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

[rossum]

It’s not making any progress.

Becker et al. (2016) A high-yielding, strictly regioselective prebiotic purine nucleoside formation pathway.

Is 2016 recent enough progress on abiogenesis for you? Before Becker’s work we only knew of low-yield ways for purines to form.

 

[o_mlly]

I think that we should consider the credentials of whoever is posting material.

Yes, the authority of claimants is an issue as to what is claimed but not as to their personal beliefs if they are not claimed. To refute what is not claimed as reason to debunk what is claimed approaches an ad hominem fallacy. If we applied that kind of filter to posters who are atheists on this thread then the post count would drop dramatically.

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.

That’s not an accurate description of my position. With evidence, any evidence that life spontaneously emanates from non-life and I’m leaning in. I’m like the atheists’ poster boy, Bertrand Russell, “Where there is evidence, no one speaks of ‘faith’. We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence.” I cannot argue with how you feel, only with how you think.

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

So is the unicorn a working hypothesis. But neither is a scientific hypothesis because neither is falsifiable. Abiogenesis simply does not meet the accepted criteria as a scientific hypothesis. In the absence of any evidence, the null hypothesis applies:

When we have no evidence to resolve the proposition, we may suspend judgment. From a cognitive sense, when no personal preference toward opposing claims exists, one may be either skeptical about both claims or ambivalent about both claims. If there is a dispute, the burden of proof falls onto the challenger of the status quo from the perspective of any given social narrative. If there is no agreeable and adequate proof of evidence to support a claim, the claim is considered an argument from ignorance.

By all means, when you get some evidence, please get back to us.

 

[o_mlly]

Here we go: https://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/09/13/creationist-drivel-from-a-sob

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

Well, no personal bias in this article; we can tell by its title: “creationist-drivel-from-a-sob”.

How do you know the article is written by a computer scientist? Does working at google as a software engineer compare in authority with a PhD from Stanford? I wonder if Chu could be an atheist? Ah, yes there you go. It’s an atheist screed, nothing more.

 

[Wozza]

Bradskii:

Here we go: https://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2007/09/13/creationist-drivel-from-a-sob

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

Well, no personal bias in this article; we can tell by its title: “creationist-drivel-from-a-sob”.

How do you know the article is written by a computer scientist? Does working at google as a software engineer compare in authority with a PhD from Stanford? I wonder if Chu could be an atheist? Ah, yes there you go. It’s an atheist screed, nothing more.

Hey, you wanted a rebuttal. You got one. If there’s anything in there that you’d like to dispute then go for it. But don’t ask me to understand it. Neither of us knows enough about the maths involved in evolutionary biology to follow it.

What you did was post something you didn’t understand in an attempt to discredit evolution. Now I’ve posted something I don’t understand to counter it.

It might be better if you relied less on information purported to be from a university in the first instance and post arguments you actually understand with links to back it up. Relying on someone else’s argument without knowing enough about it never ends well.

As an example, your discussions with Ghosty shows you know enough about that line of argument to make a decent fist of it. You appear to be losing but at least you know why.

Stick with what you know. Science is not your strong suit.

 

[Aloysium]

I have extraordinary value and amazement of the life and development from the tiniest bacterium (that can sometimes be so deadly to us) up to humanity itself in all our abilities, limitations and our minds. The older I get, the more I love to study all it!

It’s not clear what would be developing from bacterium to humanity. We do know a person, an animal and plant, all develop from a seed; a butterfly develops from a caterpillar, a frog from a tadpole. In each of these instances there is a thing that develops. What we find in the fossil record that suggests a development, are the remnants of individual living beings, with those having a more complex structure growing in number with the passage of time. Were there an ancestral connnection, the development would involve the increasing complexity of molecules and their interactions with each other. So, it would be matter that is developing. According to modern evolutionary thought, it is doing so as a result of its inherent properties, and hence randomly, the final molecular configuration being able to survive amongst a myriad of other molecular configurations, and carrying out its determined physical properties to procreate.

We can also develop a plan and we speak of housing developments, where plans are implemented. The plan is not in the soil, nor in the heavy machinery, bricks or mortar; these are parts of a larger plan, necessarily constructed in order to allow for the final product. The development of the components necessary for the completion of a collection of individual homes is to be witnessed in time, and comes together because there are plans and acts of will. The development that we witness is a manifestation of the plan and its final goal.

The world is filled with living things, harmoniously forming the environment that sustains them. Each individual living being exists as itself and in relation to everything else. Just as atoms are a kind of being, so too are bacteria, plants, animals, and we ourselves. To conclude that each step in that hierarchy morphed from what previously existed, is to ignore the reality that these states of being are totally different, in themselves and in their relations to what is other to them.

There is no ancestral connection where macroevolution is concerned, because it involves the creation of something totally new.The connection is through our Creator, and ultimately the larger issue is how our understandings impact on our relationship with Him and the living things he brings into being.

Ultimately, who and what we truly know is our beloved. Within that relationship we connect with that being, other to our own. Our ties with pets, if not a general attitude towards living things, allows us to know them in the dignity that is bestowed on them by God. Many feel that heaven is not possible without the presence of a beloved pet, because that individual creature, as with all life, is brought into existence by God, revealing His beauty and grandeur as the Source of all life and Love itself.

 

[o_mlly]

Now I’ve posted something I don’t understand …

That’s the first credible posting I’ve seen from you. “I’ve posted”? Is that you Bradskii?

 

[buffalo]

From Denis Noble and the Royal Society - the organism controls the DNA and not vice versa.

Genetic Piano - the organism plays the DNA piano keys and cranks out so many different tunes.

Genetic Piano

IDvolution - Where faith and reason intersect. - intelligent design Jim Serafin

idvolution.blogspot.com

May 13, 2011
Perhaps someone was listening…

A while ago I posted on the idea that we should look at genes like keys on a piano. The number of tunes that can be cranked out is astounding. Sometimes a single key is played or in combinations. Some are rarely played but still can produce beautiful music.

Now someone else has picked up on this idea.

More support for IDvolution.

Study gives clue as to how notes are played on the genetic piano

 

[o_mlly]

That’s the first credible posting I’ve seen from you. “ I’ve posted”? Is that you Bradskii?

It looks like once again they are sending in the flying monkeys so I’ll wrap this exchange up.

May a Catholic believe in abiogenesis? Yes.
May a Cathiic not believe in abiogenesis? Yes.
Do some Thomists believe in abiogenesis? Yes.
Do some Thomists not believe in abiogenesis? Yes.

How important is it to know how God did what we believe God did? Paraphrasing Aquinas after his mystical experience, “It’s all straw, it doesn’t matter.”

On the philosophical perspective is abiogenesis an hypothesis? No, not in the strict sense. Metaphysical speculation is best grounded in a sensible experience to which first principles can be applied. One of those principles is the Principle of Evidence. There is none.

Is abiogenesis a scientific hypothesis? No.

 

[rossum]

Is abiogenesis a scientific hypothesis? No.

Yes it is. Five billion years ago there was no material life on earth. Today there is material life on earth. Therefore, at some point in the last five billion years material life originated on earth. That origin is abiogenesis.

Much scientific work has been done already, though it is far from complete. We can see natural processes present on an abiotic earth that produce amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, lipid bilayers and others. All of those compounds are present in living cells. Indeed they are essential for living calls.

 

[o_mlly]

Yes it is. Five billion years ago there was no material life on earth. Today there is material life on earth. Therefore, at some point in the last five billion years material life originated on earth. That origin is abiogenesis.

Space aliens seeding the earth is as good an explanation as abiogenesis. A meteor containing life crashing into the earth is another. I’m sure imaginative minds could add to the list.

But your conclusion that, “That origin is abiogenesis” once again elevates the idea of abiogenesis from a possibility to a fact. I made the same complaint about believers in macroevoluiton. “May have” is not synonymous with “must have.”

We all know the only that legitimate science projects are those that pursue natural causes as explanatory. So, I will, as I wrote, lean in once the lab guys design a repeatable experiment that produces life from non-life. But I’m not confident: life is not just an aggregate of materials but an integration of materials and information.

 

[rossum]

So, I will, as I wrote, lean in once the lab guys design a repeatable experiment that produces life from non-life.

Sure, right after those same lab guys have formed a star in their lab. Science has repeatable generated amino acids in prebiotic condition. Creationism has no miraculously created amino acids. Science is well ahead so far.

You are looking for far too small a God, one who needs to tinker with what He created. If He needs to tinker then He made a mistake at the beginning. A truly omnipotent God would get it right first time, with no need to tinker at all.

 

[Aloysium]

You are looking for far too small a God, one who needs to tinker with what He created. If He needs to tinker then He made a mistake at the beginning. A truly omnipotent God would get it right first time, with no need to tinker at all.

God creates from eternity, the Now on which every now, every here is grounded. He is in time, at the beginning, at the end, everywhere in between and beyond it all, as its Source, the Triune Godhead, the Father begetting the Son, the two Divine Persons united by the Holy Spirit, One unity - Love. From Life itself, springs all created life, reflecting God who is Joy, Beauty, Goodness, and Power, ever present, unchanging.

 

[buffalo]

Science has repeatable generated amino acids in prebiotic condition.

Through an intelligently designed experiment.

 

[buffalo]

You are looking for far too small a God, one who needs to tinker with what He created. If He needs to tinker then He made a mistake at the beginning. A truly omnipotent God would get it right first time, with no need to tinker at all.

He did and pronounce it “good”. Then came the fall.

 

[o_mlly]

Sure, right after those same lab guys have formed a star in their lab. Science has repeatable generated amino acids in prebiotic condition. Creationism has no miraculously created amino acids. Science is well ahead so far.

The OP is not Creationism vs. Abiogenesis.

The OP ask for reasons to reject to abiogenesis. I gave my reasons for at least suspending judgement although I believe skepticism is warranted on the same order as Bertrand Russell’s skepticism about Creation – show me the evidence. Why give Russell a pass and not me?

A demonstration of Creationism is not, and never will be, a scientific project. Just like abiogenesis and macroevolution, it is awaiting the next observable miracle.

well ahead so far.

You are looking for far too small a God, one who needs to tinker with what He created. If He needs to tinker then He made a mistake at the beginning. A truly omnipotent God would get it right first time, with no need to tinker at all.

Not at all. See Job 42:1-6.

 

[o_mlly]

God creates from eternity, the Now on which every now, every here is grounded. He is in time, at the beginning, at the end, everywhere in between and beyond it all, as its Source, the Triune Godhead, the Father begetting the Son, the two Divine Persons united by the Holy Spirit, One unity - Love. From Life itself, springs all created life, reflecting God who is Joy, Beauty, Goodness, and Power, ever present, unchanging.

Sirach 18:1-6

The Divine Power and Mercy*​

He who lives forever created the whole universe;

The LORD alone is just.†
To whom has he given power to describe his works,
and who can search out his mighty deeds?

Who can measure his majestic power,
or fully recount his mercies?

No one can lessen, increase,
or fathom the wonders of the Lord.

 

[Wozza]

Wozza:

Now I’ve posted something I don’t understand …

That’s the first credible posting I’ve seen from you.

Did you understand the details of the cut and paste from (ahem) the university?

When I post something that’s beyond my ability to comprehend it, it is always nominated thus. I post links to back up my arguments. I don’t post links to make them.

 

[rossum]

He did and pronounce it “good”. Then came the fall.

He also pronounced a part of it “not good”, and that was before the fall. See Genesis 2:18.

 

[rossum]

God creates from eternity

No. “Creator” is a contingent property. It is contingent on having created something. There was no “Creator of the Universe” before the creation of the universe about 13.5 billion years ago. To claim to be the creator of the universe when there was no universe in existence would be to make a false statement, and God would not – or can not? – do that.

You cannot take a contingent property, such as being the creator of the universe and turn it into an absolute property. It is contingent on the existence of whatever was created.

Two strangers are talking at a party:

“What do you do?”

“I’m a creator.”

“So, what do you create?”

“I create … universes.”

“Wow! That’s great. How many universes have you created?”

“Erm … well …” he shuffles his feet and looks embarrassed, “none actually.”

“Oh my, is that the time. Sorry, I have to rush.”

If there is no creation then there can be no creator, and vice versa. The two are mutually contingent.

 

[o_mlly]

If there is no creation then there can be no creator, and vice versa . The two are mutually contingent.

A cause is not explained by its effects, rather the effect is explained by its causes. An effect cannot exist absent its causes. However, the cause exists simultaneously or before its effects.

In eternity, the past and the future are in the present. God is, always has been, and always will be creating.