There are numerous definitions of naturalism. Here is one definition with some additional observations from infidels.org:
As defined by philosopher Paul Draper, naturalism is “the hypothesis that the natural world is a closed system” in the sense that “nothing that is not a part of the natural world affects it.” More simply, it is the denial of the existence of supernatural causes. In rejecting the reality of supernatural events, forces, or entities, naturalism is the antithesis of supernaturalism.
As a substantial view about the nature of reality, it is often called metaphysical naturalism, philosophical naturalism, or ontological naturalism to distinguish it from a related methodological principle. Methodological naturalism, by contrast, is the principle that science and history should presume that all causes are natural causes solely for the purpose of promoting successful investigation. The idea behind this principle is that natural causes can be investigated directly through scientific method, whereas supernatural causes cannot, and hence presuming that an event has a supernatural cause for methodological purposes halts further investigation.
http://infidels.org/library/modern/nontheism/naturalism/
For the purposes of this discussion, I’m not going to be too insistent on particular definitions, but it seems to me this captures the essence of naturalism: “More simply, it [naturalism] is the denial of the existence of supernatural causes.”
Personally, I’d be on the side of naturalists or at least agnostic if I felt the origin of life question were satisfactorily resolved. So although I have sympathy for the naturalistic viewpoint, I find insistence on it too closed-minded. I don’t think reality operates in a completely law-like, predictable fashion, it only does so mostly, but not always.
The word “natural” can be equivocated to death and is often equated with “ordinary” or “typical” when it should not be. So if someone insists that naturalism is true but wishes to also be fair with the facts and avoid such equivocations, when they comment on the origin of life, they might say:
The origin of life was an atypical and unique event far from ordinary expectation, but many of us presume it happened naturally since supernatural events are not observed in the lab.
That would be the an accurate way to characterize the state of affairs, but this not what is usually said by advocates of naturalistic origins of life. Most origin-of-life proponents insinuate that the origin of life event was not terribly extraordinary, that OOL fits well within “natural” expectation, even though by accepted laws of physics and chemistry and current knowledge, such an event violates the ordinary (dare I say “natural”) expectation that non-living things stay non-living.
Turning to evolution, if someone insists on naturalism, but is at least fair with our present day knowledge, they might say:
It is NOT typical for something as complex as an animal to emerge from a single-celled organism, but we presume it happened naturally since animals share some DNA with single celled creatures.
Again, that would be the an accurate way to characterize the state of affairs, but this is not what is usually said by advocates of naturalistic evolution of life from the first cell. Evolutionists insinuate that the necessary events to evolve an animal from a single cell must not have been terribly extraordinary because animals and single-celled creatures share some similar DNA — the idea is insinuated even though it is a non-sequitur because something can share DNA via extraordinary or atypical events, at least in principle.
Darwin and his supporters argue that most evolution of complex function proceeded via a mechanism which Darwin labeled “natural selection”. However, if Darwin’s claims actually entail highly atypical events rather than ordinary ones, then his label of “natural selection” for how things evolved would be a false advertising label. If major evolutionary changes require highly atypical events, then “highly atypical events almost indistinguishable from miracles” would be a far more appropriate label for Darwin’s proposed mechanism of evolution. Instead, Darwin’s label of “natural” is presumptuous and unproven at best and completely false at worst. For all we know, natural selection prevents major evolutionary change. Michael Lynch points out:
many genomic features could not have emerged without a near-complete disengagement of the power of natural selection
Michael Lynch
opening, The Origins of Genome Architecture
Many? How about most? No one knows for sure, and thus Darwin’s label of “natural” for “natural selection” is presumptuous. For all we know the correct theory of evolution could be “evolution of significant novel forms by highly exceptional events”.
Animals and single-celled creatures share some DNA, but from all that we know, the transition from single-celled creatures to something as complex as a multi-cellular animal is highly atypical and so far from natural expectation that something of that order of change might likely not happen again in the history of the universe.
If naturalism can accommodate any atypical or extraordinary event as a matter of principle, no matter how improbable, then naturalism can accommodate events that would otherwise be indistinguishable from miracles.
Whether there is a theological dimension with atypical events is a separate question. Can there be an event atypical enough that it warrants supernatural explanations? That’s a philosophical question with probably no formal resolution.
Proponents of naturalistic emergence of biological complexity desperately pretend the sequence of necessary events are not atypical, but rather within the realm of ordinary expectation. Hence they try to render the question of supernatural origins as moot as the question of whether supernatural causes are needed to make ice melt on a hot day.
But imho, efforts to characterize emergence of biological complexity as “not that out of the ordinary” are failing. The more we learn of life’s complexity the more it seems highly atypical events were involved to create them. Perhaps these events were so atypical that they are virtually indistinguishable from miracles of supernatural creation.
I’m certainly not alone in those sentiments:
If we do not accept the hypothesis of spontaneous generation, then at this one point in the history of evolution we must have recourse to the miracle of a supernatural creation
Ernst Haeckel, 1876
Pasteur’s experiments and those followed from 1862 disproved spontaneous generation. Ernst Haeckel’s 1876 quote shows how false ideas like spontaneous generation die a slow death. Haeckel’s quote symbolizes how naturalism seems inherently uncomfortable with anything that suggests a highly atypical event actually happened somewhere in the past.
Yep. This is the simple concept which IDiots like Billy here either can’t or won’t grasp.
Flint,
The argument is about events it is about cause. What caused abiogenesis? Can we attribute it to the laws of physics and chance? The answer is most likely no.
-chicken and egg problem
-genetic information problem
Thank you for your ignorance-based fact free opinion.
Adapa,
Anytime 🙂
Sorry, the answer is surely yes. I just finished explaining to you that EVERY sequence of events is vanishingly unlikely. Did you not get the point? If physics and chance CAN cause something, and no competing mechanisms have been found, the default should be that it DID cause something.
And no, goddidit is NOT a competing mechanism. It’s at best a failure of imagination.
I think we have pinpointed the problem here.
If that problem were handed to me, I’d use a GA to address it. I’d give the GA plenty of adaptive space, and a billion years to work on it.
Flint,
We are not measuring the probability of the events occurring we are measuring the probability that the assigned cause of physics and chance is the cause. You are setting up a false straw man.
Flint,
So when you are searching what would cause you to fix a sequence that was searched?
No.
We’ll add genetic algorithms to that ever growing list of things you are completely ignorant of.
What is the source of your concern? How might the atmosphere and climate of Pasteur’s laboratory in 1864 differ from the conditions in a classroom repetition of his experiment today, yesterday or tomorrow?
I was simply contrasting environmental conditions on Earth in modern times with conditions on earth 3.5 billion years ago.
Well said!
Thanks. I don’t expect any of the creationists who come here will understand the very simple point I’m making. Upton Sinclair once said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” Change “salary” to “identity,” and “difficult” becomes “impossible.”
Adapa,
Really? Your the one who claimed that natural selection could save the day. So if I can’t even get a “just so” story on how you guys would design a flagellar DNA sequence how do think a blind unguided process can.
Really. The way you continue to butcher actual evolutionary theory after being corrected ad nauseum is astounding.
Adapa,
Actual evolutionary theory? And not even a “just so” story to hypothesize how DNA was arranged so bacteria got their mobility. Looks like an evolutionary fairytale is even too difficult.
We’ll stick with science, you stick to your “POOF GAWDDIDIT WITH MAGIC!!” fantasies. Seems to be all your intellect can handle.
Kantian Naturalist,
Would you also accept that if universal common descent was highly probable under current conditions on this planet doesn’t entail that it was highly probable 3.6 billion years ago or 1.5 billion years ago or 500 million years ago.
abiogenesis may happen frequently – please consider any late entrants are bring their stone axes to an arms race billions of years old..
Amazing that the ID-creationists are so hung up on demanding after-the-fact probabilities for events which have already occurred. Then they wonder why they get referred to as IDiots.
Bonus content : https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1852327/
Adapa,
How am I asking for after the facts probability? I am asking if KN position of uncertain historical conditions as an assessment is the same for UCD as OOL. I am testing if he is consistent in his convictions even though it might not connect with his worldview. You really need to read more carefully for comprehension.
But not every event is as far from natural expectation as another. If we flipped a fair coin 500 times, every sequence of 500 flips has probability of 1 out 2^500, but not every sequence is as far from natural expectation as 100% heads or 100% tails, since the expected value is 50% heads/50% tails. A sequence of 500 flips of a fair coin is not naturally expected to give 100% heads even though any given flip also is as remotely probable as any other. This is because of the law of large numbers. Violations of the law of large numbers is violation of natural expectation, and hence we can declare certain classes of events as atypical as a matter of principle rather than because of some after-the-fact probability calculation (like someone painting bull’s eyes around arrows shot randomly at a wooden wall).
If we had two decks of cards one deck we call blue and the other deck we call red, if we looked solely at the blue deck, the odds that any given sequence after a random shuffle is 1 out of 52! ~= 8.07 x 10^67. We won’t have much reason to be astonished at the blue deck’s sequences if all we focused on was the blue deck’s sequences. But we most certainly would not ordinarily EXPECT the blue deck’s random sequence to match the red deck’s sequence. That is a violation of ordinary (dare I say “natural”) expectation.
The issue is the probability of components or events being coordinated. If components or systems are sufficiently coordinated, they would be reasonably deemed to violate natural expectation. That is the issue.
There are natural expectation in chemical reactions. Not every possible amino-acid proto protein will catalyze a reaction so as to be some sort of feasible enzyme. Not every possible protein will have a site that will bind( attach) to a certain kind of molecule (ligand) in an interaction. In a manner of speaking there may be an infinite number of ways to build locks and matching keys, but that doesn’t make them likely. The way to calculate some sort of odds of a particular lock to match a particular key is somewhat like calculating the odds of a random string matching some password for given login.
Below is an arrangement of objects that are coordinated that I put together myself. It is not in agreement with natural expectation of random positioning and orientation of the parts. Though it’s somewhat an open question exactly what the odds are of such a system, it is reasonable to say the configuration of the system is not consistent with natural expectation of random positioning (like say from a tornado passing through a junkyard) because the system is coordinated. The calculation of odds of OOL of some life (not one specific life) is about calculating the deviation from natural expectation of coordinated events or parts.
At issue is how far from natural expectation the origin of life is. The issue is not about how probable a replicator is. Salt crystals “replicate”. The issue is why should something as coordinated as the living cells on Earth emerge. It’s not something that should be expected anymore than an airplane (doesn’t have to be a 747) to emerge from a junkyard when a tornado hits it.
NOTE:
Btw, the FBI detected cheating because a sequence of cards dealt after a supposed shuffle matched the sequence of cards from a prior shuffle. There was a violation of natural expectation from random events.
So you haven’t been going around the web the last few years screaming how life is too improbable and demanding others produce probability calculations showing abiogenesis is not too improbable?
Sorry if I mistook you for another flaming IDiot moron who posts as Bill Cole.
If life is an emergent property of certain states of matter as the evidence seems to indicate why shouldn’t it be a natural expectation? Just because Sal Cordova doesn’t like the implications for his personal religious beliefs?
All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, cannot differ in its essence from all the other effects of the visible and tangible world of which we are a self-conscious part.
The world of the living contains enough marvels and mysteries as it is; marvels and mysteries acting upon our emotions and intelligence in ways so inexplicable that it would almost justify the conception of life as an enchanted state.
No, I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvellous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural, which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate delicacies of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity.
I totally wrote all that by myself.
I appreciate KN weighing in, and even though he is right, what does entail the origin of life being improbable is the level of coordination among parts that are fairly independent of general conditions like temperature and pressure and concentrations of chemicals.
There are relevant conditions to creating coordinated machines, and there are irrelevant conditions to creation coordinated machines. It doesn’t matter that a pre-biotic soup will create an abundance of RNAs, DNAs, and amino acids if the parts are not assembled in a coordinated fashion. Much like the blue and red deck of cards example in my prior comment, there is not much of chemical predisposition for one configuration of a macromolecule (like a string of amino acids) over another macromolecule (like a functioning protein) from random events like what would happen after a Urey-Miller scenario or any similar biotic chemical mixture scenario.
In fact I’m being quite generous to say we would expect the chemicals to hang around and assemble in the first place since there are natural tendencies for these chemicals to break down if the even begin to assemble — like hydrolysis reactions in the presence of water.
By the way, most OOL proponents are averse to pointing out water is a two edged sword. Water aids in breaking apart bonds of that make proteins and RNA polymers in the process of hydrolysis. Living things circumvent these problems because they actively repair and protect themselves from these reactions.
But the hydrolysis and other decay issues are only the beginning of problems — creating complex metabolic and replicational pathways by having sequences of amino acid polymers that function as enzymes to catalyze such strings of reactions is another set of serious problems and its emergence from a random chemical mixture is far from natural expectation whatever the conditions of Earth are.
One can get an idea of the requisite kinds of enzymes that are needed to effect a something as basic a DNA replication. It doesn’t have to be exactly this way, but one needs something that is comparable. The enzymes (proteins) needed to effect replication just listed in this video
https://youtu.be/G1AoVF3k9Hg
are:
helicase
single stranded binding proteins
gyrase
beta clamps
primase
DNA polymerase 1
DNA polymerase 3
DNA ligase
Enzymes or a suite of comparable enzymes are improbable as a matter of principle.
DNA replication doesn’t have to happen exactly with these enzymes any more than there is only one way to implement a lock-and-key system in the world of man-made affairs. But a such a replication machines made of proteins are still far from natural expectation from random sequences of amino acids. The video leaves out many more necessary enzymes.
Below is a picture of the replisome machinery that has some of the enzymes mentioned. But I didn’t even mention the enzymes needed to create the proteins that do the replication in the first place!
Yeah Sal, we know. Life is complex, therefore DESIGN!!
That argument hasn’t worked for the IDiots since it was first tried over a decade ago. What makes you think it will suddenly start convincing science now?
And here Salvador Cordova disproves PCR. To think of all the hours I’ve wasted replicating DNA with a single enzyme and a cycling temperature. Silly me.
The video explains what enzymes are used for chromosomal replication during meiosis, this is not the same as saying all of these enzymes are strictly necessary for any and all DNA replication and-must-have-been-present-since-the-origin-of-life. We know that they aren’t, otherwise PCR would not be possible.
You people keep making this supremely-basic mistake.
Things are some way now =/= they must have always been so and no simpler system is possible.
Why doesn’t it sink in? Why’s it so hard to fathom for you that you are constantly committing a basic fallacy in logic? The non-sequitur. It doesn’t follow. It doesn’t follow that, because things work in a particular way now, they must have always been so and no other thing is possible. Again, it doesn’t follow.
It is simply amazing to me we have to point this shit out time and time again.
If your God really exists, this isn’t how you demonstrate it. When will you learn to fucking think?
Adapa,
“Complexity, therefore design!” is the only argument that ID people have. It is the entirety of their position, and they cling to it with desperate tenacity no matter how often the flaws are pointed out.
If creationists could learn to think, there wouldn’t be any creationists.
Rumraket.
Please tell the readers where the polymerases came from for your PCR experiments? I seem to recall something about thermophilic bacteria.
Who said that, exactly? I am an evolutionary biologist who studies the evolution of multicellularity. I interact with lots of other evolutionary biologists who study the evolution of multicellularity, I read lots of papers on the evolution of multicellularity, and I have never heard that argument.
Please tell the readers where you and the intelligently designed PCR industry got their polymerases. I seem to recall a Nobel Prize was awarded for the ingenious intelligently designed method of PCR not to mention the polymerases came from pre-existing organisms.
How do they manufacture (ugh, you mean as in intelligently create) polymerases or do they extract them from genetically engineered (uhg, as in intelligently designed) God-made living creatures. Or do they take them from God made creatures without any modification.
In any case, you should save your accusations of me not thinking for yourself.
The point is what will replicate DNA in a living context, not in an intelligently designed purposeful laboratory context like you in a PCR lab experiment. I was talking OOL, not PCR which generates non-living DNA.
Oh, maybe I need to point out to you, DNA by itself is customarily not thought as a living cell.
The issue isn’t replication alone, but replication machine like a living cell and whether emergence of such a machine is far from ordinary expectation. And neither is the issue merely making replicators, it is the fact the replication machine is extravagant, perhaps more so than absolutely necessary for mere replication.
You misstating the problem. You are framing it solely in terms of achieving replication simply, whereas I’m pointing out the extravagance of a machine that maybe has more parts that it needs to get the job done — you know, a Rube Goldberg Machine.
The problem of extravagance bothered Darwin. Pictured below is the one component replicator of replication system that really bothered him, so much so it made him sick since it highlighted complexity that should be selected against, not for, and hence was strong evidence against his falsely labeled theory of “natural” selection.
Not that you really had a valid point, but if you did find a way to implement a DNA-RNA-protein replication cycle simply, it doesn’t solve why there exists some that are so much more complex and involve more steps then absolutely needed (like say a eukaryotic replicator, or a sexually reproducing eukaryotic multicellular animal), since natural selection should select against wasteful inefficiencies that seem to be just there to make Rube Goldberg machines that show off ingenuity of the designer.
You really aren’t realizing the problem of OOL and supposed subsequent evolution of biological complexity is the problem of God-made extravagant DNA replicators like a Peacock/Peafowl, not your relatively trivial (by comparison) man-made and intelligently designed PCR amplifications.
Pictured below is one part of that DNA replicator that made Darwin sick.
FierceRoller,
Welcome to TSZ, FierceRoller.
Moved some comments to guano. Please avoid personal attacks and insults.
I said, “insinuate”, which means the argument wasn’t explicit.
But if you and your colleagues think the evolution of multicellular animals proceeded by steps that weren’t indistinguishable from miraculous events, then you’re actually agreeing with the argument which I claim you guys are insinuating.
In any case welcome.
But with respect to multicellular animals, it seems to me this component of organismal development has to be in place lest something akin to run away cancer gets the better of the multicellular organism. It would be kind of bad if the cells in an creature just keep multiplying to the point of killing the whole creature.
Depicted below is the apoptosis pathway whereby cells that are no longer needed, or cells that are damaged and my be harmful to the multicellular creature are dispense with in an orderly fashion when they are supposed to be. Do you presume it just emerged gradually? How does a single celled creature develop an apoptosis pathway like the one depicted below (which I presume is a simplified diagram) so that it dies at the appropriate time. There are specific associated chemicals involved. How do they get orchestrated correctly. How do single celled-creatures develop the appropriate transmembrane proteins — transporters, channels, receptors?
Could happen on an informal internet discussion. I’ve pointed out that most proteins evolved before multicellularity. Most animal evolution involves regulation. Is it not true that mutations are more forgiving in regulation?
Welcome to the online multi-player game of “Spot the Strawman”.
You will rack up points fairly quickly, but it will eat up a lot of your spare time. Not unlike “Whack a Mole” , you will encounter some strawmen over and over and over.
Have you heard the phrase “natural selection” to describe evolution of multicellularity, as if such things happen naturally (as in not so out of the ordinary).
Mung,
Sure you do. One day someone actually will.
Mung,
It’s true, I was. On a world teeming with bacteria, it is far less likely that a poor replicator will get very far before being consumed or out-competed, when compared to a sterile world. I can see the funny side as much as the next man, but … I guess you had to be there.
stcordova,
Thanks for the reply. When I said “Who said that, exactly?” I meant “who exactly” not “said exactly that.” That is, can you name an evolutionary biologist who has said (not necessarily in exact words),
I have never heard that argument, and I am trying to distinguish whether it is something that an evolutionary biologist has actually said or a strawman.
No, I’m not.
stcordova,
Strange, then, that anyone manages to do any chemistry at all with such unstable chemical species. Care to provide the half lives in plausible prebiotic conditions, single and double stranded?
stcordova,
Wow, that’s complicated. I’m completely convinced.
stcordova,
What reason do you have for assuming that:
a) 20 amino acids are required for topoisomerase function
b) The symmetry of topisomerase cannot arise from dimerisation, reducing probabilities enormously.
c) Primitive life needed topoisomerase.
d) A modern topisomerase is a reasonable minimum bound for topoisomerase activity.
stcordova,
Thank goodness, for once we were spared the actual picture. You think it adds weight to your posts; it adds noise.
Wow, Sal, that’s quite the goal-post shift you attempted there!
You claimed:
I did enjoy your typically fuzzy caveat around “this, or something comparable“, by which you insinuate “comparably complex”.
Rumraket calls you on your needlessly long list of enzymes needed to achieve something as basic as a DNA replication. You just need polymerase.
Your response: “yeah, but what about peacocks? Huh!”
Really, Sal, WTF?
and
We know. Doesn’t change the fact that you were wrong.
OTOH, you only moved the goalposts a little bit with your complaint
so I will respond.
If we are talking about pre-LUCA replication, we might want to ask “what is required to replicate an RNA?” In a living context.
RNA-dependent RNA polymerase is required.
You might also want to learn about rolling circle DNA replication, which doesn’t require all the enzymes you list.
P.S. I also enjoyed your introduction of the non-mathematical term “natural expectation”, which appears synonymous with “what Sal, with his sadly inadequate knowledge, expects”. The argument from personal ignorance strikes again!
P.P.S. Every time you use the phrase “Rube Goldberg”, you shoot yourself in the foot. Seriously, think about it, why does your creator prefer Rube Goldberg contraptions?
Kantian Naturalist,
KN: If I showed you 6 objects. 3 were the product of human design and 3 were not, do you think you could pick the 3 that were the product of human design out? Would it always be the three most complex?