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Exploring Origins

Engage in discussions encompassing themes like cosmology, human evolution, genetic engineering, earth science, climate change, artificial intelligence, psychology, and beyond in this forum.
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Interbane

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Re: Exploring Origins

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This is that,the deficient protocells in their theorised journeys to writing the information for their missing membranes, show an apparent intent from somewhere to rectify a problem.
You use teleological language quite often, Flann. We often understand science through words, and that colors our understanding. When you say the cells were "writing their information", it's a misleading description of processes that are entirely mechanical.
I don't think mindless chemicals and matter could accidentally write informational instructions to design their membranes.
This is more language couched in teleology. The instructions aren't created for a purpose. Think of it as a pool of billions of replicants with simple 'instructions' that were randomly formed - they "click" together like magnets in every conceivable formation. These instructions, every single one, is flawed and leads to nothing, or to the destruction of the replicant. That is what randomness breeds. An ocean of misfit half-formed, functionless molecules. Numbers too large to fathom, a prebiotic oceanic soup of "almost there" replicants.

But as time goes on, billions become trillions, and trillions become quadrillions, and the one in a quadrillion that randomly happens to "work" is formed. The quadrillions of nonfunctional replicants eventually break apart(die), and the one that works proliferates.

Arguments on how life "couldn't" have arisen naturalistically all miss the point. Our understanding is incomplete. So to nit-pick that understanding is to turn a blind eye to the vast amount that is still not understood. Our knowledge is progressing constantly, and we will have a strong model of how life spontaneously arose.
Evolution says things just happen, through laws,random mutations etc.
Things do 'just happen'. Storms just suddenly appear. Lightning strikes start anomalous fires. Crystals and canyons and quasars form through the laws of physics. Nitrogen cycles from air to ground over centuries, lava forms islands, clouds march in striated patterns, and symmetric snowflakes grow in the air. Dying stars forge new forms of matter from simpler matter. Geysers and other earthly 'wounds' form complex molecules from simple molecules.

I think the hardest thing for theists to accept is that the laws of nature are intrinsically creative. "Stuff" is made from the interaction of matter and energy. Incredible stuff.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Theorising how spontaneous abiogenis could have occurred is fine, but does what evidence we have suggest that it actually happened?If the Darwinian hypothesis is true,(gradual simple to complex)then as he acknowledged,the fossil record is the place to look for supporting evidence. What are the conclusions of paleontologists who have studied the problem? http://www.genesispark.com/exhibits/fos ... inks/gaps/ What the theory cannot tolerate is complex early life forms, or the sudden abrupt appearance of complete highly complex living creatures.
As far as teleology goes: The informational complexity in D.N.A, is at face value, an encoded complex plan, which in human life is one of staggering complexity, and is complex down to the simplest living cell. The fact that the code produces real living entities is staggering in itself, and the complexity of the process is equally so.I'm not saying that the chemical factory constituents are themselves acting with purpose and intent, but are exhibiting these qualities which I infer to a designer/creator.
By way of human analogy,Stephen Meyer talks about an aircraft making company's methods.Someone draws the plans and design for a plane, taking account of necessary facts,gravity,aerodynamics etc.The design is digitally encoded.The company have created machines to build the plane from the correctly provided materials.
These machines/robots are made with the abilty to read the code and they build the plane as it was planned and designed to be built. The machines act with apparent purpose and intent but merely reflect the creator and designer's intent both in them and in their actions.
The naturalist has the materials and existent laws in view in theorising spontaneous abiogenis.Apart from the fossil record objection, the question arises,where did these laws and materials come from? They must be links in a chain.So we need an explanation of origins at every level including the universe itself, with it's laws and materials.Whether laws and materials are sufficient for creating life is another matter.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sun Oct 13, 2013 11:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Theorising how spontaneous abiogenis could have occurred is fine, but does what evidence we have suggest that it actually happened?If the Darwinian hypothesis is true,(gradual simple to complex)then as he acknowledged,the fossil record is the place to look for supporting evidence. What are the conclusions of paleontologists who have studied the problem?
You will always find a Google response that aligns with what you believe. That's called confirmation bias. Just be sure to research the opposing side. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/m ... gaps.shtml
http://ncse.com/cej/2/2/do-gaps-fossil- ... dification
http://www.skeptic.com/downloads/top-10 ... -myths.pdf
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/quotes/ ... rt1-3.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 151320.htm
I'm not saying that the chemical factory constituents are themselves acting with purpose and intent, but are exhibiting these qualities which I infer to a designer/creator.
Perhaps something in the way people are educated and raised. When I see the appearance of intent that you mention, in biology, I infer an algorithm. A complex set of if/then coding that is beautiful precisely because it's natural.

It is natural to infer a creator, however. It is a bias that has helped us to survive in the distant past. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Thanks Interbane,I'll have a look.I think quite a few of the cited paleontologists were in fact atheists so I don't see a bias motive there,(atheists wouldn't be biased would they?)but I'll look at the links you gave.There's a lot of information in those links so I'll take some time to digest it all.Gould,Eldridge and others of the quoted palontologists were indeed evolutionists.Eldridge and Gould read the fossil record as not gradual continuous change, but what they called punctuated equilibrium and stasis. So,not Darwinian.They think sudden huge changes take place followed by stasis.So how could you get the Darwinian simple to complex from that?
Last edited by Flann 5 on Sun Oct 13, 2013 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Thanks Interbane,I'll have a look.I think quite a few of the cited paleontologists were in fact atheists so I don't see a bias motive there,(atheists wouldn't be biased would they?)but I'll look at the links you gave.
I mentioned confirmation bias regarding your selection of sources. It would be your bias, not the bias of scientists. Many of the men quoted in the site you gave believe that evolution is a fact. If the fossil record isn't an issue for them, why are their quotes being used to make it seem as if there is an issue?

To overcome confirmation bias, you have to see the arguments from the other side. The links I provided. Of course, it's a tall order to expect you to ingest the information in a way that isn't also biased. Motivated reasoning is tricky for everyone
Eldridge and Gould read the fossil record as not gradual continuous change, but what they called punctuated equilibrium and stasis. So,not Darwinian.They think sudden huge changes take place followed by stasis.So how could you get the Darwinian simple to complex from that?
From http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/e ... ated.shtml

"Punctuated equilibrium is an important but often-misinterpreted model of how evolutionary change happens. Punctuated equilibrium does not:

-Suggest that Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is wrong.
-Mean that the central conclusion of evolutionary theory, that life is old and organisms share a common ancestor, no longer holds.
-Negate previous work on how evolution by natural selection works.
-Imply that evolution only happens in rapid bursts.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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O.K Interbane, I'm taking a break here.You've given me plenty of homework.I'll have a look and respond in due course.Of course I'm terminally biased.Those memes have a lot to answer for.
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Of course I'm terminally biased.Those memes have a lot to answer for.
Every human is biased, and it has little to do with memes. The key is to learn as much as you can about cognitive biases, identify what you're guilty of, then overcome them(if you can). Picking sites from a google search is textbook confirmation bias. Everyone who uses a search engine is guilty of it at one point or another.

Don't shoot the messenger. :)
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Robert Tulip wrote:
ant wrote:The clockwork hypothesis was retired long ago, Robert. Either you know it and wont accept it as retired or you are attempting to defend Laplace where no defense of him is required.
No, the clockwork idea has not been retired. Quantum physics shows that science cannot predict the future, but not that any acausal events are possible, which would be needed to refute determinism.

Meandering along as usual, the reason Laplace has come up here is that ant said “Science itself is not in the business of hypothesizing the existence/non existence of a God.” Laplace, one of the most famous scientists in history, indicated that the existence of God has no place in scientific astronomy. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Sim ... ace#Quotes

Now admittedly, ant has a fair point that saying the hypothesis of God is not needed is not the same thing as advancing the hypothesis that God does not exist...,.

The clockwork universe is an old Enlightenment conjecture that was held mostly by deists, not atheists.
Deists likened the universe to a clock with the idea that something had to have wound up the clock to get it started.
You are slanting ideas again, Robert. That is mostly what you do here on BT - slant everything to your worldview, including some of your weird astrology claims.

The Laplace/Napoleon exchange you stated here has been almost thoroughly rejected:


I had no need of that hypothesis:
A frequently cited but apocryphal interaction between Laplace and Napoleon purportedly concerns the existence of God. A typical version is provided by Rouse Ball:[8]

Laplace went in state to Napoleon to present a copy of his work, and the following account of the interview is well authenticated, and so characteristic of all the parties concerned that I quote it in full. Someone had told Napoleon that the book contained no mention of the name of God; Napoleon, who was fond of putting embarrassing questions, received it with the remark, 'M. Laplace, they tell me you have written this large book on the system of the universe, and have never even mentioned its Creator.' Laplace, who, though the most supple of politicians, was as stiff as a martyr on every point of his philosophy, drew himself up and answered bluntly, Je n'avais pas besoin de cette hypothèse-là. ("I had no need of that hypothesis.") Napoleon, greatly amused, told this reply to Lagrange, who exclaimed, Ah! c'est une belle hypothèse; ça explique beaucoup de choses. ("Ah, it is a fine hypothesis; it explains many things.")

In 1884, however, the astronomer Hervé Faye[54][55] affirmed that this account of Laplace's exchange with Napoleon presented a "strangely transformed" (étrangement transformée) or garbled version of what had actually happened. It was not God that Laplace had treated as a hypothesis, but merely his intervention at a determinate point:

In fact Laplace never said that. Here, I believe, is what truly happened. Newton, believing that the secular perturbations which he had sketched out in his theory would in the long run end up destroying the solar system, says somewhere that God was obliged to intervene from time to time to remedy the evil and somehow keep the system working properly. This, however, was a pure supposition suggested to Newton by an incomplete view of the conditions of the stability of our little world. Science was not yet advanced enough at that time to bring these conditions into full view. But Laplace, who had discovered them by a deep analysis, would have replied to the First Consul that Newton had wrongly invoked the intervention of God to adjust from time to time the machine of the world (la machine du monde) and that he, Laplace, had no need of such an assumption. It was not God, therefore, that Laplace treated as a hypothesis, but his intervention in a certain place.

Laplace's younger colleague, the astronomer François Arago, who gave his eulogy before the French Academy in 1827,[56] told Faye that the garbled version of Laplace's interaction with Napoleon was already in circulation towards the end of Laplace's life. Faye writes:[54][55]

I have it on the authority of M. Arago that Laplace, warned shortly before his death that that anecdote was about to be published in a biographical collection, had requested him [Arago] to demand its deletion by the publisher. It was necessary to either explain or delete it, and the second way was the easiest. But, unfortunately, it was neither deleted nor explained.

The Swiss-American historian of mathematics Florian Cajori appears to have been unaware of Faye's research, but in 1893 he came to a similar conclusion.[57] Stephen Hawking said in 1999,[40] "I don't think that Laplace was claiming that God does not exist. It's just that he doesn't intervene, to break the laws of Science."

The only eyewitness account of Laplace's interaction with Napoleon is an entry in the diary of the British astronomer Sir William Herschel. Since this makes no mention of Laplace saying, "I had no need of that hypothesis," Daniel Johnson[58] argues that "Laplace never used the words attributed to him." Arago's testimony, however, appears to imply that he did, only not in reference to the existence of God.
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I must say you continually misrepresent the practice of science AND certain scientists, as is the case here.


If you think the question of God is a scientific hypothesis I challenge you to defend your position with your own skin and NOT appeal to the authority of a scientist, past or present, that you undoubtedly are willing to mischaracterize and falsely attribute an atheistic worldview too.
Last edited by ant on Mon Oct 14, 2013 11:56 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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You are so funny ant!

It does not matter if the Laplace statement is authentic. What matters is that it has been widely accepted as so by scientists and philosophers and the secular world, because it is a compelling summary of the modern rational outlook on reality. We have no need to speculate about an imaginary creator because a natural materialist explanation is far more predictive, elegant, parsimonious and rational. The productive area of speculation is psychological and political - why does the big lie of God remain so pervasive?

Naturally we can expect your evangelical friends to spin and distort the Laplace story in all manner of ways to try to get back some credibility for their imaginary supernatural best friend. I don't for a minute believe the account you have given above is based on anything other than fraud and intimidation, like most Christian bullshit. Even Laplace himself, like Descartes and Darwin, could well have partly recanted his coherent rational view under social pressure.
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Re: Exploring Origins

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Robert Tulip wrote:You are so funny ant!

It does not matter if the Laplace statement is authentic. What matters is that it has been widely accepted as so by scientists and philosophers and the secular world, because it is a compelling summary of the modern rational outlook on reality. We have no need to speculate about an imaginary creator because a natural materialist explanation is far more predictive, elegant, parsimonious and rational. The productive area of speculation is psychological and political - why does the big lie of God remain so pervasive?

Naturally we can expect your evangelical friends to spin and distort the Laplace story in all manner of ways to try to get back some credibility for their imaginary supernatural best friend. I don't for a minute believe the account you have given above is based on anything other than fraud and intimidation, like most Christian bullshit. Even Laplace himself, like Descartes and Darwin, could well have partly recanted his coherent rational view under social pressure.
You have been both evasive and wish-washy with this entire "Is God a Scientific Hypothesis" question.
You answered yes and no, mischaracterized a historical character's position on the matter, falsely appealed to authority, and have stated the clock-work universe theory is widely accepted by scientists and philosophers without citing a shred of evidence or admitting that said theory is also presented as an argument FOR an intelligent agent.

And you ended this conversation by claiming I have "evangelical friends."

You are not being rational here, Robert.

I stand by my claim that you are mostly an ideological mischief maker. You are under some false impression that if your posts are lengthy and contain over a thousand plus words couched in the language of a particular science that you are a logical and rationally functioning human, and that anyone else that differs with you is some sort of evangelical bullshitter.

You wouldn't mind laying your "God is a Scientific Hypothesis" argument out for all of us to see, would you?
I mean your premises and conclusion.
I'd like to see what your tortured logical looks like before I send it off to the junkyard where it belongs.

note:
I just expect more evasion from you here. You've backed yourself into a corner and you know it.
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