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Faith and Reason in the OOL Context

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Paul Giem’s comment to my Faith and Reason post below is so good, I thought it deserved its own post. Read on to see how Paul demonstrates decisively that in the origin of life context (OOL) the materialists’ faith commitment is the sort of blind-leap-in-the-dark-in-the-teeth-of-the-evidence stretch of which they delight in accusing theists of making.

Paul is responding to a comment from Tom MH:

Tom MH,
It does seem like we share the axiom that the universe is rational, although we need to explore precisely what that means.
Does that mean that the universe is self-explanatory? If Big-Bang cosmology is correct, then there was a time when the universe was not self-explanatory. One can postulate a God, or multiple universes, or a super-universe. But the universe we know cannot explain itself, when pushed back beyond some 13.7 billion years. So, unless one is prepared to challenge Big-Bang cosmology, one must admit that rationality (for the universe) does not entail complete obedience to natural law (the laws of physics as we understand laws) and nothing else. For the laws of physics fail at the moment of the Big Bang. That’s why it is called a singularity.
Are there any other times at which there is evidence for a singularity? Are there any other times when the laws of physics fail to explain the observed phenomena? Probably the best candidate for such a time is at the origin of life. Consider three postulates:
1. Life exists at present.
2. Life could not have existed for a substantial period of time after the Big Bang.
3. Life comes only from life.
I believe we can agree on the first postulate. I believe that, given the Big Bang, we can agree on the second postulate. The real question is whether the third postulate is secure.
As you know, there was a time when the third postulate was believed to be demonstrably false. That time is gone. In fact, the whole point of evolution would be moot if the third postulate were routinely violated. Need some new phyla in the Cambrian? No problem. Trilobites, starfish, clams, hallucinogenia, and hagfish can just spontaneously pop into being. No need to postulate, let alone find, intermediates between ediacaran life and trilobites, for instance. For that matter, no need to find intermediates between reptiles and birds, or between chimpanzees and humans. They just spontaneously generated. The point is that it is generally recognized that the spontaneous generation of life is at least difficult and rare.
Is it even possible without the intervention of some kind of intelligence? We certainly don’t know the answer is yes by any kind of scientific experimentation. In fact, all our experiments to date argue that the answer is no. So if there is to be any evidence for the belief in abiogenesis, it must (at present) come from theory.
But as you also probably know, there is no coherent theory that explains the origin of life from non-life without intelligence either. Otherwise, Harverd scientists would not have gotten their grant to produce such a theory.
And the obstacles in the way of such a theory are formidable. They include (not an exhaustive list):
1. Miller-Urey apparati do not produce all the amino acids used in life.
2. Miller-Urey apparati produce numerous other compounds not used in life, and some that are toxic (the most prominent one being hydrogen cyanide).
3. Miller-Urey apparati do not produce sugars in the presence of ammonia, which is required for producing amino acids.
4. Miller-Urey apparati do not produce all the bases needed for DNA and RNA (Adenine, (HCN)5, being the only one made in appreciable amounts).
5. No known reaction will add bases to the 1-position of ribose (even living organisms do not synthesize the nucleosides that way, using either a complicated synthesis for adenine and guanine, or orotic acid for uridine and cytidine).
6. There is no known process for consistently forming one chirality (left-handed versus right-handed) of biochemical compounds from racemic (non-chiral or mixed chiral) reagents, outside of life itself.
7. There is no known way to get nucleoside triphosphates from nucleosides other than biochemically.
8. When nucleosides polymerize naturally into RNA, they form 2?-5? linkages rather than the 3?-5? linkages normally found in RNA.
9. When RNA is formed by RNA polymerase, shorter RNA molecules outcompete longer ones.
10. Reasonable requirements for the specificity of RNA required for the origin of life are vastly beyond the probabilistic resources of the universe.
11. Even given all the ingredients for life, life will still not spontaneously reorganize. That is why canned fool can sit on the shelf indefinitely without spoiling.
Thus all the evidence we have points to postulate 3 above being correct; life only comes from life. This appears to point to another singularity, this time after the universe began.
Postulating a material intelligence (as Dawkins allowed) doesn’t solve the problem. For then that intelligence must have arisen via some mechanism also. If it is life, then we still must allow for its spontaneous generation, or else a singularity for it. Non-living intelligence is even more of a reach. To postulate that computers, for example, can evolve without intelligent (e. g., from people) input completely strains credulity. And computers cannot have made it through the Big Bang.
So we are left with three alternatives.
1. There are laws of which we are totally ignorant that can produce life from non-living material, without the intervention of intelligence.
2. Life arose through a singularity with no cause, sometime after the universe was formed (implying a break in rationality).
3. Life arose through the action of an intelligent agent, whose intelligence is not dependent upon the organization of matter (which would make that agent supernatural).
Option 2, it seems to me, is irrational, and concedes a universe that is at least partly irrational. Option 3 is not irrational, but is not materialistic, postulating an entity or entities that is/are not restricted to the material. That is, it is rational, but not materialistic.
Option 1 is rational in one sense; we know that our information is incomplete, and this could be one more area where our information is incomplete. And belief in abiogenesis allows us to view the universe as completely (well, except for quantum mechanics and the Big Bang itself), explained by cause-effect relations.
But it is heavily faith-based. We have no experimental evidence for this belief, and the theoretical problems appear insoluble. We have here belief against all the evidence, analogous to the most daring leaps of religious faith imaginable, that is to say, faith not only without evidence but in the teeth of evidence. And it is even worse; there is no appeal to a God Who could reasonably do the feat that needs explaining. It is a miracle without God.
The rationale that I have seen for this leap of faith is usually that “science” has solved all previous problems and will solve this one too. But this argument is wrong, on two counts. First, even if successful, it would only establish that there was relative parity between the argument for the supernatural origin of life and those for abiogenesis. We would still be completely dependent on faith to believe in abiogenesis.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, “science” has in fact not solved all previous problems. Science has come up to a stone wall regarding the origin of the universe. In fact, “science” has come up to several difficult obstacles, issued promissory notes, and moved on without actually solving the problems. The origin of the Cambrian fauna is something that non-interventionalist evolutionary theory has simply postulated without fossil evidence. The origin of the flagellum in a step-by-step manner has never actually been demonstrated (the best try, that of Matzke, was actually a leap-by-leap explanation, and even then without any experimental evidence to back up his scenario). This insistence that nature must be self-contained is in fact faith against the weight of evidence.
Now if you want to believe in abiogenesis by faith, I won’t begrudge you. But some of us prefer to be a little more evidence-based.

Comments
KF, You know I was thinking about all of this yesterday. I have recently picked up guitar and was trying to recreate the sound of a particular artist. I have discovered that no matter how simple a riff is it is imperative to use the same set up as that artist. That is sound is a very precise thing even as simple as it may seem. This lead me to think about the specificity of form through the apparently designed universe. These tight fine tuned characteristics cant be the result of pure change because chance is not only incapable of producing matter motion and event- but chance cant even purchase itself= that is chance is not a mechanism that is self contained- it is not a set of all sets- it is a description that has form but cannot describe form as such. Chance describes but cannot design. When I was trying to find that perfect sound- in retrospect- it seems quite insufficient to say that all that was happening was chance methodologically trying to mimic itself. A chance realty is an absurd grouping of sets.Frost122585
July 28, 2008
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Hi JS: Some interesting -- and at points funny -- comments. A few remarks: 1] we do know quite a bit about the universe. Two senses of know are at work there. First, book- and lab- learning. But the more deep sense is, whether our claims to know are well warranted and credibly true. This last is what PG was driving at. Never mind how funny it seems! 2] the same mistake as the coin-flipper. This one is interesting. The key issue is that it is assumed that if there are enough sub-cosmi out there, one is bound to come up trumps on facilitating life and then also having something like us. (Odds on a per universe basis are very low, but if the distribution of possible universes is wide enough and there are enough chances across a random distribution, then somewhere, someone will win the lottery.) But, therein lurks the next issue: where did the universe-generating machine come from? Robin Collins:
we begin by noting that in all currently worked-out proposals for what this "universe generator" could be, the "generator" itself is not only governed by a complex set of physical laws that allow it to produce the universes, but also requires a set of fine-tuned parameters. . . . it seems that the "many-universes generator" would need to be fine-tuned, and hence it seems to transfer the problem of explaining cosmic fine-tuning up one level to that of the many-universes generator itself. In support of this claim, we begin by noting that in all currently worked-out proposals for what this "universe generator" could be, the "generator" itself is not only governed by a complex set of physical laws that allow it to produce the universes, but also requires a set of fine-tuned parameters. Even the so-called "chaotic inflation" many-universes model, which attempts to eliminate some of the fine-tuned initial conditions of the standard inflationary models by hypothesizing that these initial conditions vary at random over the superspace of Higgs fields, cannot avoid the fine-tuning of its parameters. As philosopher John Earman has recently pointed out, "The inflationary model can succeed only by fine-tuning its parameters, and even then, relative to some natural measures on initial conditions, it may also have to fine-tune its initial conditions for inflation to work." (1995, p. 156) . . . . even my bread machine has to be made just right--fine-tuned, if you will--in order to work properly, and it only produces loaves of bread, not universes! Or consider a device as simple as a mouse trap: it requires that all the parts, such as the spring and hammer, be arranged just right in order to function. Thus, at present it seems doubtful that the atheistic many-universes hypothesis can provide an adequate ultimate explanation of cosmic fine-tuning. Nonetheless, it is at least conceivable--though I think unlikely--that in the future a many-universes-generator model could be developed which does not require a fine-tuned set of parameters. This hypothesis of a non-fine-tuned many-universes generator, however, seems to face two major problems, which we will now examine . . . . The hypothesis of a non-fine-tuned many-universes generator, however, not only fails to be a natural extrapolation of any well-established theory, but actually goes against what we know regarding the need for fine-tuning in all currently developed many-universe models and what we know about the need for fine-tuning from common experience . . . . Even if such a many-universes model could be developed that dispensed with the need for fine-tuned parameters, the atheist would still need to account for the apparent fine-tuning of the laws of physics: just as the right values for the parameters of physics are needed for life to occur, the right set of laws also seem to be needed.
In short, we are looking at a regress. [The article is well worth reading.] Which brings us to: 3] Turtles: The issue is really a quesiton of chains of cause-effect or ground-consequent. We basically have the choices:
1] Turtles all the way down -- infinite regress 2] Turtles in a ring -- circularity, which on causality side comes down to things [absurdly] causing themselves, and on the logical side, assuming what was to be proved. 3] A final/first turtle, the basis of all other turtles -- the (logically) necessary being that sustains all contingent ones in a contingent cosmos. [If we are in a contingent cosmos (cf big bang), then, necessarily, there has to be something there that grounds it!)
So, which is it, why? GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 28, 2008
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Thanks to BarryA, Paul Giem and all of the posters on this thread. This one I'm going to have to print up as a hardcopy, to read and reread. Most often, I lurk here at UD. As an educational exercise. In that, the subjects discussed are so often too far out of my depth for me to have much worth contributing. I rehearse this disclaimer so that, should anyone detect any penchant in the following for sticking my foot in my mouth, it can be seen in its proper context. 1. On a humorous note, regarding Paul Giem @57:
Ordinary scientists know, without always knowing exactly why, that we do know quite a bit about the universe.
Could it have been all that studying they had to do and all those tests they had to take in college? Sorry. :) 2. On a theological note, regarding one of the points in Paul Giem's most-excellent canvas of the epistemology of miracles @33:
Third, before one comfortably accepts a miracle, it should make some kind of theological sense. Intelligences generally do things for a reason, and if no reason is apparent for a miracle, it should make us wonder whether we have the facts straight.
I wholeheartedly agree, with added acknowledgment that, within most Biblical theologies considered sound by most Christians, there are two (dare I say) nonmaterial intelligent causes for miracles. One performing them for genuine reasons and the other for counterfeit reasons. Namely God and the Devil. Compare Acts 2:22 and II Thessalonians 2:8-9. 3. It seems to me that Paul Giem's point 11, in the original post, also destroys the multiverse angle that materialists resort to when cornered into acknowledging the finely-tuned universe in which we live. Viz:
11. Reasonable requirements for the specificity of RNA required for the origin of life are vastly beyond the probabilistic resources of the universe.
Here's my logic, and please, someone shoot it down if it's wrong. It seems to me that, anybody resorting to multiple universes to overcome these odds, makes the same mistake as the coin-flipper. The one who, after the improbable event of 1000-straight heads, assumes that there has to be a better than a 50-50 chance that the next flip will be tails. When the odds, each flip, are always 50-50. So when it comes to flipping multiple universes, if instead of the probability being 50-50, the probability of our particular finely-tuned universe turning up is "beyond the resources" of each particular universe being flipped (each having to be a coin "just like ours" in all its basic physical laws, in order for "ours" to have turned up as-is), then, no matter how many of universes are flipped, the "reasonable requirements for specificity" always remain impossible to meet. That would make the odds of an infinite number of universes no better than the odds for one. And in fact, multiplying the universes, just like multiplying the coin flips, makes the results revert more and more toward the mean. 4. Regarding Rude @53 regarding: "...it's 'turtles all the way down'." What? Never heard that one before. Gladly on Wikipedia, Hawkings is cited where he relates the story in A Brief History:
A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down!"
ROFLMAO!!!jstanley01
July 27, 2008
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------Paul Giem: You make an excellent point. All the objections to your 11 points depend either on unduly strong faith in materialism or unduly weak faith in reason. To challenge the principle of causality is to challenge reason itself.StephenB
July 25, 2008
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kairosfocus, (67) You are exactly right that science is provisional, and the word "proof" is not appropriate for science without qualification. That is why I argued that believers in (unguided) abiogenesis were faith-based against the evidence, rather than that they were wrong. Their faith is not irrational; it is just against the vast weight of the evidence. If I understand Hume correctly, he argued that we cannot perceive cause and effect, just paired actions. He then went on to ague that a miracle must be less likely in all cases than a naturalistic explanation. But if we cannot be sure that there is such a thing as cause and effect, how can we be sure that a "cause" will always produce the same "effect", in other words, without a cause-effect chain, how can one exclude miracles confidently? This appears like verbal gamesmanship, and it appears like Hume lost the game. It is fascinating to note that, although there have been multiple vigorous philosophical challenges to the propositions that began this thread, there have been very few, and very anemic, attempts to challenge the scientific claims themselves (the 11 obstacles and relatives). It appears to me that in this area, once one clears the field of philosophical objections, there is no contest regarding the weight of the scientific data. It could be fairly said that believers in naturalism must resort to trying to win before the argument is started, because once it is joined, naturalism loses hands down.Paul Giem
July 25, 2008
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Allanius: RE: Hume argued that theists cannot reason back with certainty to first causes or discover their nature through the effects observed in nature In light of the issue of inevitability of "first plausibles" with associated "basic beliefs", and in light of our finitude and fallibility, can we be "certain" -- beyond moral certainty -- of ANY major worldview commitment? In that context, does it not make better sense to dismiss teh quest for "certainty" in reasoning as the pursuit of a mirage, then accept that we live by worldview level faith commmitments? Thence, is it not immensely well warranted -- note the shift from terms like "proof" -- to accept that the existence of agents who act intelligently and volitionally to cause events in the world of our collective experience is a matter of general practical consensus and self-evident reality? Thus, we come back to the points that 1 --> agency is actual in our cosmos, so 2 --> it is possible for it to have been "there" at the point of the origin of life on our planet. 3 --> Therefore, when we see well-tested, reliable signs of intelligence at work in cell-based life, 4 --> it is reasonable to conclude that such life, per best -- and provisional -- explanation, is a product of intelligent action. 5 --> Further to this, since there is a competing explanation based on chance + necessity, if its advocates can show empirically that FSCI can plausibly be generated through non-intelligent mechanisms, the inference at 4 is provisional and subject o empirical test. [Big if, of course . . .] 6 --> Thus, the design inference is properly scientific. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 25, 2008
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It’s modern science that “reifies” the problem of intelligence in nature, not ID. And it’s the Darwinists, not the IDers, who now find themselves in the awkward position of having to ascribe intelligence to nature for its own sake. Everyone now knows that Darwin’s spontaneous generation explanation for the origin of life was little more than wishful thinking. Things don’t just happen when it comes to life. The cell is astonishingly complex and probably irreducibly complex. This complexity points north to intelligence. Nature is now described in engineering terms in science journals. Which raises the question—how do we account for signs of engineering in nature? Now for IDers, it’s so easy a child could do it. Those signs are attributed to an intelligent designer, not to nature itself. If there was an intelligent designer, then it makes perfect sense that his handiwork would show signs of engineering. Things are not so easy for the poor Darwinists, however. They cannot deny that the complexity of nature indicates intelligence, but they continue to cling to Darwin and refuse to allow any inference of a designer. Thus they have no choice but to attempt to ascribe intelligence to nature itself—to physical causes At that point they find themselves falling on a two-edged sword. They were eager to embrace Hume when he conked Newton’s God on the head with his billiard balls, but the same deconstruction of causes also applies to any attempt to make nature a cause of intelligence. All we see is the effect; our notions of cause are pure speculation. Hume argued that theists cannot reason back with certainty to first causes or discover their nature through the effects observed in nature—but then it is also certainly true that Darwinists cannot obtain any degree of certainty with regard to the causes of the signs of intelligence seen in nature. In fact the Darwinists are in a worse position than Newton, in Hume’s analogy, since they cannot even see one ball strike the other. Not only are they incapable of making any final judgment about causes, but they cannot offer any tangible proof that the proximate causes they invoke really do exist. So it seems Hume’s dream is coming true in a way he never considered. Modern science is in the process of undoing itself and its devotion to Darwin, which leaves philosophers free to reimagine a happiness that goes far beyond the limitations of Modernism. Darwinism leads to the annihilation of all value except the will to power—but it seems the door is still open to articulate something fresh and new. Life itself has overturned the smallness of human thinking and the vanity of those who are wise in their own thinking.allanius
July 24, 2008
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Paul wrote: "I don’t think Matzke is bluffing. I think he is a true believer that is putting his best case forward, and that sometimes he accepts inadequate explanations because he is credulous, and that there are some major holes in his case. But bluffing implies that he is saying things that he doesn’t believe in order to persuade others, and I think he really believes his case." You make a fair point, Paul. I am generally quite unimpressed with Matzke's posturing, primarily because he has been exposed to this entire debate for so long and can't seem to get over a couple of conceptual humps. For example, he still fosters the ID = creationism nonsense every chance he gets, despite numerous explanations and corrections to the contrary made to him personally by many of the leading ID proponents. On that specific point, I have a hard time judging whether he is incompetent or purposely deceptive. I also have a hard time telling whether he really believes what he writes some of the time, such as his "explanation" for the bacterial flagellum, or if it is mere posturing for the worldview. As the second definition of "bluff" my dictionary has the following: "to impress, deter, or intimidate by showing more confidence than the facts support." In that sense, I think Matzke is most definitely bluffing, now as usual, and that is the sense in which I made my comment. However, there is another definition of "bluff," namely to "mislead or deceive," which implies (at least in the latter case) some intentional malfeasance. You are right that I can't read Matzke's thoughts and I don't know his true motivation. Thus, in the spirit of civil discourse and reasoned debate I should -- and am happy to -- take him at face value and assume that he believes what he says. In that sense then, it is not clear that he is bluffing and I should have been more charitable in my choice of words.Eric Anderson
July 24, 2008
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Atticus, yet again: Re, 56: Pointing to outcomes of human behavior and saying “everyone knows that intelligence is what causes that” does not wash as scientific definition. 1 --> Here, we start from a basic fact: we are intelligent, living creatures. 2 --> I highlight the "living" as there is just as much no accepted general definition of life as there is no globally accepted definition of intelligence. Would you therefore wish to argue that the science that studies life -- biology -- is thus not a [proper] science? (Hold back the physicists out there who think anything less than physics is not a true science, please . . .) 3 --> In fact, we recognise plain cases of life, and look at he characteristics, then examine other cases that bear more of less of a family resemblance. 4 --> On pain of selective hyperskepticism, if we can study life and its traces and characteristics with profit as an empirically based scientific endeavour, we can similarly study intelligence, its characteristics and its traces as a scientific endeavour. 5 --> So, if we can find cases of known intelligent action, and find certain distinguishing characteristics that reliably empirically mark it apart from what chance and mechanical necessity can do, we have credible criteria for identifying the presence of intelligence as an active cause. 6 --> From the debates that surround so simple a matter, this is already revolutionary, even though it is a matter of extending techniques that are routine in many experimental and observational studies and associated statistics. 7 --> Beyond this, perhaps we can seek to identify whether physical embodiment is a necessary condition of intelligence, or what are the ways in which intelligence enters into the process of cause. But, these are onward questions. Already, simply to recongise that intelligence, chance and mechanical necessity are possible causal factors in a situation, and to seek tracers that mark out which is responsible for what, has proved revolutionary for science. This revolution has obviously bled over into the culture wars over worldviews and agendas -- which seems to be driving much of the opposition from evolutionary materialists who hitherto have thought they owned the copyright on the term "Science." But, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 24, 2008
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Atticus, again: Re, 56: Dembski says that the only way more than a small amount of complex specified information is manifest in a material event is if non-material intelligence creates it. First, last I checked, this was a reasonably credible definition of ID as a scientific endeavour:
Intelligent design is the scientific investigation of intelligent causation and subsequent novel data, hypotheses, experiments, and practical applications that are derived by viewing specific phenomena in the universe as designed. Intelligent design is a scientific hypothesis that seeks to explain a very large range of scientific data, and so has a general definition, and then subsidiary definitions for use within specific disciplines . . . . ID scholars consider what the scientific data tells us about the types of physical effects that are known to be produced only by intelligent causes. A few examples of effects of intelligence are novel and independent functional information, novel functional machines, and highly constrained goal-oriented processes. In this way, design theorists are investigating which effects can only be caused by intelligence. In order to determine this, a scholar must have a great deal of scientific knowledge about what chance processes can do, and an objective evaluation of what chance processes (unaided by intelligence) cannot do . . . . By consulting the cause-and-effect structure of the universe, and considering which causes result in which effects, it can be clearly seen that, in fact, many phenomena found in nature are only known to be caused by intelligence. When these facts are considered, it is then seen that there is a great deal of scientific evidence that strongly suggests there are effects in the physical world that can only be caused by intelligence. Scholars open to intelligent design propose that specific physical phenomena in nature are better explained, and scientifically studied, as being designed by intelligence. Simply stated, ID begins by asking, "Can we scientifically detect if something was designed by intelligence?" Detecting design is a scientific possibility, and ID scholars think this ability is essential for a proper contextual study of the universe. Intelligent design seeks to find natural objects that contain the same final conditions, or physical histories, as objects that science knows were intelligently designed, based upon our observation of intelligent agency in the natural world. An important goal of research from a design perspective is to understand intelligence working in the context of the physical world, and infer intelligent activity by observation and analysis of data. Equally or more important as the above explanation, is what follows from it: ID also proposes that specific physical phenomena in nature are better studied as being designed by intelligence. Because of this, intelligent design has been applied in the form of working scientific research programs by which novel data, hypotheses, experiments, and practical applications are derived by hypothetically viewing phenomena in the universe as designed, whether the researcher holds that the objects of study are actually designed or not. So intelligent design is an inference, from the strength of empirical knowledge alone, that specific phenomena are caused by intelligence, and that these phenomena are better studied as instances of design.
Second, I think you will find in this discussion, nowhere any claim that intelligence is material or non-material in nature. Third, the issue is that as one instance, as a matter of fact, once we see an entity that shows functionally specific, complex information, it has only been observed to be caused by intelligence. As a matter of empirical observation, so supporting a strong induction to the cause of FSCI. And, the practical threshold of such required complexity is of order 500 - 1,000 bits of information storing capacity. It is the CONTEXT of certain cases in point that raises the onward question as to whether the intelligence responsible for say the origin of the observed cosmos as usually estimated at 13.7 BYA, with its multidimensional fine-tuning relative to supporting cell-based life, was embodied or not. Please, note the direction of the chain of inference . . . GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 24, 2008
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Hi Atticus: RE, 56: In Dembski’s ID theory, intelligence is posited as a cause — and an empirically unobservable one, at that. Nope. 1 --> Intelligence is a routinely observed and experienced FACT, as I took time to outline yesterday. 2 --> We, per capital example, are intelligent creatures. [We may have debates on whether the intelligence is an expression of merely physical-chemical etc effects, perhaps through coded information, but that is debating explaining the nature of intelligence, not recognising that it is.] 3 --> So, intelligence is possible, as it plainly is. And, it leaves identifiable characteristic traces that are [per experience backed up by probabilistic resource exhaustion issues] not left by chance and/or mechanical necessity -- cf 400 dice dropped on a table at random and arranged in a functional, coded pattern. 4 --> So, when we see such traces as functionally specified complex information, we have good empirical reason to be confident that intelligence is at work. 5 --> Indeed, this is routinely written into scientific work and statistical studies. 6 --> Now, on certain matters, we see such signs of intelligence in contexts that are distinctly uncomfortable for evolutionary materialists. Their response, sadly, has not been to show that chance + necessity do generate FSCI, but to try to beg the question by definition. That is all too telling on the merits. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 24, 2008
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Paul Giem, Sorry for being "snarky." You seem sincere, and perhaps I'll enter into a kinder conversation with you later.Atticus Finch
July 23, 2008
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KF, RE: your comment 46, I sure hope you enjoy the tutorials, and don't hesitate to contact me directly if you have any questions. I can be reached through the website.Apollos
July 23, 2008
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Atticus Your description of intelligence was pretty much unintelligible. The double-slit experiment demonstrates wave-particle duality of light and that certainly hasn't been debunked. Any attempt to detect which slit a photon passes through destroys the interference pattern that would otherwise be created - i.e. detection causes the wave to collapse into a particle. It doesn't require a human observer to collapse the wave. Any means of detection will do the trick. Perhaps you could point me to a link of the experiment you describe as debunking the Copenhagen interpretation. There are several definitions of "observer" which fall under the umbrella of Copenhagen. Some are a conscious (subjective) observer and others are unconscious (objective) observer. Quantum entanglement and superposition are still real phenomena as far as I know too. DaveScot
July 23, 2008
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Paul Giem thanks again for your thoughtful response. I agree that much chaos proceeded from inferior philosophers of the late middle ages, but that is because they rebelled against the superior wisdom of philosophers from the early middle ages. For my part, good philosophy trumps good science because the “why” questions are more important that the “how” questions. Also, the principles of right reason can exist without science, but science cannot exist without the principles of right reason. To be sure, science can provide knowledge, comfort and wide variety of benefits, but it cannot approach all the important questions nor can it offer wisdom. It’s an interesting contrast. On the one hand, bad philosophers have done more harm to humanity than any other group. All the infamous “isms” associated with totalitarianism are derivatives of erudition gone awry. On the other hand, great philosophers have offered us the solution to tyranny, by providing the rational justification for freedom. Among other things they taught us about the inherent dignity of the human person, the natural moral law, and the necessary conditions for a well-ordered society. Indeed, they introduced the principles of natural theology, which, in many respects prefigured the ID movement that we all hold so dear. Sadly, there are many more bad philosophers than good ones.StephenB
July 23, 2008
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StephenB (52), My expertise in philosophy is largely limited to the philosophy of science at this time, so I may very well wind up butchering the concepts of Kant and St. Thomas Aquinas. But I'll try to react to what you wrote. I agree with you (and apparently with Aquinas) wholeheartedly "that faith and reason are compatible and that truth is indivisible." That's why I wrote a book called Scientific Theology. Kant may have the point that we do not control the universe, and that therefore we cannot philosophically prove that our concepts correspond to the universe as it really is. But that kind of doubt should be a reasonable caution about our fallibility, not a principle of radical epistmological ignorance. The fact of the matter is that we do know something about how the universe operates; otherwise, we could never have put men on the moon. Ordinary scientists know, without always knowing exactly why, that we do know quite a bit about the universe. I am not sure that one can lay Darwin's claim that design is an "illusion" at the feet of Kant. Nascent scientists had been wrong before, about phlogiston, about the four elements, about the relative movements of the sun, the earth, and the planets. Design could have been another area where people were wrong without invoking Kant. He may have made it easier, but I don't think he was necessary. His followers today are engaged in selective skepticism. And methodological naturalism is fine as a first-pass approximation, but the adherence to methodological naturalism is in fact philosophical naturalism. And you're right; philosophical naturalism is almost the precise negation of ID. There is only one difference between the two; that difference is the one that caught Richard Dawkins when he was interviewed by Ben Stein. Philosophical naturalism can allow for intelligent design as long as it is by beings which are themselves natural. So Dawkins had no defense against the idea that life here was started by intelligent aliens. Of course, if one admits that intelligent design is the most likely reason why life got started, and possibly at other places, and then the bottom drops out of the space alien theory, one is led to God, or at least the supernatural. This is why the party line, which Dawkins had slavishly followed to that point, denied that intelligence itself could be detected. That is, naturalism (methodological or philosophical) isn't really against ID; it's just against the supernatural, and is afraid that ID will lead to the supernatural, and so is in an important sense dishonestly denying ID because of the implications, not because of the science. I agree with you that philosophy and theology have implications for how life should be lived, and that bad philosophy or theology has bad implications. That's scary. That means that we have an obligation to do the best philosophy and best theology we can, so as not to live our lives worse than is absolutely unavoidable. I will just come back to one point. You state that "To be sure, good science trumps bad philosophy, but it is also the case that good philosophy trumps bad science." My point is that good science trumps good philosophy. If you want to know how many teeth a mule has, rather than taking the father's number of teeth, or the mother's number of teeth, or an average, the best way to find out is to look in its mouth. This has implications for the subject of this thread. If the evidence we have points strongly to the idea that it is impossible for life to arise from non-life without extremely intelligent help, then even if it is philosophically otherwise justified to disbelieve is such extreme intelligence at the time of the origin of life, we are stuck with that idea anyway. And if the implications of that idea destroy naturalism, then so be it. That has been called the tragedy of science; a beautiful theory slain by an ugly little fact. As they say in some parts, deal with it.Paul Giem
July 23, 2008
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DaveScot (50): What you're saying about intelligence is the norm among engineers and scientists of most stripes. You've identified properties of systems that we classify as "intelligent." You have said nowhere that systems have the properties because they are intelligent. Instead, you've said that certain systems are intelligent because they have certain properties. Engineers and scientists lapse into reification of (assignment of physical existence to) the abstraction "intelligence" because of that boldface "are" in the last sentence. In plain language, we almost always blur the distinction between what we call something and the reality of what that something is. But scientists must take great care with their terms. (Engineers of "intelligent" systems always know what behaviors they want their systems to exhibit, and thus they operationalize "intelligence" implicitly.) In Dembski's ID theory, intelligence is posited as a cause -- and an empirically unobservable one, at that. Dembski says that the only way more than a small amount of complex specified information is manifest in a material event is if non-material intelligence creates it. From his perspective, what you see in an intelligent human being is material, not intelligence. To my knowledge, there is no established science of intelligence that treats intelligence as other than a class of phenomena. By the way, the notion that human consciousness (closely related to intelligence in plain language) causes wavefunction collapse has been debunked. Results of dual-slit experiments do not change when the apparatus is controlled by outcomes of independent quantum experiments, rather than by human operators. The upshot is that "intelligence" does play an extraordinary role in Dembski's theory (the ID theory that interests me), and that it behooves Dembski and others who promote his ideas as science to use the term with precise meaning. Pointing to outcomes of human behavior and saying "everyone knows that intelligence is what causes that" does not wash as scientific definition. Almost all of science is what almost everyone does not know and would never guess.Atticus Finch
July 23, 2008
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Paul Giem @51 On the use of "abiogenesis":
[..] I am aware that some would broaden the term to the appearance of life from non-life regardless of how it happened. I don’t like this definition, as it destroys the precision of the term, but because some use it, where it is crucial I try to qualify it with adjectives such as “natural” or “unguided” just so there is no confusion as to the meaning.
I wasn't sure I liked this broadened definition either, and employed it with some misgivings. I tried to make sure the ambiguity was clear wherever I did so; alas, without universal success.
As gpuccio (30) noted, other words, such as “evolution”, “science”, “creationism”, “common descent”, and so forth also have meanings that are ambiguous, sometimes designedly so.
To that list I would add the ever-problematic "theory", and it's big brother, "Theory-With-A-Capital-Tee". Oh, and thank you for your thoughts on miracles (33). A very interesting read!Tom MH
July 23, 2008
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DS in 50: “Waxing philosophical it seems to me that an omniscient, omnipotent creator of universes would go insane from knowing everything that’s ever going to happen.” This is one reason why I think the Open Theists are on the right path. The theologians put God outside of time (period) which is where there is no computation, no cognition, no speaking—and thus no boredom. These activities happen only when, as they say, God enters time. But in his own realm these do not define the God of the theologians. Some theologians (William Lane Craig, I believe) have supported the “outside of time” thesis on the basis (in part) that no infinite string of events/causes can be traversed. But I wonder—do such theologians also dispute the concept of an infinite future—of eternal life as traditionally understood? It seems to me that if from the divine perspective there exists an infinite sequence of future events/causes, why not such a sequence of events/causes in the past? If anyone here is versed in this theology, and if I’ve not gotten it all wrong, then I’d be interested in how this seeming contradition is explained.Rude
July 23, 2008
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Good points, Stephen B. DS: “It seems to me that ‘intelligence’ isn’t all that mysterious or non-physical.” One would think it should be plenty mysterious, but maybe we oughtta dispense with the physical-nonphysical dichotomy. Better might be Daniel Dennett’s contrast between cranes and skyhooks. Explanation is by its very nature reductionist, and so we seek to minimize the number of skyhooks. Yet we cannot get rid of them all, for all explanation ultimately stops at axioms or elementals (skyhooks) of some kind—otherwise, as they say, it’s “turtles all the way down”. So the question is not whether at some level intelligence is “non-physical” but whether ultimately it requires invoking a skyhook such as Angus Menuge argues for. If the soul were simply a complex machine apart from the brain and invisible to our instruments, its uniqueness would be its material composition. But that’s not the claim, as I understand it anyway. The soul, rather, is elemental—it’s where qualia exist and it’s where the buck of free will stops. So if we deny qualia and free will what’s to explain? Just material processes. We can be intellectually fulfilled materialists. I remember Will Provine explaining that we should reject the notion of free will, not just because we are materialists, but because this belief is the origin of all ill will. We fight and hate because we believe people are guilty but, Provine said, if there is no free will there is no guilt.Rude
July 23, 2008
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Paul Giem: I admire and congratulate you for both your most recent posts. They are among some of the best that I have ever read. It is in that spirit, that I hope you will consider this proposed amendment to one of your comments, which you may even agree with. To be sure, good science trumps bad philosophy, but it is also the case that good philosophy trumps bad science. In fact, philosophy and science are supposed to keep each other honest. In a very real sense, good philosophy underpins and is largely responsible for the very existence of modern science. No philosophy ever aided the mind of man more that the Thomistic proposition that faith and reason are compatible and that truth is indivisible. Similarly, it is good philosophy (realistic epistemology) that sustains science, and it is bad philosophy (nominalist epistemology) that compromises it in our own time. If Kant had not taught that intellectual classifications are “all in the mind,” Darwin would never have dared to call design an “illusion.” Even to this day, anti ID science stoppers, at once beguiled and encouraged by Kant’s error, insist that a design inference is nothing more than a mental construct. This provides them with addition perverse justification for imposing the arbitrary rule of “methodological naturalism,” which is nothing less than an institutional mandate against ID science. Further, there is the problem of morality. In some ways, bad philosophy is even worse than bad science because it deals with first principles. Because philosophy has lost its way, it cannot play its proper role. As someone once wrote, “the corruption of the best is the worst.” That is why science is without direction and is on the verge of undoing all the good it has done. Think of what is happening in the life sciences, and reflect on the current relevant ethic. If you press some its practitioners and ask them to draw a line, many will respond by saying, “Anything we can do we ought to do.” They don’t know the difference between what is technically possible and what is morally permissible. Would you care to merge a rat’s DNA with that of a human? No problem. Someone will do it for the money. Would you like to clone humans as robots and play God with their life or use them as sex toys? Hey, go for it. For that matter, if you need to kill nascent life to cure, then, by all means, kill. In many important ways, philosophy ought to illuminate science just as theology ought to illuminate philosophy. Science gives us facts, but, unlike philosophy, it cannot interpret their meaning. Philosophy can give us meaning, but, unlike theology, it cannot interpret its significance. We ought to be just as concerned with restoring the principles of right reason as we are with finding practical ways of applying them. That means we should reaffirm the Thomistic teaching that there is one truth which can be known from many different perspective and abandon the Kantian derived notion that are many truths, one truth for science, another for philosophy, and yet another for theology. That, by the way, explains why, without embarrassment, TEs can contradict themselves daily and carry on as sleek as ever. The advance of ID science is, in my judgment, inseparable from the task of extricating ourselves from this cultural madness of the intellect.StephenB
July 23, 2008
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Chemfarmer (28) and Tom MH (29), Originally, AFAICT, abiogenesis referred to the origin of life from non-life, in the context of OOL research. Thus it did not include the origin of life by a supernatural, or even intelligent, being (begging the question of whether all intelligence is supernatural). Using that definition, Tom MH's statement in (7) that "abiogenesis is a historical fact" would be a partisan statement. However, I am aware that some would broaden the term to the appearance of life from non-life regardless of how it happened. I don't like this definition, as it destroys the precision of the term, but because some use it, where it is crucial I try to qualify it with adjectives such as "natural" or "unguided" just so there is no confusion as to the meaning. As gpuccio (30) noted, other words, such as "evolution", "science", "creationism", "common descent", and so forth also have meanings that are ambiguous, sometimes designedly so. Therefore those words should not be used unless which meaning is clear from the context, or else they should be further defined when used. Eric Anderson, (32) I don't think Matzke is bluffing. I think he is a true believer that is putting his best case forward, and that sometimes he accepts inadequate explanations because he is credulous, and that there are some major holes in his case. But bluffing implies that he is saying things that he doesn't believe in order to persuade others, and I think he really believes his case. For various commentators, whether the human mind is "natural" or not depends on how one defines nature. The argument that human minds cannot be deterministic and totally explained by material processes, as if so we cannot trust their output to be true, including this theory, seems to me to be a good one, and argues against too much reductionism. But even if we were successful in explaining human minds as the result of material processes, we would still not rule out what would ordinarily be considered the supernatural. According to standard (not universally accepted, but now standard) theory, some 90% of the universe is made of "dark matter". Who is to say that this dark matter is not intelligent, or that it cannot on rare occasion interfere with ordinary matter? In that case there could easily be a being that was properly called God, Who is strictly speaking natural, in that He is part of the universe. If the experimental evidence points overwhelmingly toward a miracle, there is no philosophical warrant for denying it on the basis that God is by definition supernatural, and the supernatural cannot exist. God could very well be natural. That's not my personal most favored belief. But I think we have to be very careful of using philosophy to determine the answer to scientific questions. If there is one thing we should have learned from the advance of science since the middle ages, it is that observation trumps philosophy. As for the legal profession (at least in America), they will just have to catch up. If ID continues to be suppressed, eventually the whole school system will be scrapped, along with the research community. That's not a threat or a promise, just an observation. Eventually the public will not continue to fund with taxpayer money the undercutting of the beliefs and values of the majority. And while in the days before the Internet such abuses of power could be mostly hidden, and smoothed over when they appeared, in a more open society such problems cannot as easily be swept under the rug, and eventually the people will rebel. Frankly, the scientific community should be thankful to Governor Jindal. He is actually doing them the favor of allowing the situation to be defused before it reaches explosive proportions.Paul Giem
July 23, 2008
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Eric It seems to me that "intelligence" isn't all that mysterious or non-physical. It appears to me that intelligence is comprised of a computational device that models reality and makes predictions of the future based upon that model. The model learns from reality through sensory inputs (sight, hearing, touch, and taste) and improves the model as it goes along. It is goal driven in that the predictions are employed to enhance survival or some other beneficial purpose. Intelligent agency is thus intelligence with the capability of manipulating matter and energy, based upon model predictions, to steer probable outcomes of law and chance towards less probable outcomes that are of greater benefit. There doesn't seem to me there's any strict need for a non-material basis for intelligent agency so I'm not much of a mind/body dualist, but I don't rule out the possibility. It seems like intelligent agency could be embodied in a sufficiently complex artificial construction of software and hardware. It's the artificial part that is the sticking point. How such a complex reality modeling engine could arise through law and chance alone seems a lot less probable than a mind, in some exotic form, preceding the observable universe. There doesn't seem to be any way to see through to the other side of the observable universe. The ultimate origin of matter & energy thus remains a deep mystery. There also seems to be a law governing conservation of information that works the same as the law that governs the conservation of energy - i.e. information is neither created nor destroyed but rather only changes in form. Stephen Hawking tried for a long time to show that information is destroyed, or at least removed from the observable universe in black holes but he finally gave up and conceded that even there information isn't destroyed but is merely hidden until it reemerges in the form of Hawking radiation which I understand escapes the event horizon through quantum tunneling. If there is a law of conservation of information then we must conclude that all the information in the universe, including all of us and all of our thoughts, was there in some form at the beginning of time. So the origin of information is just as much a mystery as the origin of matter and energy. A question that intrigues me is whether there is any such thing as free will. I'm a determinist, like Einstein, right up to the point where intelligent agency emerges from sufficiently complex organizations of matter & energy. Waxing philosophical it seems to me that an omniscient, omnipotent creator of universes would go insane from knowing everything that's ever going to happen. A major challenge for such an entity would be to invent something that was beyond prediction - a problem along the same lines as the classic paradox of whether God could create a mountain that even He cannot move. Maybe that invention is the "free will" that most of us think we have. Free will could thus be fairly characterized as a necessary invention for an otherwise omniscient entity. DaveScot
July 23, 2008
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Atticus Finch, I have finally taken the time to read the article you cited (11) by Nick Matzke, and I have even more respect for the guy. I'll discuss that below, but first it is ironic that you implicitly chide me for supposedly not reading "the primary literature" and instead relying "on the digests of others", when the reference you referred me to is not only not primary literature itself, but has no references to the primary literature. In (23) your prejudices are showing. Most people here speak disparagingly of Matzke, therefore I must also, and it must be safe to use a (snarky) rhetorical device in that regard ("Even if you hate Nick Matzke,"). Actually, most people don't. Most people don't mention him. You apparently just see the concepts he defends disparaged, sometimes with personal animus, and very few defending him, and assume that those statistics could be extrapolated safely to all UD commentators, or at least those favoring ID. "Don't assume . . ." If you had said that you were covering your bases, I would probably have let it go. But a rhetorical device means that you already know the reaction you will get. And you were wrong. I'm also fascinated that you "had no idea [I'd] ever said anything about him", meaning Matzke. His name was in the original post. Am I to infer that you did not read the original post before commenting, or that you didn't understand what you read, or that you simply couldn't remember what you read? But back to Matzke's (partly) OOL post on PT. He breaks very little if any new ground scientifically. I've seen most of this stuff before. Sometimes he underestimates the difficulties involved. His discovery #4, that "The increasingly simple ancestors of modern life weren’t made out of just anything, they were made out of chemicals that just happen to be generated by plausible abiotic mechanisms found in early solar systems", discusses yields, missing ingredients, surplus ingredients, breakdown reactions, and such problems minimally if at all. Thus my obstacles 1-3 and 12 (see comment 10) are barely recognized, and certainly not dealt with adequately. You (24) are correct that i am "placing greater emphasis (points 1-4) on Miller-Urey conditions than OOL investigators presently do." But that may be because OOL research has weaknesses that the points have addressed and that Matzke does not wish to advertise, rather than because I am out of touch with OOL research. You are correct that Matzke addresses obstacle 6, although whether he succeeds for a skeptic as opposed to a true believer that just wants something, anything, to prop up his faith is another matter. As far as I can tell, he does not address obstacle 8. If he does, I would appreciate your pointing it out. Matzke does occasionally acknowledge difficulies (e. g. "RNA precursors are somewhat tougher") although he tries to minimize them ("but there has been progress in that area also, and anyway there is no requirement that the first replicator must have been RNA"). "There has been progress" is really vague, and the natural question is "How much progress?" This is encouragement by a true believer of other true believers, not a sober analysis of the situation. The fact is, obstacles 3-7 still apply in full force to the making of the precursors of RNA (and 8 and 9 to the formation of RNA itself). I would elaborate on obstacle 9, as you requested, but first I will quote from my reply to Tom MH (14) which preceded your request (24) to elaborate:
RNA is supposed to polymerize with greater and greater complexity and function as time goes on according to the theory. Yet when RNA and the raw materials for RNA were put into a solution with RNA polymerase, the RNA sequences consistently shortened to the smallest fragments that would be reliably duplicated by the enzyme. That is, instead of evolution, we have devolution. This is actually understandable as survival of the fittest (who says the fittest has to be the biggest? If the only relevant function is reproduction, then smaller reproduces faster). But it doesn’t help the RNA to develop new functions, which it will need if it is to be a steppingstone to life.
If you need more elaboration, let me know. On obstacle 10, let me quote from elsewhere (with very minor editing):
According to standard biochemistry textbooks (Lehninger, for example), the minimum requirements for life are 1. DNA to code for the rest 2. RNA for ribosomes and t-RNA 3. Proteins capable of attaching the proper t-RNA to the proper amino acid (aminoacyl t-RNA synthetases) 4. some kind of DNA replicase and RNA polymerase. Transfer RNA is 74 to 93 bases long, and we need 20 of them. Let's say that they all are 75 bases long. Aminoacyl t-RNA synthetases average about 500 amino acid residues. Let's say that we can get by on 400 residues apiece, or 1,200 coding bases. Let's say that we don't need any DNA, and all we have to have is RNA (we don't know if that is true, but it certainly is the most favorable assumption). RNA polymerase consists of 5 proteins with 329, 1342, 1407, 613, and 91 residues. That totals 3782 residues. Let's say we can get by with 3,000 residues, or 9,000 coding bases. Ribosomes have 3 RNA components, with bacterial RNA weighing approximately 1.5 million daltons (we will ignore the proteins for the moment), for about 4,000 bases. That leaves us with a very conservative total of 38,500 bases. Let's say that we need only a little over half of those bases to be in the right order, so we need 20,000 bases. If we have all the nucleotides we want, a big if, and our minimum requirements are really the minimum and not woefully inadequate, another big if, we are looking at the random production of the long string of RNA that codes all this (with no stop codons and no signals as to where to start or where to cut the resulting RNA) having a probability of 1 in 4^20,000, or 1 in 10^16,666. Suppose we make new RNA at the rate of 10^12 per second (it takes light 10^-16 second to cross an atom), and do so for 15 billion years (10^18 seconds), and have all the mass of the universe (10^81 particles) in suns at 10^57 particles. Each sun has an earth 1/100,000th its size (bigger than our earth, and the top 1 millionth of that earth is continually churning out new RNA. The RNA itself weighs in at about 10^7 daltons. That gives us about 10^63 replicators times 10^30 replications, or 10^93 tries. We have now reduced our odds to 1 in 10^16,573. Anybody like those odds?
Before you reply, you may want to google where I got it from and read the whole exchange (hint: it involves PZ Myers). The reason I respect Matzke is not so much because of his treatment of the biochemistry. His treatment of this area is not completely adequate, although I am willing to cut him some slack because his highest degree was an M.S. in geography. But he sees some philosophical points clearly that others in his camp do not see. For example:
This mini-debate points out what I think, and have often said in conversations, is a major flaw in how we respond to creationists. All too often, when the OOL comes up in popular discussions (reporters, online debates, etc.), the anti-creationist will reply with some variation of “sure, it’s a tough unsolved problem, but we’re working on it”, or the wizened statement “actually, the OOL is outside of the domain of evolutionary biology”, . . .” My take: It is high time all of these statements be discarded or highly modified. They are basically lazy, all-too-easy responses relying on hair-splitting technicalities or nearly philosophical assertions of the “even if the creationists were empirically correct on this point, which they aren’t but I’m too busy to back it up right now, it wouldn’t matter” variety.
(Yes, I know I omitted one response. We covered some of it above, and this isn't meant to be a detailed critique of Matzke, but to hit the highlights, and right now I am citing where I agree with Matzke.) Later, Matzke again disparages the objection that "even if the creationists were empirically correct on this point, which they aren’t but I’m too busy to back it up right now, it wouldn’t matter", saying that
that sort of response, even if the philosophical point is valid, leaves the creationist and any of his sympathetic readers irate that the empirical point is not being addressed, and that the creationist/ID position is being excluded by the rules of the game.
He then reinforces his comment about the origin of life being part of evolution:
The second statement, splitting the OOL from evolutionary theory, is only technically correct in a sort of legalistic, hairsplitting way. Sure, it’s true that technically, “evolution” only happens once you have life, or at least replicators, but getting from replicators to the last common ancestor is most of what most people think about when they’re thinking about the origin of life, i.e., “where did the evolutionary ancestor of all life today come from?” and all of that is evolution all the way. Furthermore, even the origin of the first classical “replicator” was itself very likely an evolutionary process, in that it occurred in stepwise fashion and not all-at-once, and that the first replicator was likely preceded by various sorts of pseudoreplication, statistical inheritance and kinetic biases. If you remove evolution from your thinking about the origin of the first replicator then it is very likely you will never understand how it happened, or what the current research on the question is about. Finally, even apart from these detailed considerations, “evolution” reasonably has a broader meaning – the evolution of the universe, the solar system, the planet, and the planet’s geochemistry, and the origin of life and the origin of the first replicator must be understood as part of that larger evolutionary history.
I disagree with the applicability of evolution to the origin of life, but Matzke's point about the OOL being part of the evolutionary picture is dead on. Finally, Matzke disagrees with some (most?) of his colleagues about "the motivations of creationists" "You are not really understanding them if you call them dishonest liars (e.g. Shallit), because they mostly do believe what they say." He doesn't mean that he agrees with us: "What they say is a product of wishful thinking and ignorance and ideology, but that is different than lying." While I would reverse some of those sentiments, that is at least more respect than creationists usually get (and he is partly right--we can, and sometimes do, let wishful thinking and ideology color our analysis, and sometimes don't do our homework and are then avoidably ignorant). One final reason that I respect Matzke is that he realizes the important questions. He has turned out a positive scientific defense of the materialist position on the OOL, and also on a possible evolutionary pathway to the flagellum. Those proposals may be flawed, but at least he has the clear insight to see that the attempt is necessary, and the gumption to make the attempt. That, in my book, is major progress.Paul Giem
July 23, 2008
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Apollos: Thanks for the kind words.StephenB
July 23, 2008
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kairosfocus: delayed greetings once again from the USA heartland. I know what you mean. For my part, I do not relish the late hours. How I wish I could become less of an owl and more of a rooster.StephenB
July 23, 2008
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PPS: Apollos, your blender tutorials are a considerable repayment! Not to mention, you own many thoughtful contributions here.kairosfocus
July 23, 2008
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PS: On recognising and describing intelligence, courtesy good old materialism-leaning prof Wiki:
Intelligence (also called intellect) is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom.
Note this following discussion and caveat from the American Psychological Association 1995:
Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen somewhat different definitions
Of course, if we differ in extent to which we exhibit such performances, we do sharte the capacity to so perform. And therefore, any other entity that exhibits similar capacities can reasonably be seen as intelligent. And, several of the above activities will give rise to functionally specified complex information beyond 500 - 1,000 bits of information storage capacity. In every case of such, where we directly know the causal story, the root of such FSCI is intelligent action. That is FSCI (and so the explanatory filter that identifies it), is waranted to be an empirically observable, reliable sign of intelligence. Thus, the categorisation of causal sources as embracing chance, necessity and intelligence -- immemorial in the days of Plato -- is reasonable. (by sharpest contrast with the evolutionary materialist attempt to reduce mind to nature in the physicalist, evolutionary sense.)kairosfocus
July 23, 2008
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Eric: Actually, physicalist accounts of the origin of our own experienced and observed minds strongly tend to become self-referentially inconsistent. I discuss why at a fairly introductory level here in the always linked. To begin to see why, in outline, think about seeing a pile of rocks suddenly fall down a hillside in an avalanche and before your astonished eyes, forming the shape: WELCOME TO WALES 1 --> Now, you have got credible reason to see that the rocks moved based on chance + mechanical necessity only, and have done something that is not physically or logically impossible. 2 --> However, the physical forces that have formed the rocks into a given shape are utterly irrelevant to messages or meanings, truth or warrant. 3 --> Consequently, we have no warrant for believing that the collocation of rocks constitutes a coded, functional, truthful message. 4 --> Thus, you would not be justified to infer that you were on the border of Wales based on the shape of the rocks that you saw tumble down the hill based on chance + necessity only. 5 --> This is illustrative of the basic problem with attempted physicalist accounts of mind and its characteristic function, intelligent action. There is no basis for bridging from the physical to the mental, i.e. "emergence" or similar claims are incredible: the properties are so radically divergent that we have no grounds for seeing how properties of the one plus combinations and interactions give rise to the other; unlike, say how we can see that Na atoms and Cl atoms, suitably ionised and brought together, can form crystals of NaCl, with significantly different physical and chemical properties from those of the elements. 6 --> This extends to the usual account based on chance variation and natural selection, plus whatever extensions are in vogue at any given time. For, as Richard Taylor (the source of the original form of the above) points out . . .
Just as it is possible for a collection of stones to present a novel and interesting arrangement on the side of a hill . . . so it is possible for our such things as our own organs of sense [and faculties of cognition etc.] to be the accidental and unintended results, over ages of time, of perfectly impersonal, non-purposeful forces. In fact, ever so many biologists believe that this is precisely what has happened . . . . [But] [w]e suppose, without even thinking about it, that they [our sense organs etc] reveal to us things that have nothing to do with themselves, their structures or their origins . . . . [However] [i]t would be irrational for one to say both that his sensory and cognitive faculties had a natural, non-purposeful origin and also that they reveal some truth with respect to something other than themselves . . . [For, if] we do assume that they are guides to some truths having nothing to do with themselves, then it is difficult to see how we can, consistently with that supposition [and, e.g. by comparison with the case of the stones on a hillside], believe them to have arisen by accident, or by the ordinary workings of purposeless forces, even over ages of time. [Metaphysics, 2nd Edn, (Prentice-Hall, 1974), pp 115 - 119.]
Thus, directly, self-referential incoherence. For as Plantinga points out, NS etc reward behaviour, not the underlying mentality that may give rise to the behaviour, so we have no grounds for inferring that minds putatively produced by such a process are credibly accurate in reasoning. If you want my own simple summary:
. . . [evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as "thoughts" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism].) Therefore, if materialism is true, the "thoughts" we have and the "conclusions" we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . . .
In short, evolutionary materialist accounts of the claimed origin of mind [and morals too as a key function of mind] as a rule end up in self-referential absurdity. So, we do not have a credible, non-question-begging, non- incoherent physicalist account of the origin of minds, including our own. So, to try to demand that intelligence, an aspect of mind, per observation, have such a basis is massively question-begging and burden-of-proof shifting. Mind ands its functions are facts of our experience and observation as intelligent creatures. In particular, intelligence. And, we know that intelligent action can routinely generate observable outcomes that easily exhaust the available probabilistic resources for chance + necessity acting together to credibly achieve. Indeed, we build that into statistical studies [think of classic hypothesis testing, ANOVA etc and assignments of observed outcomes to chance variation vs treatment impacts and associated issues on confidence levels] and into experiment designs that use such statistics -- it is a routine part of science as practised. So, it is selective hyperskepticism to then pretend that this is not so, and that the same basic signs of intelligence are not reliable when the assumptions and assertions of the worldview, evolutionary materialism, come into question. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
July 23, 2008
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Nice try, Atticus, but I try to be a bit more careful than you give me credit for. Specifically, you are free to debate the ID movement, the desire of Johnson or anyone else to see methodological naturalism challenged as a reigning principle of "science." However, the so-called rules of science have nothing whatever to do with what intelligence is or is not. You will note that I stated that neither you nor anyone else is capable of defining intelligence in physical terms. The best that can be hoped for right now I believe is our personal experience as intelligent beings and also noting the effects of intelligence around us. I have no idea what most people mean when they talk about "supernatural" so I typically try to avoid using the word unless it is germane to the particular discussion. You'll notice that I spoke in terms of physical, rather than some juxtoposition of "natural" against supernatural. This is precisely due to the fact that some individuals have tried to pigeon-hole the idea of human intelligence into some kind of "natural" phenomenon precisely so that they can say we only know of "natural" intelligence and don't have any reason to interject "supernatural" intelligence in the history of the universe or life. Such an approach, however, affects me like water off a duck's back, as I am not subject to being pigeon-holed into contrived and artificial definitions of either "natural" or "supernatural." Bottom line, despite your kind attempts to educate me: neither you nor anyone else has the ability to explain intelligence solely on the basis of the physical and the material. If intelligence is not reducible to the physical and the material, then it can never be defined as such. Thus, any demand that ID define intelligence in terms of the physical and the material is based on unproven, and very likely false, assumptions.Eric Anderson
July 23, 2008
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