EvC Forum: abiogenesis

Email This Thread

Newer Topic | Older Topic

Author

Topic: abiogenesis

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 153 of 297 (548631)
02-28-2010 7:02 PM

Reply to: Message 148 by Percy
02-28-2010 6:10 AM

what's the topic?

Hi Percy, just a note

Of course you can, but in threads where it would be on-topic. This thread's about abiogenesis.

This thread was started by marc9000 to discuss the relative merits of ID versus abiogenesis on a scientific basis. I got some further clarification on what marc9000 wanted to discuss with Message 123:

quote:
From these messages and your OP I glean the basic topic to be:

1. whether abiogenesis can properly be considered science,
2. whether ID can properly be considered science, and
3. whether abiogenesis is more scientific than ID or vice versa
Yes, you’ve clarified it well, I believe your A,B, and C should be the focus of this thread, and I agree about leaving the other issues.

As such the title should probably be changed to

Abiogenesis vs ID -- which is more scientific?

Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 148 by Percy, posted 02-28-2010 6:10 AM		Percy has seen this message but not replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 154 of 297 (548799)
03-01-2010 9:35 PM

Reply to: Message 139 by marc9000
02-27-2010 7:50 PM

Update on the bogus ID "prediction"

Hi again, marc9000, just came across some additional information.

From thread is the advancement of macro evolution without hick up? Message 28:

This letter to Nature describes an experiment involving the deletion of over 2,300 non-coding intervals from mice DNA with no apparent effect on the mice.

Going to the article abstract we see:

quote:
Megabase deletions of gene deserts result in viable mice

The functional importance of the roughly 98% of mammalian genomes not corresponding to protein coding sequences remains largely undetermined⁽¹⁾. Here we show that some large-scale deletions of the non-coding DNA referred to as gene deserts^{(2, 3, 4)} can be well tolerated by an organism. We deleted two large non-coding intervals, 1,511 kilobases and 845 kilobases in length, from the mouse genome. Viable mice homozygous for the deletions were generated and were indistinguishable from wild-type littermates with regard to morphology, reproductive fitness, growth, longevity and a variety of parameters assaying general homeostasis. Further detailed analysis of the expression of multiple genes bracketing the deletions revealed only minor expression differences in homozygous deletion and wild-type mice. Together, the two deleted segments harbour 1,243 non-coding sequences conserved between humans and rodents (more than 100 base pairs, 70% identity). Some of the deleted sequences might encode for functions unidentified in our screen; nonetheless, these studies further support the existence of potentially 'disposable DNA' in the genomes of mammals.

Note two things:

(1) the function of non-coding DNA is still unknown for 98% of the mammalian genomes, and

(2) large segments can be deleted with no apparent effect on the viability of the organisms or their descendants.

Now remember your one single prediction that you offered to support ID was:

Message 111: To go further with the junk DNA thing, we find this link, including this paragraph;

quote:
Even if some rogue biologists suspected function for "junk" DNA, this does nothing to change the fact that the false "junk"-DNA paradigm was born, bred, and sustained far beyond its reasonable lifetime under the Neo-Darwinian mindset. Some Darwinists do not want to admit this fact of history. Given the behavior of Darwinists regarding the film Flock of Dodos, where they have denied that Haeckel's faked embryo drawings have been misused in modern textbooks, it is not surprising that some Darwinists are now trying to rewrite history to claim their paradigm never called non-coding DNA "junk." It appears that junk-DNA is truly going the way of the dodo, in more way than one.

Intelligent design really can sometimes correct mistakes of the Neo-Darwinian mindset.

As I noted in Message 136:

Four, I've done a little investigating of the background on your "prediction" ...

From your link:

quote:
As far back as 1994, pro-ID scientist and Discovery Institute fellow Forrest Mims had warned in a letter to Science[1] against assuming that 'junk' DNA was 'useless.'" Science wouldn't print Mims' letter, but soon thereafter, in 1998, leading ID theorist William Dembski repeated this sentiment in First Things:
[Intelligent] design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.

(William Dembski, "Intelligent Science and Design," First Things, Vol. 86:21-27 (October 1998))

Now let's review that "prediction" by Dembski again ...

quote:
... If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. ...

So that "prediction" has still not been fulfilled, unless you consider the small amount of all DNA having a known use today meeting the criteria of "as much as possible, to exhibit function." So what is predicted for the remaining DNA today? If we are still less than 50% known use then that prediction has not been met. What is the use? What is the function? Without that essential little detail there is no prediction of the use of such DNA. When I design something it is 100% functional parts.

So to update my previous comments with the information given above:

(1) If the use of 98% of mammalian genomes is still not known, then the amount of non-coding DNA that has been determined to have some use is indeed very very small, to the point where Dembski's "prediction" of finding use -- "If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function" -- cannot be deemed to be anywhere near being touched by any stretch of a willing but rational imagination.

(2) The deletion of such large sections of non-coding DNA without discernible effect on the individual or its descendants is a strong argument for invalidation of Dembski's prediction: if DNA, as much as possible, should exhibit function for ID to be valid, then any large scale deletion of DNA should have noticeable effect on the organism or its descendants.

Leaving aside the fact that his "prediction" of some use for non-coding DNA being found was due to reading about it in a science journal rather than to some hypothesis based on ID, we see that this has nowhere near come close to beginning to hint at validation, while there is evidence that strongly speaks to invalidating it.

Notice that in abiogenesis, when it became apparent that the early environment was not as reducing as was assumed with Miller-Urey, that the scientists discarded the previous assumptions and proceeded to (successfully) repeat the experiments with updated environmental conditions.

Science discards invalidated concepts.

Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 139 by marc9000, posted 02-27-2010 7:50 PM		marc9000 has not replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 185 of 297 (550745)
03-17-2010 10:08 PM

Reply to: Message 165 by marc9000
03-10-2010 9:57 PM

Re: Entrance Requirements - and (epic) Failed ID

Hi marc9000, sorry to take so long replying.

I noted that abiogenesis fit a definition as science? Where did I do that?

It was much earlier in the thread:

Message 93: So the study of abiogenesis that I'm seeing so far here falls under your one-sentence description in your Message 73;

quote:
Science (general): any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome.

This is the general definition that I started with, and have then compared to old definitions of science to show that it has not changed in the last 182 years in order to exclude ID but have already allowed abiogenesis.

Do you agree that this 1828 definition includes abiogenesis in the same way that it "falls under" the definition above?

Message 125: The above site also provides the 1828 definition of science (my bold for emphasis):

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=sc...

quote:
SCI''ENCE, n. [L. scientia, from scio, to know.]

1. In a general sense, knowledge, or certain knowledge; the comprehension or understanding of truth or facts by the mind. The science of God must be perfect.

2. In philosophy, a collection of the general principles or leading truths relating to any subject. Pure science, as the mathematics, is built on self-evident truths; but the term science is also applied to other subjects founded on generally acknowledged truths, as metaphysics; or on experiment and observation, as chimistry and natural philosophy; or even to an assemblage of the general principles of an art, as the science of agriculture; the science of navigation. Arts relate to practice, as painting and sculpture.

A principle in science is a rule in art.

3. Art derived from precepts or built on principles.

Science perfects genius.

4. Any art or species of knowledge.

No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.

5. One of the seven liberal branches of knowledge, viz grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.

[Note - Authors have not always been careful to use the terms art and science with due discrimination and precision. Music is an art as well as a science. In general, an art is that which depends on practice or performance, and science that which depends on abstract or speculative principles. The theory of music is a science; the practice of it an art.]

Here we see that the term science is applied to subjects founded on experiment and observation, as chimistry and natural philosophy. Natural philosophy at this time meaning the study of the natural world.

So far we haven't found an old definition that would fit the current status of ID, so the claim that the definition has been changed to keep ID out is spurious assertion without merit.

If you can't show that ID meets these definitions then you will need to agree that the definition has not been changed to omit ID, rather that ID just has not stepped up to the plate yet, and that it is not the fault of the science community that ID has not stepped up to the plate.

Note for reference, that there are a couple of threads I have dedicated to the question of abiogenesis:
see RAZD - Building Blocks of Life, Message 2,
and Self-Replicating Molecules - Life's Building Blocks (Part II)

I’d like to see some documentation on that. I’d like to see the date when abiogenesis was declared to be science, and what science it had done to gain that status.

These threads show the ongoing scientific investigation of the possibilities of life forming through natural laws from available chemicals, including several different options and including the PAH hypothesis, and that show that this subject is "founded on experiment and observation" and meets the 1828 definition as well as the general definition above.

These threads only touch the surface of the volume of ongoing scientific study into the possibilities of life forming through natural means from available chemicals.

If we can include natural philosophy that forcefully excludes the supernatural (atheism) art, agriculture, navigation, arts, painting, sculpture, why can’t we include mathematical challenges to Darwinism? Why is it religious to challenge Darwinism to the concept of irreducible complexity?

Except that the 1828 definition does not "forcefully excludes the supernatural (atheism) art, agriculture, navigation, arts, painting, sculpture" does it? Rather it distinguishes between difference between natural science, art and philosophy, notably including metaphysics.

... why can’t we include mathematical challenges to Darwinism? Why is it religious to challenge Darwinism to the concept of irreducible complexity?

Curiously, mathematical (and philosophical) challenges are not facts, and fact is what you need to challenge science. Scientific theories and hypothesis are only falsified by facts that contradict them, not by contrary theories and hypothesis (which is all mathematical and philosophical deductions can be).

Science is naturalistic because it relies on facts from the natural world as the basis and foundation of all hypothesis and theories to invalidate false concepts.

Why is it religious to challenge Darwinism to the concept of irreducible complexity?

It isn't religious to propose the concept of irreducible complexity, where it gets religious is in the assumption that if an observed instance of irreducible complexity cannot be explained by evolutionary processes that the default is that some god or other was involved.

Interestingly, the Irreducible Complexity Hypothesis has been falsified, yet the IDologists refuse to discard it as would be done in any proper scientific investigation. Several proposed instances of IC were explained at the Dover trial for instance. There are also instances where mechanisms that fit the definition of IC have been observed to evolve, thus demonstrating that no supernatural explanation is required to explain IC in the natural world.

This doesn't "forcefully excludes the supernatural" but explaining the natural world without having to resort to it based on observation and testing in the natural world. Gravity is also "forcefully excluded" from the scientific investigation of biological functions, not because there is a god of gravity, but because it is not necessary to the explanation of the observed and tested functions and processes.

It had plenty of points that were relevant, but it’s easy to see that the godless scientific community can oppose anything it wants, simply by going down a different path, and loading it with complexities that nothing outside the publicly established realm can hope to compete with, especially while it's defending itself against something else, something political.

In other words, your would rather have your pet peeve rant undisturbed by fact and relevant discussion.

Note that it is a policy of this forum that we do not debate websites, but points that are brought from websites by people willing to discuss them and defend them if necessary.

EvC Forum: Forum Guidelines

quote:
5 Bare links with no supporting discussion should be avoided. Make the argument in your own words and use links as supporting references.

6 Avoid lengthy cut-n-pastes. Introduce the point in your own words and provide a link to your source as a reference. If your source is not on-line you may contact the Site Administrator to have it made available on-line.

If you cannot defend the points of a website, then it would appear that you would not have the understanding of the subject to know whether what the website is saying the truth or an elaborate fabrication intended to delude the more under-informed and gullible people, telling them what they want to believe, and relying on confirmation bias.

Your curiousity should diminish when you add up the instances when abiogenesis was on the receiving end of an ACLU lawsuit, vs that of the ID community.

Poor baby. Gotta have that persecution complex or you're not happy.

ID is not recognized as science because it is not a testable hypothesis based on observation and testing of the evidence found in the natural world. It currently is political trash-talk at its worst, and philosophical hypothesizing at its best. Fascinatingly neither is considered the pursuit of science.

Message 166:

quote:
The Discovery Institute stated in October 2006 that intelligent design research is being conducted by the institute in secret to avoid the scrutiny of the scientific community.[18][19] Nevertheless, Biever was able to discover that The Biologic Institute is working on "examining the origin of metabolic pathways in bacteria, the evolution of gene order in bacteria, and the evolution of protein folds" and computational biology.[4]

It’s understandable that how ID research is released is something that must be done very carefully, considering the emotion and personal attacks by the scientific community over Michael Behe’s work, as well as Dembski’s mathematical applications concerning probabilities in biology. The scientific community’s success in shouting down ID so far has been to declare it religion, and disregard it without addressing the scientific challenges it provides to naturalism.

I note that you have ignored the several opportunities that ID had been given, both from the Discovery Institutes pet research facility and from Templeton Foundation (Message 149):

As for funding, try this little piece of news:

Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

quote:
The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.

There's your funding, available and ready to be used ... nobody applied to use it to actually do something scientific with it.

Opportunity not taken, so it's not the fault of secular science that ID has not done any real science yet, it is the failure of the ID people to do science.

There are a lot of evangelical colleges and places that could also provide funding, but it seems ID can't convince religious schools either (from the same article):

quote:
The only university where intelligent design has gained a major institutional foothold is a seminary. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., created a Center for Science and Theology for William A. Dembski, a leading proponent of intelligent design, after he left Baylor, a Baptist university in Texas, amid protests by faculty members opposed to teaching it.

Intelligent design and Mr. Dembski, a philosopher and mathematician, should have been a good fit for Baylor, which says its mission is "advancing the frontiers of knowledge while cultivating a Christian world view." But Baylor, like many evangelical universities, has many scholars who see no contradiction in believing in God and evolution.

This was discussed on ID Failing--at Christian Institutions. If ID can't convince religious schools that it's science, how can you expect secular universities to do so?

I have falsified several of your claims, particularly that the definition of science has been changed in order to exclude ID, that ID is just as scientific as abiogenesis, and that ID is unable to find funding to do science, so it seems that all you have left is repeating your pet peeve rants in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 165 by marc9000, posted 03-10-2010 9:57 PM		marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
	Message 199 by marc9000, posted 03-21-2010 5:24 PM		RAZD has replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 201 of 297 (551197)
03-21-2010 6:03 PM

Reply to: Message 188 by marc9000
03-21-2010 4:17 PM

The conflict is in the interpretation, not the religion

hi marc9000, can't let this go by ...

But when 90+ percent of them oppose religion, or fundamentalist Christianity, they all have one huge thing in common,

That they are not anti-religious or atheist, nor do they have problems with reality as shown by the evidence around us.

When only a small fringe subsect of one of many religious groups has problems, it is not because of the science and the knowledge derived from scientific pursuits, it is the small fringe subsect that is the source of the problems.

If a person can be both christian and support the science of evolution, then obviously there is no conflict between them, per se, and that any perceived conflict is therefore due to different interpretations of christianity rather than fact, reality, and content.

Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 188 by marc9000, posted 03-21-2010 4:17 PM		marc9000 has not replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 203 of 297 (551199)
03-21-2010 6:09 PM

Reply to: Message 192 by marc9000
03-21-2010 4:37 PM

Re: Theistic science?

More poor logic marc9000,

Abiogenesis is a scientific subject that strongly implies that religion is false.

Nope, it implies that creationist special creation is wrong, but it does not imply that religion in general is wrong. One religious view does not represent all religious views.

From deist (and various other theistic) perspectives abiogenesis is part of the design of the universe - how it was designed to function.

All science determines is how it may have happened, not why.

enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 192 by marc9000, posted 03-21-2010 4:37 PM		marc9000 has not replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 233 of 297 (553728)
04-04-2010 9:02 PM

Reply to: Message 199 by marc9000
03-21-2010 5:24 PM

Re: Entrance Requirements - and (epic) Failed ID

Hi again marc9000, hope you had a good eostre weekend, and again apologies for long absence. Spring is here, and I have been spending time in the woods with my new binoculars and the birds.

But this is also due to the feeling that what I have shown you is falling on deaf ears.

... because there are limits to proof and facts about an early earth atmosphere, and many other things about naturalistic life from non-life.

Are you now claiming that in order for abiogenesis to be a valid science that they need to prove precisely how life actually began?

This is moving the goal posts for a number of reasons. One is that nothing is proven in science, the best we can get is tentative validity - concepts that are not invalidated by evidence and that have been rigorously tested to see if they can be invalidated. This is the highest level of validation for science. Abiogenesis has not reached this level of being so rigorously tested yet, however several other sciences have, including evolution.

But no science results in proofs. Not one.

Science is not based on subjective criteria, rather it is an objective evaluation of the proposed concept, and when we start with the basic entry level definition of science:

Message 73;Science - Wikipedia

quote:
Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is, in its broadest sense, any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome. In this sense, science may refer to a highly skilled technique or practice.[1]

We see that the basic entry level criteria for science are:

it is based on an organized, systematic knowledge about the topic and
it can make testable predictions based on this organized knowledge.

The science of abiogenesis is based on our knowledge of chemistry, how chemicals react, and geology, particularly paleo-geology, our current knowledge of the geology of the past.

Thus we see an organized, systematic knowledge about the topic of abiogenesis that I have yet to see from ID.

I don’t think abiogenesis can get any closer to a prediction or predictable type of outcome than ID can, ...

Curiously, I have already discussed a number of predictions that are made by the hypothesis that life can arise from chemicals by natural processes.

One of these is that we should be able to find self-replicating molecules.

Hundreds have been found (and ignoring them does not make them go away).

That is one validated "prediction or predictable type of outcome" that I have yet to see from ID.

Another reason this is goal post moving is that it seems you are now requiring more for abiogenesis than to meet the criteria already agreed on, while you have yet to establish that ID meets this criteria.

ID can do exactly the same things — it can make suppositions about matter/conditions appearing from nothing by supernatural causation, then experiment and observe a subsequent~design~ in the time and rearrangement realm.

But it hasn't, that is the point. Prove me wrong by listing the predictions and the experiments conducted to test the predictions.

Just being able to make an hypothesis is not enough: you need to show how the hypothesis was derived (the systematic knowledge basis) and then make a prediction that can be tested (untestable hypothesis being useless).

I can easily show that ID meets those definitions. It is a science of design detection, and there are already other sciences of design detection. Anthropology, archeology, forensic sciences, cryptanalysis and SETI, are others. Design detection — detection of purpose in nature is natural philosophy just as much as abiogenesis.

Taking this as true for the sake of argument, we still have the situation of you making up situations that could be done rather than refering to actual work that has been done.

I can, (and have), refer(ed) to actual work that has been done on abiogenesis.

But that’s not what I asked for, and that’s not what you allow ID time to do. You don't allow ID to be "ongoing", you require it to be complete for its scientific entrance.

Not at all, I just ask that it START doing science. It's not a matter of not having sufficient time, it's a matter of actually doing the work.

I've also pointed out that various opportunities to actually do the science have existed and have not been taken.

But that’s not what I asked for, ... I asked for documentation of abiogenesis STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE, The opening details and date of it... and no one seems to be able to tell me when or how abiogenesis was AWARDED FIRST BASE.

The fact that it is ongoing makes the original time rather moot, however, if I were going to pin a date for the first actual scientific test of the concept of abiogenesis, then the obvious choice would be the Miller-Urey experiment.

Miller—Urey experiment - Wikipedia

quote:
The Miller—Urey experiment[1] (or Urey—Miller experiment)[2] was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and tested for the occurrence of chemical evolution. Specifically, the experiment tested Alexander Oparin's and J. B. S. Haldane's hypothesis that conditions on the primitive Earth favored chemical reactions that synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors. Considered to be the classic experiment on the origin of life, it was conducted in 1952[3] and published in 1953 by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey at the University of Chicago.[4][5][6]

The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2). The chemicals were all sealed inside a sterile array of glass tubes and flasks connected in a loop, with one flask half-full of liquid water and another flask containing a pair of electrodes. The liquid water was heated to induce evaporation, sparks were fired between the electrodes to simulate lightning through the atmosphere and water vapor, and then the atmosphere was cooled again so that the water could condense and trickle back into the first flask in a continuous cycle.

At the end of one week of continuous operation, Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10—15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. Two percent of the carbon had formed amino acids that are used to make proteins in living cells, with glycine as the most abundant. Sugars, lipids, and some of the building blocks for nucleic acids were also formed.

Of course a lot has happened since then, but I do not know of any previous experiment in this field, so that sets the "first base" date at 1952.

The 1920's it appears, with one persons "ideas" and little else. The ID community has plenty of ideas.

Fascinatingly, having ideas does not make it science.

I know — searches for atheism. Time and rearrangement, with everything else ruled out.

Non-sequitur meaningly word salad. I have no idea what you mean.

The 1828 definition doesn’t say anything about testable, repeatable, falsifiable, observable either does it? Why are those things constantly applied to ID?
Falsified? That word doesn’t appear in your 1828 definition.

Message 125: The above site also provides the 1828 definition of science (my bold for emphasis):

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=sc...

quote:
SCI''ENCE, n. [L. scientia, from scio, to know.]

In a general sense, knowledge, or certain knowledge; the comprehension or understanding of truth or facts by the mind. The science of God must be perfect.
In philosophy, a collection of the general principles or leading truths relating to any subject. Pure science, as the mathematics, is built on self-evident truths; but the term science is also applied to other subjects founded on generally acknowledged truths, as metaphysics; or on experiment and observation, as chimistry and natural philosophy; or even to an assemblage of the general principles of an art, as the science of agriculture; the science of navigation. Arts relate to practice, as painting and sculpture.
A principle in science is a rule in art.
Art derived from precepts or built on principles.
Science perfects genius.
Any art or species of knowledge.
No science doth make known the first principles on which it buildeth.
One of the seven liberal branches of knowledge, viz grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music.
[Note - Authors have not always been careful to use the terms art and science with due discrimination and precision. Music is an art as well as a science. In general, an art is that which depends on practice or performance, and science that which depends on abstract or speculative principles. The theory of music is a science; the practice of it an art.]

So far we haven't found an old definition that would fit the current status of ID, so the claim that the definition has been changed to keep ID out is spurious assertion without merit.

Fair enough, in a strict reading it requires observation and experimentation, for fields such as chemistry and natural science. Of course observation means you have acquired a systematic knowledge about the topic, and experimentation means that you have testable predictions based on this organized knowledge that are the basis for the experiments. Having testable predictions means that you have falsification tests, because if the predictions don't pan out, the prediction as derived is falsified.

That’s not one bit different than the evolutionary process explaining something, so that by default no God was involved. Theistic evolutionists will claim that God was sitting there, doing nothing, just that he wasn't involved. Other than that, atheists can answer all their questions for them. It's not convincing.

Curiously, that has nothing to do with what was falsified. What was falsified was the concept that an Irreducibly Complex system could not arise by evolution but only by a supernatural cause.

This is a clear indication of the dangers of only one worldview (godlessness/naturalism/atheism) ruling science. When we tell students that Irreducible complexity is falsified, we imply that the removal of one part of a complex system CAN’T cause the entire system to come to a standstill, and it’s a FACT that it can, and almost always does, in systems that humans have designed, and in biology as well. The remaining parts sit still, and almost always quickly deteriorate / die.

And again, this is not what was falsified. What was falsified was the concept that Irreducibly Complex systems could not arise by evolution but only by a supernatural cause.

Naturalists can launch themselves down complex paths to show that it doesn’t matter and doesn’t affect the evolutionary process that they hold dear, but they can’t conceal their anger, or their desire to discard, and not teach, a fact of nature. Just because it’s provable to be applicable to existing biological systems so far, doesn’t mean it’s not biology.

LOL. Biologists can show that several systems that meet the definitional criteria of Irreducibly Complex systems have in fact evolved. They can also show substantial evidence for the evolutionary derivation of every system so far proposed as and IC system by the ID crowd, sufficient to show that these too could evolve through intermediate steps. Behe conceded this point at Dover.

The word testable, or even an abstract reference to it, does not appear in your 1828 definitions above. That’s one of the ways you allow abiognesis in — an early earth atmosphere is not testable. You’re not able to get away from your double standards.

Actually it is very testable, as chemical reactions leave behind signatures of the environment in which they occurred. This is why we know that the early atmosphere had very little oxygen. The atmosphere used for the Miller-Urey experiments was based on the knowledge current at that time. This has since been modified by additional knowledge that refines the previous knowledge.

Abiogenesis is atheistic trash talk. It can be dressed up in the shiny suit of science ...

Once again, I point out that I am not an atheist. Once again I point out that this is consistent with a universe created with the laws of nature in effect, that resulted in the formation of planets, the development of life and the evolution of that life from the first begining to the present day. Just because your world view does not include this form of creation does not mean that it is atheistic, nor does it mean it is atheistic because you happen to disagree with it.

... only because of the atheists who control science.

One of the signs of cognitive dissonance is the use of conspiracy theory/ies to explain evidence that contradicts your world view/s.

I haven’t ignored them, I’ve noted that politics is involved, and considering the emotional treatment that ID proponents like Dembski and Behe have received in the past, I’ve actually explained them. (personal, emotional opposition to these two men in the past are facts. )

The question is whether or not you are willing to admit and accept that this means that opportunities were provided and neglected, ignored, by the ID proponents. It doesn't have a single thing to do with the politics, but it has everything to do with the failure of ID to ACTUALLY DO SCIENCE.

These opportunities were provided by ID friendly universities and STILL there was not a single taker, not a single proposal submitted, so it is not a matter of proposals being rejected even.

William Dembski has written several books on Intelligent Design, describing exactly what it is, and what it proposes, and ideas about research for it, the same type of ideas that were good enough for abiogenesis at its beginning.

Yes, I glanced over that thread. Message 16 from administration warned the poor babies about the personal sniping against the lone ID proponent. The persecution complex often goes through the roof when the subject of ID comes up, doesn’t it?

In that opening post, we had a c/p with some quotes from Derek Davis, of Baylor, a Baptist university, who wants to quit playing games about the religious worldview being advanced. I wonder what he thinks about the atheist worldview being advanced? What he thinks about the list of books that I showed in message #171. (the existence of those books is a fact)

Books are not science. You can put anything in a book and get it published.

If ID can't convince religious schools that it's science, how can you expect secular universities to do so?

Even religious schools have to be very careful about what goes on in their science classes. They’re not immune from politics.

and that ID is unable to find funding to do science,

PUBLIC funding to do science. It was offered bait, and it had political reasons for not taking it. It’s a mousetrap thing — ID goes for the cheese, and the ACLU becomes the spring and the bar.

Your paranoid conspiracy world view is showing again.

And I repeat that not one (1) proposal was submitted, so the issue of politics in deciding which proposals to promote does not even arise.

THERE WERE NO PROPOSALS. That is epic failure in my book.

Neither of these posters have challenged my responses so far. Do you have evidence to show that science seeks to prove evolution wrong? If not, why would you think it would seek to prove abiogenesis wrong?

Curiously, the fact that they (in your words) have not responded does not make your claim correct.

Every single new fossil find tests evolution, every single new genome decoded tests evolution, every new field study tests evolution.

Falsifiability - Wikipedia

quote:
Falsifiability or refutability is the logical possibility that an assertion can be shown false by an observation or a physical experiment. That something is "falsifiable" does not mean it is false; rather, that if it is false, then this can be shown by observation or experiment. The term "testability" is related but more specific; it means that an assertion can be falsified through experimentation alone.

Falsifiability is an important concept in science and the philosophy of science. The concept was made popular by Karl Popper, who, in his philosophical analysis of the scientific method, concluded that a hypothesis, proposition, or theory is "scientific" only if it is falsifiable. Popper asserted that unfalsifiable statements are non-scientific, but not of zero importance. For example, meta-physical or religious propositions have cultural or spiritual meaning, and the ancient metaphysical and unfalsifiable idea of the existence of atoms has led to corresponding falsifiable modern theories. A falsifiable theory that has withstood severe scientific testing is said to be corroborated by past experience, though in Popper's view this is not equivalent with confirmation and does not lead to the conclusion that the theory is true or even partially true.

I have falsified several of your claims, particularly that the definition of science has been changed in order to exclude ID,

With your additions of the words testable and falsifiable for ID that are not included in your definitions, sorry, you have not.

Sorry, the 1828 definition does not differ significantly from the one we started with, so your claim that it has changed is falsified. You can deny this, however denial does not represent reality. In addition, abiogenesis meets the 1828 criteria and (so far) ID (still) does not.

If you cannot understand such simple facts, then debate with you is like talking to a brick wall.

Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 199 by marc9000, posted 03-21-2010 5:24 PM		marc9000 has replied

Replies to this message:
	Message 238 by marc9000, posted 04-12-2010 10:23 PM		RAZD has replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

Message 240 of 297 (555272)
04-12-2010 10:33 PM

Reply to: Message 238 by marc9000
04-12-2010 10:23 PM

Re: Entrance Requirements - and (epic) Failed ID

Hi marc9000, sorry if I am losing interest in what appears to me as paranoid delusions devoid of substantiation.

Maybe some irreducibly complex systems, but not all of them.

One (1) is all it takes. If you don't understand that, then you don't understand science.

Enjoy.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 238 by marc9000, posted 04-12-2010 10:23 PM		marc9000 has not replied

RAZD

Member (Idle past 1424 days)

Posts: 20714

From: the other end of the sidewalk

Joined: 03-14-2004

Normal Thread Display

(1)

Message 249 of 297 (555877)
04-15-2010 9:59 PM

Reply to: Message 247 by marc9000
04-15-2010 7:21 PM

Summary

Hi Marc,

From my message 56;

I’ll announce it when I’m finished posting in this thread.

The time has come. All closing insults are welcome.

It is normal to close threads with summaries from the various parties. This allows people to go to the end of closed threads to see how they turned out (helps prevent going down old rabbit holes time and again).

The protocol is that no replies are made to summaries, as anything you have to say (a) should already have been said, and (b) should be in your summary.

In that regard the following is my summary:

marc9000 started this thread (see Message 1) with a number of assertions, and added some in following posts, these included:

abiogenesis does not qualify as science, at least not compared to other sciences and the modern usage of the term science,
ID qualifies as science just as much as abiogenesis does, but
the definition of science has been changed to keep ID out, and
this was done after abiogenesis was accepted as science.
ID can't get a foot in the door because of lack of funding and academic support.

There were others, but these are the mains ones that I have focused on in my replies.

To establish the validity of these claims, I started with a definition of science from wikipedia, and suggested that we start by using the broadest most generous definition of science provided, see if both abiogenesis and ID meet this criteria, and then move to more restricted technical definitions to see where the first one failed to meet a criteria that the other passed.

Thus I started with a broad simple general definition of science:

Message 73: Do you want to start with the broader sense and see how they apply to ID and abiogenesis?

Science (general): any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome.

Is that a good starting point?

For instance, the scientific approach to abiogenesis would hypothesize that if this occurred through natural chemical reaction, that then we should be able to form self-replicating molecules, and if we can't form self-replicating molecules that then abiogenesis could be falsified.

Abiogenesis fits the broader definition of science: do you have a similar testable prediction based on ID?

This was acknowledged in Message 93:

So the study of abiogenesis that I'm seeing so far here falls under your one-sentence description in your message 73;

quote:
Science (general): any systematic knowledge-base or prescriptive practice that is capable of resulting in a prediction or predictable type of outcome.

So far claim (1) has not been validated, but we still need to work up the scale of definitions to be applied.

Unfortunately, no such evidence for ID meeting this basic level of science was provided. The closest was a claim that ID made a prediction that came true. This ID prediction can be found on this site:

Intelligent Design and the Death of the "Junk-DNA" Neo-Darwinian Paradigm

Sadly, researching this claim (see Message 136) showed that it was not a prediction made by an ID proponent, but one borrowed by one from existing literature, and propped up to appear to be a prediction based on an ID concept.

In other words, Dembski is NOT making a prediction at all. In 1998 he already knew that science (the real science) was finding some use for it. It gets worse.

In other words, real scientists in published journals were predicting use for this DNA in 1994 ... just about the time Mims got on the bandwagon ... now let's look at Mims' "prediction" ...

Gosh, there is that very same paper by non-ID scientists being cited as the basis for his "prediction" -- can you say BOGUS? Can you say FOWNIE? How about PHAQUE?

And this was the only prediction put on the table, none others seem to qualify.

Thus abiogenesis passed the first level definition and ID did not.

Claim (2) that ID qualifies as science as much as abiogenesis does, is therefore falsified.

Then we turn to early definitions of science to see if they would have allowed ID to be classified as science and to show that the definition had changed to keep ID out.

Message 125: Here is what I found for an old definition of science (my bold for emphasis):

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=sc...

quote:
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
Sci"ence (?), n. [F., fr. L. scientia, fr. sciens, -entis, p.pr. of scire to know. Cf. Conscience, Conscious, Nice.] ...

We put (2) and (3) together and we get:

science: Accumulated and established knowledge, which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; such knowledge when it relates to the physical world and its phenomena, the nature, constitution, and forces of matter, the qualities and function of living tissues, etc.; -- called also natural science, and physical science.

Curiously, I do not find that significantly different from Message 73 ...

The above site also provides the 1828 definition of science ...

http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=sc...

quote:
SCI''ENCE, n. [L. scientia, from scio, to know.] ...

So far we haven't found an old definition that would fit the current status of ID, so the claim that the definition has been changed to keep ID out is spurious assertion without merit.

When we look at the modern Webster definition we see:

Science Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster

quote:
science ...
3 a : knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method b : such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena : natural science

The only real difference between this and the 1828 definition above is the substitution of the scientific method for experiment and observation, and the replacement of natural philosophy with natural science.

You will note that the 1828 definition pre-dates Darwin, so we could legitimately claim that the definition of science has been changed to make it more difficult for evolution to meet the requirements. What we do see is that the definition of science has changed, but there is no evidence that this change is not applied across the board to all existing sciences: there is no evidence that a single science has been "grandfathered" in any way.

ID never met any definition of science, and the changes that have been incorporated apply to all science being conducted today. There is no evidence that any change was made to the definition of science in order to keep ID out.

Claim (3) has therefore been falsified.

The time frame when abiogenesis "became" a science is set by the Miller-Urey experiments as the earliest documented science in this field.

Message 233: The fact that it is ongoing makes the original time rather moot, however, if I were going to pin a date for the first actual scientific test of the concept of abiogenesis, then the obvious choice would be the Miller-Urey experiment.

Miller–Urey experiment - Wikipedia

quote:
The Miller—Urey experiment[1] (or Urey—Miller experiment)[2] was an experiment that simulated hypothetical conditions thought at the time to be present on the early Earth, and tested for the occurrence of chemical evolution. ...

The experiment used water (H2O), methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), and hydrogen (H2). ...

At the end of one week of continuous operation, Miller and Urey observed that as much as 10—15% of the carbon within the system was now in the form of organic compounds. ...

Of course a lot has happened since then, but I do not know of any previous experiment in this field, so that sets the "first base" date at 1952.

This falls well after the 1913 date for the first definition given above, that is slightly more restrictive than the broad definition from wikipedia that we started with. If anything it is a little more technical than the broad definition with the inclusion of the scientific method. This compares to the "more restrictive" definition from wikipedia:

Those criteria have also not changed significantly during the rise of ID and it's adaptation into religious thought in the intervening time.
...
Science - Wikipedia

quote:
Message 11: In its more restricted contemporary sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, and to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research.[2][3] ...

The study of abiogenesis fits this more restrictive usage of the term science. It is possible for any concept to fit this restrictive definition, as all that is required is that it be done by a systematic process of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, and the organization of the body of knowledge gained through such research.

So abiogenesis met the criteria from 1913 that predates the formal beginning of scientific study of abiogenesis, and the criteria has not changed significantly between 1913 and modern times.

Claim (4) is therefore invalidated.

Finally we looked at the availability of funding and support for ID research.

Message 149: As for funding, try this little piece of news:

Intelligent Design Might Be Meeting Its Maker

quote:
The Templeton Foundation, a major supporter of projects seeking to reconcile science and religion, says that after providing a few grants for conferences and courses to debate intelligent design, they asked proponents to submit proposals for actual research.

"They never came in," said Charles L. Harper Jr., senior vice president at the Templeton Foundation, who said that while he was skeptical from the beginning, other foundation officials were initially intrigued and later grew disillusioned.

"From the point of view of rigor and intellectual seriousness, the intelligent design people don't come out very well in our world of scientific review," he said.

There's your funding, available and ready to be used ... nobody applied to use it to actually do something scientific with it.

Opportunity not taken, so it's not the fault of secular science that ID has not done any real science yet, it is the failure of the ID people to do science.

There are a lot of evangelical colleges and places that could also provide funding, but it seems ID can't convince religious schools either (from the same article):

quote:
The only university where intelligent design has gained a major institutional foothold is a seminary. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., created a Center for Science and Theology for William A. Dembski, a leading proponent of intelligent design, after he left Baylor, a Baptist university in Texas, amid protests by faculty members opposed to teaching it.

Intelligent design and Mr. Dembski, a philosopher and mathematician, should have been a good fit for Baylor, which says its mission is "advancing the frontiers of knowledge while cultivating a Christian world view." But Baylor, like many evangelical universities, has many scholars who see no contradiction in believing in God and evolution.

This was discussed on ID Failing--at Christian Institutions. If ID can't convince religious schools that it's science, how can you expect secular universities to do so?

Grant money available from ID friendly institutions not used. Not one proposal was submitted for evaluation.

Claim (5) is thereby invalidated.

It's not a matter of ID not being allowed to do science, it is about ID's epic failure to do science even though opportunities have been provided.

That pretty well covers the basic issues raised and refuted.

With no new evidence that would alter any of these assertions being invalidated, then I agree with marc9000 that it is time to close this thread.

Enjoy.

Edited by RAZD, : add

Edited by RAZD, : ...

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
Rebel American Zen Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

• • • Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click) • • •

This message is a reply to:
	Message 247 by marc9000, posted 04-15-2010 7:21 PM		marc9000 has not replied

Date format: mm-dd-yyyy

Timezone: ET (US)

Newer Topic | Older Topic

Do Nothing Button

5 online now:	dwise1, nwr, Phat, Taq, xongsmith
Newest Member:	popoi
Post Volume:	Total: 916,356 Year: 3,613/9,624 Month: 484/974 Week: 97/276 Day: 25/23 Hour: 0/0