Re: Is a fact something that has been proven?
- From: "ave1" <ave1@xxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 4 Jun 2006 21:54:13 -0700
catshark wrote:
On 26 May 2006 07:33:57 -0700, "ave1" <ave1@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
catshark wrote:
ave1 wrote:
What Pasteur and Francesco Redi did was to take down ideas of nonlife
having some innate capacity to develop matter into living forms
(whether they be single cell organisms or flies).
That is word salad whether it is theirs (I doubt it of Pasteur but
don't know about Redi) or yours. It assumes there is some innate
capacity needed and is a (poorly) hidden assertion.
An innate capacity WOULD HAVE TO BE THERE whether we're talking about
chemical evolution or maggots from meat.
Why? Because you *say* so?
No. Because it's only logical.
The idea that nonlife can
cross the threshold into the life category means that ORGANIZATION of
large levels of information that used to not be there would have
necessarily come about through some process.
You have asserted that. Now *demonstrate* it (including the existence of a
"threshold").
If you want hard numbers and chemical formulas as a demonstration that
amino acids can't get together in a quantity to make the first
structural protein (which would be rather important in the formation of
the first lifeform, or replicating chemical at least). . . take a look
at the first paragraphs here:
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v12/i3/polymerization.asp
Before getting into this, I'll point out that most structural proteins
are much longer than 200 or 300 amino acids, but the article I've cited
generously allows the first lifeforms/replicating chemicals of the
prebiotic Earth to have needed structural proteins with only 101 amino
acids (100 peptide bonds).
This formula is presented as evidence:
K = exp (-change in G/RT)
In the article the use of the word "evolution" is a obviously a
reference to "chemical evolution". You'll probably say they should
have used "abiogenesis" instead, but evolution suffices because
"chemical evolution" is a word used by origin of life researchers
themselves.
Read through the article's application of this well-known equation.
Here's an excerpt:
". . .This means that if we start with a concentrated solution of 1 M
(mol/l) of each amino acid, the equilibrium dipeptide concentration
would be only 0.007 M. Since tripeptides have two peptide bonds, the
equilibrium tripeptide concentration would be 0.007^2 M or 5x10^-5 M.
For a non-specific polypeptide with 100 peptide bonds (101 amino
acids), the equilibrium concentration would be 3.2 x 10^-216 M. NB:
the problem for evolutionists is even worse, because life requires not
just any polymers, but highly specified ones.
Since the equilibrium concentration of polymers is so low, their
thermodynamic tendency is to break down in water, not to be built up.
The long ages postulated by evolutionists simply make the problem
worse, because there is more time for water's destructive effects to
occur. High temperatures, as many researchers advocate, would
accelerate the breakdown. The famous pioneer of evolutionary
origin-of-life experiments, Stanley Miller, points out that polymers
are 'too unstable to exist in a hot prebiotic environment'. A
recent article in New Scientist also described the instability of
polymers in water as a 'headache' for researchers working on
evolutionary ideas on the origin of life.4 It also showed its
materialistic bias by saying this was not 'good news'. But the real
bad news is the faith in evolution which overrides objective science."
So what we have here is a demonstration of exactly what you asked for.
We see that there's an incredibly low probability of the first
proteins occuring-- so low as to not have enough time to occur in
hundreds of billions of years. The numbers come out to indicate that
the equilibrium concentration of amino acids to make a rather short 101
amino acid protein (which would be a very short example of a structural
protein utilized to build structure in lifeforms) would be lower than
lowest low. The technical term would be infinitesimally low.
Here's some more info:
"Direct photochemical (UV) polymerization reactions to form
polypeptides and polynucleotides have occasionally been discussed in
the literature. The idea is to drive forward the otherwise
thermodynamically unfavorable polymerization reaction by allowing solar
energy to flow through the aqueous system to do the necessary work. It
is worth noting that minor yields of small peptides can be expected to
form spontaneously, even though the reaction is unfavorable (see eq.
8-16), but that greater yields of larger peptides can be expected only
if energy is somehow coupled to the reaction. Fox and Dose have
examined the peptide results of Bahadur and Ranganayaki36 and concluded
that UV irradiation did not couple with the reaction. They comment,
"The authors do not show that they have done more than accelerate an
approach to an unfavorable equilibrium. They may merely have reaffirmed
the second law of thermodynamics."37 Other attempts to form polymers
directly under the influence of UV light have not been encouraging
because of this lack of coupling. Neither the chemical nor the thermal
entropy work, and definitely not any configurational entropy work, has
been accomplished using solar energy."
http://www.ldolphin.org/mystery/chapt9.html
This demonstrates a very real problem for those who think "life finds a
way" in the area of abiogenesis. It only finds a way when genetic
instructions are applied.
Oh, and I need to also bring forward this quote from
http://marshill.org/Evidence%20for%20Creation/Origin_of_life.htm :
"In his book, Origins-A Skeptics Guide to the Creation of Life on
Earth, Robert Shapiro gives a very realistic illustration of how one
might estimate the odds of the spontaneous generation of life. Shapiro
begins by allowing one billion years (5 x 10^14 minutes) for
spontaneous biogenesis. Next he notes that a simple bacterium can make
a copy of itself in twenty minutes, but he assumes that the first life
was much simpler. So he allows each trial assembly to last one minute,
thus providing 5 x 10^14 trial assemblies in 1 billion years to make a
living bacterium. Next he allows the entire ocean to be used as the
reaction chamber. If the entire ocean volume on planet earth were
divided into reaction flasks the size of a bacterium we would have
10^36 separate reaction flasks. He allows each reaction flask to be
filled with all the necessary building blocks of life. Finally, each
reaction chamber is allowed to proceed through one-minute trial
assemblies for one billion years. The result is that there would be
10^51 tries available in 1 billion years. According to Morowitz we need
10^100,000,000,000 trial assemblies!
Regarding the probabilities calculated by Morowitz, Robert Shapiro
wrote:
'The improbability involved in generating even one bacterium is so
large that it reduces all considerations of time and space to
nothingness. Given such odds, the time until the black holes evaporate
and the space to the ends of the universe would make no difference at
all. If we were to wait, we would truly be waiting for a miracle.'
Regarding the origin of life Francis Crick, winner of the Nobel Prize
in biology, stated in 1982:
'An honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could
only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment
to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had
to have been satisfied to get it going.'
.. . .Harvard University biochemist and Nobel Laureate, George Wald
stated in 1954:
'One has to only contemplate the magnitude of this task to concede that
the spontaneous generation of a living organism is impossible. Yet we
are here-as a result, I believe, of spontaneous generation.' "
(Notice the "I believe".)
Well, there's your demonstration. The data-- according to the experts
themselves-- demonstrate that what life needs to get itself started is
nothing other than a miracle.
Oh, and for those of you who, I suspect, intend on dragging me in to
some semantics war concerning the word "information" or "genetic
information"
You're the one asserting the need for "information" without defining what
it is that you are talking about. Using undefined terms is the essence of
semantic arguments.
We can use genetic coded instructions if that's more appealing to you.
Just pointing out that people use the *word* "information" does not mean
they are using it the same way you are tring to or that you are correctly
describing the consequences of whatever "information" there may be. Either
define it or we will just assume you can't and that you literally don't
know what you are talking about.
Information is a message/pattern-representation from a sender to a
receiver or a number of receivers. But there are more complexities to
it than that.
Meaning can come from information. "The gap between data and
information is only closed by a behavioural bridge whereby some value,
utility or meaning is added to transform mere data or pattern into
information."
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=5nfcb2m5a4g85?tname=information&sbid=lc11a
Here's another excerpt from the above webpage: "information is
dependent upon, but usually unrelated to and separate from, the medium
or media used to express it."
And another: "The words, information and data, are used interchangeably
in many contexts. This may lead to their confusion. However, they are
not synonyms. Often data is defined as raw facts while information is
processed data."
According to Carl Sagan, it's prewired into organisms:
http://www.oarval.org/saganen.htm
[...]
A few weeks ago I watched an episode of "Cosmos" which dealt with the
origin of life on Earth, and Sagan went on an on and on about how life
has so much information inherent. If I recall correctly, he dedicated
more than a fourth of that show entirely to the subject of information.
<snicker> Argumentum ad erstwhile tv
I was just saying. . .
[...]
Anyway, on with what we were originally talking about. . .
Saying that this doesn't apply when large amounts of time are added in
is special pleading.
Since that wasn't what was being said, that is of no import except as
an attempt at a red herring.
A red herring would be occuring if I was attempting to change the topic
of discussion into something other than that which was relevant. I'm
not sure where you're getting the thought that I was changing the
topic.
Quite simple: No one was saying that modern notions of abiogenesis involve
"spontaneously generation" of single cell organisms, much less flies.
I still think there'd have to be at least one occurance of spontaneous
generation for the first lifeform on Earth to have come into existence
from what would be known as a prebiotic environment.
What I was saying is that spontaneous generation is spontaneous
generation whether your referring to the generation of life from
nonlife within a few days or within a few million years. Time is not
some special element that adds a unique quality to natural processes,
and to say that this would be the case would be special pleading.
Again you are begging the question by asserting without any support
whatsoever that there is "a unique quality" involved.
That unique quality would certainly involve energy coupling (see the
origin of life researcher comments on "energy coupling" in the idolphin
website citation above). It also would involve the processing of data
coming about through blind processes, which is basically saying data
would have to, by necessity,-- via some unknown route-- TURN INTO
INFORMATION (which is processed data). This contradicts the whole
"data is not synonymous with information" concept which was expressed
in the above citation (at Answers.com).
The big question is what is the route by which raw data could naturally
turn into processed data (AKA information)?
The experiment which confirmed this (and is still confirming
this) was when there were no flies/maggots coming from old meat when
it's sealed from the outside world.
That is like an "experiment" where you try to squeeze two hydrogen atoms
togeter with your hands and claim it disproves fusion in the sun's core
when you don't succeed.
I understand where you're coming from, but the fact remains that
Pasteur and Redi's experiments cast much doubt on the idea that living
things could ever come from that which is not living.
You can't even bother to get this right? Pasteur's experiments involved
germs and their source in flasks of various infusions.
<http://www.bact.wisc.edu/Microtextbook/index.php?module=Book&func=displayarticle&art_id=27>
Okay, I named the wrong scientist. Francesco Redi was behind the meat
and flies experiment. The point remains, though, whether you are
talking about Redi or Pasteur-- THEY BOTH BROUGHT FORWARD EVIDENCE THAT
WAS MEANT TO DISMANTLE THE IDEA OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.
Yep. As they framed it: life currently spontaneously arising in
complex form from nonlife. Since that has nothing to do with the
various modern proposals for abiogenesis, that too is an attempt at a
red herring.
I don't see how you could say it has nothing to do with
abiogenesis/"chemical evolution". It's only logical to think that
somewhere on the way of alleged abiogenesis processes, something which
would not meet the definition of what a lifeform is, would cross a
threshold into being defined as a lifeform.
See sun example above. Pasteur did not set out to recreate the
circumstances of primitive chemical life posed under modern hypotheses.
Regardless, he cast heavy doubt on life coming from nonlife (from
natural processes). The origin of life researchers of the past 50
years have also stated their doubts. Their work is futile. Even if
they succeed in creating something that could be defined as "life" from
a blueprint, all they'll be demonstrating is intelligent design.
And "logical" is not a synonym for "It seems like that would be necessary
to confirm my pre-existing beliefs". If you have a demonstration that the
premises of Pasteur's experiment must exhaust all possible pathways to
life, present it.
His experiment did not exhaust all pathways, but the implications of
later origin of life research has explained why life can't come from
nonlife. See the evidence I presented above.
[...]
I've heard life defined this way before.
As Wilkins has pointed out, it is essentially Aristotle's, who was a fine
thinker but hardly an up-to-date source of a definition of "life".
So how would your definition differ from this one?
If you have an additional
criterion to add to the ones I mentioned, feel free to chime in.
Since I don't agree that you can demonstrate that it is a "minimum"
definition, asking me to *add* criteria is another red herring.
I'd call that a dodge. You don't want to engage in the conversation
because you are a bit concerned about where it will lead (that being
you losing the argument).
I'll
be completely willing to admit to any omission errors in my definition
of life if I've made any.
IOW, you aren't serious about any discussion of this. But then I knew that
when I started.
I am serious. Saying I'm not, is just another way of trying to weasel
your way out of this discussion so you can avoid the snare that's
waiting just for you (well, your arguments anyway) with open jaws.
What was there before?
Apparently a CAIC I guess. . .
from nonlife to life. THIS WOULD HAVE TO BE AN INSTANCE
OF SPONTANEOUS GENERATION happening by an occurance of a single
mutation or a bunch of simultaneous mutations in *a single generation*.
In what way did Pasteur's or Redi's experiments address that, <snip>
They addressed life coming from matter which lacked life.
So if I "prove" that, say, Wilkins is not a poster who sends messages under
the handle "ave1", I've proven there is no "ave1" at all?
You're coming from nowhere else but absurdity at this point.
Excuse me, you seem to have disappeared in a puff of logic . . .
[...]
--
---------------
J. Pieret
---------------
Your logic is obviously messed up.
Steve
---
Did mind come before matter in the universe or matter come before mind?
Chapters 1 and 2 have your answer:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/reality/Intro.html
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Is a fact something that has been proven?
- From: catshark
- Re: Is a fact something that has been proven?
- Prev by Date: Re: The Ways New Species Originate
- Next by Date: Re: Is a fact something that has been proven?
- Previous by thread: Re: Is a fact something that has been proven?
- Next by thread: Re: Is a fact something that has been proven?
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
