Abiogenesis

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I think you misunderstand the process of forming hypotheses in science. Under the falsifiability criterion introduced by Karl Popper, a scientific hypothesis does not have to be based on observed or observable phenomena provided that the existence of such hypothetical phenomena make predictions that can be checked and tested in a way that could potentially falsify the hypothesis. For an example of such a case, remember that in the beginning of the 20th century, scientists were still debating whether or not atoms existed. Atoms have never been observed nor are they observable. The case was settled once and for all because Einstein proved the existence of atoms from his theoretical work on Brownian motion (Einstein was most famous for his theory of relativity but this is what he did his PhD on). Brownian motion was observed previously but was unexplained. By making use of the theory of statistical mechanics developed by Ludwig Boltzmann, Einstein proved that Brownian motion can only be explained by the statistical behavior of atoms. In principle, abiogenesis can be demonstrated in the lab. ID on the other hand, makes no falsifiable predictions that can be tested. When it has, such as irreducible complexity that can't evolve via any evolutionary pathway, it has failed.



You are confusing spontaneous generation with the modern theory of abiogenesis. They are not related. What the experiments by Pasteur and others before him proved was that living organisms such as maggots cannot form spontaneously, fully formed, from non-living matter. The modern theory of abiogenesis, on the other hand, states that the simplest life forms, such as protocells, formed from molecules that became increasingly complex over time.



To understand the fallacy of the above argument, consider the following substitutions:
"ICD (intelligent crystal design) observes the similarities of the organization of the geometrical patterns in crystals and crystal lattices and our own geometrical designs in architecture, and the dissimilarities with regard to what natural processes, causes and forces, generate. From only these observed phenomena does ICD then deduce that the origin of crystals and crystal lattices is most likely rather architectural design (by an unknown intelligence) and not generation by only natural processes. The ICD 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."

So crystals must then be designed by an unknown intelligence rather than the arrangement of atoms. Notice that crystals are also a counterexample to your claim that natural processes can't create something that looks as though it's been designed.



Really? Well, I maintain that ID is unfalsifiable. Can you tell me what that thing is that you must prove that would falsify ID?



Fail. ID is not a stronger position. Additionally, it requires far more assumptions than abiogenesis, as Gromit has demonstrated. I have also demonstrated that as well, in my argument that Occam's Razor favours abiogenesis rather than ID (for me, it was the assumptions made around the designer and that if the event was not supernatural, there would have to be an infinite chain of designers). You replied that Occam's Razor doesn't apply that case but you have yet to reply to my rebuttal.

The Ur-Assumption of natural science is that all physical laws hold everywhere and everywhen, which cannot be verified empirically. So the uniformity of physical is not observable but absolutely essential to doing science.

ruveyn

That assumption would be violated by George Gamov's cosmological model, so is Gamov's model incorrect on the basis of this assumption?

Every successful physical theory including the two theories of relativity, the quantum physical theories have assumed uniformity of law from some point onward and that conservation laws hold everywhere. Whether this assumption is true or not (we have no way of knowing directly) we cannot do science without.

Check it out and see which symmetries and conservation laws hold in the successfull theories (i.e. those which predict and explain observable phenomena). What do you find?
1. Conservation of momentum
2. Conservation of angular momentum
3. Conservation of mass-energy
4. Conservation of charge

All apparently hold. In addition every one of these theories can be derived from find the extrema of some Langrangian functional.

There are certain things we have to assume whether we can observe them directly or not.

ruveyn

No, I would say that your physics example is not comparable. You're comparing apples and oranges.

If the point you wanted to make was that science has a few metaphysical assumptions, like the notion that there are logical rules to discover which predict with an acceptable margin of error the outcome of experiments, then yes; Your right. The key point therefor is not to say that science makes no assumptions at all, but to make as few assumptions as possible.

Like I pointed out, to accept the hypothesis of abiogenesis requires one to assume more unproven/unprovable things then the hypothesis of intelligence design requires. The only unproven factor in the hypothesis is the unknown designer, but the basis of the hypothesis requires only observable data. A hypothesis usually comes to a unproven conclusion, that's the function of a hypothesis, otherwise we would not need the hypothesis.
To think that impossible would be making assumptions; What empirical evidence do you have it would be impossible? All I do is following the evidence wherever it leads without making any unfounded assumptions about what may or may not be possible.

The only reason to think its impossible is either confusing absence of evidence as evidence of absence or letting purely philosophical assumption pollute your scientific research. We can't allow that to happen.

Could you point out which post I've missed? I can't find it.

In general one could say "I know it when I see it"? This would however be mildly unsatisfying to say the least. There is also (that is the core of the matter at hand) some confusion about what can and cannot be the result of unintelligent processes. So we have a catch-22: If we had such an test we would not need it because we would then already know, for sure, if life was generated by unintelligent stochastic processes or designed by an intelligence... So perhaps developing such a test would be one of the main objectives of ID research? It would fit the scientific pattern of trying to falsify your hypothesis. Such a test would then be the result of ID research, not an prerequisite to starting doing research in this direction.
Ha. That is indeed an interesting point. If anything the given that mutations happen at the genotype, while selection happens at population level (not even just at phenotype level), will make it even more difficult to adapt beyond a very narrow solution space.

Naturally the exact way in which one relates to the other could make a difference to how wide or how narrow adaptation can take place. Given that this connection is still very much unknown in biology it will take a while before we can write any simulations and tests which are directly relevant for biological systems.


Well, genetic algorithms are out what so ever. They just fail to produce anything similar to life or technology. That's not to say that neither life or technology makes use of genetic algorithms for superficial configuration and runtime adaptation to changing circumstances. The problem this is all genetic algorithms are capable of, to superficially configure existing systems within a narrow band of options. It does not generate anything more substantial. And even then, implementing a genetic algorithm for such a purpose is non-trivial.

The same most likely is true of any possible (stochastic) variation-and-selection process. This is difficult to prove because there is currently no way to formulate this into a mathematical proof. Note: We have no empirical evidence that it is possible, we have no proof that it is impossible. We do have a lot of evidence that makes it highly unlikely.

That life appears to be the result of intelligent design is an observation as old as history, only a zealot would deny that observation. Now our own technology becomes more complex the similarities become even greater, nor smaller. We also discover design strategies which are more compatible with the way our mind works, strategies that make use of our abilities and don't hit our limitations too hard. The same strategies seem to have been applied in the design of life. Any explanation must explain these similarities. The conclusion that life was designed by an intelligence with similar abilities and limitations to ours seem to me to be a valid option. To explain these design patterns and strategies by any other way would be very difficult.

Lastly, it might be that some unknown natural process, which we have never observed or even considered, might explain what we see. Some natural process which is able to generate similar variations like an intelligence would. That would mean that all stochastic variation-and-selection hypotheses are still dead wrong. Some other unknown natural process, which would not requirer any intelligence to generate apparently intelligent solutions, might be waiting out there to be discovered.

Personally I don't give it much chance that such a process will ever be found. Also, based on the idea behind the Turning test we would then have to consider then that these forces and processes are intelligent, making the universe itself intelligent? I don't know if I want to go down that rabbit hole.

to be continued later...

And I take it that this "a lot of evidence" (with all its precisely calculated probabilities) is hermetic in nature, and you are not permitted to reveal it to those not in your order?

As I have dismissively commented before, "god(*) did it" is invariably a simple, singular belief that will immediately explain all things, and save all the effort of thought and scientific investigation.

I've seen no change in the arguments you present. Invariably you present as "fact", things that are just your personal beliefs (or disbeliefs). I prefer not to have beliefs (or disbeliefs).

Give a shred of evidence for your pet theory, and I might be swayed. I'm unclear why there is anything remotely useful in the (transparently plausible, but ultimately pointless) relegation of the origin of life (with an arguable definition of what "life" means required) to some currently unknown, but hugely anthropomorphic agency.

(*) substitute ID, aliens, super-dimensional beings, or the FSMr, to taste.

As per the inference of a designer from things which exist,

“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there: I might possibly answer, that for any thing I know to the contrary, it had lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch, as well as for the stone? why is it not as admissable in the second case as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz., that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose … This mechanism being observed … the inference, we think, is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use.”

Now, there are two parts to this argument, design and purpose. Usually when things are designed by humans, there is an apparent purpose. The reason the purpose is apparent is that we understand its operation or the principles by which it operates. However, even without an apparent purpose, that something is designed and thus must have a designer is still able to be inferred, even among those who do not understand the principles by which things operate. Such as, showing even a nonfunctional laptop to people who have never even heard of electricity, even they will infer that it was designed and has a designer. Even without the laptop's operation demonstrated, so as to show its purposes, the aspect of its engineering is still apparent.

"But if that sphere which was lately made by our friend Posidonius, the regular revolutions of which show the course of the sun, moon, and five wandering stars, as it is every day and night performed, were carried into Scythia or Britain, who, in those barbarous countries, would doubt that that sphere had been made so perfect by the exertion of reason?

Yet these people doubt whether the universe, from whence all things arise and are made, is not the effect of chance, or some necessity, rather than the work of reason and a divine mind. According to them, Archimedes shows more knowledge in representing the motions of the celestial globe than nature does in causing them, though the copy is so infinitely beneath the original."

Marcus Tullius Cicero did formulate it rather well I think, especially given the available evidence in his time? Note that the idea of chance and necessity don't differ much from variation and selection respectively. I already referenced this paper but it seems very fitting in this place: Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life.

Yeah, Cicero did a fairly good job back in his day. Only the lower quote is his though, the upper quote is Paley. Though the specifics of the arguments contents', such as the celestial sphere for Cicero and a few areas for Paley, need some revision to be in accordance to modern knowledge, the formulation of arguments and the concepts conveyed are just as pertaining to today as they were 2,050 and 200 years ago. Some I.D. proponents have done some work with revising, such as in Darwin's Black Box where Behe referenced and expanded upon Paley's arguments, but with all the hand-waving and cognitive dissonance being spread by those who live under bridges, much of this revision has been ignored and dismissed off-hand.

Awesome paper I'd say. It seems like Canada would be the place to be for having freedom of academic research?

Fine, some public sources then:

A process of variation and selection is limited:

Genetic algorithms generate solutions which are unlike human designs, have difficulty with robustness, reuse, scaling.

If life was generated by some variation-and-selection system we will not be able to understand how it works for a long, long, long time to come; and maybe never.


But please, don't take my word for it. Science is not a spectator sport, please participate and research this yourself. Convince yourself of the facts.
I still don't understand this argument. It's not true: We still don't have a how life was created or how life works. The only thing that I can think of that changes is that biologists may then contemplate the reasoning that went into the design? And have a reasonable hope that they could figure out how it works.
Naturally I think that the facts the I know are true. Everyone does that. I may present my case forceful and confident, I need to because I swimming against the stream. The word "belief" is to ambiguous to even respond too. Fact is that we all have convictions whether we want them or not. It's the only way to make sense of the world.
What would it take?
It's useful only if it explains the facts, which it does.

This source seems to say that a few million hours on a single computer proves something about the evolution of molecules over a few billion years on the surfaces of the planets around 10^21 stars?

Odd. Here you seem to be quoting a counter-example to your theme. This experiment demonstrates how evolution outdoes any "designer", and just finds its own way to an effective solution to any problem, with little regard for whether that solution follows the intended or apparent rules of the game.

We do have an answer to how life was created, but it is one you reject in favour of an external agency.
I've no idea what "how life works" is meant to convey. If you just mean how DNA, etc, functions - then again, that's already established. If you want to extend the discussion to "how conciousness works", that's an interesting area, largely independent of abiogenesis (depending on how you chose to define "life").

Well, my first statement says that your argument has remained static. It has always been grounded in the idea that someone/something else started life, and abiogenesis cannot work. That's what you started out with, and that's what you still say. I think my first statement is correct.
My second statement is also true, as you do not seem to be able to entertain the idea that abiogenesis can happen... and all you say in response is that it can't.
The third statement you cannot possibly contend, as my preferences are for me to decide.
Saying that neither of the three statements is true seems quite inaccurate.

I think I've already covered this. Any "Garden of Eden" effect would be pretty conclusive.

That's exactly what I have just said: that "god did it" does indeed explain all the facts - by definition. However, I contend that there is no usefulness of an "origin" that just defers all discussion to something/somewhere/someone else, with no attempt to justify that abrogation of responsibility for any further explanation.

Funny, I didn't know that chemical reactions could be carried out over light-years of distance. Even upon the surface of a planet, it's difficult for chemicals miles away from each other to have such required effects upon each other as to create life. Especially with organic molecules pertinent to life, the equilibria equations favor their decomposition as it is, but to travel so many light-years, or just miles even, undergoing so many environmental changes which would affect them via Le Chatelier's principle, would further aid to the destruction, rather than construction, of the molecules of life.

As explained above concerning the design inference, there is also the question of whether these things were actually designed or if they merely have the appearance of being designed.


Things, in particular reference here life, were either designed or they were not designed. Or to put it another way, they either occurred naturally or they did not occur naturally. If it can be demonstrated that naturalistic methods are sufficient, then life might have occurred naturally. If it can be demonstrated that naturalistic methods are insufficient, then life might not have occurred naturally. If life did not occur naturally, then it must have occurred artificially.

In the ultimate view there is no such thing as artificiality. Everything that occurs is natural.

The chemical reactions do not have to be carried out over light-years of distance. Assuming that the same chemical compounds appeared on many different worlds, the shear number of them statistically multiplies the probability that the right chemical reactions occurred on at least one of them.

If you want, you could consider the universe to be designed. However, this does not imply that life was explicitly designed rather than evolved via natural selection.