MISCELLANEOUS
Another of Pantrog's claims was that I started off nasty at MetaCrocks, and
was already mixing it up with someone named Tiny Thinker. That is what
Pantrog would like everyone to believe, but as with most of his other
statements, it simply isn't true. Here are the first posts I made at the
site. Note that I am not hostile, even in my exchanges with Tiny Thinker.
(Note that, as I have stated, I started off posting at MetaCrocks as
WWASIAUC).
[quote]
http://pub18.ezboard.com/fhavetheologywillarguescienceandreligiousbelief.showM
essage?topicID=17.topic&index=2
07/22/2000 11:50 pm (retrieved on 04/11/2001 at 10:38 pm, post was unedited
by me at that time)
Evolution is involved in abiogenesis
>>>Firebranded: Keep in mind evolution does not attempt an explanation of the
ORIGIN of LIFE. Evolution is a theory which attempts to demonstrate that
complex life arose from simpler forms.
WWASIAUC: But evolution - Darwinian evolution explicitly - is invoked by
origin of life researchers continually.
In the RNA World scenario, before there were cells or proteins, populations
of polynucleotides replicated. And when resources became limited, those that
were better replicators became dominant ("survival of the fittest"). Even
before that, there was supposedly an evolutionary complexification of
organics that led somehow to the "machinery" that pumped out the random
sequence after random sequence, which first hit upon sequences capable of
ligating nucleotides, then polymerizing them, etc., until the first pair of
RNA replicases were chanced upon. Then the genetic code, transcription, and
translation all had to evolve - yes, evolve - before the first true cells
could arise.
In case anyone doubts me on this, I can present dozens of quotes from
peer-reviewed literature on abiogenesis confirming that the primary mechanism
behind abiogenesis was Darwinian evolution. Just ask and yee shall receive.
[/quote]
[quote]
http://pub18.ezboard.com/fhavetheologywillarguescienceandreligiousbelief.showM
essage?topicID=19.topic&index=1
07/20/2000 11:58 pm (retrieved on 04/11/2001 at 10:26 pm, unedited by me at
that time)
A physicist speaks...And I responded
>>>"To invoke God as a blanket explanation of the unexplained is to make God
the friend of ignorance. If God is to be found it must surely be thru what we
discover about the world not what we fail to discover." Paul Davies,
Physicist
WWASIAUC: Agreed. But....
Is it not also true that, "To invoke unidrected evolution as a blanket
explanation of the unexplained is to make it the friend of ignorance"?
Why is it acceptable to call upon the "God" of the naturalist - Darwinian
evolution - to fill in whatever gaps exist when there is no evidence of
mechanism? Is not assuming a blanket naturalistic explanation a kind of
"atheism of the gaps"?
[/quote]
[quote]
http://pub18.ezboard.com/fhavetheologywillarguescienceandreligiousbelief.showM
essage?topicID=26.topic
07/23/2000 04:44 pm (retrieved 04/11/2001 at 10:31 pm, post was unedited by
me at that time)
Cosmological Coincidences
WWASIAUC [quoting from an article in Science] : "... This implies that
irrespective of stellar evolution the contribution of each star to the
abundance of C or O in the ISM [interstellar medium/material] would be
negligible. Therefore, for the above cases the creation of carbon-based life
in our universe would be strongly disfavored. ..."
Tiny Thinker: I doubt you would expect me to say much since I would first go
and read the whole article and any reviews first. However, this is only one
aspect of the idea of "everything had to be such and such".
WWASIAUC: Yes, there is more to the "everything had to be such and such"
argument.
For example, had the kinetic energy of universal expansion been greater, then
matter would have been flung apart too quickly and with too much force for
any of it to have coalesced to form stars, galaxies, or planets, resulting in
no life in the universe. On the other hand, had the kinetic energy of
universal expansion been weaker, then it would have been unable to overcome
the gravitational attraction of all the universe's matter, resulting in a
very early recollapse ("Big Crunch") - and no universe means not life. So
there is also the fine tuning of the ratio of the kinetic energy of universal
expansion and the gravitational effects of all the universe's matter.
But let's look at just the two discussed in the Science article from which I
quoted. A 0.5% change in the strong nuclear force, OR a 4% change in the
electromagnetic force - either one - would have resulted in no carbon and/or
no oxygen being produced in any stars, and consequently, no life in the
universe. Assuming there are no reasons why these two forces had to have the
values they do (which as far as I know, is the current understanding), then
the probability that the correct strong nuclear force would have been hit
upon is 1 in 200, and it is 1 in 25 for the electromagnetic force. That comes
to a combined 1 in 5000 chance for both of them being found by chance through
symmetry breaking during the first moments after the Big Bang.
The probability of flipping 12 consecutive tails with a fair coin is better -
1 in 4096 - but I will use it as an approximation. I want you to take a fair
quarter and flip it 12 times and see if tails shows each time. And one of the
constraints is that you get only 1 set of 12 flips to try for success:
because there is only 1 universe that we can ever confirm, we don't have the
luxury of "reflipping" for the constants and laws of physics if we fail in
our first attempt at creating our Universe. Would you be willing to wager the
entire Universe - all human life included - that you could end up with 12
consecutive tails in one attempt using a fair die? If you tried it, are we
all dead? Most likely. And this does not take into account the other examples
of fine tuning. We should be surprised that we exist.
There are only 4 possibilities for explaining the fine tuning for life in our
Universe. Either:
(1) There is a single universe and all the correct values for particle
masses, force strengths, universal expansion rates, etc. just happened to be
hit upon by chance (which probability indicates would itself be a "miracle").
(2) There is yet an undiscovered natural reason why all the values of physics
MUST have acquired the values they did (in which case multiple universes are
superfluous and could be eliminated by Occam's razor).
(3) A supernatural Creator designed the Universe (this is not technically
limited to the Creator's creating a single universe, other than possibly by
the Bible).
(4) An infinite number of (or maybe a "mere" trillions of) other universes
exist - each with differing expansion rates, particle masses, and force
strengths, and only 1 (or very few) are suitable for life to arise and to
continue to exist: we must find ourselves in that one.
Option (1) seems to me to be eliminated - the values needed for life to exist
are specified and the total probability is small. And as William Dembski
states in his Law of Small Probabilities, "Specified events of small
probability do not occur by chance".
Option (2) is an explanation that relies on hope. We can always hope that
further knowledge will enlighten us, but such hope is not based on current
science - it would be little more than wishful thinking. Or we could always
hope that God will appear and tell all the atheistic scientists that He
exists - is this an acceptable hope to base scientific inquiry on??
Option (3) invokes the supernatural, and is therefore outside the realm of
science.
Option (4) also invokes the supernatural, and is also therefore outside the
realm of science.
So take your pick. Instead of restricting myself to accepting a purely
natural explanation (options 1 or 2) based on a philosophical paradigm, I
prefer to remain open that any of the four may be true.
Tiny Thinker: I know that once earth cools and oceans flood its surface this
argument is much harder to make.
WWASIAUC: But to get that far, the fine tuning must have already been
established. You have "answered" the question by completely ignoring it.
Tiny Thinker: Also, such arguments are also based on "life as we know it."
Have you come across the literature suggesting that the principles of life
may not be bound to carbon? The carbon-only folks prefer not to speculate
beyond what we can observe as actual life, whereas the other camp uses
simulations to show that interacting sets of information can produce adaptive
systems regardless of material concern.
WWASIAUC: This willingness to stretch ones imagination via "speculation
beyond what we can observe" seems arbitrary here - i.e., doing so is okay if
it supports one's position, but is pushed aside as nonsense if it contradicts
one's views. For example, it is acceptable to imagine life not based on
carbon - even though carbon-based life is the only form of life we know of -
but it is not acceptable to propose that an intelligent extraterrestrial
civilization - the existence of which is accepted by the majority of
scientists - could have seeded life on the early Earth?
By the way, what do you mean by non-carbon-based "interacting sets of
information" that "can produce adaptive systems". Have any details?
Tiny Thinker: Second issue is: does this support ID? No. It doesn't refute
ID, but it isn't going to distinguish ID from other models. It's a neutral
observation, even if one were pushing Design at the cosmological level ala
Creationism.
WWASIAUC: True - ID is generally considered a separate issue from
cosmological origins (though if the Anthropic Coincidence ever did "prove"
the existence of God, then surely God could be the intelligent designer of
life). But I, as an individual, do not limit myself to being an ID proponent
only - I feel that I am open minded enough to accept multiple possibilities
as plausible, including some that are not purely natural (speaking here of
"what caused the Big Bang?" and the issues of "fine tuning").
[/quote]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Apr 12 2001 - 01:07:40 EDT