Origin of Life

[Silmarien]

I'm not sure of what explanations you view as "completely nonsensical". Origin of life theories tend to make sense to me insofar as relying on basic biochemical reactions under certain conditions. We don't exactly know how everything would have happened precisely, but there has been a lot of progress in that area.

And I don't think it's a case of actively avoiding theism, so much as seeking explanations that are well, explanations. "God did it" offers zero explanatory power. Not unless one wishes to first demonstrate the positive existence of God and then proffer a testable explanation as to how they created life.

My primary interest lies in philosophy of mind, so it's reductionist and eliminative explanations there that I find completely implausible. I'm not familiar enough with theories on abiogenesis to really know what's going on here, but I've seen hints of similar issues popping up--look at issues like the feud between Richard Dawkins and Denis Noble. (Noble is an atheist too.)

This is what I mean about avoiding theism. Insisting upon reductionism in spite of scientific evidence to the contrary is not seeking actual explanations; it's clinging to an interpretation that buttresses an atheistic position, no matter how many problems that interpretation may have. I've seen multiple atheistic scientists and philosophers comment on this problem--the fear amongst their colleagues that moving away from reductionism would let God back into the picture. (I've experienced this myself, back in my anti-theist days--irrationally discarding anything that smelled like traditional theism.)

I don't think that "God did it" is in and of itself an explanation, though. The issue is that once you move away from a mechanistic model of the universe, atheism loses the intellectual highground that it currently enjoys.

 

[Waggles]

Yes, what do those stupid scientists know anyways?

I am glad you asked.
The answer is nothing. Nothing about the truth of God and the beginnings
of everything.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us
which are saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18

 

[Belk]

I am glad you asked.
The answer is nothing. Nothing about the truth of God and the beginnings
of everything.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us
which are saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:18

Yeah! Except for all those scientists who are Christian. One would think they might know something of God.

 

[mindlight]

So what? Certainty for any of this is not being asserted, nor does uncertainty advance the cause of creationism.

Atheist Evolutionists and proponents of abiogenesis are asking us to trust in a theory that has zero explanatory power, no empirical proof and cannot produce reliable future predictions. There is no case for a Creationist theory of how God did it but nor is there a dishonest attempt to explain what is clearly beyond our reach. In short when you cannot know it comes down to who you know and who you trust. What facts there are are not in question here. I trust God is both capable of and able to understand His own creation.

 

[Waggles]

Yeah! Except for all those scientists who are Christian. One would think they might know something of God.

"Christian" is a very broad church indeed. Some are by name only.
Some by an infant christening. Some by parental inheritance.

Now REAL Christians have God - the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth -
dwelling within them. Therefore we truly know the things of God,
especially when it comes to creation by the power of Jesus.

Evolution is the religion of the dead.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

They may know their BASIC PHYSICS.....
but anybody who knows modern Theoretical Physics...... would tend to be impressed.

The evidence suggests otherwise - nothing but crickets and tumbleweed in response from the theoretical physics community.

The man who I quote in the opening post here has an IQ of 172......

Anyone who's spent time in the company of Mensans knows IQ is a very limited measure...

 

[xianghua]

Why would every step have to be functional in and of itself?

because the low chance to evolve it at once. if there is no functional stepwise way then the chance to get the entire system via neutral way is very similar to the chance to evolve it at once. so we must involve natural selection.

Not really, but I think the best answer is almost always going to be immanent teleology, so I don't really view natural processes as completely undirected.

not realy? ok. let me ask you a question: take a look at this fan (kind of a motor). if you will find such a motor on a far planet, (and lets say that a correct answer will give you one million$). will you claim that this motor were designed or evolved by a natural process? (lets say that it even has a self replicating system and made from organic components like a living thing).

(image from https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Bearing-Computer-Radiators/dp/B000O8I474)

 

[Silmarien]

Evolution is the religion of the dead.

Not sure about Dawkins & co., but most people don't worship evolution.

not realy? ok. let me ask you a question: take a look at this fan (kind of a motor). if you will find such a motor on a far planet, (and lets say that a correct answer will give you one million$). will you claim that this motor were designed or evolved by a natural process? (lets say that it even has a self replicating system and made from organic components like a living thing).

If there were evidence of an alien civilization around to design such a thing, I would assume design. If there were just giant organic alien fans all over the place, I'd want to know more.

The problem with these sorts of counterfactuals is that they're not real. You might as well ask, "If an angel came to you in a flash of light and told you that Intelligent Design were true, would you believe it or not?" In that case, yes.

 

[Belk]

"Christian" is a very broad church indeed. Some are by name only.
Some by an infant christening. Some by parental inheritance.

Now REAL Christians have God - the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth -
dwelling within them. Therefore we truly know the things of God,
especially when it comes to creation by the power of Jesus.

Evolution is the religion of the dead.

Ah, I see. So your claim is that anyone who accepts evolution can't be a real Christian?

 

[xianghua]

If there were just giant organic alien fans all over the place, I'd want to know more.

so we cant realy conclude design if we will see a motor or a watch in this kind of situation?

The problem with these sorts of counterfactuals is that they're not real. .

why not? the flagellum (or the atp synthase) is a real spinning motor. so its actually a real situation.

 

[Speedwell]

so we cant realy conclude design if we will see a motor or a watch in this kind of situation?

That's right. There are two possibilities:

1. We can conclude design if we find evidence that the object was manufactured.

2. We can't tell if the object was designed or not if we can't find evidence that the object was manufactured.

So, given an object of unkown origin, we can decide it was designed, or we can decide that we don't know whether it was designed or not. Those are the only two possibilities, because design can never be absolutely ruled out.

But evdence of manufacture is the only thing we can base our decision on. Functionality or complexity are not evidence of design.

 

[Obliquinaut]

I am intrigued how you would react to my
suggestion that Dr. Chaim Henry Tejman deserves the Origin of Life prize:

I am not a physicist and what tiny bits of Dr. Tejman's stuff that I have seen from your posts seems indifferentiable from any number of (sorry to be so harsh) "crackpot" stuff or pseudoscience. But that is simply my "opinion" based on years teaching chemistry and working as a chemist, I will freely admit that the more theoretical and advanced ends of physics were not my strong suit.

When I go onto his page I see a lot of scribbles but so far no real mathematical rigor. On Page 6 of the webpage where he attempts to explain something about 2 He atoms it is rather confusing and hard to follow. First off why would two He atoms bond? Is he talking about bonding? But more troubling is his crayon picture of a He(?) atom which looks like he's trying to tell me there are 2/3rds of the usual suite of p-orbitals rather than an s-orbital that He has (p orbitals don't show up until later in the periodic table or with higher energy electrons) so why does he draw the He like that?

I jumped ahead to his discussion of global warming to get my bearings a bit. While I think he is correct that we need to eliminate reliance on fossil fuels and to plant more trees, unfortunately his explanation of global warming is complete and utter crackpot. (I apologize for being so harsh). Global warming is rather more simplistic and easily explained with more standard chemistry and physics (not that it is a "simple" concept in its details).

Now far be it from me to sit in judgement of advanced physics or mathematics, two areas I am not qualified to sit in judgement of despite my career choice. I don't see much of either in what I've read from his page. I would caution that when reading stuff like this to definitely ground it with comparisons of what other physicists and chemists say about these things.

 

[Anguspure]

I'm familiar with what ID advocates claim. What I'm saying is that arguing that "scientific experiment" = "ID" is not what the concept of ID entails.

Clearly in any observation that seeks to negate intelligent input, the observer is the Elephant in the room.
So when the observer also acts to set the initial conditions of lowered entropy in order for an observation to proceed in a desired direction then we have no longer have an Elephant standing quietly in the corner, rather the Elephant itself has a significant part to play in the outcome that should not be ignored.

Like I said, whether the conditions were representative of an early Earth is (was) up for debate and somewhat besides the point.

It is besides the point if all that was being demonstrated is that certain compounds (that happen to be used for organic purposes) may arise from certain processes that might conceivably be found in the natural world.

However the conflict has arisen because the findings of the experiment have been widely interpreted as implying something a whole lot more than that, namely that biological things originated as a result of unguided natural processes in the early environment of the Earth.

If you're going to argue that "setting up an experiment" = "intelligent design", then you're not quite advocating the traditional ID position which implies a much more active involvement in the creation of living things.

I'm not quite sure what you are referring to but: How so?
Those who study under the pretext of ID have never made any such allusion (at least professionally) and in fact studiously avoid such inferences.

Even if we allow the strawman that convolutes ID with Creationism, the first part of Genesis (until we get to day 6 concerning the creation of man) does not imply anything more than this, i.e. and God said.....and the earth brought forth...

In fact it can be considered from a reading of the passage that each "day" of creation describes a point at which the Creator progressively lowers the entropy of the system in order to allow processes that have, on the previous "day" been set up or allowed to produce an observed result.

 

[dmmesdale]

The concept of information is fairly significant in biology. Take a look: Biological Information (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)



Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

This is the problem with reductionism. People are so intent to avoid anything that could lead back to theism that they insist upon explanations that are completely nonsensical. I'm intrigued by trends in emergentism, partly because it's Aristotelianism in disguise, and I'm not quite sure how much of the underlying metaphysics you can jettison before it stops making sense. It'll be a while before theism is scientifically fashionable again, but it's a step in an interesting direction.

If they are studying origin of life then they are bumping into God. If they cannot stand the implications then they should stay out. Actual reality is incompatible with atheism and that would include science. This came out recently and is worth watching.

 

[Obliquinaut]

IActual reality is incompatible with atheism and that would include science.

Well NOW you tell me! The last 12 years of my life wasted!

Can I ask you what science you work in? And in your field, how do you utilize God as an explanatory variable?

I truly am curious. I was obviously a Christian who was a scientist for many years and there was no real problem, but of course I didn't utilize "God" to explain the results of my various experiments. When I became an atheist nothing much changed in my science, again, because I wasn't utilizing "God" as an explanatory variable.

But I am very interested in hearing how YOU do science.

Thanks!

 

[Obliquinaut]

From a theological perspective you are probably wasting your whole life. Given the end result. You got kids?

No kids. Sorry.

You are probably screwing them over to boot. You have an obligation to God to bring them up in the knowledge of God.

Nope. I was brought up in the "knowledge of God" and it really did more damage to me than good. You see, I suffer from something called scrupulosity. It's a mental disorder somewhat related to OCD.

You wouldn't necessarily understand it but it basically turns religion into a non-stop living nightmare of hell for the believer.

If there was a God he didn't really see fit to save me from the thing that would ultimately make me look closely at my religion and come to the conclusion that it wasn't for me.

I know you are going try to tell me all that I got wrong there etc. But I know my life and I know the DECADES I spent in that, so I will kindly ask you to take your opinions of my spiritual journey and put them away quietly.

You are in a general thread. If you wish to participate in in exclusive science thread with credentialed scientists then you are in the wrong place.

No, YOU told us about how science works. If you want to tell me, a professional scientist with 20 years worth of industry experience in R&D how science works, you better have more than just your junior high school science class worth of experience.

I would say God is the best explanation for all life here. If you have a better one then please, convince us, because nothing you atheists have put on the table comes anywhere near. Hey your the science guy. So have at it.

Since you are not going to tell me you have ANY science experience I will tell you how science works.

As I said there are MANY scientists who are Christians. I've worked with many, many, many of them. And indeed when they do their science they do NOT publish papers saying "The reaction ran at this rate with this yield because God willed it so." They use standard empirical and physical reasons.

This is not to say that they don't believe that God created the rules or God started it all off, etc. I am merely saying that the "God Hypothesis" seldom if ever makes it into legitimate science qua science.

No you are not.

Oh but I am! You see I see people like you talking all big about what science is or isn't on this board and almost to a person you guys never seem to have any actual experience in the field!

Yawn. Anyone can be anybody on the web. Resumes are normally enhanced. Do you really think we are going to take you for your word without any corroborating evidence?

Of course I'm not expecting you take my word for it!

You shouldn't! That's why usually when I get down and dirty in the science stuff I try to provide data and citations. At the very least on this thread I've spoken at length about actual chemistry.

News flash, origin of life, history, is not strickly, a science field.

Ummm, yeah it is. The only people who want it to be otherwise are those with a religious motivation. Life in general is regular old biochemistry. There is nothing "magical" or supernatural about life. Each and every bit and piece of you is made up of regular chemicals that follow the very same rules as chemicals I used day in and day out in the lab. Albeit different (I am not a biochemist, I was usually an organic geochemist or for the last 20 years a coatings and minerals processing chemist...not the most glamorous type of chemist).

If scientists make claims about history then they better be able to back them up with some sort of corresponding evidence. Did you watch the youtube? Probably not. Not that i care but since you made it about you.

I tend not to watch other people's youtube recommendations unless they can summarize in their own words the most important bits that impressed them. Otherwise it's waste of my time.

Just like learning science appears to have been a waste of your time so you didn't do it for a living.

How bout your personal life? Nothing changed there either? Most people who abandon Christianity, do so because they fail to live up to the moral standards.

Oh dear GOd I WISH I could give up the moral standards! Remember that bit up there about "scrupulosity"? Yeah it continues with me to this day. I have a rather RIGID moral code. I no longer believe God tells me what is right or wrong but I can certainly understand why something is right or wrong from a secular stand point.

So when my wife and I are at a concert and half-way through the show she sees some seats closer in to the stage that are empty that she would like to move to I'm always the one that says "That wouldn't be right. We didn't pay for those seats." OR when she wants to cut across a greenspace I am always the one who says "no, we should walk the sidewalk because we don't want to damage the greenspace".

I'm not joking here. I am still rather morally strict.

They want to run around on their wife, or go out partying with the boys.

Nope, not my thing. Don't get me wrong: I've lusted in my heart plenty. I just don't see that as a "sin". I am faithful to my wife of 20 years (we've actually been together 28). I don't like to party. The last time I was ever really drunk was...um 34 years ago this November. Which was about the first time I was ever really drunk. I don't like it.

I now live in a state where pot is legal and at age 52 I actually tried pot for the first time! (No joke! I never did pot until I was 52). I didn't have a moral reason not to, just didn't really want to risk any sort of legal stuff. I have to admit I'm not unfond of the feeling of it when I'm listening to music. But I don't like the idea of being really messed up and I would never go out of the house under any influence (again that morality thing).

But then again, it is not about us so either remain with the topic or go home. Am not a scientist for one because i would not tolerate the pay cut. Nor would i work in any field that requires panhandling. But that is just me.

I pull down 6 figures and I've only ever once had to put in for a grant (that was in my first postdoc). For the rest of my career I've been an industrial R&D chemist. Sure I don't make as much money as an MBA but I actually have a good time, live a pretty good life, have a nice home. Enjoy myself.

I'm sorry you don't have a better grasp of the world of science. Perhaps if you knew more about the topic you wouldn't be so prone to make big declarations of what science is or isn't.

 

[dmmesdale]

Ummm, yeah it is.

No it is not. You are not going to learn anything about the history of the Caesars by studying chemistry.

The only people who want it to be otherwise are those with a religious motivation. Life in general is regular old biochemistry.

I was addressing history, not life. Life requires a living source.

There is nothing "magical" or supernatural about life.

How did life begin on earth, given all we know about life?

Each and every bit and piece of you is made up of regular chemicals that follow the very same rules as chemicals I used day in and day out in the lab.

What is the source of the rules? Why do rules exist in your godless universe?

Just like learning science appears to have been a waste of your time so you didn't do it for a living.

Went a different route.

 

[Silmarien]

Nope. I was brought up in the "knowledge of God" and it really did more damage to me than good. You see, I suffer from something called scrupulosity. It's a mental disorder somewhat related to OCD.

You wouldn't necessarily understand it but it basically turns religion into a non-stop living nightmare of hell for the believer.

That sucks. I'm sorry. (I have OCD too, though it actually forced me back to organized religion. Go figure.)

Ummm, yeah it is. The only people who want it to be otherwise are those with a religious motivation. Life in general is regular old biochemistry. There is nothing "magical" or supernatural about life. Each and every bit and piece of you is made up of regular chemicals that follow the very same rules as chemicals I used day in and day out in the lab. Albeit different (I am not a biochemist, I was usually an organic geochemist or for the last 20 years a coatings and minerals processing chemist...not the most glamorous type of chemist).

Is this really true, though? Individual chemicals aren't going to exhibit the same phenomena that a living system is going to--growth, reproduction, metabolization. If biology is ultimately not reducible to chemistry, what does that mean? I like the concept of emergent properties and all, but in some cases, it really does just sound like a fancy way to say "magic."

(My background's philosophy, not science.)

 

[essentialsaltes]

Is this really true, though? Individual chemicals aren't going to exhibit the same phenomena that a living system is going to--growth, reproduction, metabolization.

An individual molecule is not like an organism. But an organism is just made of molecules, and they all follow the rules of chemistry.

If biology is ultimately not reducible to chemistry, what does that mean? I like the concept of emergent properties and all, but in some cases, it really does just sound like a fancy way to say "magic."

Biology certainly appears to be reducible to chemistry. The idea of vitalism, that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things" died out starting 200 years ago with the discovery that organic molecules could be synthesized from inorganic components. As this process continued, learning how biology is reducible to chemistry and genetics (also chemistry), the idea of vitalism died out entirely by 100 years ago or so.

 

[Obliquinaut]

No it is not. You are not going to learn anything about the history of the Caesars by studying chemistry.

But I will about the origins of life.

Life requires a living source.

How do you know that?

How did life begin on earth, given all we know about life?

Many of the chemicals we find at the basis of life (amino acids) appear to be found in nature and even on meteorites. The chemistry is pretty straightforward.

What is the source of the rules? Why do rules exist in your godless universe?

Good question. Don't know. But by the same token, not that I am NOT saying with certainty that I know there is a being who exists outside of space and time who manifested himself as his son to come to earth to be sacrificed to himself to atone mankind to himself in a small Roman backwater colony in the Middle East about 2017 years ago.

That's the key. Science at least keeps open the option that "we don't know" is a viable answer at this time. Religion not only proposes an hypothesis but builds that hypothesis into a full-fledged belief system with no real evidence that can be objectively evaluated.

This is NOT to say that God doesn't exist. Who knows? Maybe He does! But the fact of the matter is we have no evidence of God creating life. We have life that is made up of exactly the same kinds of materials we find in the natural (non-living) world and which follows all the same chemical rules that everything elses (non-living) follows, so why hypothesize something additional?

Went a different route.

And that's great! I mean that. BUT what it also means is that you don't really get to critique what is and isn't science if you have not invested the time to learn science as a discipline.

It would be the same as me telling YOU all about whatever it is YOU do for a living as if I knew anything about it.