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Author | Topic: No Witnesses | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
I have not spent the time to read all the posts in this thread, but I think the original topic was a comment from the Alabama SBE that since no one was present when life first appeared on earth, statements about that origin should be regarded as theory, and not fact. Subsequent posts about witnessing and seeing and evolutionary generations seem to have missed one important aspect of the statement — as I read the statement, it says nothing about evolution of species, though that may have been the intent, I can’t say. What I see is that the statement addresses the issue of the origin of life, not its subsequent development. And while the No one was present phrase begs for a tu quoque response, I wonder if there is still something to talk about here. If a process cannot be repeated, or measured in its singular occurrence, and if there is in fact no validated model to support it, can it be considered a fact? Please understand, I am not referring to the origin of species or to the diversity of biological life, but to the origin of the first living cell. Is there a body of factual evidence that describes the transition from non-living to living material?
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angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
Facts don't have to be repeatable. In science, the observation of facts has to be repeatable. I’m getting a little technical here, but it won’t be the first time that has happened on this blog! Note that I did not say that facts needed to be repeated (though we can repeat them to each other if we like). I mentioned processes being repeated. And what are we going to repeatedly observe to support our fact claims if we don’t observe a process?
You don't have to be able to replay the eruption of a volcano. You only have to be able to observe the ash layers, lava flows, etc. to infer what happened. Granted. But am I not inferring on the basis of having observed an actual volcano in process? Where has anyone observed a natural process (no manipulation by intelligent agency) which resulted in organisms being produced from anything other than another organism? BTW, how are things in good ole Stubblejump?
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angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
Now in the case of life, we have evidence that once there wasn't and couldn't have been life on Earth, and that now there is. That's the brute fact. Sure, OK, but I don't think anyone at the Alabama SBE was uncertain about that. And just as you say about poor John Smith (RIP) his deadness can be established quite apart from an explanation of what killed him. But that is where it gets interesting, not? When the detectives come in and assert that Professor Plum killed him in the kitchen with a nuclear missile or with a spider web, they don’t have to have observed the criminal act when it happened, but they do have to explain to the court how it is consistent with what is observed (a dead body with no evidence of violence on the body or the surroundings) that a nuclear weapon or a spider web was the murder weapon. That is where some modeling might come in (think Exhibit A). How exactly might the professor have used a spider web to do the job? So once there was no life on Earth and now there is. This begs for an explanation that fits the facts we now observe. In the absence of any known natural processes that make dead things alive, and in a universe that once was not and now is, what is a reasonable proposal to explain the existence of the universe and the origin of life? Evolution just doesn’t seem adequate or even relevant to these questions.
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angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
Ringo: For example, we can observe objects moving in the universe and from those observations we can infer that that motion must have had a beginning. We don't have to observe the Big Bang directly to know that it must have happened. But we have observed, innumerable times, the behavior of objects in motion. Maybe there is a better way to say it, but I would call that repeatedly observing a process - the only difference with the Big Bang is that the objects in motion are different entities of the same class. I don't see evolution as the explanation for the origin of life having the same kind of evidential support. You say we have observed the chemistry but not the exact sequence of steps to form an organism. So, in short, there is no scientific explanation at this point [though perhaps you believe there will be one sometime, maybe soon]. Maybe there will be one tomorrow, but that is not yet among the facts we have to include as evidence. Without that evidence, I don't see how there is a scientific case to be made. Not that we don't all like to think our ideas are correct in the meantime.
Ringo: (By the way, no intelligent agency can do anything but manipulate the natural behaviour of the chemcals.) Sorry, not sure where you were going with that. And thanks for the news from Stubblejump! I'm sure your jumping will improve as the season advances. Who is sponsoring the championship this year?
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angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
Jar: Evolution deals with what happened after life began. I am guilty of conflating my terms. What redress does the court decree?
Jar: There is even evidence of complex self replicating molecules forming and even complex self replicating with errors molecules that evolve. What IS missing is any evidence of any unnatural, nonnatural or supernatural causes, effects, existence as well as any model of how a nonnatural, unnatural or supernatural cause could do anything. Are these naturally occurring molecules generally understood to be alive? And could you be more specific about their identity? As for evidence of supranatural causes and effects, it all depends on what you count as evidence, and how you define natural. If you construe evidence very narrowly along completely materialist lines, I'm not sure you would say there is evidence for anything like a mind - we are only brains with bodies. Is that your position?
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angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
Ringo: It's incorrect to say we have "no scientific explanation". We have a scientific explanation that isn't quite complete. You're suggestng that there's no road from New York to Los Angeles just because a few miles haven't been paved yet. I remain stubborn on this point. If you cannot drive from NY to LA on the road, you cannot get to LA by that means. The contractor won't (better not!) get paid his final payment until he actually connects the dots. I'm not insensible to the idea that, as Jar has said, some steps have been made. But "unforeseen circumstances" is a common phrase for a good reason. History is full of abandoned theories and projects that were "almost" and "so close."
Ringo: I'm saying that it's all natural processes. No intelligence that we know of can do anything but tweak the natural processes that already exist. Intelligence is a complete non-answer to the question of origins. Isn't tweaking the natural process precisely how we are able to interact purposefully with our world? If you asked me to explain how that road got paved, I think at some point I would have to appeal to the organization of men and tools and material according to a design plan that was intelligently conceived. If one is willing to consider that there may be realities that extend beyond the material, then a similar tweaking of natural processes by a divine mind can be inferred quite easily. Even so there is no processual explanation, so in that sense it might still be a non-answer.
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angletracks Junior Member (Idle past 4354 days) Posts: 13 Joined: |
Ringo: You seem to be suggesting that because there might be some impassible stretches on the road, we should rely on aliens to teleport us to LA. I'm suggesting that we should just get in the car and drive until we can't drive no more. What I intended to insist was that we should not say we have arrived until we actually have, and that calling abiogenesis a fact seems inaccurate to me. I have no problem with going as far as we can - it is an interesting quest.
Ringo: You're just adding another unknown. Why not go with what we do know instead of hypothesizing some spooky miracle? Perhaps. I rather think that I am positing one unproven entity instead of another less plausible one, and I don't find believing in a personal Creator spooky at all. Gonna check out for now. Thanks for being a civil interlocuter.
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