DNAunion: My e-mail system is giving me problems - it will not give me the
"Message Sent" confirmation when I try to post my full reply at once.
Therefore, I will subdivide my response into two separate posts (sorry Mr.
Elseberry's if you do not "buy" my "lame excuse" - just live with it).
>DNAunion: Very true. But does this not also apply to the origin of life?
Why must Dembski have a 100% airtight, completely validated, empirically
tried and true, perfect hypothesis, generated and completed within a couple
years, before it is considered any more than an assertion, yet the
purely-natural origin of life on earth is accepted as scientific fact even
though it is not 100% airtight, it has not been completely validated, it is
not empirically tried and true, it is not a perfect hypothesis, and very many
researchers have been working on it for over 60 years!
>FMAJ: The reason is very simple. Dembski's argument is based on elimination.
> DNAunion: OOL arguments are also based on elimination too: it is just
invisible as anything other than purely-natural processes are eliminated
without consideration. Possibilities ARE eliminated but mostly no one
realizes it:
>FMAJ: You are now conflating to meanings of the word elimination. In
science indeed competing hypotheses are eliminated based on performance and
probabilities.
DNAunion: No, you are missing my point. Science automatically eliminates ID
and automatically establishes purely-natural explanations. It does use
elimination. Furthermore, the only way I am conflating the meaning of
elimination that you point out is based on this fact I mention: if science
did not automatically eliminate ID, then it too would need to eliminate all
possible pathways before one would be established. So have it your way: if I
am conflating terms, it is only because of the built-in naturalistic bias in
science.
>FMAJ: ID (Dembski, Behe) however has to eliminate all natural pathways
before it can infer design. ID does not propose a pathway that is then
compared with existing hypotheses.
DNAunion: The first part confirms exactly what I am saying. Naturalists
demand that IDists MUST EXPLICITLY eliminate ALL other possible natural
explanations before an ID explanation can be granted any credence, but
naturalistic explanations have no burden of proof. It is fine for
naturalists to state as scientific fact - to school children, college
students, and those exposed to pop-science media - that life arose on Earth
by purely natural means: yet they have no idea which of the dozens of
potential pathways - none of which have been supported empirically - was the
supposed actual historical one.
>DNAunion: or do you claim that OOL researchers give alien design and divine
design consideration each time before eliminating them as plausible
explanations. (Even "natural" alternatives like panspermia and directed
panspermia are eliminated for the most part: abiogenesis here on Earth is the
default accepted position).
>FMAJ: Based again on the probabilities of the events and the supporting
evidence or lack thereof.
DNAunion: Although I could ask many question, I will limit myself to just
one: Could you explain to me how the appearance of two RNA replicases -
close enough in space and time to find each other - is highly probable under
plausible prebiotic conditions?
>Chris: And even more he claims that his elimination filter has no false
positives. Since his assertions not only rest on an infallible elimination
but also on the existance of apparant CSI then it is indeed important for
Dembski to do support his assertions. If your argument is that these gaps in
Dembski's arguments can be be closed then perhaps you are right but so far
the ID argument has quite a few problems to deal with.
> DNAunion: As does the argument for a purely-natural origin of life on
Earth. Did you not get that from my post?
>FMAJ: Nope, the origin of life argument is not based on elimination of all
other hypotheses.
DNAunion: Yes, as I have been stating for some time now, purely-natural OOL
is given approval not because it has been scientifically validated, but
because it is purely-natural: as the current definition of science demands.
It is the ground rules themselves that establish purely-natural OOL as "fact"
- not research.
>FMAJ Nor does science claims to have no false positives.
DNAunion: I believe that Dembski's claim is based on his experience: he has
submitted many events of known cause into his filter and has never come up
with a false positive. I may be wrong, but I believe Dembski's statement
might be more induction than a absolute claim (I have not reread his material
on this, so I don't doubt that I might be wrong).
By the way, isn't the statement "evolution is fact, Fact, FACT!" an example
of an infallible scientific claim?
>DNAunion: It seems the main difference between the two is not objective,
but subjective: it is that as others have stated, "you guys" get a free ride:
the burden of proof is thrust upon "us" and off of "you guys", who
automatically win because "you guys" were the ones that made the current
rules.
>FMAJ: Non sequitor. You are avoiding the issue: If Dembski claims
infallibility of the filter, should he then not support his claim?
DNAunion: Could you quote his actual statements? Is Dembski stating that in
his many attempts to create a false positive that he hasn't, or is he
claiming that his filter will absolutely never generate a false positive?
>DNAunion: Sounds kind of unfair: absolute proof required for Dembski, while
only a couple successes here and there - out of millions or trillions of
steps - are sufficient to establish biopoesis as scientific fact.
>Chris: Nice strawman.
> DNAunion: Nice ad hom.
>FMAJ: How can pointing out a strawman being an ad hominem argument.
DNAunion: If Chris can't support his claim.
>DNAunion: Care to explain how mine was a strawman?
>FMAJ: First you explain the ad hominem argument.
DNAunion: No, Chris should explain first. After all, it was he who made the
first charge - shouldn't he be the first to support a charge?
>FMAJ: Okay, just this time then: Dembski claims infallibility of his filter.
DNAunion: Got a long unedited quote to support this?
>FMAJ: Do you see any such claims made by scientists?
DNAunion: How about, "evolution is fact, Fact, FACT!"
>FMAJ: Not to mention your unsupported claim of "biopoesis as scientific
fact" Any references to support this?
DNAunion: I have only one that I have a flagged in my notes - if you read a
lot of OOL material, you will see what I am talking about. Here is the one
quote I mentioned:
"These experimental results and the findings that considerably higher
concentrations of REE [Rare Earth Elements] might have been dissolved in the
primitive sea water (Bowen, 1966; Cloud, 1968), suggest that accumulation of
phosphate monoester compounds, such as AMP and GMP, the concentrations of
which in the primitive sea were expected to be sufficiently high to produce
nucleic acids in the later process of chemical evolution, might have been
impossible. Therefore, the origin of life as a consequence of chemical
evolution might also have been impossible. HOWEVER, LIFE ON EARTH DEVELOPED
VIA CHEMICAL EVOLUTION."" (Misuhiko Akaboshi, et. al., Inhibition of Rare
Earth Catalytic Activity by Proteins, Origins of Life and Evolution of the
Biosphere, Vol 30, No 1. Feb 2000, p 25)
Despite what looked like damning conditions, the authors firmly stated - and
the statement made it past any peer-review - that life on Earth arose by
chemical evolution. No doubts; no qualifiers; just the plain simple
scientific fact (which is unsupported). What is their proposal that saves
the day? That certain proteins can bind to REE and the complexes then
precipitate out of solution (clump and fall to the ocean floor, eliminating
the REE from the areas where nucleic acids could form). So their answer
requires proteins (not just amino acids) to have been at least fairly
ubiquitous - in the sea, no less - prior to the appearance of nucleic acids.
Possible, but hardly fact.
>[unkown poster]: I know that science can be painful, but in case of a new
thesis such as Dembski's it is quite necessary that such work is done.
>DNAunion: So we can't accept it until it is fully proven? But the
purely-natural origin of life is elevated to scientific fact on flimsy and
scant evidence?
>FMAJ: Strawman again. I never made such an assertion.
DNAunion: Nice ad hom. (Here we go again!)
>FMAJ: But ID has made some claims of certainty, these need to be supported.
DNAunion: Double standard. You demand that ID support its claims, but that
naturalists (such as OOL researchers) don't have to.
>FMAJ: Furthermore since ID is based on elimination of all competing
hypotheses …
DNAunion: Because of the bias built-in to science by naturalists.
>FMAJ: … and naturalistic origin of life is not so restricted
DNAunion: Yes, the double standard again.
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