No, this isn’t a post about TSZ. It’s about how to get abiogenesis without a designer and how to build a nanocar.
We have no idea how the basic set of molecules, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids and proteins, were made and how they could have coupled in proper sequences, and then transformed into the ordered assemblies until there was the construction of a complex biological system, and eventually to that first cell. Nobody has any idea on how this was done when using our commonly understood mechanisms of chemical science. Those that say that they understand are generally wholly uninformed regarding chemical synthesis.
“Those that say oh this is well worked out, they know nothing, nothing, about chemical synthesis. Nothing.”
From a synthetic chemical perspective, neither I nor any of my colleagues can fathom a prebiotic molecular route to construction of a complex system. We cannot even figure out the prebiotic routes to the basic building blocks of life: carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids and proteins. Chemists are collectively bewildered. Hence I say that no chemist understands prebiotic synthesis of the requisite building blocks let alone their assembly into a complex system. That’s how cluelss we are.
“Nobody understand this. So if your professors say it’s all worked out, your teachers say it’s all worked out, they don’t know what they are talking about. It is not worked out.”
Given our current level of knowledge, the claim that life arose by naturalistic means must surely qualify as an extraordinary claim. A claim for which not only is there not extraordinary evidence, but a claim for which there is no objective empirical evidence whatsoever. You may as well claim to believe in magic. Sure, let’s be skeptical. You first.
But of course nobody is concluding the actions of any gods created life; this is known a priori. So there’s no need (as well as no way) to determine who, how, when, why, etc that the gods did it. The challenge is to attack the only credible alternative by whatever sells. And evidently, what sells is (1) to assume life as we know it today was the initial target and (2) use bogus statistics to “prove” the impossibility of hitting that target.
I guess it’s simply impossible to get a True Believer to understand that there never was any target, there never were any gods, and that it makes more sense to try to figure out how something happened, than to “support” a magical presumption through Sophisticated Denial.
If Mung were writing Sherlock Holmes mysteries, he’d set up the initial mystery, immediately conclude nobody could have done it, and then argue that he’d never mentioned any gods, oh no.
You’re confusing the general principle with some particular model of how it happened. The general principle (life from non-life) is the only solution known to be possible, because life can not always have existed. There was a time before stars, planets and elements heavier than Beryllium. So it would have to come from non-life at some point in the past. This point isn’t controversial. The controversial point is the how exactly it happened.
The extraordinaryness would be a claim that it was some particular model. Suppose somebody came and said an RNA-world originated in a prebiotic soup that rained in with cometary dust or some shit. That would be an extraordinary claim and require extraordinary evidence.
Are you suggesting “the world’s best synthetic chemists hard at work” designed life on earth (of which they are a subset) or are you having trouble following along?
Oohh, so when tour says:
“From a synthetic chemical perspective, neither I nor any of my colleagues can fathom a prebiotic molecular route to construction of a complex system. We cannot even figure out the prebiotic routes to the basic building blocks of life: carbohydrates, nucleic acids, lipids and proteins. Chemists are collectively bewildered. Hence I say that no chemist understands prebiotic synthesis of the requisite building blocks let alone their assembly into a complex system. That’s how cluelss we are.”
… he’s speaking totally literally. He’s not impugning the entire field with his own ignorance, he literally only means himself and his immediate colleagues? Bullshit!
People here don’t think that assuming that observable causes are responsible for the origin of life is an extraordinary stance, while believing that the assumption that non-observable causes are responsible for the origin of life is an extraordinary position?
To the first part, no, I don’t think that we do.
That’s all that the “naturalistic” part really means, anyway.
Glen Davidson
That’s what he just explained.
colewd,
It was an illustrative story, assuming nothing, to demonstrate the ridiculousness of the demand. For the purposes of the illustration, that is what actually happened.
You want more detail still (in this already imaginary story)? This really is the pathetic level of detail you expect evolution to provide to compete with “I just don’t fn know” for intellectual room in your cranium?
I demand to know every meal eaten by Richard III. If not provided, I submit that he subsisted on fresh air and sunlight.
Do you really want to get into an argument with keiths?
Yes, you completely misrepresented what Tour said.
From a synthetic chemical perspective, neither I nor any of my colleagues can fathom a prebiotic molecular route to construction of a complex system.
Allan Miller,
I guess modern science not longer needs testable mechanisms. The string theory guys will be thrilled.
I’d probably be upset too if someone confronted me with the fact that I have no objective empirical evidence for my beliefs.
There seem to be three possibilities for the origin of life:
(1) the universe is eternal, and there was always life;
(2) life arose naturally;
(3) life resulted from divine intervention.
I have not rejected any of those. However, the conditional probability of (3), given that there is life, seems to be pretty close to zero. We do not have any evidence of divine intervention ever.
But you’re used to that.
Glen Davidson
then they’d be facts.
Neil Rickert,
ID doesn’t require divine intervention so there must be at least one more possibility. Also there isn’t any evidence for 1 or 2, so that would be a problem. No one knows how to test 2 so that would be another problem
Joe Felsenstein,
We understanding the coping process very well we have observed it. We have never observed life from non life. Tour is trying to recreate it and is struggling. We know when pen goes to paper ink is deposited and can show the chemical interaction. We don’t know how organic chemicals form life. It appears that all the chickens and eggs need to be present simultaneously which is really hard to explain.
colewd,
You really don’t get it? Evolution, in that scenario, really happened. The underlying causes were entirely evolutionary; genes imperfectly replicating, having consequences and becoming fixed.
There is a problem with access to the data, because some of it happened in Agragag’s germ cells, some of it during a developmental cascade in long dead organisms, and some due to statistical difference in the offspring accruing to individuals with different running speeds, accruing over many contests with local predators or prey.
But you sneer at evolution because it cannot provide that detail? Even though that is what happened? You dismiss even the possibility that it happened by evolutionary means because we don’t know it down to the last detail?
Weird.
The reductio ad absurdum of this approach to denial is There Is No History. Beyond that recorded, of course. colewd’s ancestors arrived in a spaceship 10 minutes before the earliest record was made. Chimps turned up, a startled ball of fur, moments before being fossilised. Prove Me Wrong. To My Satisfaction.
Yes, there is the possibility that ID requires a undesigned designer, who is neither divine nor arose naturally.
Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools.
-Philip Johnson, American Family Radio (10 January 2003)
I also don’t think that there is really a theory of intelligent design at the present time to propose as a comparable alternative to the Darwinian theory, which is, whatever errors it might contain, a fully worked out scheme. There is no intelligent design theory that’s comparable.
– Philip Johnson, Berkley Science Review (Spring 2006).
Perhaps egg laying chickens were not the first life.
Go on then. But not for the ink you have, but for the ink they had!
newton,
Depends how you define life but in my mind you need to be able to generate power and translate that into work rapidly enough to keep the process going. Plus ability to replicate. If you have an idea with either chickens or eggs I am all ears.
No I didn’t. All the papers linked in this thread so far are a total refutation of that claim. Not to mention the fact that you have now snipped out and focused on the part where Tour talks about a complex system, rather than the part where he talks about even the basic building blocks of life, such as carbohydrates and lipids.
On all subjects, the claim he makes is wrong. Demonstrably wrong. Read the fucking papers provided.
Allan Miller,
I am not sneering…promise:-) I am challenging the theory because the current mechanisms RMNS and neutral theory are almost certainly wrong because of the prior discussions we are having. I appreciate evolution for the data and observations that are available but unfortunately no mechanism no theory so there is work to do. If the mechanism gets identified then the detail requirement relaxes.
colewd,
The mechanism is genetic change (substitution, insertion, inversion, deletion, transposition, recombination, LGT) followed by concentration by either drift alone or drift + selection, and pinning in place by purifying selection until the wind changes. In very broad terms.
Sure. But the thing is it’s the best wrong we have. When you have a less wrong wrong then we can use that instead!
Until then, no need to continue to point out some of what we know is certainly wrong. Everybody knows.
Approx how many mechanisms of change have been identified, would you guess?
Tour may be a virtuoso organic chemist but it seems to me that his arguments are muddled. He says no one has any idea of life originated. This is true but it doesnt mean that there isn’t evidence that it originated and evolved by natural means. You can see evidence for a process before you know the details
He does what many creationists and IDers do; he requires the natural process be explained in excruciating detail before he’ll accept it but gives religious explanations a free pass: at one point he says its easy to explain how God could do it – he’d just ‘speak it into existence” How exactly does that work?
At 1:21 he says something strange. In response to a question from the audience he says he thinks it possible that scientists could find a natural explanation for the origin of life. At least thats how I interpreted it. If thats true his entire talk amounts to saying that origin of life researchers haven’t figured out the details of how life originated….but any origin of life researcher could have told you the same thing!
Robin,
There isn’t any theory of evolution, Robin and Darwin’s isn’t a theory, not in a scientific sense, anyway. So what was your point?
Is archaeology a theory? Is forensic science a theory?
REW,
There isn’t any such evidence. No one knows how to test the claim as it doesn’t make any predictions nor has it produced any testable hypotheses
OMagain,
I have a group experience where the theory mis led scientists into the wrong conclusion. I think, we don’t know, is a better answer than an answer that is almost certainly wrong. We badly need a testable hypothesis or move to the we don’t know position.
How did you determine those mechanisms are stochastic and not designed?
First you have to ask a specific question if you want specific answers to be right or wrong. What we have is a framework. You can improve it if you like.
“The Design Revolution”, page 25, Dembski writes:
He goes on to say:
But what does that matter Frankie, as Intelligent Design is not required for mutations remember? You said exactly that a moment ago.
What do you think Frankie? Does your Intelligent Designer meddle? You evidently think so, as otherwise how are proteins found?
Do go on…
LoL! OMagain has reading comprehension problems. I said a DESIGNER is not required to INTERVENE to produce the mutations. The DESIGN does that just as it does with genetic algorithms.
Correct. Because that’s what he was talking about when he mentioned being unable to fathom a prebiotic molecular route.
Sure, because monks have no idea how to copy a manuscript.
But you understand that a testable hypothesis is a sort of mini-theory – it’s a prediction that X will happen under Y conditions. The overwhelming majority of tested hypotheses fail the tests. Which means most hypotheses are by their very nature answers that are wrong, and are discarded or modified when the tests demonstrate that.
A testable wrong answer is, I should think, vastly preferable to just saying “gee, who knows”. That response doesn’t lead to any sort of fruitful test.
We await your testable hypotheses for unguided evolution.
OMagain is demonstrating its collective cluelessness 😛
So you’re saying we have powerful clues pointing in one direction in each case, even if we cannot actually demonstrate that it happened? Or are you saying that the clues pointing to a natural origin of life are somehow, uh, less clueful or something, than the clues that monks copy manuscripts? Or maybe you’re saying that you’re only willing to count clues indicating what you prefer to believe, while demanding far higher levels of certainty for what you prefer to disbelieve?
You typically show an avid willingness to swallow the camel (some magical invisible all powerful indetectible entity performed something undefined by unknown means) while straining at the gnat (that well-understood physical and chemical process can produce physical and chemical results).
If evolution is guided, as you say, what is it guided by and how do you know?
When does the designer intervene then? Once, right at the start or something else?
OMagain,
Question: What is causing large scale evolutionary change.
Answer: We don’t know at this point.
Mutations don’t “just happen” in genetic algorithms. You have to program them in. If you don’t, they don’t happen.
Unlike life. Which is chemistry. Which is messy and non-digital. Is that what you are claiming is the DESIGN then? Chemistry?
If the designer had not interfered at least once, what would be different?