Evolution: Is There Any Good Reason To Reject The Abiogenesis Hypothesis?

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

What on EARTH is happening here? I have made two totally inoccuous posts and both have been flagged and removed. Am I not allowed to make reasonable comments on this thread?

Both relate to the lack of understanding of a basci scienific concept: That theories cannot be proved. Is it against forum rules to point that people are in error in claiming that they can be?

For what it’s worth I can still see your posts despite the flags.

Unfortunately the system of moderation on this site is ripe for abuse, and any established user can flag another’s posts and have them hidden for no reason whatsoever. Later a mod will manually review the flag and either remove it or the offending post.

Peace and God bless!

Thanks, Ghosty. In passing, enjoying your posts.

 

[Ghosty1981]

Thanks, Ghosty. In passing, enjoying your posts.

Thank you, I’ve enjoyed yours in other similar threads. Now imbibe some solid philosophy and drop this atheist non-sense (this coming from a former born-and-raised atheist)!

 

[edwest211]

Oh scientists know what the minimum genome is.

 

[o_mlly]

Can you please confirm where that article came from? With a direct link?

http://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/challenge8.html
https://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Can you please confirm where that article came from? With a direct link?

A Theory of Small Evolution
David A. Plaisted's Home Page

That’s a little more revealing. It might have appeared that the piece you posted was directly from the University as you put a link to that institution at the bottom of it. But it wasn’t. It was from a creation web site. That happens to be run by somebody who works at the uni. Who seems to take a literal reading of scripture:

‘This page shows how it is possible to reconcile a literal reading of Genesis…’

And just to make sure there is no confusion about your post, the good Prof Plaised says himself:

‘This material does not necessarily represent any organization, including the University of North Carolina’.

Much clearer now, I think.

Edit. He’s a young earth creationist by the way.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Thanks, Ghosty. In passing, enjoying your posts.

Thank you, I’ve enjoyed yours in other similar threads. Now imbibe some solid philosophy and drop this atheist non-sense (this coming from a former born-and-raised atheist)!

Seems we headed in different directions. Me being a born and raised Christian. Where did we go wrong!

 

[o_mlly]

That’s a little more revealing. It might have appeared that the piece you posted was directly from the University as you put a link to that institution at the bottom of it. But it wasn’t. It was from a creation web site.

https://www.cs.unc.edu/~plaisted/ce/abiogenesis

It did appear that way. However, criticize the article on its argument, and it’s author’s authority; not the venue from which it was published.

The article is about number crunching and the guy’s a professional number cruncher. If his research on the latest requirements for abiogensis to have happened is incorrect, please let us know.

David Plaisted, PhD , is a professor of computer science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He received his B.S. from the University of Chicago in 1970 and his PhD from Stanford in 1976.

 

[o_mlly]

We know neither the variables nor their values, so this point is irrelevant.

We don’t know how many genes, if any, the earliest lifeform required. Your quote refers to the smallest known extant lifeform, not the earliest.

We can only argue from what we know. Abiogenesis adherents are in a pretty safe place; no one can argue against or falsify what we can never know. So I guess that makes the hypothesis irrelevant.

 

[edwest211]

Extract from another site:

Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels With Science, By Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt. Yes, this was from 15 years ago! Here are some excerpts to give you a taste:
“Postmodernism and related varieties of nihilism have so entrenched themselves in the humanities and social sciences that one can look forward to decades of celebration of the worst that has been thought and said. The question now arises: have these maladies infected the hard sciences as well?
“This book, however, is more than a catalog of idiocy.
“So why has the left now turned its guns upon science? Gross and Levitt believe the assault was inevitable, for despite its denunciations of traditional disciplines, postmodernism is itself a “totalizing” ideology compelled to bring all areas of study under its sway.
…
The postmodern brotherhood resents the confidence with which scientists draw conclusions from hard-won evidence. But they resent it not because historians, say, cannot do the same, but because they have decided that doing so would admit the existence of Truth and reality.
“The academic left, having dispensed with any notions of Truth, has deemed it necessary to deny the legitimacy of evidence once used toward this end.
“Self-righteousness is no longer to be avoided, for the validity of an argument today is determined by the intensity of the feelings behind it.
“Rational” economic planners and seemingly irrational critics of science are more similar than different: they share an unbounded faith in themselves.”
It seems that concerns about “progressive” dangers to science have been around for a couple of decades at least.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

That’s a little more revealing. It might have appeared that the piece you posted was directly from the University as you put a link to that institution at the bottom of it. But it wasn’t. It was from a creation web site.

The Improbability of Abiogenesis

It did appear that way. However, criticize the article on its argument, and it’s author’s authority; not the venue from which it was published.

The article is about number crunching and the guy’s a professional number cruncher.

I think that we should consider the credentials of whoever is posting material. If it had indeed come directly from the University (as it appeared to have done in the way you posted it) then I think everyone would have granted it some weight in the debate. I’m sure you would have as well.

The fact that it’s from a guy, operating on his own, who runs a website that is amateurish in extremis (Buffalo’s is a class act in comparison) who thinks that mankind is only 6,000 years old in any case, casts a different light on how we should accept it.

If I want to know more about computer science then I’m not to put much store in what an evolutionary biologist has to say about it. The reverse is true.

 

[Bradskii]

Ghosty1981:

We know neither the variables nor their values, so this point is irrelevant.

We don’t know how many genes, if any, the earliest lifeform required. Your quote refers to the smallest known extant lifeform, not the earliest.

We can only argue from what we know. Abiogenesis adherents are in a pretty safe place; no one can argue against or falsify what we can never know. So I guess that makes the hypothesis irrelevant.

I think the same applies to your position. And as was stated earlier, your position is not going to change. The scientific position however is always open to new information, new evidence and better hypothesis and theories.

I’m not sure you should be arguing from a case that defines your own position. And doesn’t accurately reflect the oppositions.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

That’s a little more revealing. It might have appeared that the piece you posted was directly from the University as you put a link to that institution at the bottom of it. But it wasn’t. It was from a creation web site.

The Improbability of Abiogenesis

It did appear that way. However, criticize the article on its argument, and it’s author’s authority; not the venue from which it was published.

The article is about number crunching and the guy’s a professional number cruncher. If his research on the latest requirements for abiogensis to have happened is incorrect, please let us know.

Here we go: Creationist drivel from a (sob) Computer Science Professor | ScienceBlogs

From another computer scientist if you will. At least he doesn’t think we all arrived at the scene in 4,000 BC.

 

[rossum]

There is no valid reason to believe lifeless chemicals became alive.

Except that all living organisms are made from ‘lifeless chemicals’. If we removed all the ‘lifeless’ carbon from our bodies we would not be alive. All material life is built from ‘lifeless chemicals’.

 

[rossum]

There is no possibility of abiogenesis even with modern data.

Where are your calculations showing a 0% probability? We have seen too many creationist ‘probability’ calculations with gross errors in them to accept sight unseen. Show us the numbers you are using as (name removed by moderator)uts and the actual calculations.

Do not forget to include the effects of chemistry in your calculations. You need to be sure that you do not get the same chance for a molecule of H2O as for a molecule of HO2.

 

[edwest211]

Incorrect order. First, lifeless chemicals then life? How?

 

[rossum]

Oh scientists know what the minimum genome is.

Those same scientists who are wrong about abiogenesis, evolution and the age of the universe?

 

[Bradskii]

Incorrect order. First, lifeless chemicals then life? How?

While rossum is digging up his answer, could you please answer mine? You quoted someone who said that theories can be proved. Is that your position?

 

[rossum]

Incorrect order. First, lifeless chemicals then life? How?

First lifeless chemicals. Then lifeless amino acids, then lifeless purines, then lifeless pyrimidines, then not-quite-so-lifeless RNA with chemical activity. We already have lipid bilayers, which form very easily. Did I mention that living cells have lipid bilayer membranes?

Abiogenesis is still a work in progress, but there is progress. Where are your supernaturally produced amino acids, ed?

 

[Ghosty1981]

We can only argue from what we know. Abiogenesis adherents are in a pretty safe place; no one can argue against or falsify what we can never know. So I guess that makes the hypothesis irrelevant.

Abiogenesis is a working hypothesis, while the possible opinion of a long dead thinker isn’t.

Peace and God bless!

 

[edwest211]

It’s not making any progress.