Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

[Tiberius]

I'm referring to the most basic level of consciousness sufficient for self-awareness and creative response to environmental stimuli, much like a bug is self-aware. The word "sentient" more correctly describes the concept that I am referring to, though I have made "sapient" my word for the day. I fully expect mankind will never be able to develop either the sentient or sapient kind of computer program.

How do you know that anything in that movie regarding sapient machines has any bearing on reality. You DON'T. Your point fails. Spectacularly.

 

[thaumaturgy]

I don't want to belabor the point about springs--we're kinda talking past each other on that one.

No, True_Blue, Psudopod is doing what scientists do. You make a claim, you are expected to be able to back it up.

If you are looking for yet another "out" on this one, go ahead and take it.

Psudopod was pointing out how laws, such as hooke's law apply within set specific requirements, not arbitrarily chosen.

The model I presented is a discussion on why abiogenesis cannot work. It doesn't PROVE abiogenesis cannot work, because you cannot disprove a negative.

True_Blue, you are correct, you cannot prove a negative, but need I remind you what you titled this tread?

Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God


Now, I know you as a lawyer should be better with language, but you have laid down the gauntlet and when you were shown the errors of your assumptions you blithely ignored them in preference to your own simple counsel.

Again, you are to be forgiven for not understanding science, but you really should be more careful with your rhetoric, because as we've seen on this thread, you seem to only have rhetoric.

That's a philosophical impossibility. But I'm not the one making outlandish claims

"Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God"

You mean like that one? When you created this thread with that title?

Return on investment works better when the purpose is sound, not when the purpose is poor but accidentally yields something useful. Pursuing evolutionist dreams is holding back the scientific progress of the human race.

So, do you take antibiotics?

 

[Kyrisch]

Life and sentience can't be defined conclusively, Kyrisch. We know them when we see them. I've had long hours of conversation and debate on this point before, and I'm not willing to repeat the process. I know you know what life and sentience are.

You're wrong. This has been gone over already. You may not, in fact, know them when you see them. I, Robot does not demonstrate anything...

Since, as you have pointed out, no sentient computer programs are known to exist, it is impossible to say if a human could tell the difference between the two.

However, there are a few computer experts I have known that would argue against your idea, and I would agree with them.

Unless an AI was based on our own sentience, it would most likely be to alien to the way we think that we would never be able to identify them as sentient at all.

Our sentience is based on our physical form, the range at which we can see and hear things, the range of temperatures we can feel, the speed at which we can form ideas and react to our environment. An AI that was not based on those parameters would see the universe in an entirely different way than we do, making any actions by this AI unfathomable to us and our reactions unfathomable to it.

Even among other humans that share most of the same attributes, slight social and cultural differences severely hamper our understanding of one another. Just imagine the difficulties trying to understand something that shares no cultural or social similarities.

For all we know about how life like an AI would react to things or understand it's universe, there could be thousands of them out there right now, living their lives out in the networks we created, and we would not even know it, and they likely would have no idea that we exist either.

 

[True_Blue]

This can actually be said for a lot of human endevours, not just space exploration and has very little to do with a supposed evolutionary basis of the exploration. We put a lot of money and effort into art, which could also be a lot better used. I went to an acoustics conference three weeks ago where quite a lot of sessions where on the acoustics of music halls and the way instruments produce music. Thousands of people working on these completely irrelevant topics, while more pressing topics (like the acoustics of hospitals) remain unaddressed.

Some people say science should only be usefull. Other people say science is like art, "useless" knowledge like the geography of mars or the acoustics behind the way a clarinettist plays the first two bars of rapsody in blue enrich our life, and that is a perfectly valid reason to research them. I go for the latter. Judging from your post, you obviously do not and I guess this shows.

My philosophy on scientific investment is very simple--if a private party is willing to invest in it, it's "worth" it. Thus, a private investment in science to improve acoustics is value because of the entertainment value derived, which has independent significance. But if the government funds it, it's oftentimes little more useful than burning money in a bonfire. I have a strong basis for believing that most evolutionist research is funded by the government. If that funding dries up, and I tend to work toward that goal, I expect support for evolution will dry up as well. Evolution and socialism walk hand in hand.

 

[True_Blue]

There is evidence of self relicating chemicals. Evidence of protocells. Just because you don't see it or understand doesn't mean it isn't there.

Great. Where is the evidence of protocells?

 

[True_Blue]

No, True_Blue, Psudopod is doing what scientists do. You make a claim, you are expected to be able to back it up.

If you are looking for yet another "out" on this one, go ahead and take it.

Psudopod was pointing out how laws, such as hooke's law apply within set specific requirements, not arbitrarily chosen.

True_Blue, you are correct, you cannot prove a negative, but need I remind you what you titled this tread?

Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

Now, I know you as a lawyer should be better with language, but you have laid down the gauntlet and when you were shown the errors of your assumptions you blithely ignored them in preference to your own simple counsel.

Again, you are to be forgiven for not understanding science, but you really should be more careful with your rhetoric, because as we've seen on this thread, you seem to only have rhetoric.

"Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God"

You mean like that one? When you created this thread with that title?

So, do you take antibiotics?

The presentment of a system that could not have arisen but for the divine act of God is affirmative proof of God. Thus, if I show you any life form ever observed by the human race to date, I've affirmatively proven God's existence and his power.

However, I think ultimately people dispute God's sovereignty, not his existence.

I take antibiotics when I have to. http://www.icr.org/article/3767/

 

[thaumaturgy]

The presentment of a system that could not have arisen but for the divine act of God is affirmative proof of God.

Wow, the logic inherent in that statement just bypassed the whole thread.

JUST because you present "evidence" that process "A" is somehow statistically "unlikely" does not, ipso facto mean that "B" is the obvious answer. I believe this is the fallacy of the excluded middle or false dichotomy.

But further, counsellor, I hope you will understand that you have not shown that Process "A" is statistically unlikely because you have not presented any evidence other than a "strawman" version of Process "A". That is what happens when you commit this other type of logic fallacy. You construct a version of the Process that bears little if any resemblance to the process and then you procede to attempt to prove non-A. That does not mean that B is correct.

Just because you think non-A does not mean that non-A = B.

So now we've the double barrel of "Fallacy of the False Dichotomy" and "Strawman Fallacy".

Thus, if I show you any life form ever observed by the human race to date, I've affirmatively proven God's existence and his power.

Again, false dichotomy. You have not provided a proof of God simply because you unilaterally decree life must have been made. You completely ignore the possibility of aliens or super-sentient computers that made life on earth.

But further, True, and this amazes me, you seem to be negating your own claims. Let's review the tape:


FIRST you start a thread labelled:
Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God


then, 700+ posts later, you state:

The model I presented is a discussion on why abiogenesis cannot work. It doesn't PROVE abiogenesis cannot work, because you cannot disprove a negative.

So which do you believe you have done? Proof against abiogenesis or disproof of abiogenesis? Because those two seem pretty interchangeable.

You have fallen into the trap of attempting to prove a negative by claiming at the outset you are going to provide proof against abiogenesis, then you slip into a statistical critique which, if it weren't so riddled with bad chemistry, would only prove it unlikely but not impossible.

But further you compound this with a "false dichotomy" fallacy.

Really, how does this type of debate hold up in the court room?

However, I think ultimately people dispute God's sovereignty, not his existence.

You may think what you like, but what rational reason would I have to doubt God's "sovereignity" if I actually thought he existed????

Do you think I believe in a God who just so happens to be non-omnipotent? Maybe you think my idea of God is Bob the neighbor and I simply refuse to assume he controls the universe because he has a tough time keeping his lawn mowed?

 

[thaumaturgy]

My philosophy on scientific investment is very simple--if a private party is willing to invest in it, it's "worth" it.

Then you get the world you deserve. You really should thank your God that there are those of us who are more than happy to do science even though we get paid, on average, a pittance versus what the MBA's get paid. We do this because we love it. We couldn't care less about how profitable it all is.

Perhaps we don't worship mammon quite so much.

Thus, a private investment in science to improve acoustics is value because of the entertainment value derived, which has independent significance. But if the government funds it, it's oftentimes little more useful than burning money in a bonfire.

I despise that attitude. My first postdoc was with the US Dept. of Agriculture. Our mandate, in case you forget which country has made your rich, rich life possible, was to assist agriculture and technology associated with it. We help farmers who couldn't afford by themselves to do the kind of work that requires big infrastructural investment to make possible. Our goods (publications and patents and technology) was then put out to the general populace.

Again, thank your God we were around for you.

Do YOU really have the cojones to insinuate that our work may have been little more than burning money on a bonfire?

HOW DARE YOU!

Why don't you pack your bags and leave my country. If you fail to understand how critical ag is to the U.S.'s bounty I recommend you find some other country to live in, because I don't want your type spewing crap on my work or denigrating the honest hard work of my former coworkers.

Thank you.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

My philosophy on scientific investment is very simple--if a private party is willing to invest in it, it's "worth" it. Thus, a private investment in science to improve acoustics is value because of the entertainment value derived, which has independent significance. But if the government funds it, it's oftentimes little more useful than burning money in a bonfire. I have a strong basis for believing that most evolutionist research is funded by the government. If that funding dries up, and I tend to work toward that goal, I expect support for evolution will dry up as well. Evolution and socialism walk hand in hand.

Actually the notion that scientific research should be carried out only if it could turn a profit is the worst enemy of progress After all who would have predicted any profit in answering such questions as why charges build up on metal surfaces when light of certain frequencies are shone on them and why that this effect is independent of light intensity? or why pollen grains jiggle around in water?

The simple fact is you can't plan progress.

 

[Tomk80]

My philosophy on scientific investment is very simple--if a private party is willing to invest in it, it's "worth" it. Thus, a private investment in science to improve acoustics is value because of the entertainment value derived, which has independent significance.

But oftentimes it is not privately funded. Where do you think operahouses get their money? Lots of them are government funded and research is thus indirectly funded in the same way.

But if the government funds it, it's oftentimes little more useful than burning money in a bonfire.

Knowledge has value in itself. Just as art has.

I have a strong basis for believing that most evolutionist research is funded by the government. If that funding dries up, and I tend to work toward that goal, I expect support for evolution will dry up as well.

And you'd be wrong. Evolution is used by the pharmaceutical industries, both the "micro-evolution" type and the common descent type. Obviously they see a benefit in it. The reason they do is because it works. Science doesn't accept theories on the basis of whether there is funding for it. The evidence already gathered would not go away, even if funding for "useless" evolutionary research would now dry up.

Evolution and socialism walk hand in hand.

què?

 

[Tomk80]

You have fallen into the trap of attempting to prove a negative by claiming at the outset you are going to provide proof against abiogenesis, then you slip into a statistical critique which, if it weren't so riddled with bad chemistry, would only prove it unlikely but not impossible.

Not even that. Even if his chemistry was not as bad as it is, his way of deriving a probability is. Because deriving he probabality of a single possible outcome of a process doesn't say anything about the probability of the outcome of the process as a whole.

To take an example. If I calculate the chance of winning the 100 dollar prize in a lottery, this says nothing about the chances of winning any prize at all. For that, you need to know the chances of all other prizes also and add those to the chance of winning 100 dollars. What True_Blue has done is equivalent to calculating how much chance you have of winning the 100 dollars.

 

[thaumaturgy]

The simple fact is you can't plan progress.

Sadly it is an all-too-common foible of the businesspeople it seems. They think you can "coordinate innovation" and plan breakthroughs. It comes from a simplistic concept that all things can be achieved through more meetings and a few books one picks up on the lay-over in Dulles at the bookstore in terminal. It's annoying.

I once sat in on a meeting when some executroids attempted to do a "Triz"-like session. The executroids had just learned the technique of "structured brainstorming" and it was hilarious. They ended up bickering with each other over which "step" was next in the structured brainstorming.

I am willing to estimate that structured braingstorming and "triz" or "triz-lite" has not significantly increased the collective innovative output over life before these biz-speak plans.

 

[thaumaturgy]

But oftentimes it is not privately funded. Where do you think operahouses get their money? Lots of them are government funded and research is thus indirectly funded in the same way.

The really ironic part of True_Blue's claim is that government funding is behind a big portion of the drugs that are later sold to us for huge profits by the drug companies.

A study by a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scholar of the 21 most important drugs introduced between 1965 and 1992 found that publicly funded research played a part in discovering and developing 14 of the 21 drugs (67percent)​

SOURCE:

Iain Cockburn (University of British Columbia) and Rebecca Henderson (MIT), “Public-Private Interaction and the Productivity of Pharmaceutical Research,” National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1997.​

-------------------------------------------------------

45 of the 50 top-selling drugs from 1992-1997 received government funding for some phase of development, according to an investigation by​

The Boston Globe. In all, taxpayers spent at least $175 million helping to develop these 50 drugs.​

SOURCE:

Alice Dembner, “Public Handouts Enrich Drug Makers, Scientists,”​

The Boston Globe, April 5, 1998.​

​

I'm glad business people have no problem taking profits after the dirty "government funding" has helped make those profits even more profitable.

That way they can worship their profits even more!

 

[True_Blue]

Wow, the logic inherent in that statement just bypassed the whole thread.

JUST because you present "evidence" that process "A" is somehow statistically "unlikely" does not, ipso facto mean that "B" is the obvious answer. I believe this is the fallacy of the excluded middle or false dichotomy.

But further, counsellor, I hope you will understand that you have not shown that Process "A" is statistically unlikely because you have not presented any evidence other than a "strawman" version of Process "A". That is what happens when you commit this other type of logic fallacy. You construct a version of the Process that bears little if any resemblance to the process and then you procede to attempt to prove non-A. That does not mean that B is correct.

Just because you think non-A does not mean that non-A = B.

So now we've the double barrel of "Fallacy of the False Dichotomy" and "Strawman Fallacy".

Again, false dichotomy. You have not provided a proof of God simply because you unilaterally decree life must have been made. You completely ignore the possibility of aliens or super-sentient computers that made life on earth.

But further, True, and this amazes me, you seem to be negating your own claims. Let's review the tape:

FIRST you start a thread labelled:
Proof against abiogenesis/evolution -- affirmative proof of God

then, 700+ posts later, you state:

So which do you believe you have done? Proof against abiogenesis or disproof of abiogenesis? Because those two seem pretty interchangeable.

You have fallen into the trap of attempting to prove a negative by claiming at the outset you are going to provide proof against abiogenesis, then you slip into a statistical critique which, if it weren't so riddled with bad chemistry, would only prove it unlikely but not impossible.

But further you compound this with a "false dichotomy" fallacy.

Really, how does this type of debate hold up in the court room?

You may think what you like, but what rational reason would I have to doubt God's "sovereignity" if I actually thought he existed????

Do you think I believe in a God who just so happens to be non-omnipotent? Maybe you think my idea of God is Bob the neighbor and I simply refuse to assume he controls the universe because he has a tough time keeping his lawn mowed?

You're right--I did present a straw man argument. Unquestionably the case. Imagine an enormous pile of straw, yarn, sticks, and whatever else people make strawmen out of. Now imagine a tornado tearing through that enormous pile. What's the probability of a strawman forming from that interaction? Do you think that a trillion trillion interactions would ever produce a straw man? I'm a Star Trek Next Generation fan. Now assume the pile is full of circuit boards and other android components (more realistically pieces of metallic ore). What's the probability of Commander Data arising from the interactions of those pieces? Both scenarios are impossible, but I used the abiogenesis equivalent of a straw man because the straw man scenario above is somehow "less impossible" than the Commander Data scenario.

I once took a logic class in college where they taught all the classic logical fallacy arguments such as the ones you applied above. I give such arguments just a little bit of credence, but not much, since the arguments are frequently effective. For example, "slippery slope" is a very real and practical occurrence, and it can be a perfectly valid argument, as long as you can support the existence of the slippery slope in the particular situation being debated. Objecting to an argument because it falls into some category of a "logical fallacy" isn't a very strong argument. Even "ad hominem" can be an effective argument in certain contexts. Many of the posters in this thread have applied it with gusto.

 

[True_Blue]

I despise that attitude. My first postdoc was with the US Dept. of Agriculture. Our mandate, in case you forget which country has made your rich, rich life possible, was to assist agriculture and technology associated with it. We help farmers who couldn't afford by themselves to do the kind of work that requires big infrastructural investment to make possible. Our goods (publications and patents and technology) was then put out to the general populace.
.

Off topic, but I believe Americans should buy all their food from poor people in Latin America and Africa, and through free trade, help those societies come out of poverty, rather than pay subsidies for American farmers to outcompete the Africans, then send foreign aid to Africa when the African farmers starve to death. I fully understand what you're saying, and I understand your motivations for your views, but I don't think you understand my views or my motivations. I believe your intentions are compassionate. My views, while hard-nosed in appearance, are the most compassionate as applied.

 

[True_Blue]

Not even that. Even if his chemistry was not as bad as it is, his way of deriving a probability is. Because deriving he probabality of a single possible outcome of a process doesn't say anything about the probability of the outcome of the process as a whole.

To take an example. If I calculate the chance of winning the 100 dollar prize in a lottery, this says nothing about the chances of winning any prize at all. For that, you need to know the chances of all other prizes also and add those to the chance of winning 100 dollars. What True_Blue has done is equivalent to calculating how much chance you have of winning the 100 dollars.

I understand what you're saying. My process solves for all the tickets sold in trillions of universes, each universe packed solid with favorably interacting particles, over trillions of years, over trillions of interactions per second. You have one chance in 10^7500 of drawing the right ticket, and as you can see above, I've allowed for the sale of a heck of a lot of tickets. However, there isn't a guaranteed winner in this lottery, and the probability is calculated at the moment the person buys the ticket, not when they look at the ticket and see that they've won (which is what TalkOrigins essentially does). This thread does nothing for the person who a priori assumes abiogenesis is true.

 

[Blayz]

You're right--I did present a straw man argument. Unquestionably the case.

@whee, at last, agreement.

Imagine an enormous pile of straw, yarn, sticks, and whatever else people make strawmen out of. Now imagine a tornado tearing through that enormous pile. What's the probability of a strawman forming from that interaction?

Imagine 10 trillion piles of straw. Imagine a small wind blowing through those piles and rearranging them slightly. Imagine an external pressure which allows those that are a little bit more strawman like than the original pile to survive but diadvantages those that do not.

Imagine repeating thgis process a trillion times.

Do you think that a trillion trillion interactions would ever produce a straw man?

Your childish fairytale ignorant version of evolution, no. My closer to the actual situation, yes.

I'm a Star Trek Next Generation fan.

Pity you are not a biotech fan. I saw a talk today on systems biology and the prokaryotic metabolome, with the suggestion of dial-a-bug. Please tell me the name of your company, I'd hate to make the mistake of investing in it.

I once took a logic class in college

You should sue your teachers, because you learned nothing.

 

[True_Blue]

Actually the notion that scientific research should be carried out only if it could turn a profit is the worst enemy of progress After all who would have predicted any profit in answering such questions as why charges build up on metal surfaces when light of certain frequencies are shone on them and why that this effect is independent of light intensity? or why pollen grains jiggle around in water?

The simple fact is you can't plan progress.

Exactly. You cannot plan for progress, and neither can the government. That's why centrally planned societies fail. The free market is the best arbiter of research money, not the government.

 

[Psudopod]

My process solves for all the tickets sold in trillions of universes, each universe packed solid with favorably interacting particles, over trillions of years, over trillions of interactions per second. You have one chance in 10^7500 of drawing the right ticket, and as you can see above, I've allowed for the sale of a heck of a lot of tickets. However, there isn't a guaranteed winner in this lottery, and the probability is calculated at the moment the person buys the ticket, not when they look at the ticket and see that they've won (which is what TalkOrigins essentially does). This thread does nothing for the person who a priori assumes abiogenesis is true.

Yet your process is unable to make a simple chemical prediction. The more analogies you make, the further you move away from the real situation (and the more likely you are to construct a strawman). You act like we should be jumping up and down at your ideas and the only reason we don't is because we're all socialists who deny the sovernty of God. (Why people find the idea of those who are able to helping those who are not so disgusting is also beyond me.) Science doesn't work like that. If your ideas have merit, then they should be demonstratable to anyone, regardless of religeon or political preference. But you refuse to demonstrate. "Tue_Blue thinks this is a better way to look at things because of a gut feeling" is not, in my books a valid reason for dismission all our understanding of chemisty. Call me a fuddy-duddy if you like, but I doubt I'm the only one.

You don't get to decide the way works because of a whim. I'm a Star Trek fan too, and I'd love relativity to be overthrown and faster-than-light travel to be a reality. But I wouldn't go around proclaiming I have a new model of physics and making comments like Einsteinism and facism go hand in hand when I can't produce a working model.

Exactly. You cannot plan for progress, and neither can the government. That's why centrally planned societies fail. The free market is the best arbiter of research money, not the government.

Did you even read Temperate's post? If you do science on a jam today process (ie it's got to look like it's going to produce something you can sell now), you're going to miss out on bread tomorrow. Some times it's obvious, say for example the discovery that penicillin mold kills bacteria. But can you honestly say that people would have predicted all the applications of quantum mechanics based on the idea that energy is quantised? It would have been seen as an interesting trick adn ignored by businessmen, instead of rightly considered one of the most important and fundermental ideas in phyics.

Great, so where is the evidence of protocells

Well, a quick pubmed search brings up over 60 papers. I think Lucaspa had a nice one, but I don't have the link. Why don't you do some real research rather than assuming based on your a priori assumption that it can't work.

Oh, and you still haven't admitted that laws can be non universal.

 

[TemperateSeaIsland]

Exactly. You cannot plan for progress, and neither can the government. That's why centrally planned societies fail. The free market is the best arbiter of research money, not the government.

Government funded scientific research isn't actually planned and controlled by the government.

A researcher puts in a proposal to a research board (A big one in the UK is EPSRC) if the referees (typically scientists in the same/related field) think the project is interesting and has a reasonable chance of success then the grant if given. After that there is almost no interference in the work, with the worst being having to provide time sheets and quarterly reports to the funding body.

Besides you completely missed the point, which is if we only researched what at the time seemed like it could turn a profit then we would be a lot less scientifically/technologically advanced. The practical spin offs from completely "unprofitable" pure research has been tremendous.