On Sat, 24 Feb 1996 22:12:32 -0500 you wrote:
SJ>I am interested in emails of any other papers by Yockey. Robert van
>deWater has urged me to get Yockey's book (available from Hugh Ross'
>Reasons to Believe).
BH>I would also highly recommend his book.
Groan. More money! :-)
BH>I have collected several of Huberts posts from several different
>newsgroups. Some time ago (I think before Stephen was here) I
>offered to send stuff to people by e-mail. This turned into
>somewhat of a headache ;-). I think what I'll do is post these
>to the reflector; that way they'll become part of the archives
>and newcomers can find them there if they are interested. The
>best of what I have is a lengthy defense of his book that was
>posted to bionet.info-theory. This is a reply to the various
>reviews of his book. This was followed by replies from several
>knowledgeable people, including one of the authors of one of
>the reviews that Yockey was responding to.
Thanks. I look forward to reading them.
BH>I have also had the pleasure of corresponding with Yockey
>by e-mail quite a bit. Without doubt one of the most interesting
>people I've ever met. Here is a list of his publications which
>he sent me.
[...]
Thanks for the references.
On Sat, 24 Feb 1996 23:59:01 -0500 you wrote:
SJ>I find it interesting that scientific research into a naturalistic
>origin of life has been unsuccessful for 83 years and not 43 years as
>I originally thought! This must be worthy for an entry in the Guiness
>Book of Records, for the longest unsuccessful pursuit of a scientific
>idea? Much has been written about how admirable it is for naturalists
>to not give up easily. But when does dogged persistence become
>obsessive folly? 43 years? 83 years? 103 years? :-)
BH>Hmm... Inquiries into the supernaturalistic origins of life,
>how long have they been going on and with what success? :-).
What "inquiries"? The "supernaturalistic origins of life" is a
revealed truth of the Bible (Jn 5:26). To date, after 83 years of
trying, science has been unable to demonstrate a spontantoeus,
naturalistic origin of life from non-living chemicals. What limited
success that has been gained, has involved illegitimate human
intelligent designer intervention:
"One characteristic feature of the above critique needs to be
emphasized. We have not simply picked out a number of details within
chemical evolution theory that are weak, or without adequate
explanation for the moment. For the most part this critique is based
on crucial weaknesses intrinsic to the theory itself. Often it is
contended that criticism focuses on present ignorance "Give us more
time to solve the problems," is the plea. After all, the pursuit of
abiogenesis is young as a scientific enterprise. It will be claimed
that many of these problems are mere state-of-the-art gaps. And,
surely some of them are. Notice, however, that the sharp edge of this
critique is not what we do not know, but what we do know. Many facts
have come to light in the past three decades of experimental inquiry
into life's beginning. With each passing year the criticism has gotten
stronger. The advance of science itself is what is challenging the
nation that life arose on earth by spontaneous (in a thermodynamic
sense) chemical reactions.
Over the years a slowly emerging line or boundary has appeared which
shows observationally the limits of what can be expected from matter
and energy left to themselves, and what can be accomplished only
through what Michael Polanyi has called "a profoundly informative
intervention." When it is acknowledged that most so-called prebiotic
simulation experiments actually owe their success to the crucial but
illegitimate role of the investigator, a new and fresh phase of the
experimental approach to life's origin can then be entered. Until
then however, the literature of chemical evolution will probably
continue to be dominated by reports of experiments in which the
investigator, like a metabolizing Maxwell Demon, will have performed
work on the system through intelligent, exogenous intervention. Such
work establishes experimental boundary conditions, and imposes
intelligent influence/control over a supposedly "prebiotic" earth. As
long as this informative interference of the investigator is ignored,
the illusion of prebiotic simulation will be fostered. We would
predict that this practice will prove to be a barrier to solving the
mystery of life's origin."
(Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's
Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, Lewis & Stanley: Dallas TX,
1992, p185).
[...]
SJ>"Based on the foregoing geochemical assessment, we conclude that
>both in the atmosphere and in the various water basins of the
>primitive earth, many destructive interactions would have so vastly
>diminished, if not altogether consumed, essential precursor chemicals,
>that chemical evolution rates would have been negligible. The soup
>would have been too dilute for direct polymerization to occur. Even
>local ponds for concentrating soup ingredients would have met with
>the same problem. Furthermore, no geological evidence indicates an
>organic soup, even a small organic pond, ever existed on this planet.
>It is becoming clear that however life began on earth, the usually
>conceived notion that life emerged from an oceanic soup of organic
>chemicals is a most implausible hypothesis. We may therefore with
>fairness call this scenario `the myth of the prebiotic soup.' "
>(Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's
>Origin: Reassessing Current Theories, Lewis & Stanley: Dallas TX,
>1992, p66).
BH>Just a minor point. The geological evidence is rather limited.
>IMHO, it is enough to cast doubts on a soup in the early oceans, but
>perhaps not a pond or lagoon.
>
>For all practical purposes this point is probably insignificant.
>The way these ponds work in the orthodox scenario seems to go
>like this: one particular prebiotic synthesis occurs in some
>drying pond or lagoon. When this is over, the product combines
>with the product of another synthesis which occurred somewhere
>else [i.e. different syntheses often require dramatically different
>conditions]. Where would this re-mixing occur if not in the oceans?
TB&O cover that scenario too.
>SJ>...It is difficult to believe that no German OOL scholar
>>(there are many) had not read Loeb's work and realised that Miller had
>>got it wrong. It is more than interesting that it took a
>>non-Darwinist scholar like Yockey to:
>
>Why do you say Yockey is a non-Darwinist?
>
> "BTW Creationists should take no pleasure in this post.
> Evolution began after the origin of life. It is a
> demonstrated fact. Many key enzymes occur every where
> in biology in a chain of evolution. Information Theory
> shows that is essentially a communication system and
> could not have happened by chance. There is no scientific
> need for special creation, especially 6000 years ago.
> Long live the memory and work of Charles Darwin.
> ....Hubert P. Yockey"
>
> -- From a post to talk.origins, Aug 1 1995.
If Yockey believes that "the origin of life...could not have happened
by chance" then he is not a "Darwinist" in my book. Once it is
admitted that the "origin of life" did not happen by "chance", then
there is no justification for believe that it was "evolution" that
"began after the origin of life". It could just as easily have been
progressive creation, ie. an Intelligent Designer guiding and
controlling an "evolutionary" process in furtherance of a purpose.
SJ>...a) notice the mistranslation and b) publish it. If this is
>ignored, and Loeb not given his rightful priority, then it would
>seem to indicate that here we have a case of paradigm blindness at
>best and fraudulent cover up at worst?
BH>This is a bit of an over-reaction.
It was a question and I did qualify it with "it would seem to
indicate..."
BH>As for "paradigm blindness", why
>would it matter (to the paradigm) who did the first prebiotic
>experiment? Also, what would be the motivation for a cover-up?
>Protecting Miller? Actually, Yockey gave Miller an out, indicating
>he may have read an early translation of Loeb's work where the word
>was mis-translated. Also, I think its a common "sin" of practically
>all disciplines (including mine) to not bother looking up original
>sources. If something is mis-translated once or twice by an authority
>it may well go unnoticed for years.
My point about "paradigm blindness" or even "cover up" was the
embarrassing fact that: 1. origin of life experiments began 80+ years
ago, not 40+; 2. the books have been wrong all these years, even
though it *must* have been noticed by some; and 3. even after Yockey
brought it to everyone's attention it has not been publicly
acknowledged.
SJ>...Darwinism needs this chemical evolution scenario badly.
>If it occurred by Panspermia, self-organisation or (shock, horror!)
>Intelligent Design, then Darwinism could not then claim that its
>"blind watchmaker" is the only way that adaptive complexity
>arose.
BH>Not all origin of life scenarios require a soup, although those
>that don't are perhaps not as popular as the ones that do. Unfortunately,
>I don't seem to have my copy of Yockey's book handy, so I'll have to
>rely on my memory. I recall Yockey having something positive to say
>about only one origin of life scenario, Wachtershauser's, saying
>it was a "step in the right direction" since it doesn't require a
>soup.
I disagree. There is AFAIK no serious support for Wachtershauser's
and Cairns-Smith's mineral takeover theories. Both Wachtershauser and
Cairns-Smith don't appear to really believe in their own theories:
"...Gunter Wachterschauser suggests that pyrite (containing iron and
sulfur atoms) offers a positively charged surface to which organic
molecules might be attached. Continued formation of the pyrite
mineral could supply a source of energy that might drive organic
molecules to react with one another and grow in complexity. Note that
nothing in this model addresses the problem of how to develop
information in organic molecules, only the possibility of assistance
in polymerization. To his credit, Wachterschauser himself admits that
his theory is for the most part "pure speculation." (Bradley W.L. &
Thaxton C.B., "Information & the Origin of Life", in Moreland J.P.
ed., "The Creation Hypothesis", InterVarsity Press: Downers Grove
Ill., 1994, p194-195)
and
"For more than a decade, Cairns-Smith has been pushing his own
hypothesis. Like Wachtershauser, he proposes that life arose on a
solid substrate that occurs in vents and almost everywhere else, but
he prefers crystalline clays to pyrite. All crystals consist of
self-replicating units, Cairns-Smith points out, but clay crystals
have enough complexity to mutate and evolve in a lifelike way. Some
clays might have become still better breeders by developing the
ability to attract or synthesize organic compounds-such as nucleic
acids or proteins. Eventually, the organic compounds would become
sophisticated enough to begin replicating and evolving on their own.
Unlike some origin-of-life theorists, Cairns-Smith cheerfully admits
the failings of his pet hypothesis: no one has been able to coax clay
into something resembling evolution in a laboratory; nor has anyone
found anything resembling a clay-based organism in nature. Yet he
argues that no theory requiring organic compounds to organize and
replicate without assistance is likely to fare any better. "Organic
molecules are too wiggly to work ," he says." (Horgan J., "In The
Beginning...", Scientific American, February 1991, pp107-108)
BH>The deep sea hydrothermal vent scenario also doesn't require a
>soup.
>If I remember correctly, Yockey dismisses this rather quickly based
>upon the experimental work of Stanley Miller and Jeffrey Bada.
>Basically, Miller and Bada tried to experimentally simulate
>hydrothermal vent conditions in the lab and concluded that the
>hydrothermal vents would be a sink rather than a source for amino
>acids. If correct, this would be another nail in the coffin of
>soup theory, since the circulation of the early oceans through
>these vents is thought to have been fairly rapid [if I remember
>correctly, the entire volume of the ocean would circulate through
>the vents once every million years or so]. Combine this with a
>drop in production rate in neutral (as opposed to strongly reducing)
>atmospheres of at least three orders of magnitude and there is
>obviously trouble in soup land ;-).
Yes. Bradley & Thaxton also discuss this in "The Creation
Hypothesis":
"Stanley Miller and Jeffrey Bada at the University of California at
San Diego have done experiments that suggest the superheated water
inside vents, which sometimes exceeds 572 degrees F, would destroy
rather than create complex organic compounds. As a result, Miller
actually considers the vents a hindrance to the origin of life."
(Bradley & Thaxton , "The Creation Hypothesis", p194)
BH>After having said this, I think its also worthwhile to point out
>that it is Miller himself who has driven both these nails into
>soup theory. Not only did he perform the experiments showing
>that the vents would be continuously destroying and prebiotic
>precursors that might be forming in the oceans, he also did most
>of the work showing that neutral atmospheres produce low yields
>of amino acids. For this reason, I have come to have a tremendous
>respect for Miller and I tend to get fidgity if someone questions
>his integrity. Here he is doing research that undermines his own
>pet theory for the origin of life and then publishing the results
>for all the world to see. Not exactly a cover up.
I was quite careful in what I said. I said "IF THIS IS IGNORED, AND
LOEB NOT GIVEN HIS RIGHTFUL PRIORITY", then it would seem to indicate
that here we have a case of paradigm blindness at best and fraudulent
cover up at worst?". IOW, my point was not about Miller's honest
mistake in translating Loeb's German, but the continued refusal to
publicly acknowledge Loeb's priority, even after Yockey pointed it
out.
BH>But the hydrothermal vent scenario is not dead yet. Since Yockey's
>book was published, an interesting "dialogue" has developed in the
>literature between Miller and various proponents of vent theory. I
>don't remember the details here or even the players, I just recall that
>Miller's experimental results have been challenged. It will be
>interesting to see how it turns out.
All these naturalistic theories are IMHO "dead"! As TB&O point out,
even if a naturalistic scenario could be imagined that could show how
a self-replicating molecular system might have begun, that is only
half the battle. The same theory must also show how the system
possessed or acquired specified complexity, ie. *meaningful
information*:
"We now know there is no connection at all between the origin of order
and the origin of specified complexity....The order we find in
crystals and snowflakes is not analogous to the specified complexity
we find in living things....Order with low information content (the
first kind) does arise by natural processes. However, there is no
convincing experimental evidence that order with high information
content (the second kind or specified complexity) can arise by natural
processes. Indeed, the only evidence we have in the present is that
it takes intelligence to produce the second kind of order....Only by
highly constraining their experiments can chemists produce proteins
like those found in living things. Placing constraints on the
experiment limits the "choices" at each step of the way. That is, it
adds information.
If we want to speculate on how the first informational molecules came
into being, the most reasonable speculation is there was some form of
intelligence around at the time. We cannot identify that source any
further from a scientific analysis alone....All we can say is that
given the information in a DNA molecule, it is certainly reasonable to
posit that an intelligent agent made it. Life came from a "who"
instead of a "what."...scientific investigations of the origin of life
have clearly led us to conclude that an intelligent cause may, in the
final analysis, be the only rational possibility to explain the enigma
of the origin of life: information."
(Bradley & Thaxton , "The Creation Hypothesis", pp208-209)
God bless.
Stephen
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