From: Richard McGough (richard@biblewheel.com)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 00:49:14 EDT
Hi Jim, you wrote:
>Unless I'm missing something here, your approach
>seems to the classic negative proof [snip]
>The fallacy of negative proof is a
>type of logical fallacy of the following form:
>"No one has produced an example of one;
>therefore it doesn't exist."
I think you are still missing my point. The fallacy of negative proof is completely irrelevent to my claim because I never asserted (on this list) that abiogenesis did not happen. Let me repeat:
I never asserted that abiogenesis did not happen.
My argument is that abiogensis is a purely hypothetical phenomenon with no direct scientific evidence. Perhaps it will help if I turn things around for you. Scientific evidence of phenomenon "P" means that asserting "P did not happen" would *contradict* established scientific observations. Can you think of a sinlge *scientific observation* that would be contradicted if, say, God directly created life and abiogenesis never happened? I am quite sure the answer is "no." This means that abiogenesis is *not* a known physical phenomenon, and is not required by current scientific evidence. It is purely hypothetical. It is not required by any scientific theories per se, though it is absolutely necessary for the validity of metaphysical materialism and RFEP (which seem empirically indistinguishable -- is this true Howard?)
>Logically one may argue that just because
>we have not observed a particular phenomenon,
>that is no reason to exclude its possibility.
This is obvous. That is why I never excluded it as a possiblity.
>The epistemological slant though is to require
>a demonstration, before one admits that one is
>compelled to admit the phenomenon as real.
>That seems to fairly capture the essence of the
>discussion here. You
>appear to have taken the "epistemological slant".
>That's OK
If you haven't loaded the phrase "require a demonstration" with anything but the ordinary meaning, I would call this the ordinary definition of science. I'm glad its "OK"! :-)
>It's more about ordering the observables
>and making plausible speculations about
>how to connect the dots despite the
>existence of segments which have not been
>directly observed. That's sort of essential
>science.
This is fine. You are certainly welcome, indeed encouraged, to share some of the dots and their connections.
>I expect most would be humble enough
>to avoid an assertion of "knowing" ...
Really? I very much doubt anyone could avoid it. George asserted it as a fact, and even I concured before I took time to think about it more. I don't think pride is the cause, rather the ubiquity of naturalism and its adamant assertion that there is simply no other possibility. And this goes back to Denyse's claim that marks my entrance into this thread (cf. http://www.calvin.edu/archive/asa/200307/0460.html).
>But that's an interesting distinction,
>but it seems to claim victory by
>definition. Why is it necessary to make that
>distinction?
Victory by definition? Not at all. Suppose abiogenesis were as common as grass. The distinction would still stand, but imply no victory. The distinction is necessary to enable people to free their minds from the very mysterious inability to recognize that abiogenesis is *not* a known phyisical phenomenon. Do you now see that it is entirely possible that abiogenesis NEVER happened? And if it never happened, then it is not a phenomenon in need of explanation, since it is not a phenomenon?
>It seems to be pretty common wisdom
>that whatever happened when life
>first appeared on the scene was a
>fairly (or perhaps completely?) unique
>event.
This is a strange kind of wisdom to be found coming from a scientific view of origins. Can you name any established natural phenomenon that occured exactly once in the history of the earth? This idea seems to contradict the meaning of "natural phenomenon."
Good talking Jim. Thanks for your efforts,
In service of Christ our Biogenesis,
Richard Amiel McGough
Discover the sevenfold symmetric perfection of the Holy Bible at http://www.BibleWheel.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Jul 26 2003 - 00:54:57 EDT