Rob writes:
Percy:
So let's design a test that would detect the designer by his works. Let us say that me and a Greek from ancient Athens observe lightning in a thunder storm. I claim the lightning is a natural phenomenon caused by the discharge of electricity between clouds and ground which have become oppositely charged due to the storm. The ancient Athenian says the lightning bolt was cast by Zeus. What test could we make to tell who is right?
I was expecting so much more...
But you didn't need so much more, all you needed was already there.
You originally argued that science biases the game against the supernatural by requiring evidence from the material world, and I pointed out that bacterial flagellums and blood clotting mechanisms are very material things. We can know the designer by his works, but how do you tell which works are his and which are natural?
So I presented the example of the lightning bolt. We know that lightning bolts can have natural causes, but it is fully within the power of the designer to create lightning bolts. What test can you devise to tell whether a particular lightning bolt was natural or the work of the designer?
The same is true of your question about ATP. We know there are natural pathways for the creation of ATP. What test can you devise to tell whether the original ATP was natural or the work of the designer?
You provide the answer yourself:
There is no test for such a scenario. I agree!
If no such test can be devised, then it isn't science. You can continue to believe the designer created the original ATP, and this can be a reality for you, but you cannot scientifically demonstrate that a supernatural designer created the original ATP.
This thread is about the origin of energy sources for life processes, but the same is true for the other questions you raise, such as the origin of DNA and of information. The only possible test for the supernatural would be evidence of a process or event that is physically impossible in the material world.
The arguments you're drawing out of Behe's book have all been rebutted many different times in many different venues. Ultimately it is just the same old God-of-the-gaps approach. Believers will always find God in that which we do not yet know. At one time believers wondered what caused lightning or the motion of the planets, and in these unknowns they found God. But science filled in these gaps, and now believers have had to retreat to the realm of microbiological structures, wondering from whence came DNA and in this unknown finding God.
Let me briefly address a couple more items:
If the law of thermodynamics wasn't valid in an open system, then how did we discover it and prove it here in an open system?
This is off-topic so I won't discuss it here, but the laws of thermodynamics
*are* valid for open systems.
The same applies for cellular factories that convert energy. The energy itself cannot create them. Which gets back to a major point of the thread.
So... we know where instructions come from; intelligence. It has yet to be shown (though it is extravegantly suggested and theorized) that non-intelligent guidance and simple repetative physical laws (informationally) can be a cause and origin for this peculiar form of information that is shown emperically to be caused by intelligence elsewhere.
That is definitely not the topic of this thread. This is from your opening post:
Rob in his opening post writes:
Is there evidence of raw energy being useful for biological systems or not? And... would it take more energy to create a system of conversion than the raw energy to be converted provides? This question is the real problem thermodynamically. (
Thermodynamic Arguments for Creation )
Your first question has already been answered: biological processes are just chemical reactions driven by energy, energy that usually ulitmately comes from sun, but that may also come from other sources, such a radioactivity and geothermal.
Your second question probably hasn't been addressed, it's not actually phrased clearly, but it appears to be asking if the development of life's energy processes is thermodynamically impossible. Since the earth is an open system the answer is no, it is not thermodynamically impossible.
--Percy
PS - Google Toolbar provides a spellchecker, and the Firefox browser has a built in spellchecker.
™ Version 4.2