Is Abiogenesis a fact?

Tusko, the argument here is not confined to living things, but to the universe as a whole. The universe contains within it order, laws, principles, etc,.....all of which indicate design.

Wrong, there is no appeal to the supernatural. What you call supernatural is from a scientific perspective natural. We cannot directly test gravity, but only indirectly. Yet we nevertheless infer gravity from it's effects. We know intelligence exists and we know how intelligence can work to produce design and thus this is a real, natural process in the real world.All of the qualities of the universe match and indicate that it is the product of an intelligent process of design and as such, is best understood as the result of an Intelligent Cause. To deny this is what endangers science, sound reason and critical analysis, not the other way around. You used the example and the one using semantics and poorly defined terms to deny the obvious, that the universe appears to be the result of an Intelligent Cause.Do they use the term "acts of God" or not?

The universe consists of material that is less than superluminal. That's what we observe. It appears intelligent observation may be necessary for that universe to take on form, according to many interpretations of QM.Btw, it has nothing to do with complexity, at least not with my argument. That is an argument and worth exploring.Note too: we separate the inanimate from the animate. If Intelligence is required in order to produce the design, it is possible that the universe itself contains that Intelligence and so could have existed forever in some form (sort of pantheist theology), but current scientific theory leans towards the Big Bang which is a definite beginning for the universe as we know it today.

I hadn't noticed this before my last few posts. I will promptly cease from this line of discussion.

There you go again stating that order indicate design as if that's the only possible explanation. Why don't you address my last post? There you have an instance of order that did not arise from a design/designer. To addres the topic, it is possible that the first form of life on earth self-assembled, precluding the need to postulate a designer.Edited by AdminNWR, : off topic

Those interpretations are provably incorrect. Just ask anyone trying to design/build a quantum computer. All the researchers are having difficulty maintaining "superposition of states" inside their experimental systems, even when nobody is watching. Conclusion: a mind is not required to collapse a wave function, and so the interpretations to which you refer are flawed, Q.E.D. No Designer required, period.

That's an extremely weak response, but probably gets us into another topic. The problems with building a quantum computer and this whole arena would be better suited to a thread solely on quantum physics, as the subject is quite complicated.

The topic: Is Abiogenesis a fact?This is not an intelligent design thread. Stay on topic. If you want to discuss design or quantum computers, or any other topic other than abiogenesis, then propose a new thread.

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Does that mean that the only way a universe can be 'natural' (i.e. non-designer-made) is if it is a random universe, one without order and no natural laws to speak of? Gravity today, repulsion tomorrow, that sort of thing?Why can't a universe exist where matter simply does what it does without it being thought up by someone? Let me suppose for a moment that a designer exists and decides to create a universe. There are two principly different ways for the designer to do that: he can either create some matter and leave it at that, or he can also specify some natural laws according to which things behave under diverse circumstances. In the latter case, things will behave in a certain way and we can find out by doing science. But if the designer does not specify the laws, then why could things not behave in law-like ways of their own accord? Ways we could likewise detect by doing science? Isn't there some intrinsic behaviour in the very existence of things? Isn't the existence of a thing in itself a kind of stable and law-like behaviour?Sorry for off-topicness.Edited by Parasomnium, : Just saw the great red sign

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

What I call supernatural is beyond the scope of modern science, and this seems to be the consensus among the scientific community. We can test gravity quite readily. We cannot test God yet. As for the rest, its simply fallacious reasoning, you're begging the question. Fallacious reasoning. See above. I used what example? How were any of my terms poorly defined? There is a very clear distinction between the natural and the supernatural, which I've elucidated numerous times. Your religious objections to it are frankly not my problem, I'm getting tired of repeating the same line over and over again. I'll consider the attempt to dismiss it all as an issue of semantics as a concession, its apparent you can't cogently argue your point any more. Very infantile, but I'll bite. "Act of God" is a legal term for events outside human control (storms, earthquakes etc.) . In the past these events were considered to be the direct actions of God (eg. Divine retribution). This is probably where the term originates. Of course, these events can now be explained quite well by solely natural causes, thanks to modern natural science. Google definition - define:ACT OF GOD - Google Search

Refering to insurance, Having grown up in an insurance family and having be the youngest person in the State of Maryland to ever get his Brokers License, I may be able to point out some things in this area.The Insurance industry is very conservative, and terms that have by use garnered a specific meaning are often retained. I remember that as late as the 1960 at least there were also exceptions in Marine Insurance excluding the "Acts of Kings and Princes of whatsoever quality".The key is that many of the proposals of different ID groups simply lead to stagnation and a dead end. That includes the idea of a Designer. Until some specific and repeatable test that can be used by anyone with access to the testing equipment or that can reliably produce the same results regardless of the tester and indipendent of any analysis of the results, any speculation of the designer is a wast of effort. When such a test is developed, then it will become reasonable to consider the question, but until then ID belongs in the realm of sciFi.Another proposal that has been made by some ID supporters is that past may change, may not be static. Again, this is something that needs to be pushed off into the realm of SciFi. If someday a test method might be developed that could show that the past has changed and exactly what the change was, then it would still be worthless spending time considering it. By its very nature, the theory will still be useless.Consider.If the idea that the past is changeable is true, then the results of any test of the idea cannot be trusted. Under the conditions of the theory the results we have may not be the results we really got.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

You're talking about "results" and "tests" that ID should be coming up with but what results are you looking for? When talking about origings of life we're dealing with a one time event - not a repeatable one...Does that make it outside of the realm of "testability" and therefore science? Yes, and NO...ID makes observations (that much is repeatable) and draws an inference from those observations..This is no different than archeology, cryptology, forensics, or SETI for that matter. What's common to each of those sciences? The substance of each is the same: consisting of observing the natural evidence (artifacts, codes, pieces of evidence, space noise) and drawing conclusions from those observations...

And that is the problem. The results that you SHOULD be looking for are whatever you get. You do not specify results beyond the statement stage, "If this is true I should see (list of specifics).So far ID has never been able to make such a statement.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

nor do the sciences which I mention above - they too make inferences from observations...there no predictions in archeology, forensics, cryptology, etc...Why not? because events that happened in the past can be observed, but how could you "predict" something which has already occured?

Did King George 3 of England really exist? How do you know? What predictions can you make that will allow me to test the hypothesis that he really existed? NONE, and none are necessary...His existence was in the past and you observe pre-existing evidence (biographies, letters, birth certificates, etc) to confirm his existence...NO PREDICTIONS are possible or neccessary...