Oh those clever evolutionists: Question-begging abiogenesis

Yes, he was using the example of one protein to assess the probabilities involved, but the subject is the probability of life's spontaneously generating, which is clear from the WHOLE comment he made at the end: "Life" is the topic. Not a particular protein. Yes, once it has happened the probability is irrelevant -- {Edit: but only IF you know HOW it happened. The point of the probability calculations is to weigh different explanations of its occurrence. You don't have any warrant for assuming that the REASON it happened was spontaneous generation from non-life -- that is begging the question.}(And incidentally, its improbability DOES give weight to the claim of a Creator, and this claim has much historical weight behind it too.)THEN he gets to the quote in question: And again here he just flatly claims that there is "evidence around [us]" ----for life's having originated spontaneously from non-life---- and this is begging the question that is under discussion.This message has been edited by Faith, 10-06-2005 01:32 AM

Hang on, we are debating whether or not RAZD's post was question begging: declaring it an "obvious fact" is begging the question. Actually, some of RAZDs recent posts in this thread are closer to question begging, however, it might not be and I'm standing by on the recent posts and letting him answer for them. All the models I've ever seen include temperature rises, dehydration cycles, lightening, pressures variations, catalysts. The same kinds of things we deal with whenever we did chemistry at high school.

This is NOT question begging. It is simply asserting what I believe to be true. If I had stated it as the premise or a given in a logical argument against a challenge to it, it would be question begging. That is what RAZD did. Simply assuming the thing he is supposedly trying to prove.========
Just feel like linking to RR's post where he most pithily defines question-begging, Message 108 and catches RAZD trying to get away with claiming to be including creation as a possibility in his question-begging statement. Which isn't possible as he is arguing against a mathematical model which asserts that abiogenesis is improbable, so he has to be claiming that there is observed evidence for abiogenesis, not creation or both, or the statement makes no sense.This message has been edited by Faith, 10-06-2005 02:27 AM

This isn't a direct response to the post I am replying to. However, I was going to type this anyway so it seems as good a place as any. This was inspired by a statistics lecture I once had the privelage of seeing. It might help you understand your oppositions point of view.Let's say I got arrested for a crime and the only evidence they had was that the criminal was British and a DNA sample. In court, the prosecution says "The chances of the DNA sample providing a false positive are a million to one, therefore you are almost certainly guilty"I reply, "No, the event - 'DNA sample coming back positive' - has already occurred. There are now two possibilities, one is that I am the criminal, the other is that it is a false positive. There are 60 million people in Britain so 59 people would have given a false positive result. Therefore the chances of me being the criminal are 60-to-1 against. I am more likely to be not guilty"This was not an 'evolutionist' piece of maths. This was a statistician talking about probabilities and their non-intuitiveness.
RAZD seems to be taking on this angle, though I'm not convinced I agree it is being applied correctly. Let us have a look at it from a point that I do agree with.1. The chances of life coming into existence at all: Unknown
2. The chances of life coming into existence abiogenetically: Unknown
3. The chances of life coming into existence through the random bumping to gether of organic molecules in a stable homogenous soup: Practically zero.
4. The chances that life came into existence: 1
5. The chances of life coming into existence through a creator: 1-(Answer to 2) = UnknownYou are adamant that number 5 should read:
5. The chances of life coming into existence through a creator: 1-(Answer to 3) = As close to 1 as practically possible.And this is the only purpose I continue on this thread. I have already conceded that certain parts of RAZDs argument look close to begging the question, and now he has expanded on it, his more recent argument looks closer yet. Are you able to concede that your 'point 5' is an erroneous conclusion that should actually read more like mine?

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Let's say I got arrested for a crime and the only evidence they had was that the criminal was British and a DNA sample. In court, the prosecution says "The chances of the DNA sample providing a false positive are a million to one, therefore you are almost certainly guilty"

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I reply, "No, the event - 'DNA sample coming back positive' - has already occurred. There are now two possibilities, one is that I am the criminal, the other is that it is a false positive. There are 60 million people in Britain so 59 people would have given a false positive result. Therefore the chances of me being the criminal are 60-to-1 against. I am more likely to be not guilty"

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And that reasoning would be correct. In the absence of other evidence all we could reasonably conclude from the DNA test is that you were one of the possible matches. (Perhaps it is clearer if we assume that the police simply test everyone in the country and arrest the first person they find whose DNA matches - which is equivalent to the situation you described).But that isn't the point that RAZD was originally making. There was a famous case that was more similar. As I remember it a woman had two babies die of "cot death" and was arrested and convicted of murder. The evidence against her was a doctor's claim that the probability of two such deaths was too high for it to be considered plausible that the deaths were natural. In fact the doctor's analysis was wrong - he had assumed that such deaths were statistically independant when in fact clinical data showed otherwise - given that one such death had occurred in the family a second was far more likely. RAZD was certainly correct to emphasise that probability calculations are only as good as the model they are based on and that the model should be shown to be sound before we rely on the results. And of course the models used by creationists are always indefensible.Quite frankly the criticisms that can be justifiably raised againt RAZD are minor in comparison to those that should be raised against the creationists. Even Faith's behaviour within this thread has been worse.

I know and I went to great length to discuss this earlier in the thread, but it seems to be the point he has gone on to make: This is the equivelant of saying "why? you agree that the probability of not being tested positive = zero, therefore the probability of being positively identified = 1, whether by random act or divine act. this is the default of any and every probabiity that has come to pass, for it cannot be undone."To this point Faith agrees, and has never debated. Faith's position is that since we have life what are the chances it arrived here abiogenetically? She claims it's very slim by using an absurdly inaccurate model that doesn't model the hypothesis.

I think you're misquoting RAZD again

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Since you were following the structure of RAZD's original commentary, I though it was important to get the wording he used right.

actually Faith was quoting me, paraphrasing (sort of) RAZD

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Faith's position is that since we have life what are the chances it arrived here abiogenetically?

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Which is a point already adequately dealt with in the original thread. Despite Faith's misrepresentations RAZD (and others) clearly stated that the probability was unknowable.Equally the probability of a creator producing life is also unknowable since we have no good evidence of even one being potentially able to start life on earth. Let alone the ability to assess whether it would do so in a way consistent with out knowledge of what did happen. (Faith's God would not and thus we can eliminate Faith's God as being even less likely than abiogenesis).Then we have other possibilities like panspermia. Come to that if some of the wackier ideas about QM and observation were true they could guarantee that observers would come to exist (only states with an observer present could collapse, therefore even if those states had a low probability the universe would be guaranteed to collapse to one of those states).Personally I'd rate abiogenesis as more likely than any of the others. But - unlike Faith - I'm not proud enough to insist that my opinion should be taken as significant in itself.

I remember reading somewhere (EvC ?) that this approach is actually being used in U.S. Courts. It even has a special term for it. I have no idea of the success/failure rates.

ah, consider this a retraction then.

I believe it is related to Bayes theorem, but its been a while and I'm not totally up to scratch on the nomenclature.

Exactly. So no need to go over it here, right? Its also been adequately dealt with in this thread (I was one of the 'others' that dealt with it).Faith's position, once again, is that the chances of life arriving abiogenetically are vansishingly small. The validity of this view is irrelevant. That is her position.A person says (paraphrasing) "The chances of life existing on the planet are 1, so we don't need to calculate probabilities"Faith's position is that the existence of life isn't in question, it is the method of its arrival that is the question.Question: How did life get here?
Answer: Life is here therefore the chances of it having been brought into existence here is 1Which begs the question: How did it get here?I believe this is what Faith is trying to say.OK, Faith might say, we have two options. We don't know what the probability of God doing it was, but if we can work out the probability of it happening naturally then we can say 1-P(naturally)=P(God).So RAZD says: So which is it, divine act or random act? I can see why Faith would get frustrated at this kind of response since it doesn't seem at all relevant. Faith seems to thinking that when he says: that he is stating that abiogenesis has come to pass therefore the probability of abiogenesis is 1. This is begging the question.

Point out one line that was question begging.1) Is it true that there are many creation stories and each group denies the creation stories of the others, including all entities within them?2) If so, what am I to use to choose between them?3) Is it not true that we have molecules and chemical reactions, and we as of yet have no way of knowing all the chemical reactions which are possible, and that all bodies are made up of chemicals engaged in chemical reactions?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

And I'd argue that it isn't begging the question although it is evading the question Faith is asking. But then Faith isn't addressing the question either. In fact RAZD is claoser to the right path in that the probability must be conditioned on the fact that life is observed. Otherwise it is not necessary that the probabilities add up to 1.A slightly more charitable assertion is that Faith is arguing that abiogenesis is so improbable as to be impossible - that it would never happen. But then her claim that Nuggin agreed with her is a blatant misrepresentation since Nuggin put the probability at a higher level, where abiogenesis likely would happen somewhere in this universe.