Most British scientists: Richard Dawkins' work misrepresents science

[exchemist]

My point though is that abiogenisis by whatever paths, is really the only scientific solution.

Hang on, abiogenesis is not a "solution" to any problem. It is just a label for the problem.

At one point there was no life, and now there is, so at some point life began and whatever the process was that did that is labelled "abiogenesis". If there were a "Theory of Abiogenesis", then we could speak of it being a solution to the problem of abiogenesis. But we have no such theory.

It seems to me there is danger of overstating what science has been able to do in this field. We can push back to a very early stage in life on Earth, but all we have for the chemistry of abiogenesis itself is a series of tantalising snippets of information and some (very interesting) ideas. Real evidence is almost impossible to obtain from that epoch.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Life has always existed and life produced matter so it could evolve to a more complex form which will finally evole to a single God entity and go bang.

Alex

 

[Q-reeus]

Life has always existed and life produced matter so it could evolve to a more complex form which will finally evole to a single God entity and go bang.

Alex

Alex, any chance you spent time as a hippie at say Nimbin? Long on the bong maybe? No offense but your avatar/photo has a certain stereotypical image thing to it. It is off-topic so feel free to ignore....

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Alex, any chance you spent time as a hippie at say Nimbin? Long on the bong maybe? No offense but your avatar/photo has a certain stereotypical image thing to it. It is off-topic so feel free to ignore....

Hi Q-reeus.
I belong to no social strata and do not fit in any cultural box.

My avatar was done in haste because I had not combed my hair, when combed although long it looks from the front like a bankers cut. Often I tie up my beard and stick it under my shirt.

I have been to Nibin once because thats where you would buy off the grid gear, solar panels, deep cycle batteries etc. The Rainbow Power Company 1 Alternative Way Nimbin, great address.

But I dont like Nimbin to me the main street is somehow dark and not reflective in my view of the supposedly happy hippy culture.

I live up that way but not in that culture not a bong person either, not a drinker these days and gave up smoking finally.
That is the worst addiction.

I was shopping earlier today and had such an urge to buy some smokes it was hard to resist... but I did.

But if you look closely at a hippy you will see they are different. Their beard and hair is different and they would have stuff holding tbeir hair and often a platt in the beard.
Maybe I should do another photo... It doesnt matter to me.. but you asked.

If I was vain I would have tidied up etc

And if I sound strange its probably because I havent used my brain really for about twenty years and havve been trying to reduce my vocabulary to fit in when I go to town.

Thanks for asking.
Alex

 

[iceaura]

And the neo-Darwinist/abiogenesis storybook Faithful will nod in approval once again, at all that assertive polemic

It's accurate. Does that matter to you, that what I posted there is - all of it - completely factual and accurately descriptive?

Or do you evaluate arguments and observations by who approves of them - as in a propaganda battle, in which physical fact doesn't matter to you?

 

[Q-reeus]

Hi Q-reeus.
I belong to no social strata and do not fit in any cultural box.

My avatar was done in haste because I had not combed my hair, when combed although long it looks from the front like a bankers cut. Often I tie up my beard and stick it under my shirt.

I have been to Nibin once because thats where you would buy off the grid gear, solar panels, deep cycle batteries etc. The Rainbow Power Company 1 Alternative Way Nimbin, great address.

But I dont like Nimbin to me the main street is somehow dark and not reflective in my view of the supposedly happy hippy culture.

I live up that way but not in that culture not a bong person either, not a drinker these days and gave up smoking finally.
That is the worst addiction.

I was shopping earlier today and had such an urge to buy some smokes it was hard to resist... but I did.

But if you look closely at a hippy you will see they are different. Their beard and hair is different and they would have stuff holding tbeir hair and often a platt in the beard.
Maybe I should do another photo... It doesnt matter to me.. but you asked.

If I was vain I would have tidied up etc

And if I sound strange its probably because I havent used my brain really for about twenty years and havve been trying to reduce my vocabulary to fit in when I go to town.

Thanks for asking.
Alex

Thanks for opening up on that Alex. I guess you realized I was being a bit cheeky. Reacting in kind to your sarcastic maybe sardonic line in #422. It wasn't necessary and I must try and bite my tongue better. Cheers.

 

[Q-reeus]

It's accurate. Does that matter to you, that what I posted there is - all of it - completely factual and accurately descriptive?

Or do you evaluate arguments and observations by who approves of them - as in a propaganda battle, in which physical fact doesn't matter to you?

What is the point in further engaging with someone like yourself just hellbent on continual parodying anyone not aligned with your ideology? I've seen how you somehow find the time to engage in endless argument over in the politically oriented sub-forums. Not interested. Enjoy your 'victory' as you see it, and continue the battle with those who likewise enjoy the sport.

 

[iceaura]

What is the point in further engaging with someone like yourself just hellbent on continual parodying anyone not aligned with your ideology?

For one thing, I've offered to straighten you out on cumulative probability and its relationship to the likelihood of abiogenesis - work with you until you get it right, and can recognize when some link as gone off the rails of reason. If you don't fix your problem there, you will embarrass yourself in other venues and among other people in the future - worth avoiding, no? Here is an opportunity for you to avoid that.

And along the way a related current misapprehension you labor under, that those who think we currently live in the wake of the event of "natural" abiogenesis must therefore (your term) think that its probability of occurrence was unity or had "accumulated" to unity, will be dismissed - so you will less often find yourself telling people they believe stuff they do not, improving your credibility in other people's eyes.

Benefits not to be sneezed at, one would think.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

Thanks for opening up on that Alex. I guess you realized I was being a bit cheeky. Reacting in kind to your sarcastic maybe sardonic line in #422. It wasn't necessary and I must try and bite my tongue better. Cheers.

I was trying to present a target that both sides could shoot at.
I saw you as the underdog and as Paddoboy will tell you a lot of us Australians will stand up for the under dog and so I thought my strange Hypothosis could ease the tention.
And never worry about expressing what you are thinking particularly with me.
If you want to insult me you have to be very direct else I will think you are offerring me a compliment but nothing worries me truth or lies folk have the right to speak.
Alex

 

[Q-reeus]

For one thing, I've offered to straighten you out on cumulative probability and its relationship to the likelihood of abiogenesis - work with you until you get it right. If you don't fix your problem there, you will embarrass yourself in other venues and among other people in the future - worth avoiding, no? Here is an opportunity for you to avoid that.

Wasting precious time searching back page after page to finally locate That 3rd link I gave way back: http://www.ingender.com/xyu/art/cumulative-odds.aspx
Like I keep saying - a vindictive pedant. What it really is about imo, was I made remarks earlier on not kind to Marxists and lefties in general. That was it. In your cross-hairs from then on. An ideological foe that must be hounded and 'exposed' at every opportunity. What a sad life to be full of such venom. Please don't pretend you are trying to be helpful - it comes across as way too phony.

 

[Xelasnave.1947]

I made remarks earlier on not kind to Marxists and lefties in general.

The eagle needs both a right wind and a left wing to fly.
You cant have day unless you have night.
You cant have peace if you have no war.
Just because you are out numbered remain calm.
Attack is not necessarily the best defence.
Alex

 

[spidergoat]

What it really is about imo, was I made remarks earlier on not kind to Marxists and lefties in general.

In a thread about science and religion, you went off like an alt-reich moron. Of course you are being treated as such behavior deserves.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

No, [abiogenesis] is not [a conjecture]. It describes the process of life beginning. It's like the term planetary formation; we know it happened, but we don't know all the details. RNA-world is a conjecture.

We know considerably more about planetary formation than we know about the origin of life--which is virtually nothing. We know that planetary formation happened, but we cannot say with a straight face that "we know" that abiogenesis happened.

The fatal flaw in the supernatural hypothesis is, of course, the fallacy of recursion. God did it, which means that God is alive, and since God created all life, he therefore created himself.

There is no respectable alternative to the hypothesis of abiogenesis... SO FAR. But that does not automatically make abiogenesis, a process about which we know absolutely NOTHING, the winner by default.

 

[spidergoat]

All plausible naturalistic explanations are by default more likely than any supernatural one.

 

[Yazata]

Abiogenesis is still technically a conjecture: a conclusion based on incomplete information, for which no proof has been forthcoming.

I agree. It's an inference from assumptions.

Nobody really knows how life made its first appearance. We assume (but can't be absolutely certain) that life had an origin, that there was a time before which life didn't exist. (That's a very strong assumption in my opinion, but it's still an assumption.) We assume that events like the origin of life must have had physical causes. (That assumes a particular kind of metaphysical concept of causation. Again, a reasonably strong assumption, but an assumption nevertheless.) Then we conclude that if life didn't always exist and if events like an initial origin of life require physical causes, then life arose from physical causes.

 

[paddoboy]

Hang on, abiogenesis is not a "solution" to any problem. It is just a label for the problem.

At one point there was no life, and now there is, so at some point life began and whatever the process was that did that is labelled "abiogenesis".
If there were a "Theory of Abiogenesis", then we could speak of it being a solution to the problem of abiogenesis. But we have no such theory.

? A label to the problem?? I'm not really sure of what you mean.
The simple WIKI definition is........
" is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds.[6][9][10][7] It is thought to have occurred on Earth between 3.8 and 4.1[11] billion years ago. Abiogenesis is studied through a combination of laboratory experiments and extrapolation from the characteristics of modern organisms, and aims to determine how pre-life chemical reactionsgave rise to life on Earth".
And I don't believe in this whole devious side track by one particular god botherer, that I have ever used the term "theory of abiogenisis" or even hinted at it being a theory.
I have certainly said and implied that other then the non scientific explanation of ID, that abiogenisis appears to be the only possible answer, by whatever means. And I believe that has been borne out in some of the links I have given.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

That abiogenesis occurred on earth is indeed a conjecture, but one that is fairly much taken as a given by science, much like Fermat's Last Theorem was a conjecture until proven 20 odd years ago.

But the stakes are much higher for finding the means by which life first arose, than they are for proving an esoteric mathematical theorem that most people never heard of, and that even most of the best-educated people know about but don't understand it.

Conjecture doesn't mean guess, or that it shouldn't be taken seriously or scientifically, or that it's baseless. Aspects of abiogenesis can be hypothesised and tested with regard the process that might have been taken, but the notion that abiogenesis occurred on earth is simply not testable (without a time machine) and thus, while considered likely, it will remain a conjecture, albeit one that is assumed to be the likeliest explanation for how life began on earth.

Indeed. At this point it's not much of an exaggeration to say that Genesis with a capital G and abiogenesis with a lower-case G are both hypotheses supported by absolutely no evidence.

Bear in mind that creating life from raw materials in a lab is not evidence that it therefore began that way on earth, or that abiogenesis even occurred on earth... it would just make our understanding of possible beginnings greater.

But it would sure make the scientific hypothesis enormously more likely to be true than the fairytales of the various religions.

 

[paddoboy]

And the neo-Darwinist/abiogenesis storybook Faithful will nod in approval once again, at all that assertive polemic. Meanwhile, up the rear, paddoboy has been busy click-harvesting a welter of links to articles he could never hope to understand in detail. But so what, that latest flood just looks overwhelmingly impressive. And that's what counts with most here.

What it really is about imo, was I made remarks earlier on not kind to Marxists and lefties in general. That was it. In your cross-hairs from then on. An ideological foe that must be hounded and 'exposed' at every opportunity. What a sad life to be full of such venom. Please don't pretend you are trying to be helpful - it comes across as way too phony.

 

[paddoboy]

It seems to me there is danger of overstating what science has been able to do in this field. We can push back to a very early stage in life on Earth, but all we have for the chemistry of abiogenesis itself is a series of tantalising snippets of information and some (very interesting) ideas. Real evidence is almost impossible to obtain from that epoch.

Other then any of the following, do you have any other scientific means by which to explain that at one point there was no life, then there was?
[1] Abiogenisis occurred due to conditions on Earth at a particular time.
[2] Panspermia
[3] An advanced Alien race, planted the seed for the rise of the modern human.
[number 3 of course, still needs Abiogenisis to explain there own being and as an explantion for the Universe as a whole and the fact that at one time life did not exist, then it did]

 

[paddoboy]

Apologies, I was under the impression the discussion was specifically about abiogenesis having happened on earth, and that this was the cause of life on earth. But if talking more widely about abiogenesis in general, you are correct in that it is the only logical scientific explanation: the universe was devoid of life, now has life, ergo life formed from non-life. Thus not conjecture. So apologies for any confusion.

That also is my position.