Most British scientists: Richard Dawkins' work misrepresents science

I'm not pretending anything - I will in fact straighten you out on cumulative probability, if you want to be immunized against that particular component of the F-word's Nirvana Cabal. It's not because I want to help you, but because I want to curb them - I make no pretense otherwise. You I don't care about in the least - if you want to keep making a fool of yourself spamming legitimate science forums with A-fundie bs, creating a history of embarrassment that may cripple your intellectual development for the rest of your life (and endangering your immortal soul by bearing false witness against - say - me), I'm completely indifferent to your personal fate in consequence. The cataract of manure from the sewer you are tapping and channeling here is a blight on my world, however, and has done serious harm to people I do care about, while threatening more. So I have a small duty, an obligation to do my part in choking the flow, based on my participation here.

If you don't like me, there are several others here almost certainly better qualified and not trapped in your mental bubble of enemies - there is even a subforum category here for such questions, a place you can post the query of where you went wrong in your posts on cumulative probability, where you will probably - if you are courteous - receive from those more competent others every benefit of the doubt I do not possess. I will not appear - scout's honor.

It's not an equivalence. We have considerable evidence for abiogenesis on this planet or a very similar one not too far away - we have its timing of appearance, the coherence of its manifestations (same basic materials throughout, common descent including QWERTY phenomena from very basic levels) its pattern of development (including the sequential replacement and increasing complexity of manifestations, and the length of time it took to develop), and even a sufficient mechanism ready to hand whose operations match all of those physical circumstances.

Even if there were an alternative hypothesis with positive evidence available - an alien race we know about, a Deity with a record of physical intervention - abiogenesis would be the leading candidate, the presumptive event, given the physical record.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

No need to even highlight the choicer diatribe phrases, terms, and erroneous presumptions in #441. Just more proof of a vindictive, ideologically driven pedant. Consider giving it up - now.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Except - there are no plausible naturalistic explanations. The one thing you cannot offer.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Didn't you give an 'Amen to that' - meaning ceasing further dialogue between us - some time back?

 

Darwinian evolution, operating in the circumstances, has been offered consistently for many pages now.

 

When I first read that line, assumed it was paddoboy responding. Anyway, an umbrella term for what passes as a theory is not an 'explanation' for abiogenesis. Can we agree on that much?

 

You think? Where and by what yardstick?

I am - there aren't any.

You know better. My stated position is that despite the real evidence pointing to the likelihood of a successful all-the-way naturalistic explanation as being utterly minuscule, neither myself or any serious ID proponent suggests efforts to seek a naturalistic explanation should be abandoned. All the more (within responsible budgetary constraints) the better. My side only take comfort in the continued failure of all such schemes endlessly dished up. I refer you back to e.g. #332, #348.
Trouble here is nothing new is ever brought to the table, just a very one-sided game of attrition. Who gives uo in disgust or out of fatigue first? Probably me.

That caricature does not represent the actual position of the better informed and motivated, which can be found by doing a simple web search, e.g.:
http://www.intelligentdesign.org/whatisid.php
As stated earlier, I personally think of ID not as a theory per se but a broad research program with an underpinning philosophical position (which is all that neo-Darwinism really is also) - if the evidence overwhelmingly points to design then admit the possibility of a designer. Something neo-Darwinists refuse to allow on ideological grounds. Which is outright atheist dogma dressed up as something else. It's like I wrote earlier - there is this evident insecurity that allowing any kind of real voice to the ID crowd will bring on a new Dark Age. Pathetic.

Could have sworn someone else here framed that line. Some are 'guilty as charged'. So what? Tarring everyone with the same brush is a 'scientific' attitude?

You are free to make such a dogmatic assertion. I and others are not obliged to agree. The fawning 'Likes' for your post will come in of course. I don't care to curry favours with anyone, as you know.

 

OK, I did. Here's what wikipedia says:

Intelligent design (ID) is the pseudoscientific view that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection. Educators, philosophers, and the scientific community have demonstrated that ID is a religious argument, a form of creationism which lacks empirical support and offers no testable or tenable hypotheses. Proponents argue that it is "an evidence-based scientific theory about life's origins" that challenges the methodological naturalism inherent in modern science, while conceding that they have yet to produce a scientific theory. The leading proponents of ID are associated with the Discovery Institute, a politically conservative think tank based in the United States. Although they state that ID is not creationism and deliberately avoid assigning a personality to the designer, many of these proponents express belief that the designer is the Christian deity.

You don't have to reply, you're obviously a lost cause.

Here's a bunch:

Primordial Soup—Miller-Urey use a mix of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen to form basic amino acids in the lab.

Deep Sea Vent Theory—Hydrogen saturated, heated, fluids from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor mix with carbon dioxide laden water. Continued chemical energy from the interactions sustains processes that produce simple organic molecules.

Spontaneous Formation of Small Peptides from Amino Acids: Sidney Fox demonstrated that the conversions could occur on their own.

Eigen's hypothesis—Eigen and Schuster argue that some molecules, possibly RNA, can serve as an information storing system that brings about the formation of other information storing systems, or a kind of replication.

Wächtershäuser's hypothesis: Günter Wächtershäuser argues that some compounds come with inboard energy sources like iron sulfides that could release energy and synthesize simply organic molecules. His experiments produced small amounts of dipeptides and tripeptides.

Radioactive beach hypothesis: radioactive elements such as uranium may have concentrated on beaches and become building blocks for life by energizing amino acids, sugars from acetronitrile in water.

Homochirality: The right or left handedness of organic molecules may be explained by the origin of compounds in space.
Self-organization and replication: Under the right circumstances, many non-organic molecules exhibit properties of self-organization and self-replication.

"Genes first" models: the RNA world It has been argued that short RNA molecules could have formed on their own. Cell membranes could have formed from protein-like molecules in heated water. Chemical reactions in clay or on pyrites could have initiated self-replication.

"Metabolism first" models: iron-sulfur world and others. Some theories argue that metabolic processes started first, then self-replication.

Bubbles collecting on the beach could have played a role in forming early, proto-cell membranes.

Autocatalysis Some substances catalyze the production of themselves such as amino adenosine, pentafluorophenyl ester, and amino adenosine triacid ester.

Clay theory Complex organic molecules could have arisen from non-organic replicators such as silicate crystals. It has even been reported that the crystals can transfer information from mother to daughter crystals.

Gold's "Deep-hot biosphere" model Gold argues that life originated miles below the surface of the earth. Microbial life has been found there. And it may be present on other planets.

"Primitive" extraterrestrial life Organic compounds are common in space, and early life may have been transferred here from other planets such as Mars.

-------
http://www.provingthenegative.com/2008/09/current-theories-of-abiogenesis.html

 

And I refer you back to: http://www.sciforums.com/posts/3417200/
Your post nicely illustrates my point in replying to James R - nothing new on the table, just a game of attrition. At other occasions I have no doubt you have been quick to point out how unreliable a source Wikipedia can be. So we all must pick and choose carefully. Some out of purely objective intent, others with an ideologically-driven agenda in mind.

A grab-bag of hypotheses, none of which survive close scrutiny, does not constitute plausible explanations. You really need to learn the distinction.

 

I get that you are very likely an outright atheist James. And none of us are free from prejudices. Some are just better at recognizing, controlling and/or hiding them.

 

A lot imo. Especially the last two para's, paint the entire ID position, and everyone involved in it or by implication anyone sympathetic to it, as outright fraudulent. Religion under the guise of 'science'. How about admitting there might actually be some real, objective, yes even convincing substance to the ID arguments?

 

That's one way of putting it. As an example, Dean Kenyon's experience and reason for switching position is maybe worth the time to look at:

Believe it or not, he is far from the only highly capable researcher who switched because the neo-Darwinist position became untenable from a theoretical perspective. Nothing to do with setting out to 'prove God'. You can claim such folks are mistaken, but it's just wrong to infer bad motives.

As i wrote before, some are guilty as charged, sure. That has no bearing on the strength of the actual ID arguments, which stand or fall on their own merits.

 

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

So, this is just a game to you, to hold up the ID flag for your overlords?

Firstly it's not a theory: It isn't even a scientific argument...secondly the evidence does not point to ID, but we do have much circumstantial evidence and otherwise, as has been listed continually throughout this thread, that supports abiogenisis.

In whose eyes? In the eyes of a fundamentalist christian called Peltzer?: And supported by yourself on a science forum?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Yes you also labeled anyone that dares to oppose you as an Atheist and worse.
And I would add since you are inferring a bias or agenda of sorts, that Christians, and YEC's and other similar folk have a far bigger, more fanatical and more hostile agenda, as their position is the one that science has pushed and is still pushing into the back field.

If there was, I'm sure some of the scientists and other members that you so quickly deride, would recognise that fact....but it isn't even a scientific option.

And you're not doing that?

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

And you're an outright ID supporter and also prejudiced in that arena?
And something you have hidden quite well until now. Although as I said before it does explain other issues.

There's plenty more scientific articles and papers on the web supporting abiogenisis, as well as heaps of anti science rants and raves re creationists propaganda dismissing it.
I'll leave the game playing up to you.

 

In the following link, is another example of a Christian who reveals how Sagan was instrumental in "taking his faith"

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/03/carl-sagan-took-my-faith-and-gave-me-awe-onfaith/

A research coordinator for the new “Cosmos” recounts his Sagan-inspired journey away from religion.



I was not always an atheist.

I was once a devout and sincere believer in the Christian faith. I am the son and grandson of pastors and missionaries. My family founded one of the country’s largest Bible colleges, Christ for the Nations, from which I earned a theology degree. For years, I contemplated, and began strategizing, a run for national political office under the banner of Christian reform.

I did not begin to question, nor finally abandon, my faith…until I discovered science. And Carl Sagan.

The longer a belief system—any belief system—remains in place, the more likely it is to become an unmovable fixture of that person’s identity. In my experience, most persons of faith who undergo a deconversion experience do so during their middle or high school years. But that is not my story. I did not begin to question, nor finally abandon, my faith until my mid-30s.

That was when I discovered science. And Carl Sagan.

Carl Sagan was an astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist and author who became a household name in the early 1980s when his television series “Cosmos: A Personal Journey” became the most watched program in PBS history. Before his untimely death in 1996, Sagan was the nation’s leading science communicator, a regular guest on both the nightly news and “The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.”

But in my childhood home, Carl Sagan was a fundamentalist caricature of science. He was a figure of scorn and mockery, conjured in conversation only when one needed a large and easy target for pillorying evolution.

“Billions and billions of years” was a “Cosmos”-inspired quote my family and friends would mimic in Sagan’s telltale nasal inflection, always earning animated laugher. Not because it was fun to imitate so singular a personality, but because anyone who believed, much less preached, such nonsense deserved nothing more than sarcastic contempt. And so it was for most of my life.

As the product of a mostly terrific private school education, I never had to worry about encountering something like Sagan’s “Cosmos” in my school science classes. A literal reading of the book of Genesis, including a six-day creation, 6,000-year-old Earth, and a historic Noah and Tower of Babel, constituted our learning of cosmic and human origins. Evolution was a dreadful ploy spat up from the pit of hell, with which the world’s scientists were in complete collusion.

His mission was to build up, not tear down.

The closest I came to Sagan was in my mid-20s, when the film Contact, based on Sagan’s only novel, appeared in theaters. The story centered on a mysterious alien signal and the manner in which the globe’s many cultures processed the realization that they were not alone in the vast universe. I, like many people who saw the film, found it awe-inspiring. I can still remember returning home from the theater on a euphoric cloud, opening my Bible, and reading with wonder the majesty of God’s creative prowess.

A year or so later, I decided to read the novel, and while it entertained a certain ambiguity where matters of faith were concerned, the book initiated my first-ever crisis of faith.Contact raised and inspired questions that neither I nor anyone I knew could satisfactorily answer. I resolved that crisis of faith not by reconciling those quandaries, but rather by listening to those who told me that the questions themselves were either wrong to ponder or not even worthy of my time. I decided to ignore the questions, telling myself my faith was as strong as ever.

But the questions festered, continuing to grow and feeding off my neglect, until they were too large to ignore. I could not be intellectually honest and continue to ignore them. They demanded a verdict. And when I finally turned to face them down a decade or so later, I found that all my years in church and all my academic training was not enough to halt their advance.

I did not abandon my faith because I was hurt or angry or disillusioned. I did not abandon my faith because I wanted to rebel, or live a life of sin, or refuse god’s authority. I left because I could no longer believe. I left because I felt there simply was no convincing evidence for my belief. I left because my faith insulted reason one too many times. I left because once I applied the same level of skepticism and incredulity to Christianity that I always had to all other faiths, it likewise imploded. Once I accepted that the Bible’s account of cosmic and human origins could not possibly be true, I began to realize that it was just the first in an interminably long line of things the Bible was wrong about.

Science killed my faith. Not “science,” the perverse parody invented by some Christians—a nefarious, liberal, secular agenda whose sole purpose is to turn people from god—but rather science, an objective, methodological tool that uses reason and evidence to systematical study the world around us, and which is willing, unlike faith, to change direction with the accumulation of that evidence. Science is a humble and humbling exercise. Science is the impossibly dense core of curiosity—always asking, always seeking, always yearning to know more, never satisfied.

My newfound appreciation of science came, in no small part, from the writings of my old nemesis, Carl Sagan. What I discovered in Sagan’s elevated verse—particularly inThe Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark and within the baker’s dozen of the series “Cosmos”—was one of the most transcendent experiences of my life. Here was a man who could stir both body and, if you will allow me a bit of poetic license, soul.

While Sagan’s personal views set him safely in the camp of atheism, he was more comfortable claiming the title of agnostic. He certainly never made it his mission to destroy anyone’s faith. His sights were always set on something far higher. His mission was to build up, not tear down.

As I read, I began to wonder—why had Sagan been so reviled? His manner was so meek, his words so respectful, his position so evenhanded. He was compassionate and affable, even when he quarreled. Certainly, he was nothing like the thought leaders of modern unbelief, such as Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens, who take pride in their public disdain for religion. Sure, Sagan was staking a position against mythology, irrationality and pseudoscience, but he was so, well, kind about it.

Perhaps it was this very gentleness, warmth and humanity that made him so much more menacing than his ideological peers, then and now. He did not attack so much as elevate. He spent only as much time as was necessary dismantling those things that posed a significant threat to rational living, instead focusing most of our attention on the wonders science had revealed.

So it was with my own deconversion process. I had a mentor in the final years of my faith—a name with which everyone reading this is familiar—who never took my spiritual tumult as an opportunity to hack at the foundations of my religion, but who also didn’t turn his back when I came to him with my quandaries. He never attacked or belittled my faith. He merely redirected my gaze to the wonders that can be found within a scientific framework and let everything else take care of it itself. He simply showed me something unspeakably beautiful and inarguably true and then stepped back, trusting in a process he knew would ignite my brain and consume my body. Whether he knew it or not, he was walking in Carl Sagan’s footsteps.

Written By: by Brandon Fibbs

 

Stop ruthlessly attacking me with that feather duster paddoboy. You know i have a tickle-giggle weakness, and it's unfair to exploit it so cruelly!

 

It's a well known aspect of life that people switch sides both ways, and on various issues in general, all the time. It's part of what makes humans unique as individuals.