Re: The Cosmological Argument

On Jun 14, 11:11 pm, Bill <b...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jun 14, 8:43 pm, hersheyh <hershe...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Jun 14, 7:17 pm, Bill <b...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jun 14, 5:12 pm, Mark Isaak <eci...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Sat, 14 Jun 2008 07:44:03 -0700, Bill wrote:
The way reality is defined in this case, obviates any possible non-material
"phenomena". It's not evidence that matters but the logic of the
interpretative framework. Evidence is made irrelevant.

God, I would love, just once, for someone making that claim to cite
actual evidence.

Well I offered DNA but no one liked that.

A mere word, which is all that DNA appeared to be, is not an
argument. You have to explain why DNA is evidence of design. And do
so *without reference* to its functional role in life unless you can
tie that role back to the designer's intent. If DNA's only function
is *for the benefit* of the self-reproducing organism itself, you
cannot tie the function to any designer except the self-reproducing
organism. We *know* how DNA is manufactured and who (or what) does
the manufacturing. And that proximal manufacturer is the beneficiary
of that DNA's functionality.

Now wait a minute. Did you just add yet another condition to your
already novel definition of design?

What makes a definition of design as "that which is thought up by an
outside agent" 'novel' and requiring that the design be actualized in
order for it to be testable and publicly observable? Are you saying
that design can exist without a designer?

Now I can't refer to its function
unless I also prove the existence of a, supposed, designer?

Designed objects are thought up for a reason. Typically that reason
has importance to the designer. Even a design meant as a gift has
meaning and hence functional utility to the designer. For the life of
me, I cannot think of the utility of an organism's DNA to some outside
designer, whereas it is easy to come up with the functional utility of
DNA to the organism itself.

Besides,
we agreed in some earlier post to limit a discussion of DNA to
abiogenesis and now you insert a self-replicating organism which, as
you pointed out somewhere is evolution, not abiogenesis.

DNA, as I have pointed out, *evolved* as a secondary metabolite of RNA
(and it remains that today). It had such great functional utility to
the organism that used it (or, initially, probably a mixture of DNA
and RNA) as their genetic program (because the greater stability of
DNA has utility when an organism has a large genome worth preserving)
that it *became* de rigueur for organisms except for some small
viruses.

But, then, it seems that you and I have a different conception of
abiogenesis. I see it as a serial process. You see it as a
simultaneous magical event. I see such a simultaneous magical
event(s) -- I am still not sure that you think that DNA is designed as
part of abiogenesis or different very long DNA sequences are poofed
into each species, which are separtely 'designed' and manufactured) as
being highly improbable, whereas a process involving a chain of events
depends on local conditions and pressures.

I'll bet you
have a magic decoder ring that tells you how re-arrange my posts into
an MD5 checksum than you then run through your Random Definition
Generator to produce a unique output on every iteration.

What is novel about pointing out that *real* design necessarily
requires a designer? That a designer is *the* crucial element in the
definition of design?

My example of DNA was partly based on the actual structure of the
molecule itself and its very specific interaction with other
structures as well as the strong interdependence between it and the
other structures it's interacting with. In any human artifact that
would suggest design.

All molecules have structure. All molecules interact with other
molecules (well, the atoms of the noble gases do seem to not play well
with others). All you really seem to be saying is that DNA plays a
functional role in a living organism. And that you think that some
unspecified but non-reproductive feature of living organisms are
designed by some sort of magical process by some sort of magical
agent. Of course, the function of DNA *is* a self-reproductive
function. Since self-reproduction is not evidence of design, why is
DNA?

So, my point is only that it has an appearance
of design. There is also the very improbable string of events that
would be required for DNA (or any precursor) to appear in a useful
form, especially when self-replication is one of it basic properties.

DNA is not the only *known* (much less possible) molecule that serves
the function of DNA in most modern (if you take modern to be around
the last 3+ billion years) organisms. RNA can and does serve that
function in viruses.

None of this means that there was any design, as I said innumerable
times, only that there appears to be. No one will even cede this much
which makes the objections seem facile.

I will happily cede that anything you say is designed when and if you
can present any evidence that that thing *is* designed and
manufactured by some outside agent. Self-reproducing molecules do not
meet that criteria unless you do a lot more narrowing down of what you
mean. Say, that you are only talking about the first organism with
DNA and that evolution (common descent) accounts for all the changes
since then.


The Miller-Urey experiment
showed that some amino acids could be created in the lab, but that and
subsequent experiments weren't able to create proteins and certainly
not DNA.

You "appear" to be getting your science from creationist sources.
These sources are typically about 25 years behind the curve, as is
your information.
You need to read:http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/

Try Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller-Urey_experiment

Of course that particular experiment is out of date, but someone else
cited it so I followed up. It's instructive that the Miller-Urey
experiment is out of date though; now we know that the knowledge of
1953 was flawed and incomplete. Bet this year's will be too.

Note that no one claims that all the problems of abiogenesis are
solved. But if you look at the various mechanisms proposed, one thing
stands out. They are all testable and based on empirical experiment
and inference from evidence. In contrast (and missing in the above)
is the *nonscientific* speculation that a magical something(s) poofed
organisms just like today's organisms into existence.

I haven't argued for the poofing hypothesis, nor will I. We have the
Big Bang to explain that part. The various mechanisms proposed do
exist of course, but are they correct, are these mechanisms only
hypothetical? Careful now, we don't want to repeat 1953 ...



As I have stated several times, DNA is a secondary metabolic product.
DNA is derived from RNA.

Are we talking abiogenesis still? If so, that connection is still
hypothetical.

No. Like the Big Bang it is a reasonable inference from available
evidence. Specifically, the fact that DNA is still derived,
metabolically, as a derivative of the synthesis of RNA precursors.
That RNA can (and still does to a limited extent) serve the functions
of enzyme and genetic material.

To infer design, what evidence do you have that DNA *was* designed?
Not appears to you to be designed. Your opinion is irrelevant until
you have evidence. Now, if you do not have any evidence that DNA was
designed, your speculation is poorly supported by the evidence whereas
the hypothesis that DNA is a secondary derived form of genetic
material is more strongly supported by evidence. To a scientist or
anyone but a post-modernist epistomological nihilist who thinks that
all explanations are equal, the choice is no contest even though one
must be open to further evidence that could overturn current
thinking. The way to overthrow the current paradigm is with *actual*
evidence of design (or, alternatively, evidence that makes the RNA to
DNA transition untenable -- but that does not, thereby, make the
supernatural designer hypothesis a bit better supported), not just the
wish that that was the answer.

There are, however, unknowns wrt how RNA sequences of modest length
(one does not need long ones). But science attacks these problems
from both ends. And, need I point out, an unknown mechanism for doing
a step does not mean the step is impossible. The god-of-the-gaps
argument is a loser both for theology and science. It is the cry of
the ignorant for the right to remain forever ignorant.

From what I've seen from your disclaimers (and others of course),
ignorance may be more widespread that you thought.

Well, in this thread, ignorance is personified.

If the Miller-Urey experiment (often cited here) was a
reasonably correct guess about the primeval atmosphere, it should have
been able to sustain the observed reaction long enough to have gotten
further along in creating proteins. The implication is that their
experimental atmosphere did not match the one from which proteins
developed. Yet this experiment is cited as evidence of something. But
what?

But that was 1953, surely someone's come with something definitive by
now. Maybe this is just argumentative though. Maybe some experiment
will duplicate the conditions necessary for generating all the right
chemicals, in the right sequence, eventually.

There are clearly a number of avenues worth exploring before we say
that only a magical poofer could do it. Both from the small precursor
to larger molecule direction and from the first forms of life to
modern ones. There are also areas of scientific interest, meaning
areas that can still be analyzed and understood using the scientific
epistomology that involves methodological naturalism.

I'm quite sure that there's lots more to do. The only fact we really
have is that, as far as abiogenesis is concerned, there are not many
facts.

Let's see. We know that there are abiogenic geochemical conditions
under which many of the necessary subunits that modern organisms use
can be made. We have reasonable scientific (meaning testable)
hypotheses for how some of the polymers (or related polymers) that
could perform relevant functions required for minimum life (which is
defined by function and not structure) could be present in local
environments. We have a pattern of evolution since abiogenesis that
literally screams common descent.

You have what? Ans: No evidence of a designer aside from your
personal opinion that modern organisms have some unspecified feature
that *appears* to look something like design.

Again. Evidence. Evidence. Evidence.

You haven't proposed a mechanism for producing life that can explored
using science. Just one that can be asserted as true by true
believers: namely that a magical something did his magical thing to
produce whatever exists that I want the magical something to produce.

I never said that. The whole thing started with the innocuous
observation that things in nature appear designed. That's it. You and
your pals flew off in an indignant huff. For me, science is really
cool and always interesting, for you is much more, in a scary sort of
way.

Perhaps that is because the word design requires the existence of a
designer. And we know that no one has any evidence of such nor any
evidence that would necessarily infer the existence of one when it
comes to living organisms. And all attempts to get you to clarify
what exactly you meant came up with nothing.

For now there's no
experimental evidence even though hypotheses abound. One such
hypothesis is panspermia but it's not much help since it seems based
on possible problems with the time available for abiogenesis.

Rather, it only moves the problem of abiogenesis back in time (and one
cannot keep going back before conditions like the absence of carbon or
even atoms make abiogenesis of life-as-we-know-it impossible) and adds
the problem of transmission across the vast emptiness of space. If
there is some genuine reason why conditions different than those on
the early earth were necessary for abiogenesis (not just
chemosynthesis of precursors), then panspermia would be considered
more seriously. The issue of time is another creationist canard based
on old literature. *If* life arose on the earth, it did so rapidly
(if half a billion years can be considered fast). That means that the
problem that needs to be solved are the conditions needed for
abiogenesis and not the time *or* alternatively, that the earth lucked
out and won the lottery.

We lucked out, no matter how much time is involved. In our case, time
is crucial in order for our luck to cross the threshold of absurdly
impossible to plain old luckiness.

That probability cannot be determined from the sole example of the
earth. It would be like calculating the probability of drawing a king
when you don't know how many cards there are in the deck nor whether
or not all the cards are kings. The probability could be as high as
1.0 (if all early earth-like planets will generate 'life' as an
inevitable natural geochemical process) or as low as 1/the unknown
billions of early earth-like planets (we do, after all, know that at
least one early earth-like planet generated life). We have no way to
calculate the probability. My guess would be somewhere in between,
but I have only the slimmest of reasons for guessing that and no way
of guessing which the real answer is closer to. Perhaps you have more
knowledge of this than I do and can tell me how you determined the
probability. [Note: I am not assuming that life on other planets will
exactly follow the pattern and forms (or even, necessarily, the
chemistry) of life on this planet. Just that they have something(s)
which has an imperfectly self-replicating chemical system.]

These improbabilities multiply almost to infinity yet,
I'm told, it must have happened because here we are, talking about it.
What other possibility is possible? It's really not necessary to
propose any alternative at all, abiogenesis and deliberate design and
creation (or anything else we can think of) are equally improbable,
neither enjoys more credibility than the other. How do we choose which
to take seriously?

Choose the one that does not involve the added complication of some
unseen, unobservable something(s). At least tentatively. The
supernatural something did it by magical poofing alternative has
consistently been wrong. In every case, proximal natural causation
has wound up to be a better answer. If the designer exists, the
evidence says he/she/it/they work by processes indistinguishable from
proximal natural causation.

You really don't understand the concept of impossible do you. The
universe and everything in it is impossible, absurdly so.

Depends on how this universe compares with others that also actually
exist. I cannot calculate a probability based only on the one
available universe. How can you?

Unlimited
time doesn't change that. Yet here we are. Obviously something
happened and all we have to work with is the way things are now. May
be that that's enough.

Yes. Exactly *what* happened and *how* it happened is just what
scientists study. Those studies say that our universe started from a
singularity some 13 billion ybp and describes how that initial start
became changed into the current universe and will proceed in the
future. Those studies show that organisms on this planet, which
formed some 4.5 billion ybp evolved in a process of common descent in
a fashion consistent with the known mechanisms of mutation followed by
natural selection to local conditions or neutral drift, with a big
dose of historical contingency.

We clearly do not know everything, but that does not mean that we know
nothing and that, therefore, any wild-assed guesses involving
supernatural entities are equal to the current scientific paradigm.
That would be epistomological nihilism. Scientists do not engage in
epistomological nihilism. They use evidence to discriminate and rank
order explanations.

The very serendipitous appearance of DNA (and the chromosomes as well
as the cell in which they are found) seems an unlikely candidate for
chance development.

That is because the appearance of DNA and modern-style chromosomes in
the first organisms that had them (and there were almost certainly
organisms that did not have them) were both serendipitous (due to
random mutational changes) and, in all probability, *selected for*
because they provided an advantage over the previous system that
lacked DNA as a genetic material or did not link its 'genetic system'
into what we call chromosomes.

Too any probablies and maybes, we're talking science here, empirical,
testable stuff, none of your sissy perhapses.

A scientific 'in all probability' is not a wild-assed guess or
personal opinion. It means that there is good empirical reason to
think this, even though we cannot be 100% sure (typically because the
direct observations are not possible).

So much would have to happen simultaneously,

Why must all the current features of life have to happen
*simultaneously*? Have you ruled out *sequentially*? I sure haven't
seen that particular argument from you. Most abiogenesis theories,
hypotheses, and speculations reject the idea that these events have to
happen *simultaneously*.

So a bunch of amino acids lay around for, oh say, a million years.

I expect a steady-state level of aa's where there is both a rate of
synthesis and a rate of destruction. These rates will differ
depending on local conditions, and, in some environments, aa may well
accumulate because of natural chemical affinities. That is, I expect
normal chemistry.

Then they mutate and make some proteins.

No. There will be rates of polymerization and a rate of
depolymerization. These rates will be different depending upon local
conditions and, in some local environments, proteinoids or peptides
may accumulate because of their natural chemical affinities.

Another few million years and
some proto-DNA molecule congeals from all those proteins

Although peptide nucleotides are one proposed mechanism (a testable
one, unlike some magical hypothetical designer) for an intermediate,
whatever the pre-DNA genetic/enzymatic material was, it would more
likely be trapped in membrane. Likely only the entrapment of specific
sequences would produce the necessary self-replicative chemical
system. But then, one has hundreds of millions of years with a steady-
state level of many trillions of Avagadro's number's (6 x 10^23) worth
of molecules and the specific molecular combination (as little as two
enzymatic functions) needs to happen only once. *Most* of the
structures and functions of what we recognize as "life" occurred after
the fundamental chemistry of life (imperfect self-replication) already
existed. And happened sequentially as individual improvements in
'reproductive success' over the previous chemistry. That includes
translation, a function that is still largely carried out not by
proteins but by RNA.

and then,
another million or so years and presto! So nothing happened
simultaneously, fair enough.

Well, I guess I am being politically incorrect again by assuming that
your "designer" that "designed" something that you consider "design"
is not a code name for "creator" who "creates" something you consider
"created".;-) [Sorry. I am having a real hard time parsing out the
difference between the designer of what you think "appears" to be
designed (if it actually were designed) and the "creator" of
creationist mythology.]

Blame your decoder ring.

maybe
even spontaneously, in such a near perfectly coordinated sequence that
almost any other hypothesis seems more probable.

Since that is exactly what the designer/creationist speculation
proposes, why don't you reject that? Almost any non-simultaneous
hypothesis (such as evolutionary ones) seems more probable.

To whom?

Anyone not emotionally wedded to supernatural designer working by some
unknown mechanism at some unspecified time and place to do some
unspecified something "hypotheses" (in quotes, because to call that a
"hypothesis" demeans the term, since, in science, hypotheses are
testable).

I'm sure it will be
argued that it happened since there would be no life if it hadn't, but
that logic is too contrived to be convincing. While none of this is
evidence for a deliberate design, it does show that the current
favorite option is not without problems. There's certainly no warrant
for just dismissing a non-standard alternative as is done here.

There is, in science, warrant for dismissing any alternative that
cannot be tested, even in principle, because it makes no predictions
and is unclear, subjective, and muddled post-modernism.

How is abiogenesis, something that happened 3.5 billion years ago last
monday, tested?

It is tested by seeing whether there are conditions that existed on
the early earth under which things like the abiogenic synthesis of
necessary or possibly useful chemicals needed for life can be
produced. It is tested by evidence pointing to the types of
conditions that existed on the early earth. It is tested by looking
at the *fundamental* biochemistry of living organisms and trying to
see how that can be/ has been generated sequentially rather than
simultaneously.

Why is my post-modernism (if that's what it is)
relevant. If relevant, why is it mistaken?

Post-modernism rejects the principle that there is an independent
reality outside our mind that can be publicly shared and observed. To
a post-modernist thinker, everything is merely one's own invention of
reality. As a scientist, I reject the assumption. So, interestingly
enough, do most post-modernists when it comes to walking out the 23rd
story window.

Bill

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