Building life in a lab - Synthetic Biologists

Hi iano, And there is of course a very good reason why it is an uneven fight. It's Science vs Anti-Science. Guess which one scientists should be carrying out! But I suppose the validity of ID is a little bit off-topic.I agree with you that science and spirutuality have different roles to play and that there are questions that scientific discovery cannot answer on it's own. What I think I disagree with you on is where you can draw that line where the scientific method holds up it's hands, walks away and says "All yours".I may be wrong, but you seem to be claiming that the gaps in our knowledge can be legitimately labelled with God, just because we can't prove that God doesn't exist, that 'knowledge' that "Goddidit!" should be given just as much creedance as attempts to explain things using empirical evidence. You seem to be basing this on a skewed idea of how science goes about it's business. The beautiful thing about science and the key aspect of it that allows progression is the ability to admit to igorance and the willingness to investigate things further.Compare this to the stagnating dogma of ID and the other forms of creationism, where everything is 'known' and anything that goes against the 'truth' is ignored. Just try and imagine the state of the world if everyone had this kind of attitude - it scares the hell out of me.God of the Gaps is not, as you claim, a device to crowbar the Deity out of the equation. It is part of the debate about what should go in those gaps. For example (and almost on topic too ): So when you say: You are wrong. It is shouting loud and proud "We don't know!.You seem to be asking for certain things to be ring-fenced and declared out of bounds for science. My question is, given the history of scientific discovery, when has this ever been a valid position?Edit: whoops, pressed submit too soon This message has been edited by Ooook!, 30-08-2005 10:21 AM

Hi iano I know what you mean. For a four fingered typist like me, cut ’n’ paste is definitely a good friend . This demonstrates what I see as the main problem if you’re going to have a consistent position on the place of science and the supernatural. According to you, it is perfectly fine to cram God into gaps in our knowledge and then, when science provides a satisfactory explanation, you just move onto the next gap: no problem. This seems like a rather odd, changeable ‘knowledge’ to me.I really don’t mind if people want to make themselves feel warm and fuzzy inside by taking comfort in this exponentially expanding collection of gaps. The problem arises when people then use this ‘truth’ to attack the progress of science or to justify otherwise unjustifiable actions. What’s wrong with saying I don’t know — but I might do someday and being happy with a positive spin on ignorance? Why do you need to postulate some weird kind of supernatural knowledge?Besides it’s all very well claiming that God is non-empirical and outside the realm of the natural, but people claiming to ‘know’ have a very real effect on the measurable, natural world. Whether it’s in the science class-room or the Oval Office, believers in the ‘truth’ have a direct influence on people’s lives. IMO, if there is no evidence for something you have to think long and hard about any actions or beliefs based on it.We don’t let this kind of thinking effect us in any other aspects of life — religion gets special dispensation. If someone claims that he broke the 100m world record but he can’t show you any evidence —he just knows it — would you give him the award? ID’s arguments about abiogenesis and the all encompassing laws of nature amount to saying: I know! Just trust me on that

Hello again,I've just had a look at the last few posts we've exchanged and (I know it's hard to believe) I think we may be up OT creek without a paddle. You know, I rather think I am one of the variations within that evil bunch . I'd love to continue the debate on the wrongs and rights of non-empirical 'knowledge' - there are a few things that you've picked up on that I'd like to clarify - but I don't think it's particularly relevant to abiogenesis and synthetic life. Is there another thread for it?I think the discussion of what can be open for scientific knowledge and investigation, and what gets defined as 'unknowable' in a conventional sense can be focused towards the start of life on earth. So I'd like to look at that part of your argument, if that's alright - and I'll try not to stray too far. This seems like a bit of a mixed metaphor to me - you've got gaps in knowlege being described as both the spaces between spokes and as the rim of the wheel itself. On top of that you've got an expanding wheel, so presumably at one point in the progression of knowledge something that is now inside the rim (and therefore empirically knowable) was once on the rim (and therefore 'Goddidit'). How are you ever going to distinguish between spoke gaps and rim gaps? How can we predict what will be discovered and what won't?In the case of abiogenesis and ID, creationists want people to believe that the 'wheel of knowledge' is solid and immutable. They ring-fence gaps in knowledge as 'God' and refuse to accept any evidence that may undermine their confident assertions. "Don't know" can change, quite happily, to "Evidence suggests" without any philosophical cartwheels. "I know!" switching to "Evidence suggests otherwise" is a different kettle of fish entirely, and that's where the conflict between faith and science emerges.You can quite easily declare that the 'universal' genetic code and the protein synthesis machinary could not have sprung up by random changes/natural selection but when evidence appears to suggest that RNA could support basic metabolic processes and that the coding for amino acids could have arisen in a step-wise manner then you have to respond. ID's response is to shout "No! I mean really prove it" followed by a slight shift of the boundaries of their black box. They don't have to provide a shred of evidence in support of their own position, they just 'know'.This message has been edited by Ooook!, 01-09-2005 10:21 AM

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Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinis alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes!

Aha! I think I've got the analogy now. But I've still got the same kind of questions about when we should declare the 'rim' is or whether it's possible to define where the spokes will end at all. The world is full of mysteries, true. But before we started all this scientific discovery business it was full of a boat load more. It was once thought that the atom was the smallest thing in the universe, and then the electron, and then people started to taste the quark etc and they are still looking. Why should we have to try and define the limits to our knowledge, why not just wait and see what comes up?If it were up to the Young Earthers then the evolution spokes would be considerably shorter than they are now. According to traditional creationism God and only God could explain the diversity of species on this planet. Scientific knowledge would be extremely impoverished. Now the IDers want to try the same trick with abiogenesis and announce that God and only God can explain things like the genetic code and complicated protein complexes. Should we stop looking for evidence about the start of life simply because some people 'know' we can't find anything else?

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Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinis alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes!

Hi, Well I think that shows why analogies can only be stretched so far. If we were to try and fully incorporate the tentative, changable nature of science into your 'Wheel of knowledge' then we would end up with a flippin' wierd looking wheel . But I think it is fair to simplify things a bit and say that theories grow on top of each other as we understand more about the universe.Good bits of theories are kept, less useful parts discarded, but understanding increases no matter what gets flipped on it's head because any new theory will have to explain all of the data that the old one did and then some (progress is always away from the hub if you like). If you're saying that the ToE as a whole is classified as a 'gap', or worse still 'on the rim', then debating the evidence required for abiogenesis seems a little premature. Your non-empirical 'knowledge' would be contradicted by the truckloads of evidence and your beliefs would be in direct confrontation with science, despite your protestations that you're happy to let science do it's own thing. But that's exactly my point. How do you know when it stops? You've asserted that it will stop, and claimed that we will know when we've reached that point, but how will we know for sure? Gut-feeling? Faith? Counting rhymes?What specifically makes you so sure that we've reached the edge of the scientific investigation with regards to abiogenesis?

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Si hoc signum legere potes, operis boni in rebus Latinis alacribus et fructuosis potiri potes!