Abiogenesis

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I'm not used to being accused of being unimaginative... I think its funny in some way.
I don't think calling people ignorant displays proper manners, its disrespectful. One can have difference of opinion, which are mostly due to differences in experience, factual knowledge, etc. then anything else.

I think that iamnotaparakeet gets to the heart of the problem I have with the conventional explanation:

If someone still wants to continue a polite and respectful conversation I would like to focus on the conflict between: (1) the hypotheses that all known life is generated by an unguided, unplanned, unintelligent, strictly natural process of variation and selection and (2) the knowledge which I have from experience that any unguided, unplanned, unintelligently, strictly natural process of variation and selection never generates anything even remotely similar to structures as we see in living creatures. This experience is backed up by clear logical reasons which explain this observation. The same applies to the (never observed) hypotheses of self-organization (of unintelligent parts).

I think not, if they did they would hit cognitive dissonace very fast and hard. Resulting in all possible defense strategies to maintain the evolutionist self-identity. See also Keep your identity small for some insightful observations and advice.

Go back through this thread to where those two articles were linked to earlier. One of them describes an experiment that demonstrates how synthesized RNA replicates itself. The other one describes an experiment that demonstrates how nucleotides could of formed. And yes, there is empirical evidence for RNA. It's the single helix version of DNA. No one was around to see the origin of life but those experiments demonstrate the plausibility.



There are three possible outcomes. One is that the "errors" are detrimental, which means that the modified protocells are less able to self-replicate than the originals (yes, this includes the outcome that it stops working all together). Another is that they beneficial, which means that they can self-replicate more rapidly than the originals. The third possibility is that they have no effect. The protocells that self-replicate more successfully will self-replicate more than the ones that don't and thus there will be more of them. Also, resources can be recycled when the protocells die.



Note the boldface words above. I put them in boldface because by definition they are detrimental if they result in the modified protocell being less able to self-replicate than before. The original protocells would therefore self-replicate more rapidly than the modified ones and even more so than the products of those modified protocells which contain changes which are even more detrimental. Again you are excluding the possibility that resources can be recycled when the protocells die.



If you accept evolution, where single celled organisms eventually gave rise to all the multicellular organisms we see to today via mutation and natural selection then it's only a small extrapolation that the original protocells could of eventually given rise to those single celled organisms via the same process. However, due to your stance on intelligent design, I don't think you except evolution.



There isn't a necessity. The alternative explains the same thing just as well.



No it isn't. You can only say that it's confirmed by observation if:

1. someone was there to see life begin or

2. observations of life today rule out all other possibilities.

Well, for me at least 1 is out since no one I know of lived to see life starting. But then again maybe you've spoken to that intelligent designer of yours and that's why you say it's confirmed by observation? As for number 2, even if all life we see today is more complex than the hypothetical protocells, this does not rule out the possibility that life evolved from them (the protocells). Also there are counterexamples to the statement that all life is complex because certain viruses are essentially nothing more than a kind of membrane enclosing genetic material. Although, those viruses still more complex than the hypothetical protocells.



There is definitive evidence (purely mathematical) that they do. Look up genetic algorithms:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_algorithm



If that intelligent designer is God, then the intervention is supernatural. If not then it's not supernatural however the designer would also have to of existed in the universe and there would have to be a designer of the designer and a designer of that designer and so on. Since the universe had a beginning, this leads to a logical contradiction.



All other things are the same. If you think they not, please tell me what an intelligent designer explains that the alternative can't, even in principle.



Again, if the event was not supernatural then this implies that the designer existed in our universe. If so, then who or what designed the designer? There cannot be an infinite chain of designers because the universe had a beginning.

You may not be happy about being ignorant but an emotional reaction to a statement of fact is not appropriate. We are all ignorant and new knowledge and understanding is being uncovered continuously by scientific exploration. That you cannot imagine that life as we know it came to be from inorganic elements does not mean it didn't happen, it only means you cannot accept your imagination has limitations. It's a common problem and to take personal offense at the obvious is an immature defense mechanism. Get over it. Nobody is omniscient.

You clearly misunderstood my last post.

As I already repeatedly wrote about my own experiments? I have knowledge and experience with the principles involved. The only thing I don't have is an actual proof that its impossible...

Or it means that the biological community is collectively barking up the wrong tree and cannot fathom that they are wrong about what is and isn't plausible? Even worse, anyone who does speak out against this madness is shun and removed. Leaving a self-select group of people who all share the same delusion. (See Disciplinary Bubbles.)

To compare it with anything, imagine that biologist imagine a hypotheses where by they say that life once must have used cold fusion? Now, a physicist can say as often as he want that cold fusion is ridiculous and does not happen. He points out that we never observed it. He points out that it does not seem to happen at the moment? It all gets dismissed without even taking the objection seriously.

The biologist main argument: Just because you haven't figured out how, does not mean that it did not happen. Besides, it must have happened because otherwise we wouldn't be here, and we are here. So case closed. You're just ignorant and lack imagination.

So the physicist discovers that he now needs to prove the impossibility of something totally absurd, never observed, and without any idea where to even start... He also notes that this proof will be very hard and for his own field rather useless (because nobody expects any differently: Its absurd). He thinks frak that and goes doing something useful. He does however notices somethings: How the biologist label him as a fake scientist because he dared to challenge their hypotheses, or "facts" as they call them. He notices how others are treated when they speak out. He notices that silence is best. He thinks: Without real evidence that it's possible it will never become much more then a ridiculous theory anyway.

He grows old: 50 years pass and something unexpected happened to that ridiculous theory: A large part of the scientific community, especially among biologists, has been selected to support the (now) conventional notion that cold fusion is possible but we just haven't figured out how. Even physicists began to think that, but no-one talks about it in any serious way. There is not much promising research in this area, research in the last 50 years has only discovered many ways in which it does not work or don't yield anywhere enough to make it any use. Naturally any positive looking result end up being used to support the claim of the biologist; even if the method is totally unsuitable and irrelevant for the biologists claims.

Only some fringe scientists still say that it's ridiculous and some even attempt to proof that it's impossible. To start with they show it's extremely unlikely, this gets either ignored or straw-mened. These outsiders discover that unless the proof is extremely simple no one will take it seriously; But the nature of the problem (to prove something impossible) will make it a difficult proof anyway. So what is the real point? It's not as if it's an important proof for their own field? So very few peruse to prove this, and those who do often have additional, philosophical or cultural, reasons which make them even easier to dismiss.

Now if you replace "cold fusion" with "self-organisation and evolution through variation and selection by strictly natural means", and "physicists" with "Mathematicians/ComputerScientists" and you have basically the situation as it is: High reward for doing nothing, high losses for speaking out, no real incentive to actually do all the hard work of proving the impossibility.... also you really don't want to be associated with the outsiders if you want to get tenure? It would be scientific seppuku to do so.

Last edited by Meta on 12 Dec 2009, 11:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

So it all boils down to a great conspiracy of the overwhelming number of scientists and technicians to hide the obvious fact that it's impossible for organic life as we know it to have occurred through what is accepted as normal evolutionary processes and you have exposed the scam. Congratulations.

No conspiracy. Just normal human behavior, group thinking and selection at work, which is only possible because of the absence of any empirical or hard logical evidence either way, science cannot clean itself. Please read: Disciplinary Bubbles.

The only way to prevent this is to never base a theory on something unobserved to begin with; always show the actual how before you base a whole theory on it happening.

Now that seems a fascinating conception. Basing science on unobservable phenomena. It widens the field considerably.

:) Again I get the impression that you haven't really understood what I wrote.

Now you have opened the door to this argument: I think that abiogenesis make two fatal scientific mistakes. It's based on unobserved/unobservable phenomena and requires a strong philosophical bias. ID is only based on what is and can be observed, without any philosophical bias.

Although spontaneous generation has been disproven people still claim that it was once possible in the pasts, under unknown circumstances taking too long to ever be observable by humans. The only "evidence" is a logical deduction bases in a particular philosophy that because "we are here", "it must have happened". Abiogenesis requires a strong philosophical bias; Lacking any real observable evidence it fills these gaps with logical deductions from a philosophical framework which holds as true many unproven/unprovable assumptions.

ID observes the similarities of the organization of life and our own technology, and the dissimilarities with regard to what natural processes, causes and forces, generate. From only these observed phenomena does ID then deduce that the origin of life is most likely rather technological design (by an unknown intelligence) and not generation by only natural processes. The ID deduction is based only on observable phenomenon; The only unknown factor, the unknown intelligence, is at the very end in the conclusion, which isn't the base of anything else. The argument itself is fully supported by only observable phenomena and without requiring any philosophical bias.

Notice that to disprove abiogenesis one needs to prove that somethings are impossible. To disprove ID one only needs to prove something is possible, only one honest example would be enough. In burden of prove tend to lay by the party which should have the least difficulty presenting their evidence.

Given the above I think that ID has a more stronger position? ID requires the least assumptions and only uses observable and observed evidence. It has no gaps to fill by any particular philosophy. It makes no claims which are disproven by any know observations. It can explain not only the origin of life on this planet but also the evolution of life afterward.

I have posted in other threads to indicate that evolution may not be aware nor have any intent nor teleological motivations but the process of continuously filtering out organic forms that do not function in various environmental situations is very similar to the process that an intelligence uses in working towards an objective by rejecting inappropriate solutions. Your acceptance that a human type intellect is at work requires that, at some point in the early life of the universe, that intellect came into being out of natural forces. To remove the inception of first life From Earth environment to some other planet or cosmic situation and to an earlier time does not solve the problem whatever your considerations may be as to how this came about. You have merely indicated, in a rather peculiar way, that you simply do not know and are unsatisfied with current explanations. I can accept that far more easily than fantasies about mysterious alien intellects which leave no evidence.

I notice that you don't really reply to what I wrote?

Here you use the term evolution when you actually mean a particular process of natural occurring variation-and-selection. I understood you this time, but sometimes this kind of equivocation can very easy lead to accidental misunderstandings. (Also, the topic here is primarily abiogenesis).

Your argument could be relevant if a natural process can generate a system which is similar to what an intelligence would design. The evidence clearly shows this is usually not the case, there is not evidence to indicate that it could.

Maybe. For that we would have to examine one of these designer. Regardless, what you raised here is a separate question/problem which falls outside of the ID hypotheses.

Perhaps.This is however also a separate question/problem which falls outside the scope of the ID hypothesis.

But they left more then enough evidence: life itself. They may or may not have bothered to leave a easy to read message ... they did however clearly left something behind: life, us, etc.

What is clear to you that natural forces could not have produced life and therefore its existence proves previous intelligent intent is simply not convincing to me nor, evidently, to the overwhelming mass of workers in the field. Beyond that I do not accept that these biologist professionals are either naive or dishonest in their assumptions that life arose out of natural conditions and forces. Whether you admit it or not it is tainted with paranoid conspiracy indications.

And so you keep saying. You still haven't given a strong reason why natural processes can't do that. Have you read my last post?

First, I think the proper way would be that someone would prove that it is plausible? If someone says that there are waterfalls where the water falls upwards then it's this persons job to prove that this is true, not my job to prove that this is impossible.

As far as I can see there is no observable evidence that natural processes are able to generate systems which are similar to either life or something we would design. I do observe that life and the stuff that we make are organized along similar lines. There are clear logical reasons that explain why natural processes can't generate stuff that is similar. All of which I already presented in previous posts.

In one of my previous posts I think I present a strong case that the hypotheses of ID is, from a purely scientific point of view, less troublesome then Abiogenesis?

Now I can understand that people might have their reasons beyond and outside of science to prefer abiogenesis, it might be more compatible with their philosophy? That isn't a scientific reason, it's more of an ideological reason.

I have; Do you understand the problem that I presented? I think not, because you where referring to genetic algorithms when I already made it clear that experiments already have shown that they don't generate anything remotely modular in organization. Self-organization is equally problematic and unobserved.

Do you know how physicists plan to see whether the Higg's boson exists? They will not be able to observe it. The method is to know the energy and momentum of what goes into a collision, the energy and momentum of what comes out, and see what is missing. This standard method assumes conservation of energy and momentum. Those assumptions follow from the assumption that physical laws must be the same for any observer. Would you say that physics makes a fatal scientific mistake?


You assume the possibility of a never observed intelligence right from the beginning. If you thought it impossible, you wouldn't bother with the rest of the argument.

You assume you can identify something that has been designed. When I asked how, you wrote: We have discussed that. You have not replied to my last argument in refutation. Does that mean you accept I did refute your argument? That you have no way of identifying design?

Before you try an answer relying again on hierarchical modular organization, remember the difference between absence of evidence and evidence for absence, and my question about the genotype-phenotype coupling in the systems you have studied.

You usually argue as if you assume that intelligence is necessary to create hierarchical modular organization. You wrote this two weeks ago:
Occasionally you express yourself more cautiously but I still can't tell whether you understand the difference between absence of evidence and evidence of absence. You have not commented when I asked, and I have seen you argue as if there was no difference after I asked. This was two days ago: And then yesterday you were appropriately cautious again:Then today again:
Could you please decide what you want to say?

You assume that the six papers I gave you presenting evidence that modular organization can evolve are worthless. I say "assume" because you have given no reason for your dismissal.

You assume rather a lot about the designers. You have to. As Sand has told you, if life must be designed and only living agents can do that, who designed the designers? Your answer is full of assumptions. You preface it with the warning that you speculate, but your speculations contain assumptions you say are necessary:



Different physical laws and the designers being made of different matter are big assumptions. That this different matter can support life is another big assumption, especially if you want to go for dark matter. I read the best candidate for dark matter is a particle that is its own antiparticle. If two meet, they annihilate each other. Making a body out of dark matter would be quite difficult.

Your option to avoid admitting abiogenesis for the designers of life on Earth is to claim that perhaps life is eternal. Then you have to assume:
a) one of the cosmological models that posit that the cosmos we see is just one in a long and perhaps eternal series
b) that the information that describes a life form got through the big bang
c) that the information that describes a life form survived the time when our cosmos was just hot plasma, and the time when the only elements were hydrogen, helium and a bit of lithium.

Those are also big assumptions.


Demonstrably not. Either your designers are themselves the product of abiogenesis. Then you have to concede abiogenesis is possible. Or you have to make a lot of big assumptions.


But that is not what you asked me. Whether DNA can be said to have a meaning is different from whether biological evolution is goal directed and needs an intelligently designed fitness function.

I have no problem with the meaning of DNA as a symbolic code being the phenotype it produces or perhaps how that phenotype fares in the environment. That still doesn't say evolution must have a goal that needs an intelligently designed fitness function.

I still have a lot of questions for you. In order of importance:

a) Do you believe that a theory that can be adjusted to be consistent with any evidence is a better theory than one that can only be consistent with a small sub set of all conceivable data?

b) According to your assumption about hierarchical modular organization, how often must the designers have intervened since the beginning of life on Earth? Here is a list. You can just write "yes" if you are sure intelligent intervention was necessary, "don't know" if that is true or "no" if you think biological evolution is good enough.
1 the first cell
2 genetic information in RNA
3 genetic information in DNA
4 cell organelles
5 bacterial communities and the associated signalling (biofilms etc)
6 cell nucleus
7 multicellularity without identifiable organs (think sponges)
8 multicellularity with identifiable organs (think jellyfish)
9 nerve cells
10 hormones
11 mesoderm
12 skeleton
13 lungs
14 wings in vertebrates
15 going from light sensitive spot to camera eye with lens

c] What is the genotype-phenotype coupling in the systems you studied?

Correct. Therefore, since you made the statement that natural processes can't lead to life as we know it, it's your job to prove that. Also yes, I have said repeatedly that it is required to show that abiogenesis is plausible. That's what experiments in abiogenesis are all about. We don't know all the exact details yet but arguing from the point of view that we don't know is an argument from ignorance.



Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Also, the fact that life may be look similar to the stuff that we make is not evidence that someone made it. Your logical reasons that explain why natural processes can't generate stuff similar to the stuff that we make are actually not that great, as much as you think they are. See my next post for further explanation, which is a response to that post that you believe presents a strong case for intelligent design.



Yes I've read it and I don't believe it's that strong. Again, see my next post for a response. I hope you realise that ID is merely a scam, designed to get creationism (religion not science) taught in the science classroom. Look up the wedge strategy. Additionally, it's not scientific at all.



I tend to believe that abiogenesis is a perfectly valid hypothesis from a scientific point of view and has nothing do with any kind of philosophy.



I assume that the experiments you are referring to are the ones by Louis Pasteur and others? Sorry to disappoint you but those experiments were never even designed to show that very primitive life cannot form increasingly complex molecules. There is no law of biogenesis that says that. What they do is disprove the theory of spontaneous generation, which stated that certain complex organisms were generated spontaneously fully formed. For instance, one example given was that maggots were spontaneously generated in rotting meat. This was a common theory at the time that dated back to Aristotle and it was this theory that was disproven, not the modern theory of abiogenesis.