factory in which the leap to protocells took place : thermal vents, fissures and pools are still extant, distributed across the world and geological history. Yet none of them have evidence of protocells , antecedents to them or postcedents and therefore intermediates to present life.

Either the Leap to a protocell was likely in quantum statistics , in which they would still be in manufacture, or if that step was unlikely then all volcanic vents must have the immediate precursors to give any chance that an unlikely critical step happened. Neither is true. It is called critical thinking.

You look through rose tinted glasses at what evidence is there, because of apriori faith it happened that way.

I’m not against the idea. I’m against the promotion of it to status beyond conjecture.

Thank you for confirming one of my arguments. The forensic evidence of life that appeared in such as Cochabamba statue and so called Eucharist miracles is indeed forensic evidence of abiogenesis. Others attacked me for saying so. If creation happened there is no reason to constrain it to be a one time event.

 

[Mountainmike]

and;
- In the context of mainstream abiogenesis hypotheses, there is no need for a break from 'no life' to 'life'.
Evolvability requires a sustained error prone self-replication process (and not necessarily template based). Metabolism may be optional.

I tried to reconcile a very bad analogy with origins of life and the universe. It wasn’t my analogy. Not least the balls are still moving. Blame @Kylie the author of it.

 

[Kylie]

You too are out. Why is it atheists are incapable of civil discussion?

The many references I quote prove I am indeed scientifically literate. Perhaps too much so. I have travelled so far through it I see the cracks in the edifice of scientific realism.

Well, when you make basic mistakes like claiming that evolution depends ONLY on the conditions that existed at the time that life was formed and no later conditions played any part, then yeah, I conclude you're scientifically illiterate because even a basic understanding of evolution would inform you that evolution doesn't work that way.