Sunday, March 6, 2011

Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism

By Michael David Rawlings
Supplemental Information
Related Article

Years of experience have shown me that most atheists are more obtuse than a pile of bricks. They are either breezily unaware of their metaphysical biases or are unwilling to objectively separate themselves from them long enough to engage in a reasonably calm and courteous discussion about the tenets of their religion: namely, abiogenesis and evolution. While science's historical presupposition is not a metaphysical naturalism (or an ontological naturalism), most of today's practicing scientists insist that the origins and compositions of empirical phenomena must be inferred without any consideration given to the possibility of intelligent causation and design. The limits of scientific inquiry are thereby reconfigured as if they constituted the limits of reality itself, the more expansive potentialities of human consciousness be damned. In other words, if something cannot be quantified by science, it doesn't exist, regardless of the conclusions that any rational evaluation of the empirical data might recommend. Hence, should one reject what is nothing more than the guesswork of an arbitrarily imposed apriority, one is said to reject science itself, as if the fanatics of scientism owned the means of science.

Ultimately, the essence of this perversion is a Darwinian naturalism run amok:  mere theory elevated to an inviolable absolute of cosmological proportions, which displaces not only the traditional conventions of methodological naturalism (or mechanistic naturalism), but is superimposed on the discipline of science itself.  Never has so much been owed to so little.

I'm well acquainted with the hypotheses, the research and the findings in the field of abiogenesis. Also, I understand evolutionary theory, inside and out. I know the science, and I'm current. Indeed, I'm light years ahead of the vast majority of atheists who routinely sneer at theists as the former unwittingly expose their ignorance about the science and the tremendously complex problems that routinely defy their dogma. These are the sheeple blindly following an ideologically driven community of scientists, which, since Darwin, is determined to overthrow the unassailable. God stands and stays: science can neither prove nor disprove His existence; it's not equipped to venture beyond the temporal realm.  But this does not mean that the empirical data do not testify to His existence. Science is a contingent source of wisdom, not the beginning and the end of it.  And science in the hands of materialists is the stuff of fairytales.

I recently posed a question on Yahoo! Answers and prefaced it with a brief summary of the results derived from the Miller-Urey experiments of 1952 in the light of current science. Of course, the underlying hypothesis on which the experiments were originally based has been falsified, but we learned plenty. While I discussed a number of the problems associated with it, I neglected to emphatically state what that hypothesis was . . . just to see what sort of fish I might catch.

The following is the full version of the necessarily condensed one that appeared on Yahoo! Answers. . . .

Yahoo! Answers resident, Lord Fluffy Tail, recently offered up the following quote in answer to a question about origins:
In 1951, the American Miller succeeded to form organic matter out of a mixture of ammonia (NH3), methane (CH4), hydrogen (H2) and water (H2O) by exposing this mixture to an electric current. During the experiments different organic mixtures were formed, among them amino acids and nucleic acids. These acids are essential for the building of proteins and chromosomes. —ORACLE ThinkQuest

Miller-Urey has been falsified for years; that is to say, the experiments' parameters and conditions were shown to be incongruent and the results, negative. The reasons for this are legion and very complex, yet textbooks continue to relate these experiments with the same sort of blurb in the above as if they were still something more than an historical footnote. An avalanche of innumerable Internet sites—most of them put up by atheistic, know-nothing layman—continue to tout them as being something that still matters along with theory that is years, even decades, behind current science.

For example, it doesn't appear that the author of Lord Fluffy Tail's source knows that the atmosphere of the primeval world was more oxygen-rich even earlier than he supposes and was generally more oxidizing than reducing—necessary for life, but not friendly to the formation of amino acids. In other words, the actual conditions were considerably more hostile to the prospects of abiogenesis than those of the Miller-Urey experiments. The primordial soup keeps getting driven deeper and deeper into the ocean where, once again, another battery of problematic conditions confound the imbecilic notions of chemical evolutionists.

Also, the author of this source writes that the "origin of life out of lifeless matter is called biogenesis."  Uh . . . no.  But that's probably just a typo.  Biogenesis pertains to the Pasteurian theory that omne vivum ex vivo, i.e., all life is from life.  The idea that life may arise from non-living matter goes by the name of spontaneous generation or, in accordance with contemporary theory, abiogenesis.

But the most startling bit of information divulged by this author—which is not a typo, but a UFO—consists of the claim that the Miller-Urey experiments produced nucleic acids.

What?  Stop the presses!  News flash!
 
Trust me.  They did not produce nucleic acids or anything else like them.1

What the published Miller-Urey experiments did produce were small concentrations of at least 5  amino acids and the molecular constituents of others.  The dominant material produced by the experiments was an insoluble carcinogenic mixture of tar—large compounds of toxic mellanoids, a common end product in organic reactions.  However, it was recently discovered that the published experiments actually produced 14 amino acids (6 of the 20 fundamentals of life) and 5 amines in various concentrations.  In 1952, the technology needed to detect the even smaller trace amounts of prebiotic material was not available.  But the unpublished Miller-Urey experiments conducted in that same year show that a modified version of Miller's original apparatus, which increased air flow with a tapering glass aspirator, produced 22 amino acids (still only 6 of the fundamentals) and the same 5 amines.2

The significance of the recently uncovered results produced by the altered apparatus does not go to the synthesis of proteins as a result of the inherent chemical properties of their molecular precursors within atmospheric conditions that entail a more vaporous, volcanic-gas-like mixture of steam. It goes to the more impressive results that are derived under these simulated conditions coupled with the potentialities of the RNA-world hypothesis and its obligatory molecular precursors. Hence, Senior Correspondent Stephen K Ritter misses the target when he assumes that the team of researchers who analyzed the results of the unpublished experiments "speculate that amino acids formed in volcanic island systems could have been polymerized by carbonyl sulfide—volcanic gas—to form peptides leading to proteins" (Stephen K. Ritter; Oct. 16, 2008; "Origin-of-Life Chemistry Revisited"; Chemical and Engineering News-Prebiotic Chemistry).

They could not have sensibly speculated any such thing, as it is well known that amino acids do not form lasting peptide bonds (much less proteins) under any natural conditions outside living organisms. And this is true under laboratory conditions as well, whether their mixtures be racemic, as is always the case in nature on Earth, or even if they be artificially homochiral.

The original apparatus of the published experiments simulated a strictly reducing atmosphere consisting of hydrogen, methane, ammonia and water, but as Ritter in the same article observes "[s]cientists who have analyzed Miller's experiments doubt that the highly reducing reaction conditions he used existed on early Earth"; however, the apparatus equipped with the aspirating mechanism simulated the more "intense conditions of a lightning-laced volcanic eruption." Hence, the researchers aver that "[t]he volcanic apparatus experiment suggests that, even if the overall atmosphere was not reducing, localized prebiotic synthesis could have been effective". Precisely! But what the researchers mean by the word "effective" goes to the formation of amino acids only, and only within the domains of semi-reducing, carbonyl-sulfide-producing atmospheres of "volcanic island systems", as the more generally oxidizing atmosphere beyond would prevent their formation.

The problem with this scenario is that under natural conditions the newly created precursors could not have stayed inside these atmospheric enclaves for long, for unlike the artificial conditions calculatedly arranged within the apparatuses of laboratories, which artificially remove biotic materials from the synthesizing medium once they are formed, nature would have continued to bombard them and thusly would have destroyed them with the very same source of energy it used to create them. Worse, the vastly more copious abiotic materials that would have also been produced would have continued to react with the racemic mixtures of the biotic materials within the synthesizing medium and would have readily incorporated the latter into compounds that would have been utterly useless for life.
Miller's experiment did produce . . . amino acids, but only by continuously circulating the reaction mixture and isolating products as they were formed. The quantities were still tiny and not in the same proportions as found in nature.

One of the causes of the low yield has been identified by [Edward] Peltzer who worked with Miller. As the amino acids were formed they reacted with reducing sugars . . . forming a brown tar around Miller's apparatus. Ultimately, Miller was producing large compounds called mellanoids, with amino acids as an intermediate product.  —J. H. John Peet (Oct. 2005), "The Miller-Urey Experiment", Truth in Science 

But the real problem for the synthesis of amino acids in a reducing atmosphere is that in spite of the latter's abundance of free electrons, it would not have provided an ozone layer to protect the amino acids it produced. If the electrical energy that induced their synthesis in one instant did not reduce them to their basic elements or induce harmful reactions in the next, the entire range of UV light's wavelengths would have slapped them silly. And biologically useful organic compounds do not form in oxidizing atmospheres.

Perplexing.

That is why the out-gassing calculations based on chondritic models of planetary formation, which support a reducing atmosphere for the primordial world, do not solve the initial problem of an abiogenic account of life's origins.3  Indeed, chondritic models, in spite of their apparent credibility and that of their inherent calculations, do not explain away the equally compelling and essentially incontrovertible geological evidence that supports an early oxidizing atmosphere.

Perplexing.

It would appear that the problem of resolving the nature of the primordial world's atmosphere requires some sort of synthesis of the two possibilities.  But even if the constituents of abiogenesis were profitably given over to the thralls of a semi-reducing atmosphere all those many years ago, we see no evidence of that today.  The geological record should contain an overflowing abundance of nitrogen-rich mineral deposits.  It doesn't.

Still, despite the paltry concentrations of organic materials produced relative to the energy expended, the best bet for abiogenesis would have been a semi-reducing atmosphere akin to the model simulated by the altered apparatus in the unpublished experiments. At least the organic materials produced in those were slightly more voluminous and diverse. Also, it seems reasonable to assume that the dynamics of the altered atmospheric model would have moved the materials away from the lingering dangers inside the synthesizing medium, past the threats beyond, and into the primordial soup of the oceans below more rapidly.

It's all pie-in-the-sky nonsense, of course, but as long as we're already suspending disbelief far above any reasonable altitude, we might as well go along with the tale forever: never mind the threats beyond the synthesizing medium, never mind the ubiquitous cross-reaction contaminants, never mind that water pushes peptidyl bonding backward, not forward, would disperse the constituents of proteins and condemn most of them to the whims of a churning and lonely isolation, and never mind most of all that the total amount of organic compounds on Earth today is less than a fraction of the lofty concentrations that would be reasonably favorable for the inscrutable processes of abiogenesis. After all, the other precursors of life, which improbably braved and overcame the same obstacles, have need of their prebiotic cousins. The long and arduous journey toward self-awareness must go on by way of an even more implausible series of elaborately complex and fortuitous accidents.

The Miller-Urey experiments showed that under the right conditions nature might be able to build some of life's amino acids; later discoveries in space and here on Earth confirmed that. But that in and of itself was not the rhyme or the reason of the experiments' underlying hypothesis, and beyond that, what have these experiments shown us? Well, not much about that which was expected, but plenty more about that which is obvious.

The natural occurrence of amino acids is light years away from life, and there exists no coherent or demonstrable explanation for how they aggregated and combined by mere chance in the exact sequences we find in life. And even if such a thing were possible, we'd still not be there.

How did the many hundreds of thousands of mindless proteins and other molecular components, which can only function within a very narrow range of conditions, aggregate and combine in the exact sequences required to build the thousands of intricately complex and interdependent pieces of machinery minimally required by a viable, functioning cell? The process could not have been accumulative, but had to have been instantaneously synchronous for obvious reasons.  All these things evince a certain set of preconditions and necessities which stupid materialist layman will never understand and agenda-driven scientists will never acknowledge.

(As for those still operating under the sleight-of-hand illusion that the refutation of Behe's flagellum argument overthrows the classic construct of irreducible complexity, see "Labsci and I Discuss Evolution" and "The Debate with Labsci Continues. . . .".)

If one allows that an intelligent agent was required to create the simplest form of life, one opens the door to a world where the regnant theory for the development of life might unravel. If an intelligent agent did it once, what would prevent him from creating other and even more complex forms of life again and again?

We now know that life arose much earlier than was ever thought possible, and the ramifications of this are devastating for abiogenesis, which just keeps running into wall after wall after wall. And the more apparent the complexity of the genome and the infrastructural machinery and processes of the cell becomes, the denser the walls become.

We really don't have a clue about how to explain any of this without considering the necessity of a preexistent intelligence, which is precisely why more and more evolutionists are hesitantly going where they don't want to go. . . . While it still would not resolve the matter of origins, at the very least the evidence points to intelligent extraterrestrials. And that is precisely the point ID scientists have been making for years.

Atheism is poisoning science. Intellectual fascists are arbitrarily asserting a metaphysical naturalism against the evidence.

*  *  *  *  *

With the matter thusly framed, I asked the following question:  "Given what we know today from biochemistry and microbiology, why do people continue to go for abiogenesis?"  My query, together with my observations regarding the contents of Lord Fluffy Tail's source, elicited two responses, the chief characteristic of them being a stunning obtuseness of metaphysical contortions.

For example, Vincent G, a top contributor at Yahoo! Answers, writes:
Earth was running its own experiment over an area that is 500 million square kilometer[s], had access to far many more chemicals . . . with sources of energy that also included asteroid impact[s] and volcanic eruptions, and that experiment ran for million[s] of years. . . .

. . . Who cares if the gas in the jar was not exactly what is now believed to be the right composition? Has anyone tried to redo the experiment using the one that is now thought to be the right mix? Can anyone prove that nowhere on the planet . . . [there] did not exist a pocket of gas that matched what Miller and Urey used?

The fact is that we are detecting amino acid[s] in gas clouds in friggin['] space. It seems those chemicals can even form there!

But I suppose for weaker minds, calling on the intervention of a breaded guy on a cloud somewhere makes more sense.

To which I am now obliged to respond as follows. . . .

So what? That has nothing to do with the exchange rate of proteins in the intergalactic market.

Prior to the DNA and microbiological revolutions of the latter half of the 20th Century, it was believed by materialists that the first cell owed its existence to the inherent chemical properties of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur. That is to say, it was believed that from these elements, amino acids (the building blocks of life) and, in their turn, proteins (the machinery of life) were assembled first; the formation of other cellular structures and functions by combinations and transformations of proteins followed: all these things occurring over millions of years within the primordial soup.

But the results of Miller-Urey, which indeed have been repeated hundreds of times in labs across the world, clearly demonstrate that brute forces alone under the atmospheric conditions postulated cannot create anything close to a viable mixture of life's amino acids. Hundreds of other atmospheric models have been tested in labs as well with the same results. In nature, all mixtures of amino acids on Earth occur in the wrong proportions and are invariably racemic, i.e., have equal numbers of left-handed (levorotatory or levo-) and right-handed (dextrorotatory or dextro-) amino acids.

Biology's amino acids are all left-handed.

While Earth's atmosphere was more oxygen-rich much earlier than was previously thought possible, it's early primordial atmosphere was a mixture of mostly carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen, hydrogen sulfide, vaporized water and sulfur dioxide; hence, it was enveloped by a generally oxidizing atmosphere in which the production of prebiotic materials would have been virtually impossible. But that assumes that the geologists have got it right. . . .

Contrary to your reckless disregard for the differences between atmospheric models (as if the painstaking efforts of scientists to nail them down were a mere pastime between potty breaks), the differences between the results derived from the Miller-Urey experiments based on a reducing or semi-reducing atmospheric model and those derived from experiments simulating the conditions of the most probable model are profound. The latter produce compounds that inhibit the formation of proteins. These compounds are cyanide and formaldehyde. The rest of the substances produced by these experiments are water and other abiotic compounds. Cyanide is a building block for dextro-amino acids.  Formaldehyde destroys proteins and nucleic acids and is heavier than water. . . .  It would have reached the oceans' depths and wreaked havoc on the supposed, organic creations of the primordial soup.  (It should be noted that some formaldehyde is not necessarily a problem for abiogenesis, just the sort of concentrations that an oxidizing atmosphere would produce.)

All uncontrolled conditions and all forms of undirected energy readily denature the peptide bonds of proteins.  This is especially true of the sort of conditions that are known to prevail as a result of "asteroid impact[s] and volcanic eruptions", and the energy derived from such events is redundantly catastrophic. The various conditions and forms of energy that can create amino acids are the very same as those that gleefully destroy proteins.

As for UV energy. . . .

The destructive intensity of its long wavelengths exceeds the constructive facility of its short ones; consequently, the quantum efficiency of the inhibitions it exerts against the polymerization of organic compounds is approximately five orders of magnitude higher than its threshold for the facilitation of their formation. In order to produce even non-functional amino acids, for example, biochemists must not only control for a certain range of conditions—including temperature—but must also select for the compound-producing wavelengths of light energy as they screen out the compound-destroying ones. Yet both types of light are unremittingly shed by stars, under which life's amino acids, except for glycine, readily break down. In other words, while ultraviolet energy can indirectly induce the chemical reactions of the organic elements that produce amino acids, it can also quickly destroy them.

Hence, I alluded to the various, alternative hypotheses for abiogenesis which have driven the primordial soup deeper and deeper into the ocean, actually, all the way down to the ocean floor. Here, beyond the reach of natural light's destructive wavelengths, it is imagined that life's various precursors formed on the backs of crystals or clay formations and then, in accordance with their self-ordering properties, assembled themselves inside discrete hydrothermal vents. However, in hindsight, it turns out that the problems of polymerization in the ocean are even more daunting due to the problem of dispersion and the higher probability of the toxic cross-reactions of dissymmetric molecules.

And the denaturing temperatures associated with geothermal or hydrothermal energy?

*Crickets chirping*

Accordingly, today's Darwinists believe that UV energy played only an indirect role in the polymerization of organic compounds. Variously, nature's abiogenic laboratories are the planet's interior cauldrons, the oceans and outer space. In the latter, the organic molecules in gaseous mixtures are partially converted by polarized light inside cooling asteroids. And the most interesting of these organic-bearing space debris are the "water-altered" variety with carbon-rich deposits, as their meteoric fragments contain many mixtures of amino acids that are predominately left-handed.Much has been made of this by the zealots of scientism—the stuff of pigheaded presupposition and sensationalistic journalism (for example, "More evidence for asteroids creating life on Earth"!). But since the leftward-leaning mixtures of the amino acids that are found in meteorites are abiotic, cooler heads recognize that their significance has been wildly exaggerated.5

Additionally, amateurish proponents of abiogenesis routinely misunderstand the nature of the controversy associated with the problem of contamination. For even if it were conclusively demonstrated that all mixtures of amino acids in space debris, including those that are pertinent to extant biochemistry, have an intrinsic excess of left-handed forms (a ubiquitous byproduct of interplanetary synthesis), the chemical reactions of the primeval terrestrial environment, in the absence of any amplifying mechanism to generate homochirality, would have readily neutralized their efficacity.6

In any event, the controversy does not pertain to the levo-enantiomeric excesses that are routinely found in space debris' mixtures of α-dialkyl amino acids.7  No one of any repute disputes that. Yet the Internet is awash with the silly and erroneous claim that the proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design attribute these excesses to contamination. Hogwash! Instead, the controversy pertains to the minority reports of levo-enantiomeric excesses of both α-dialkyl and biology's α-hydrogen amino acids being found inside the Murchison Meteorite.8 But the results of all the many other tests that have been conducted on Murchison and other chondrites, before and since, dispute the findings of Engel and Nagy (1982) and those of Engel and Macko (1997).9 That is to say, the results of all the other tests do indeed consistently show that the mixtures of α-dialkyl amino acids are predominately left-handed, but they also consistently show that the mixtures of biology's α-hydrogen amino acids are racemic. Hence, the overwhelming consensus is that the results of Engel et al., respectively, are due to contamination.10

Accordingly, it is believed that the chemical properties of α-dialkyl amino acids are uniquely susceptible to the manipulations of the interplanetary medium's two-step mechanism of polarized light and aqueous alteration. The overall quantity of X is reduced as some portion of its dextro-enantiomers are optically reoriented and aqueously altered, and another portion of the same are decomposed and thereby divorced from their enanteiomeric counterparts.  The result is a smaller, altered mixture of X with an excess number of levo-enantiomers. While the finer details of the process are unknown, the outcome is manifest.11

What is not manifest are the mechanisms by which these space travelers avoided being racemized on Earth, achieved homochirality and transferred it to the α-hydrogen amino acids of extant biochemistry. Was all of this accomplished before or after life began? If before, how in the absence of organic information? If after, why in the presence of a putatively self-replicating abundance of a well-established motif? Given the inevitability of racemization in heterogeneous environments (that is to say, given the vain pretensions of chemically acquired homochirality) and given the magical nature of transferring a mulishly intrinsic property from one type of amino acid to another . . . oh, never mind.  These are inscrutable riddles.

While the unfathomable reaches of intergalactic space are slightly partial to left-handed amino acids (albeit, to the wrong type with respect to known terrestrial life), the vagaries of molecular chemistry on Earth are irreverently indifferent to them. In other words, there is no apparent, intrinsic reason that the basic biophysics of terrestrial life could not be conversely arranged on the basis of right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars instead. Yet terrestrial life is decisively biased about both the type and the optical form of its amino acids. While the process would be no less mysterious, insofar as it were left to the mindless devices of nature, why would the self-ordering properties of biochemistry take such a circuitous route and not simply amplify the chirality of α-hydrogen amino acids?

Once again, all of this comes down to the sort of predictions that evolutionary theory actually makes, bound as it is to a mechanism of random variables:  stories about life's development (history) told in hindsight and based on nothing more substantial than the truism that what survives, survives . . . or in this case more at what is, is, and what was, was. Aside from all the hullabaloo over abiotic levo-enantiomers being nothing more than an unfalsifiable collection of vague and impenetrable conjectures, what is more annoying to the abiogenist—the unanswerable questions raised by his convictions or the questionable sanity of his convictions?

As for comets, it is now known that some amines and the amino acid glycine are produced inside irradiated compositions of frozen interplanetary dust. As life's amino acids go, glycine (being the simplest and, therefore, the sturdiest with only two hydrogen atoms on its side chain) can withstand the challenges of the interplanetary medium. (This may also be true of glutamic acid and alanine.)  But this has long been suspected as glycine consistently constitutes the largest concentrations of the biotic compounds that are found in meteorites or produced in laboratory experiments. The other fundaments of life would be destroyed by galactic cosmic rays, solar-wind particles or UV radiation outside a comet's nucleus.12  But this does not mean that comets could not have brought life's other, more complex amino acids to Earth or, according to computational chemistry, contributed to their creation on Earth—the result of shock-compression synthesis induced by glancing-impact events.13

*Yawn*

Wake me when abiogenists contrive a computer simulation that coherently explains how the first living cell was created by the primordial soup's orgy of happy coincidence and random variation.

Meanwhile back in the real world. . . .

The friggin' amino acids that have been detected "in gas clouds in friggin['] space", as well as those that have been produced in friggin' experiments or found in friggin' meteorites here on friggin' Earth have all been of the same friggin' quality with respect to that which is friggin' relevant to extant terrestrial life:  a friggin' racemic mixture of the wrong friggin' type in the wrong friggin' proportions without the benefit of having a friggin' adequate number of those friggin' required by life, all within a friggin' "soup" of cross-reaction contaminants.  Never mind that the friggin' chemical properties of life's friggin' amino acids are clearly not up to the friggin' challenge of actualizing the vast array of meticulously complex components that are friggin' required by even the conceivably simplest form of friggin' life.

Are the lights on yet? Did you find the switch?

Since Miller-Urey, the discoveries of biochemistry and microbiology have revealed precisely why the synthesis of life out of amino acids from the ground up is a dead end. Mere chemistry does not produce life; only complex structures produce life.  Amino acids simply do not link up in nature to form proteins, not even when they are let loose in a pristine brew consisting of only left-handed ingredients.  Without high-energy compounds and enzymes, amino acids do not form the many peptides and, therefore, the many proteins needed for life. But the most significant prerequisite of all is information, and that information resides above the chemical properties of amino acids.

The original, underlying hypothesis of the Miller-Urey experiments has been falsified for decades.

Hence, no matter how many experiments were conducted by planet Earth and no matter how many more particulate chemicals She might have had at Her disposal, there is no friggin' way that amino acids fabricated the hundreds of thousands of proteins that are found in living organisms.  It takes more than a random collection of amino acids to make life. They must be assembled in a very precise and elaborate fashion in order to perform useful or desirable functions. Without the necessary information contained in preexisting nucleic acids, the result would be a collection of gobbledygook, and nucleic acids cannot evolve without the infrastructural and catalytic properties of preexisting proteins.

In other words, DNA synthesis relies on the presence of infrastructural and enzymatic proteins, and protein synthesis relies on the encoded genetic information in DNA and on the coded translations of that information in RNA. What we have here, at least with respect to the origins of DNA, is an interdependent circle of irreducible complexity.

(By the way, Vincent G, you're not by any chance related to that schmuck who goes by the moniker Dr. George Johnson are you? Yeah.  Right.  He thinks the essence of the chicken-or-the-egg problem is simply a matter of dilution and only applies to the origin of proteins. The problem is irreducibly catalytic, infrastructural and informational! All nucleic structures require proteins for their fabrication and structural integrity in living cells, and outside living cells, the spontaneously formed chains of nucleotides in vitro from preexisting material are meaningless collections of goop relative to the fabrication of biologically useful polypeptide chains. Further, the topic is abiogenesis! The problem of dilution has nothing to do with cellular environments; it has to do with the replication and polymerization of prebiotic compounds in acellular environments. And of course, neither nature nor experiments simulating realistic prebiotic conditions form nucleotides or proteins, least of all the Miller-Urey experiments. More pseudoscientific claptrap from a materialist know-nothing.)

I never said that "Miller-Urey . . . discredit[ed] abiogenesis".  I only hinted at the fact that the original, underlying hypothesis of Miller-Urey—once again, that life was built from the ground up by amino acids—had been falsified and suggested that the earlier-than-expected appearance of life on Earth was devastating to the subsequent models of abiogenesis: models that have arisen precisely because we now know for sure that the supposed primordial soup could not have fabricated the proteins necessary for life in the absence of organic information.

Every friggin' bit of your blather is moot! And that includes this bit of nonsense: "But I suppose for weaker minds, calling on the intervention of a breaded guy on a cloud somewhere makes more sense." Well, next time you pop off at a theist, you might want to bring something more substantial than your rather dull blade to what might be a gun fight. That is to say, you might want to open up your mind a bit and consider the possibility that you could be improved by a theist.

Science has moved on; you're decades behind it. Clearly, it is your pseudoscientific claptrap that does not belong on the "Science-Biology Forum" of Yahoo! Answers, and clearly your misreading of my piece is due to the arrogance of your "weak mind" and its lack of knowledge.

Now that I've brought you up to speed, awakened you, pulled you out of your make-believe world of pre-information proteins, let us move on to the make-believe world of the subsequent models of abiogenesis based on smaller compounds containing catalytic properties and information. . . .

*  *  *  *  *

The other response my query elicited was proffered by Bob.  Though more scientifically current, it was in its own perverse way even more obtuse:
The RNA world has already shown easily how the early cells arose. The only element that still seems puzzling is the appearance of life in such a short period. . . .

. . . All essential molecules are present and can be produced under varieties of conditions.

First things first.

Bob, snap out of your zombie-like trance, put the crack pipe down and step away from the instrument.

You do understand that we're talking about abiogenesis, right? Hence, we're not talking about the organic compounds that are available today, i.e., the organic molecules (monomers) that are harvested from extant living cells and are used to synthesis organic macromolecules (polymers) in vitro. Nor, strictly speaking, are we talking about the various organic molecules that "can be produced under a variet[y] of conditions" in laboratories today. In other words, we're not talking about the present, Bob; we're talking about the past. We're talking about that which was realistically available to Mother Nature approximately 4.2 billion years ago.

Focus, Bob.

In the years since Stanley Miller's landmark experiments, scientists have synthesized 17 of the 20 fundamental amino acids in experiments simulating variously tweaked reducing atmospheres inside variants of Miller's original apparatus. But all of these procedures involved high concentrations of methane and ammonia. With respect to the actual conditions of the primordial world, the geological evidence does not support the presence of these kinds of concentrations. It's not even close. But even if it did, as discussed in the above, there would have been no ozone layer to shield the organic compounds produced, and, once again, in oxidizing atmospheres no biologically useful compounds are produced. Zilch. However, in a semi-reducing atmosphere, some of the simpler and more durable amino acids might have had a fighting chance, and we know for sure that the Murchison Meteorite contains 6 of the fundamentals—exactly the number that might have been produced in a semi-reducing atmosphere here on Earth!

Hence, I'll give you 6 amino acids, Bob, in racemic mixtures, and that's being generous. Due to the barely measurable presence and woeful instability of the other 11, no one of any repute would have the temerity to argue that they could have existed in any significant concentrations in the primordial world beyond the environment of a living cell . The 6 are glycine, alanine, glutamic acid, aspartic acid, valine and proline. In this category, that leaves you 14 shy of the 20 "essential molecules" you boasted about.

But the news gets better.

In 1961 Joan Oró synthesized the purine nucleobase adenine from the polymerization of hydrogen cyanide in an aqueous-ammonia solution (aqueous ammonium cyanide14) under a simulated reducing atmosphere.15

In March of 1999, Levy et al. showed that the purine nucleobase guanine could be synthesized in the same reaction, though at significantly lower yields, with the greatest volume of product produced at freezing temperatures.16

Inspired by previous experiments that produced the pyrimidines, howbeit, in low yields at general temperatures,17 a team of scientists recently synthesized adenine, cytosine and uracil from various reactive mixtures of urea (i.e., urea combined with cyanate, cyanoacetylene or the latter's hydrolyzed form cyanoacetaldehyde) in a cyclically frozen-and-thawed solution of eutectic ice under a simulated reducing atmospheric mixture of methane and nitrogen.18

Taken together, along with the lessons learned from Robertson and Miller (June 1995), these experiments show that freezing temperatures are generally best for the formation of the purines adenine and guanine, while boiling temperatures are best for the formation of the pyrimidines cytosine and uracil. And the best reactive mixture for the synthesis of cytosine, "from which uracil can be formed by hydrolysis", is urea and cyanoacetaldehyde.19

Semi-reducing environments won't cut it for the production of these compounds; it's an all-or-nothing affair. But it's not at all unreasonable to imagine that guanine was produced in UV-shielded pockets of frozen reductive mixtures in the arctic regions of the primeval world (Levy et at.), and uracil is a relatively durable compound which, in addition to being readily derived from the degradation of cytosine, appears to be produced under the reductive conditions of outer space inside asteroids, meteorites and comets. Both uracil and xanthine,20 for example, were found in the Murchison Meteorite.21 But since cytosine readily degrades to uracil and guanine to xanthine, more tests must be conducted before terrestrial contamination can be satisfactorily ruled out.

Finally, the methylation of uracil, a simple reaction, produces thymine.

("Pretty impressive, eh?", the materialist smugly thought to himself. But then the mundane imperatives of the real world beyond the laboratory crept into his evanescent land of dreams . . . and the cheese slid off his cracker.)

Let's start with cytosine.

Regardless what the chemical composition of the synthesizing solution is, cytosine does not form within oxidizing mediums or in spark-discharge experiments within simulated reducing atmospheres. But even if it did form within the latter, cytosine converts to its photodimers under ultraviolet light and bypasses the reductive reaction that yields uracil.

The thermally energized synthesis of cytosine based on cyanoacetylene's reaction with cyanate requires extravagantly implausible concentrations of both, as well as unrealistic concentrations of methane and nitrogen. While cyanoacetylene is "an abundant interstellar molecule" (Robertson and Miller), only paltry concentrations of it are produced within the idyllic medium of methane and nitrogen once water or ammonia are added to the mix—a devastating blow to the expectation that cyanoacetylene played a significant role in the fabrication of organic compounds in the primordial soup.22 On top of that, in nature, cyanoacetylene finds other chemicals more alluring than the ugly duckling cyanate. But it is not likely that it was discomforted by the sight of cyanate very often given the fact that in nature the latter is derived from the hydrolysis of cyanogen, which has an estimated half-life of less than 30 seconds on Earth beyond laboratory conditions.23

But wait, there's more!

Despite Robertson and Miller's glowing recommendations, it turns out that in the real world the synthesis of cytosine based on cyanoacetaldehyde and urea is futile.

First, cyanoacetaldehyde reacts with an even wider variety of chemicals than cyanoacetylene. When even relatively small concentrations of the other chemicals that would have been commonly found in the prebiotic environment are added to the mix, no detectable cytosine is produced; hence, in nature, cyanoacetaldehyde does not achieve the uninhibited concentrations required for the reaction to occur.24 But more to the point, in nature it is exclusively acquired from the hydrolysis of cyanoacetylene, so its greater stability—such as it is, with a half-life of only 31 years—is moot.

Second, even if sufficient concentrations of cyanoacetaldehyde had been present in the prebiotic world, the end product of its reaction with urea is not cytosine, but uracil. The entire enterprise is actually an accelerated polymerization-deamination reaction, wherein less and less of the dissipating cytosine is produced as its precursor is used up (Robertson and Miller). In other words, the presence of urea induces the synthesis of cytosine only to cannibalize it for the production of uracil.
An obvious difficulty with this reaction is that the formation of cytosine and the subsequent deamination of the product to uracil . . . occur at about the same rate. . . . It is clear that the yield of cytosine would fall to 0% if the reaction were extended for a number of half-lives. This provides no difficulty in the laboratory, where one can start with a urea concentration of one's choice and monitor the time carefully. On early Earth, the following circumstances would be needed: An isolated lagoon or other body of sea water would have to undergo extreme concentration, to perhaps 10−5 of its initial volume. This reduction in volume would be needed to bring urea . . . to [the concentration] necessary for the reaction. It would further be necessary that the residual liquid be held in an impermeable vessel. . . . The concentration process would have to be interrupted for some decades . . . with the urea concentration near saturation, to allow the reaction to occur. At this point, the reaction would require quenching . . . to prevent loss by deamination. At the end, one would have a batch of urea in solid form, containing some cytosine (and uracil). This sequence cannot be excluded as a rare event on early Earth, but it cannot be termed plausible. —Robert Shapiro25

The bottom line: the data of the empirical record and the fundamentals of chemistry do not support the proposition that there was a significant presence of cytosine's abiotic precursors in the primordial world, and scientists are not going to find cytosine in meteorites or anywhere else in the universe beyond the controlled and directed environments of laboratories and biological systems. Except perhaps in the sort of implausible, calcified state proposed in the above, cytosine spontaneously deaminates beyond the protective membranes of cells. Even when monitored by life's structural and regulatory systems, this unstable compound is highly susceptible to acidic protonation26 and has an estimated half-life of about 340 years at moderate temperatures, albeit, in a theoretically sterile environment only.27 There is no way that cytosine served as a replication component in the formative stages of any RNA-world (or "exposed-gene") scenario.28

In this category, scratch cytosine off the list of the those "essential molecules", Bob.

I'll give you uracil, as well as thymine by default, although it does not seem likely that uracil could have been obtained from any other place but outer space, and space debris deliver their organic payloads in calcified mixtures replete with abiotic, cross-reaction contaminates. It's not at all clear how the goods might have extracted themselves from their conveyances in any significant concentrations, regardless of how many tons of the latter might have rained down on the primordial world during the solar system's formative years. Indeed, its hard to imagine how the process of chemical evolution was not repeatedly interrupted and made to start all over again from scratch—sent to jail without passing "Go"—by that rain of fire and brimstone. Also, you can have guanine, though how it's concentrations linked up with that of its peers or were not repeatedly destroyed by the same interplanetary weather pattern is merely a slightly different version of the same fuzzy-wuzzy.

But you can't have adenine. Its synthesis requires implausible concentrations of hydrogen cyanide. Also, it's a highly reactive compound and susceptible to hydrolysis with a half-life of only 80 years under moderate temperatures.29 The only semi-stabilizing interaction by which it can maintain its composition at the molecular level outside a living cell and in the absence of ribose is the consequently "weak and nonspecific" bond it forms with uracil (or thymine), which would never hold up, much less "function in any specific recognition scheme under the chaotic conditions of a prebiotic soup."30 Hence, assuming it existed at all before life began, there's just no way adenine could have amassed significant concentrations in an aqueous environment. And that's the worst of all possible news for the RNA-world hypothesis, as adenine is the one indispensable nucleobase in replication.


The problem with stepping down to a simpler replicating polymer31 with a less impressive arsenal of informational and catalytic properties is that it would become even harder for the abiogenic process to step back up to the level of a replicating polymer that would be competent enough to fabricate a cellular organism. But in the absence of any conceivable means of synthesizing biologically useful concentrations of ribose outside the membranous insulation of living cells, none of this amounts to a hill of beans, for there is no replication to be had by any system beyond the acellular stage without it.

While biological amino acids and nucleic compounds are left-handed, biological sugars are right-handed. Hence, the production of the latter also require sophisticated regulatory systems: no regulatory systems, including powerful enzymes, no biologically useful concentrations of ribose. Regardless, all sugars are highly unstable. They readily decompose or react with other chemicals.32 In order for it to retain the integrity of its composition, ribose requires the sequestered environments of living cells provided by cellular membranes, which are composed of proteins. Nucleotides require ribose: no ribose, no nucleotides. And if there's no nucleotides, there's no proteins. Yep. It's another one of those interdependent circles of irreducible complexity.

The idea of the RNA-world model is that primitive compounds consisting of nucleic material built increasingly greater extensions of themselves and thereby increased the volume of their information. At some point they attained the capacity to replicate themselves via recombinant mutations and then synthesized independent peptide chains (proteins). The new peptides were the means by which they boosted their catalytic firepower and range, and the material out of which they constructed primitive cellular membranes. After that, the more complex compounds (including nucleotides?) were constructed. Complex structures and reproductive systems were built. Life. DNA formed. Even more complex structures and reproductive systems were built. Life more abundantly. That's the synopsis, and there are variations of the yarn, which include suppositions of transitory, membranous structures that are composed of inorganic materials.

But wait a minute. What sugar was used to afford the formation of the nucleic-compound chains in the first place?

Well, it wasn't ribose, and no less than two of the known biological nucleobases, including the most vital of them all, were missing. As for amino acids, the nucleic compounds had only six in racemic mixtures to work with initially. And since there were no regulatory systems around at that stage to separate the left-handed wheat from the right-handed chaff, or vice versa with respect to ribose. . . .

Abiogenists have demonstrated that a small and incomplete regiment of ingredients were plausibly available—maybe, perhaps, what if. They have a knowledge about the basic types of compounds and structures that are minimally required. They have some vague notions about alternate routes of chemical interaction and structural substitutions. What they don't have in mind or at their command with any specificity in terms of real-world eventualities and established empirical data is the substance of the indispensable, gap-filling accessories that would make the fruition of their dreams possible.

For example, in answer to the question posed in the above, there simply is no coherent explanation about how mere nucleobases bypassed the intermediate form of nucleic compounds (nucleoside) in the absence of ribose and grew into self-replicating chains of nucleic material as if they were nucleotides. All the hype about the various sugars that are synthesized in laboratories or found in space debris is baby talk. When its molecular precursors are thermally energized in the presence of enzymes, only trace amounts of utterly worthless, racemic mixtures of ribose are produced.33 The major products are other sugars, also composed of racemic mixtures, which combine with nucleic acids only to form compounds that prevent the polymerization of RNA.34 Only in living cells do we find the structures that segregate metabolic sugars from nucleic sugars, and the regulatory mechanisms that prevent the production of racemic mixtures.

In other words, the self-ordering chemical properties of nature are monomeric dead ends. Nature can form some amino acids and nucleobases; it can form some biotic phosphates as well as some abiotic sugars and fatty acids in calcified forms.  Where does it ever form proteins or nucleosides (let alone nucleotides) outside living cells? And beyond living cells and the in vitro experiments conducted under laboratory conditions, where does nature ever polymerize and replicate complex compounds?

*Crickets chirping*

A nucleoside is formed when a ribose sugar is added to a nitrogenous base (nucleobase). While the purine nucleosides adenosine and guanosine can be synthesized by adding a ribose, the reaction will not occur in water. But, of course, this reaction is performed in laboratories by biochemists using ribose sugars derived from extant organisms. In the prebiotic world, the reaction would not have occurred in dry environments either. But even if ribose had been available to the primordial soup, the phosphate in biological systems is an ester of phosphoric acid, not a salt. It could have only maintained its composition in deep waters, where ribose can't go, beyond the reach of ultraviolet light. The pyrimidine nucleosides uridine, cytidine and thymidine require both ribose and phosphate to form. Ribose sugars will not bond to the pyrimidine bases without phosphate. Hence, the maturation of the pyrimidines proceeds from nucleobase to nucleotide in one step.

But even if nature could manage the synthesis of nucleotides, their mixtures would invariably be racemic. Worthless. They'd have to be purified, and after that, concentrated and activated before the polymerization phase could begin. And a template? (Whose got the friggin' template?) Well, polymerization would just have to start without one. Besides, the forces of molecular chemistry would supposedly sort things out: even if pyrimidines won't polymerize without a template and even if the significance of organic information doesn't reside in the nucleobase "letters" or even in the condon "words", but in their sequence. All of these things and more would have to occur—from molecule to compound, from aggregation to polymerization, from replication to recombination, from transmutation to realization—in a contaminate-invested environment incessantly pushing the process in the wrong direction.35

You don't know what you're talking about, do you, Bob?

I suspect that in your mind you have somehow muddled the difference between abiogenesis and biochemical engineering. Yes. In the laboratory, researchers have designed enzymatic RNA compounds that can affect a ligative production system that in its turn can fabricate self-replicating strands of RNA.36 The initial stage of the procedure is front-loaded, not by the mechanism of natural selection, but by the preordained manipulations of a sentient being. The second stage of the procedure arguably entails the mechanism of natural selection, but only on the basis of recombinant mutation, not transmutation. Also, researchers have designed a ribozyme with catalytic properties that consists of only five nucleotides!37 In vitro, they can even synthesis a series of oligonucleotides and assemble them into the entire genome of one bacterium, transplant it into the cytoplasm of another, and then step back and watch the transformed bacterium reproduce in accordance with the hereditary dictates of the synthetic genome.38

But these researchers did not devise these wonders from scratch, Bob. The basic chemical components were harvested from living cells; these were not the partially formed pieces of junk from any primordial soup. Indeed, the procedures themselves were based on the fundamentals of preexisting biotechnology, informed by the known processes of biological systems. And all of these things were achieved with a preordained outcome in mind, within pristine and insulated solutions simulating the environment and facilities of living cells.

In other words, they worked with preexistent paradigms and tools and materials suspended in midair, as it were, relative to origins. They can pound on the roof all they want, that's not going to resolve the clearly insurmountable problems of prebiotic logistics and polymerization for those notions that are predicated on the processes of accumulative chemistry. Whether they be strictly natural occurrences or not, the only reasonable explanation for the origins of the building's foundation and walls entails some kind of instantaneously synchronous event or another, at some point in time or another, as several abiogenists themselves have acknowledged in exasperation. So in spite of the hype—the political speak of research funding—none of this is new in the sense that it would lead to anything more than recycled adumbrations about the events that produced the extant biochemistry on which these researcher's endeavors are unequivocally based.

Are they going to back peddle to the very same monomeric dead ends that have already been thoroughly illustrated by others? Of course not. The problem of origins is not merely one of chemistry; it entails unobservable historical events, as the late Stanley Miller himself recognized:
Miller acknowledged that scientists may never know precisely where and when life emerged. "We're trying to discuss a historical event, which is very different from the usual kind of science, and so criteria and methods are very different," he remarked. —John Horgan, The End of Science: Facing the Limits of Knowledge in the Twilight of the Scientific Age, Broadway Books (1997, pg. 139)

Very different, indeed, for Darwinian naturalism rests on a scientifically unsustainable argument that is ultimately theological in nature, one that assumes without proof that the entire history of terrestrial life is an unbroken chain of natural cause-and-effect. Make no mistake about it, Darwinism is a religious system of thought, one that is diametrically opposed to the ontology of the great scientists that preceded Darwin and his cohorts, which include some Christians, who have inexplicably embraced a theory that spurns the testimony of God regarding the exact nature of the origin and succession of life, and, consequently, the essence of original sin. The matter is predominantly historical, and God was the only One there.


Copernicus, Bacon, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Boyle, Pasteur—all understood that the teachings of reveled religion and the inferences of scientific observation were not mutually exclusive, but mutually affirming sources of information about the same indivisible reality. They rightly held that divinity constituted the only guarantee that the rational forms and logical categories of the human mind were reliably synchronized with the apparent substances and mechanics of empirical phenomena.  Indeed, what are we to make of the Darwinist's absolute affirmation of a construct that by it's very nature would confine its constituents' experience of reality to the processes of a random and cognition-altering speciation?
By what process of "angelization" could men have become cognizant of their random origins and spectators of all time and existence, as though from some superior and independent vantage-point? Do the Neo-Darwinians, like so many other system-builders, desert the system of which they are the authors, claiming special cognitive principles that cannot be justified within the system? —Richard Spilsbury, Providence Lost: A Critique of Darwinism, Oxford University Press (1974, pg. 116)


In the face of the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of nucleotide formation, the current trend in gene-first research is to concentrate less on the concerns of a generalized atmospheric or oceanographic primordial soup, and more on the facilities of isolated spheres of polymerization involving a synthesis with the metabolism-first model. As the details are beyond the scope of this writing, I'll leave them to those who wish to investigate the matter for themselves. For now, I offer only the following brief synopsis and opinion.

We have the Deep-sea vent theory, the Clay theory, the Autocatalysis model, the Deep-hot biosphere model, the Radioactive-beach hypothesis, the Ultraviolet- and temperature-assisted replication model, the Amphiphile-bubble hypothesis, the Iron-sulfur world theory, the Thermosynthesis world, and more. . . .39

I have examined them all exhaustively.

The various thermohydraulic models are hopelessly vexed by the statistically immense problems of dilution and hydrolysis; the various mineral- or clay-catalytic models are hopelessly vexed by the problem of chemical calcification; and the rest would expose their products to undirected solar energy or oxidation. Regardless, the processes of every single one of them would either generate non-transitional redundancies or employ forces that would destroy the materials their processes created. Hence, taken individually or together, while they purportedly explain everything, they explain nothing.

But even if by some fantastic contingency the processes of these various schemes managed to leap over their rainbows without breaking anything, even if the sum of the materials produced added up to the whole of life's molecular precursors, and even if by some fantastic feat of coincidence these precursors were all gathered together in overflowing concentrations of each: they would ultimately amount to nothing more significant than an organic compilation of goop.

Combine all the concentrated mixtures you want. Sky's the limit.

Goop.

Go with whatever conditions you want; feel free to variously alternate them at any time during the process.

Goop.

Go with whatever sources of energy you want; feel free to variously alternate them at any time during the process.

Goop.

Take all the time in the cosmos and multiply it millions of times.

Goop.

For there are no contingencies under which life could self-assemble.

Each nucleotide base pair has an equal affinity for the backbone of every other; their sequence is not due to any chemically preordained bonding affinity. That is to say, the assembly of organic molecules is not due to their chemical properties; it is due to an extraneous source of information. Indeed, it is this factor in the hands of the Potter that best accounts for the tenacity and great variety of terrestrial life, not the shiftless mechanism of natural selection. And the countless cells on the planet, with their thousands of pieces of interdependent machinery, are no less marvelous with regard to their durability and complexity, from that of the lowliest protozoan to the millions of mammalian creatures. Clearly, the entire enterprise of life entails a series of instantaneously synchronous resolutions according to a fabulously intricate and comprehensively preordained blueprint.

But Bob has one more thing to say, something about chemistry, physics and the fact of sentient life. He mentions "faith" and complains about its inappropriateness on the science forums of Yahoo! Answers. To be sure, it's tedious gibberish laced with ironic contradictions that fly right over his head, but it's as close to sublimity as the atheist's stale and shriveled heart can get.

I cleaned it up a bit, corrected the annoying violations of grammatical tense in order to present it here and not gratuitously torture the minds of my readers. Deciphering the mangled thought processes of the atheist is already painful enough:
Life can arise without any intelligence being behind it. If chemistry and physics [had] not . . . allowed life to [arise] from them, we wouldn't be here to witness it. Thinking we had to be here is what leads to beliefs without evidence. And that is faith, which has no place here.

“Thinking we had to be here is what leads to beliefs without evidence”?

Indeed. So that would mean that Bob's statement regarding the inevitability of life arising out of the self-ordering properties of insensible molecules—that is, his demonstrably erroneous belief that "[t]he RNA world has already shown easily how the early cells arose"—is a faith-based belief "without evidence". We're here; therefore, mindless molecules and brute forces did it. That's all he's really saying.

As for Judeo-Christianity, it does not hold—as Bob apparently believes by the faith of literary ignorance—that "we had to be here". On the contrary, the Bible emphatically teaches that the cosmos and everything contained in it is wholly contingent upon God. It's not the other way around, as if the implications of the universal, objectively apprehensible idea of God and the recommendations of empirical evidence were merely the byproducts of human culture. The whole point of creation ex nihilo is that we would not and could not be here unless it were ordained by a preexistent intelligence. Hence, according to scripture, incontrovertibly backed by empirical evidence, there's nothing inevitable about the existence of any terrestrial life form, let alone one that is sentient.

In other words, in spite of his oft repeated observation that in the scheme of things we are an insignificant speck—as if that were some earth-shattering profundity eluding lesser mortals—it is the atheist who insists that the inherent chemical properties of existents make the appearance of life on Earth an inevitability, not the Christian! And it is the Christian, not the atheist, who observes that while the Earth's axial attitude and its position within the solar system are amazingly conducive to the formulation of life-sustaining conditions, they also entail a manifold set of conditions that are prohibitively hostile to the spontaneous eruption of life from lifeless matter.

Atheists are notoriously bad philosophers.

Modernity's faddish, widespread belief in chemical evolution is nothing more than a rehash of  spontaneous generation. Yesterday's version entailed many events occurring everywhere all the time; today's version entails a one-time-only event occurring in the unobserved long, long ago. The former has been falsified, and the latter defies explanation.

So where's the science?

What the sane among us still recognize to be the only rational alternative, secular humanists perceive to be a nuisance, the relic of a so-called benighted tribalism, something that portends a degree of speculation that resides beyond the faculties of a supposedly enlightened modernity, though the latter be the stuff of an ancient tradition akin to alchemy.  Ever since Darwin, the everyday-walk-in-the-park skepticism that is so vital to real science has been overshadowed by the arbitrary dogma that science must stick to a purely materialist narrative, even if that narrative tells an incomplete or incoherent story.
______________________________
1Roughly, proteins are infrastructural, catalytic, metabolic and storage mechanisms. Nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) store, transmit and decode genetic information; they also perform structural, regulatory, cellular signaling, metabolic and co-catalytic tasks.

Amino acids are composed of an amine group (a nitrogen atom with a lone pair, i.e., a pair of valence electrons), a carboxylic acid group (a carbonyl and a hydroxyl), and a side chain. Their elemental constituents are carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sometimes sulfur.

A nucleic acid forms when two or more nucleotides combine by way of the covalent bond between the sugar of one nucleotide and the phosphate group of the next; hence, nucleic acids are simply macromolecules (polymers) composed of at least two or more nucleotides (monomers).

A nucleotide is composed of a nucleoside, a five-carbon molecule of a ribose sugar and at least one of three phosphate groups. A nucleoside is composed of a nucleobase bound to a five-carbon molecule of ribose sugar. The five nucleosides of living organisms are adenosine, guanosine, uridine, cytidine and thymidine. The five corresponding nucleobases are adenine, guanine, uracil, cytosine and thymine. Hence, nucleotides form when a nucleobase is combined with a ribose sugar and a phosphate group. The sugar of ribonucleotides is ribose; the sugar of deoxyribonucleotides is deoxyribose.

The "skeletal" structure of adenine and guanine is purine (a pyrimidine ring fused to an imidazole ring), thus, the purine bases. The "skeletal" structure of cytosine, thymine and uracil is pyrimidine (a heterocyclic ring with two nitrogen atoms at positions 1 and 3), thus, the pyrimidine bases. Nucleotides can contain either a purine or a pyrimidine base. In both DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) and RNA (ribonucleic acid) the purine bases, of course, are adenine and guanine; however, the pyrimidine bases in DNA are cytosine and thymine, while the pyrimidines in RNA are cytosine and uracil. Hence, RNA uses uracil in place of thymine.

Adenine always pairs with thymine (or uracil in RNA) by way of two hydrogen bonds, and guanine always pairs with cytosine by way of three hydrogen bonds.   —Michael David Rawlings



There are a total of 22 standard, proteinogenic amino acids. Twenty of them constitute the fundamental building blocks of life, and these are fed into specialized cellular machines (ribosomes) that read (or decipher) encoded bites of information divulged by messenger RNA (mRNA) and then "translate" that information into proteins. The encodements are derived from an organism's genes, which are composed of variously numbered and arranged codons, with each codon consisting of three adjacent nucleotides. In other words, an mRNA molecule is a copy of a gene's sequentially arranged codons and is used by a ribosome as a template for the correct sequence of amino acids in a particular protein. Hence, ribosomes translate codons, one after the other, and, with the assistance of transfer RNA (tRNA), appropriate the corresponding amino acids, bind them together in the specified order and produce peptide chains (proteins).

An organism's genes are contained in its DNA (or in its RNA for many types of viruses, which, technically, are not organisms, at least not in any sense with respect to their dormant state). An organism's genome is the entirety of its hereditary information, consisting of both the genetic and the structural sequences of its combined DNA. The genome is the master blueprint of an organism's essential design and dynamics.

The assembly of 20 of the 22 standard amino acids are encoded for by the universal genetic code, i.e., the code that is found in all living organisms. Hence, these 20 are used by all living organisms for the creation and maintenance of their essential design and dynamics. The other two standard amino acids—selenocysteine and pyrrolysine—are also assembled proteinogenically, i.e., inside ribosomes via alterations of certain canonical amino acids during the initial stage of protein synthesis. These alterations, encoded by UGA and UAG codons, are incorporated (or inserted) by dissimilar mechanisms involving discrete or highly specialized mRNA and tRNA molecules. In other words, these co-transitional mechanisms and, therefore, these amino acids are not found in all living organisms. Selenocysteine is found in all eukaryotic organisms and in some prokaryotic organisms. Pyrrolysine is found in prokaryotic organisms only (i.e., in the enzymes of some methanogenic archaea and bacteria). Only one organism—an archaea species—is known to have both.

Some routinely confound the distinction between standard and nonstandard amino acids. The distinction between them is based on the phases of protein synthesis, not on the processes/mechanisms associated with the synthesis of amino acids. Accordingly, the standard amino acids are the initial components of the translational phase of protein development, and the transitional phase occurs inside an organism's ribosomes. The nonstandard amino acids are the specialized components of the modification phase of protein development, and the post-transitional, modification phase involves certain metabolic processes that occur outside the organism's ribosomes. Hence, nonstandard amino acids are those that have been chemically modified after they have been incorporated into proteins, as well as those that are found in organisms, but not found in proteins.  In addition to these, there exist an unknown number of abiotic amino acids.

The twenty canonical amino acids are alanine, arginine, asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine, glutamic acid, glutamine, glycine, histidine, isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, proline, serine, threonine, tryptophan, tyrosine and valine. These are divided into the essentials and nonessentials: (1) the essentials are those that an organism cannot synthesize inside its own body for itself, so they must be ingested, acquired from an organism's diet; (2) the rest are said to be nonessential because they are already produced by the organism's body. For humans, the essentials are those contained in the proteins that build muscle and organs. Human adults can synthesis 10 of the 20 canonicals via replication or intermediate metabolic processes. The rest are readily acquired from animal flesh.  —Michael David Rawlings






Daniel P. Glavin and Jason P Dworkin (Jan. 23, 2009). "Enrichment of the amino acid L-isovaline by aqueous alteration on CI and CM meteorite parent bodies" (ABSTRACT). PNAS: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Goddard Space Flight Center.

7α-dialkyl amino acids (which include α-methyl amino acids) are relatively insignificant to protein biochemistry. They have two carbon atoms attached to the pivotal α-carbon atom of the amine and carboxylic acid groups, instead of at least one hydrogen atom.   —Michael David Rawlings











14Aqueous ammonium cyanide is a liquid compound derived from a heated mixture of hydrogen cyanide and ammonia hydroxide (ammonia-water): HCN + NH3(aq) gives NH4CN(aq).  —Michael David Rawlings


The reducing atmospheric mixtures used to produce nucleic bases variously consist of methane, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia, cyanogen, carbon monoxide and ethane.  —Michael David Rawlings





18César Menor-Salván Dr., Dra. Marta Ruiz-Bermejo, Marcelo I. Guzmán Dr., Susana Osuna-Esteban, Sabino Veintemillas-Verdaguer Dr. (Mar. 13, 2009). "Synthesis of Pyrimidines and Triazines in Ice: Implications for the Prebiotic Chemistry of Nucleobases" (ABSTRACT). Centro de Astrobiología, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial, Carretera Torrejón-Ajalvir, Torrejón de Ardoz, Madrid, Spain. Wiley Online Library: Chemistry, A European Journal (Vol. 15; Issue 17; pgs. 4411-4418; April 20, 2009).


20Xanthine is a non-genetic nucleobase that is mostly found in plants and in the tissues, organs and body fluids of human beings and animals.  —Michael David Rawlings








27 and 28Matthew Levy and Stanley L. Miller (July 7, 1998). "The stability of the RNA bases: Implications for the origin of life" (ABSTRACT, FULL PAPER). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Vol. 95, No. 14, pgs. 7933-7938).

29Matthew Levy and Stanley L. Miller. "The stability of the RNA bases: Implications for the origin of life".


31The most interesting of the postulated pre-RNA polymers are pyranosly RNA  (pRNA).  —Michael David Rawlings










39The various bait-and-switch schemes of panspermia and exogenesis merely push the problem of origins off to other planets or solar systems.  —Michael David Rawlings
______________________________
Additional Suggested Reading:





56 comments:

Havok said...

Hi Michael.
I've finally gotten around to posting my comments here :-)

My comments from here

- Initial Comment:
One thing that strikes me about the post (and perhaps I missed something), and seems to be common among theistic apologists, seeming belief that a lack of a natural explanation immediately confers respectability on a a single very vaguely defined supernatural explanation.

The subject of the post, abiogenesis, is indeed proving difficult scientifically, but without a detailed, very specific supernatural hypothesis, we simply cannot say what is more likely. "Theism and Explanation" by Dawes goes into a lot of detail into what a successful supernatural explanation might look like, what sort of details i should contain, etc, and none of the presently offered supernatural explanations I'm aware of come close to being successful in this sense.

Also, a problem I have with supernatural hypothesis is the lack of any rigorous methodology in which to investigate them, which seems to me to leave them on very shaky ground.


Havok said...

Response to a comment from you:
Michael: Well, the only “supernatural explanation” that works for me is that of the Bible, and it’s not what most non-believers think.
What is that explanation Michael?

Michael: the Bible calls for a rational-empirical construct of epistemology.
I've not seen such a thing advocated within the bible. For the most part, it seems to me an epistemology based upon the sincerity of witnesses and whether or not claims lead to "good" is what is advocated (at least by the Pauline Epistles).
I'd be interested to know how you came to believe this?

Michael: It's not static and it’s quite specific, not vague.
Now I'm really interested in this explanation of yours.

Michael: The closer that science moves inward toward the origin of life and, therefore, the less it enlists more predictive mathematical formulations, the more uncertain things get in my opinion.
I'm not sure what you mean by moving away from predictive mathematical formulations. As far as I understand abiogenesis research they continue to rely upon quite rigorous models.
Perhaps I'm not thinking of the right areas of research?

Michael: What I have in mind in the introductory paragraph, which I'm sure you surmised, is the assumption that natural history is in its entirety an unbroken chain of natural cause and effect.
Well, that assumption would be provisional and subject to revision (or at least, it should be).

Michael: But I don’t see why the first is necessarily a problem, for the real issue has to do with whether one premises scientific inquiry on (1) an ontological naturalism or (2) a mechanistic naturalism.
I don't think many scientists actually premise their research on ontological naturalism. Many of them are theists of one sort or another, and so it doesn't make sense to say that they are ontological naturalists. Many others, from my understanding, don't really think about or care about ontology - they simply conduct their intersubjective empirical inquiry.

Michael: However, if the premise is wrong—Dear Lord!—everything else but the methodology is wrong.
How do we avoid starting with the wrong premises?
I'd think we need to be flexible with our premises, let the data guide us, and settle (provisionally) on the more parsimonious, and simpler explanation.

Michael: I’m not familiar with Dawes’ work. I suspect from what you say that he might have something akin to what I have in mind.
It's not a cheap book, but you can read a small amount of the book through Amazon. I'll rustle up some quotes from Dawes which clarify his position.

Michael: Thanks for the tip and your thoughtful comment!
No problem - thanks for your response. If you find it easier we could continue on your blog?
I didn't comment there because I read about your post here, and I felt I should give your post a longer treatment if I commented on it directly :-)

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Let's take one thing at a time.

"Michael: the Bible calls for a rational-empirical construct of epistemology."

Havok: "I've not seen such a thing advocated within the bible."

Actually, you have. It's just not expressed in those exact terms, of course, because those terms arose during the Enlightenment. But the issue itself is as old as time. Judeo-Christianity rejects the rational-empirical dichotomy as a false alternative. Recall, according to the Bible, reality consists of two levels of being and revelation is two-fold: the general (creation) and the special (scripture).

So far, so good?

Havok said...

Michael: Judeo-Christianity rejects the rational-empirical dichotomy as a false alternative. Recall, according to the Bible, reality consists of two levels of being and revelation is two-fold: the general (creation) and the special (scripture).
I know that Christians today often divide revelation into special and general, but I'm not convinced that the texts of the bible make that distinction.

Michael: So far, so good?
Please continue as if I completely agreed above, and we'll see where we end up :-)

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

That's good. I had to switch to contempt mode with the Objectivists. I now know the reason why Objectivism is treated with such contempt by the general corpus of the philosophical and theological community. It's tenets rarely get beyond the obvious, i.e., past the first principles or problems of apprehension, and when they do, they run in the circles of tautology or down the path of unwitting self-negation. Let us just say that its black-and-white think does not lend itself to linear logic or the practical necessities of extrapolation. Rand was a an idiot savant, and here acolytes are stark raving mad.

First, forget about classic Idealism and Cartesian rationalism. The Bible’s view on the nature of innate ideas and knowledge leans much heavier than these toward the empirical side of the rational-empirical equation, but with a twist that may surprise you.

I’m going to save myself some time by copying and pasting bits and pieces I’ve written elsewhere. . . .

While Rand's rejection of the rationalist-empiricist dichotomy as a false alternative is commonsensical, things get a bit confusing when she simultaneously argues that a priori knowledge is impossible. For if the senses provide the material of all knowledge, by what means does cognition provide the understanding of this material? It's one thing to argue that the actualities of existence are what they are regardless of what one might think about them. It's another thing to argue that these actualities may be assimilated by consciousness without an a priori structure of rational knowledge.

It's clear that due to the commonality of cerebral physiology a number of human experiences and behaviors are universal. The innate faculties of conceptual and mathematical logic, and language formation constitute the a priori structure of knowledge. In other words, a number of a priori concepts are necessarily justified: the principle of identity, the principle of contradiction, the principle of excluded middle, the principle of causality, the concepts of quality and quantity, and so on. . . .

[Don’t get hung up on this; wait ’till I get to the specifics.]

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[Continued . . .]

We are innately designed from conception to interface with the dimensional rigors of the space-time continuum, and the Bible holds that there exists a temporal, physiological network (or aspect) of consciousness that interfaces with the essential, imperishable entity of consciousness (or soul). They develop together. This takes time and experience, and, therefore most of the knowledge, if not all, we acquire as we move along the path of potentiality toward the actuality of accountable maturation is derived from the sensory perception of and our interior calculi about the objects of the space-time continuum.

Indeed, the development of the physiological and biochemical network of the temporal aspect of consciousness would go nowhere without sensory data. We are essentially born as blank slates in terms of informational knowledge. However, we are pre-wired for language, and conceptual and mathematical logic, the latter being the “nuts and bolts” of our commonly shared cerebral physiology that intuitively recognizes the contrasts and similarities of things, and, accordingly, processes and assimilates the qualities and quantities of things: the essence of identity, contradiction and exclusion. These innate abilities to recognize syntax and distinctions, in my opinion, is a form of knowledge, albeit, structural, rather than informational, in nature.

But for the Bible, it’s not relevant either way.

In this regard, the Bible affirms three important things: (1) everything one needs in terms of being is contained in the sexual union and the simultaneous impartation of the soul; (2) some kind of physiological network of consciousness interfaces with the soul and requires time to develop; (3) the innately preordained, reflections of accountable maturation, the bloom of the sexual union, eventually arrive.

Today, we know about the genetic code and the central nervous system. As for the physiological network of consciousness, it makes sense to me to think of it as essentially the sum of the physiological structures and biochemical interactions inherent to the central nervous system. Time and experience and growth and development lead to the ability to reflect on the innately preordained intellectual concerns of theology, morality and aesthetics, including the apprehension of the objectively universal imperatives of origin and identity, which are strictly rational considerations of ultimate reality that are not immediately assessable to sensory perception. They are the higher abstractions inherent to consciousness and extrapolated from existence. In the meantime, the angels of the innocents “do always behold the face of [the] Father which is in heaven.”

END

That certainly is pleanty for now.

Discussion? Questions?

Havok said...

I haven't commented on most of the above, because it doesn't seem relevant to me.

My initial comment indicated the lack of a detailed hypothesis on your part, which I would be interested in seeing.
I also commented on the apparent lack of a solid epistemological and methodological foundation for any supernatural claims of the sort you're making here. I still don't know what your position is here either.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Well, this would be the foundation for the epistemological and methodological claims for a supernatural explanation of origin. The specifics would follow. But I guess what you might mean by "here" goes to the article itself. The nature of my criticism in that case is against the presupposition of a metaphysical (or ontological) naturalism, particularly in the face of what the science itself clearly points to in my opinion.

In that case, from the above, we may see that a hierarchy of true knowledge is built on the rational apprehensions of axiomatic propositions and the empirical impressions of sensory perception as processed, assimilated and integrated in obedience to the innate logical imperatives of the comprehensive expression of identity and the operational aspects of cognition. But to get this right, we also need the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit and the operations manual of revelatory knowledge (Bible) so that we don’t stray outside the constraints of logic into error especially with regard to the object of science. And the first thing we learn about science from the Bible is that the proper metaphysical presupposition for science is a mechanistic naturalism that holds to God’s primacy over creation, not an ontological naturalism which arrogantly thinks to render God impotent.

What we have here is a rational-empirical construct of epistemological realism that emphasis linear logic, premised on the assurance that the rational forms and logical categories of the human mind (the calculi of human consciousness) reliably correspond with the structural and mechanical phenomena of the temporal world beyond. And what is the essence of this assurance: the existence of God Himself.


As for a detailed hypothesis, I would begin with the assertion of biogenesis. From the article:

Biogenesis pertains to the Pasteurian theory that omne vivum ex vivo, i.e., all life is from life. The idea that life may arise from non-living matter goes by the name of spontaneous generation or, in accordance with contemporary theory, abiogenesis. —Michel David Rawlings

The Pasteurian law of biology stands to this day, and it seems quite clear to me that the more we learn from abiogenic research, the firmer it’s stance becomes. The evidence points to a general theory of intelligent design: namely, the history of biology from origin onward is not an evolutionary process, i.e., a chemical derivation of natural cause to the multiplicity of a common ancestry; rather, as I write elsewhere:

The evolutionist assumes that the paleontological record necessarily entails an unbroken chain of natural cause-and-effect speciation. There’s nothing necessary about it. And given the complexity of life and the fact that the paleontological record overwhelming reflects, not a gradual appearance of an ever-increasingly more abundant and varied collection of species, but a series of abrupt appearances and extinctions of fully formed biological systems, it's not unreasonable to argue that we are looking at a series of distinct, creative events orchestrated by an intelligent being. The record would look the same. —Michel David Rawlings

“Abiogenesis: The Unholy Grail of Atheism” makes the case against abiogenesis (or chemical evolution), and the argument for God’s existence coupled with the presupposition of a mechanistic naturalism for science makes the case for intelligent design.

Hopefully, this is more helpful.

Havok said...

Thanks Michael. We're getting someplace, but still have a long road to travel.
you'v not provided how you derived your epistemology from the bible, nor why we should accept what the bible says on epistemology, when it gets the science wrong (eg. you say Genesis sets up this epistemology, but it doesn't correspond to what we know about the world from science, so why accept it?)
You've also not provided any reason, independent of what your trying to explain, to think that your god exists.
You've also not provided any detail regarding your hypotheses of origins and creative intervention which we can use to assess it, and compare it with the non-supernatural hypotheses you summarily reject.

Also, on the science side, your understanding of evolution seems to be lacking, since you seem to think that evolution would present as absolute gradualism with incomplete forms in the fossil record - something that is not actually a prediction of evolutionary theory as far as I'm aware.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Well, let's address this first:

Havok: "Also, on the science side, your understanding of evolution seems to be lacking, since you seem to think that evolution would present as absolute gradualism with incomplete forms in the fossil record - something that is not actually a prediction of evolutionary theory as far as I'm aware."

Um, no. Evolutionary theory would necessarily hold to an array of transitory forms within the paradigm of a common ancestry, not to an array of incomplete forms of species missing indispensable parts of viability. These would not be the same thing.

When I write that “a series of abrupt appearances and extinctions of fully formed biological systems,” I’m merely referring to the appearances or disappearances of species that are distinctly unique from all others that came before or after. In other words, the paleontological record does not show a vast array of transitory forms in any way, shape or form, and those little arrows we see scrawled between species or the branchings of species on graphic evolutionary illustrations are not found in the fossil record. They‘re just arrows on graphic illustrations. In truth, they are the gratuitous extrapolations of a presupposed metaphysical naturalism.

Havok: “You've also not provided any detail regarding your hypotheses of origins and creative intervention which we can use to assess it, and compare it with the non-supernatural hypotheses you summarily reject.”

Summarily reject? Perhaps you need some time to read the rather detailed case made against abiogenesis in the above. The Pasteurian law of biology stands. As for evolutionary theory proper, I used to be an evolutionist. I know the “science” very well.

Now as for Judeo-Christianity’s epistemology, I’ve put down a rather detailed foundation. I would think that you would have some specific questions at this point, not merely general questions, as to what certain terms mean and how they are derived from the Bible.

Havok: “. . . you say Genesis sets up this epistemology, but it doesn't correspond to what we know about the world from science, so why accept it?”

You need to be more specific here, Havok, whether you think so or not. Apparently, the anaphor “it” in the second clause refers to the account of origins in Genesis (the antecedent). In what ways (Be specific.) does Genesis not “correspond to what we know about the world from science” in your opinion? I know that this question may strike you as strange given that the Creation Hymn in Genesis is a work of poetry of a theological nature, not a scientific treatise, but I need to know what you think you understand about the nature and the actualities of its assertions.

As for the existence of God, that goes to “the rational apprehensions of axiomatic propositions”, and you already know the drill on that. But let us put that aside for the moment so you can read the article and respond to what I’ve shared in this post.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Reposted by Bluemoon for Havok. Sorry, Havok, I meant to delete mine so I could repost it as I left out a response to one of your comments and just hit the wrong post. . . .
_________________________

Michael: In other words, the paleontological record does not show a vast array of transitory forms in any way, shape or form, and those little arrows we see scrawled between species or the branchings of species on graphic evolutionary illustrations are not found in the fossil record.

It seems that paleontologists (and biologists in generaly) do not agree with you here Michael.

Michael: In truth, they are the gratuitous extrapolations of a presupposed metaphysical naturalism.Michael: Perhaps you need some time to read the rather detailed case made against abiogenesis in the above.

I read it. Without alternative hypothesis to compare to, we cannot say whether theistic genesis or abiogenesis is more likely.

Michael: Now as for Judeo-Christianity’s epistemology, I’ve put down a rather detailed foundation.

If you have, I don't see it. You've made some claims, but have not shown how you came to them.

Michael: In what ways (Be specific.) does Genesis not “correspond to what we know about the world from science” in your opinion.

The order of creation does not match, for a start. It doesn't correspond to modern cosmology, nor biology.

Michael: I know that this question may strike you as strange given that the Creation Hymn in Genesis is a work of poetry of a theological nature, not a scientific treatise, but I need to know what you think you understand about the nature and the actualities of its assertions.

Why don't you indicate how the 2 somewhat contradictory genesis creation accounts actually match up to the empirical data from various branches of science when a plain reading of the texts indicates otherwise?

Michael: As for the existence of God, that goes to “the rational apprehensions of axiomatic propositions”, and you already know the drill on that.

I'm not sure I do know the drill. I know what you've claimed, but I don't see why that is justified.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Havok: “It seems that paleontologists (and biologists in generally) do not agree with you here Michael.”

Wrong. Everybody knows about the dearth of the so-called transitory forms in the fossil record. Punctuation equilibrium is just one of the many hypotheses that attempt to account for it. Are you sure you know the topic well? I do. I used to be an evolutionist. I know the science, Havok.


Havok: “I read it. Without alternative hypothesis to compare to, we cannot say whether theistic genesis or abiogenesis is more likely.”

What? I think it’s pretty clear that abiogenesis is highly unlikely, and I just gave you the alternative hypothesis. The Pasteurian law of biology stands. Life arises from life. Intelligent design premised on a mechanistic naturalism is the alternative hypothesis. Biblical theists are not impressed by the materialist’s concerns. The evidence against abiogenesis is staggering, and the more we learn, the worse the case for it gets. And with regard to evolutionary theory proper, we’re not impressed by the assertion that whatever survives survives premised on a metaphysical naturalism.


Havok: “The order of creation does not match, for a start. It doesn't correspond to modern cosmology, nor biology.”

How so? The Genesis narrative doesn’t necessarily begin at the point of this universe’s beginning. In fact, the more detailed account begins well after. Big Bang beginning. QV beginning. None of this is a problem for the Bible. You’re assuming things that aren’t there. As for the order of life? The Bible holds that sea life appeared first, followed by land life. That’s precisely the order the fossil record shows. So I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re confused about what the Bible does and does not teach. I see this over and over again with atheists who assume that the hermeneutics of pre-scientific fundamentalism holds. Only the unlearned, though sincere, hold to that view. There is nothing in the Bible that supports it. It’s an illusion.


Havok: “I'm not sure I do know the drill. I know what you've claimed, but I don't see why that is justified.”

What precisely is not justified?


Havok: “Why don't you indicate how the 2 somewhat contradictory genesis creation accounts actually match up to the empirical data from various branches of science when a plain reading of the texts indicates otherwise?”

Again, I know the science. I’m telling you, there are no contradictions unless one presupposes a metaphysical naturalism with regard to natural history. Evolution is a bone of contention to be sure. Unlike some Christians, I do not believe it can be reconciled with the Bible (due to doctrinal concerns not related to science or the Bible‘s empirical claims), and I see no scientific justification for the Christian to concede the matter to metaphysical naturalism. And as for the order of things, the chronological succession of life, there are no problems. There are no cosmological problems. You’re the one alleging contradiction. So what precisely is your understanding about what the Bible teaches? It would appear you’re stuck on pre-scientific hermeneutics. There’re not valid. We know that today. There are things we know about what the Bible teaches, about what the authors were actually thinking, mostly from archeology, that we didn’t know, say, 200 years ago. Let’s see if you have things right.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Btw, Havok, why does my comment board not open up to a full page? What have I got set wrong? This little box is annoying.

Havok said...

Michael: Everybody knows about the dearth of the so-called transitory forms in the fossil record.
Really? It seems to depend on what you mean by "transitional form". Since evolutionary theory doesn't dictate anything is a "complete" or "final" form, every species (and therefore every fossil) is transitional, between the organisms it inhereited from, and the organisms which will inherit from it. I'm sure you already know this.

Michael: Are you sure you know the topic well? I do. I used to be an evolutionist. I know the science, Havok.
It should be me asking you that question Michael, since you're the one who disagrees with virtually every qualified expert on the planet.

Michael: I think it’s pretty clear that abiogenesis is highly unlikely, and I just gave you the alternative hypothesis.
I saw no detailed hypothesis from which we could work out some sort of probability (and certainly not a working out of that probability).
Since that's lacking, how do you know your alternative is more likely?

Michael: The Pasteurian law of biology stands. Life arises from life.
Modern life arises from modern life. Pasteur's work didn't address the topic of lifes origins, but rather whether modern life arose spontaneously. Surely you already know that also?

Michael: Intelligent design premised on a mechanistic naturalism is the alternative hypothesis.
So what is the probability that your putative designer exists, and did things in exactly the faashion we find it?
When, what and how did this designer do anything?
How would you know if you were wrong?

Michael: Biblical theists are not impressed by the materialist’s concerns.
And scientists of all persuasions are unimpressed with ID advocates assertions.

Michael: The evidence against abiogenesis is staggering, and the more we learn, the worse the case for it gets.
Really?
And yet we learn more and more, and the possibilities increase. If things were as hopeless as you imply, why is the scientific research so active, and why isn't there a large amount of (positive) research coming out of the ID community (or really, any research)?

Michael: And with regard to evolutionary theory proper, we’re not impressed by the assertion that whatever survives survives premised on a metaphysical naturalism.
Natural selection, which seems to be what you're alluding to here, isn't premised on metaphysical naturalism, but rather upon empirical observations.

Havok said...

Michael: The Genesis narrative doesn’t necessarily begin at the point of this universe’s beginning.
There are many that disagree, but I think you're probably right - that Genesis assumes the preexistence of matter/the universe.

Michael: None of this is a problem for the Bible. You’re assuming things that aren’t there.
This is far from correct, it seems.
In Genesis, the earth is created prior to the sun and stars, and the moon, contrary to the empirical evidence.
In Genesis, the heavens are separated from the earth was a solid barrier (the "raqiya`").
I'm sure you're familiar with this.

Michael: As for the order of life? The Bible holds that sea life appeared first, followed by land life. That’s precisely the order the fossil record shows.
Incorrect. Genesis has plant life being created prior to the creation of the sun and moon, and sea life and flying life created first, followed by land animals and "creeping" things.
That's possible, given that plant life relies upon the sun (not to mention fruiting tree's are fairly recent), and the order of animals is not what we find from the fossil record.

Michael: You’re confused about what the Bible does and does not teach.
Perhaps, but I don't think you've demonstrated it.

Michael: I see this over and over again with atheists who assume that the hermeneutics of pre-scientific fundamentalism holds.
Not at all. I think the bible should be read in context, being the context of pre-scientific civilisation. I don't think it's reasonable to stretch your interpretation to breaking point in order to save the texts of the bible.

Michael: What precisely is not justified?
You haven't shown that your claimed "rational apprehansion of axiomatic propositions" is reasonable. Perhaps I missed that part?

Michael: Again, I know the science. I’m telling you, there are no contradictions unless one presupposes a metaphysical naturalism with regard to natural history.
I know the science as well, and I'm telling you that unless one presupposes some form of Christianity, there are serious problems.

Michael: ...I see no scientific justification for the Christian to concede the matter to metaphysical naturalism.
Yet there is no scientific reason to suppose anything other than naturalism, and a scientific/empirical epistemology lends support to metaphysical naturalism, and undermines supernaturalism.

Michael: So what precisely is your understanding about what the Bible teaches?
I've given some problems with the Genesis account, as well as contradictory orders of creation in Genesis 1 & 2. The problem as I see it, is not that you cant rationalise these problems away. The problem is that you have to - there is no apparent reason why these things are inaccurate. Even if we read them as purely poetic, they're still inaccurate.

Michael, could you show how you derive your epistemology from the bible?

Havok said...

Michael: Btw, Havok, why does my comment board not open up to a full page? What have I got set wrong? This little box is annoying.
There should be an option in your blog settings, under "Posts & Comments", called "Comment Location". Experiment with the different options to find one you like.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Havok: Really? It seems to depend on what you mean by "transitional form". Since evolutionary theory doesn't dictate anything is a "complete" or "final" form, every species (and therefore every fossil) is transitional, between the organisms it inhereited from, and the organisms which will inherit from it. I'm sure you already know this.

Yes. Really. Darwin expected to find fossils that showed visible transitional forms in the sense of species that appeared to be one species becoming another: for example, viable species that were part sea animal and part land animal. Neo-Darwinism simply asserts that all species are in transition and what survives survives. As for the dearth of such transitional forms in the Darwinian sense . . . all species are in transition and what survives survives. That’s pretty much what it amounts to.


Havok: It should be me asking you that question Michael, since you're the one who disagrees with virtually every qualified expert on the planet.

Every qualified expert presupposing a metaphysical naturalism, Havok?


Havok: “Modern life arises from modern life. Pasteur's work didn't address the topic of lifes origins, but rather whether modern life arose spontaneously. Surely you already know that also?”

Actually, the Pasteurian law of biology falsified spontaneous generation, the notion that certain life forms repeatedly arose from non-living material. The law holds that all life arises from life; i.e., life cannot and does not arise from non-living material. Abiogenetic researchers reconstitute the Pasteurian law of biology in the terms you assert; however, if abiogenesis were to ever be affirmed, which, in truth, cannot and will not ever happen, the Pasteurian law of biology would in fact be partially falsified accordingly. Pasteur’s law does not leave the door open as you imply; post-Darwinian theorists do.


Havok: “So what is the probability that your putative designer exists, and did things in exactly the faashion we find it? When, what and how did this designer do anything? How would you know if you were wrong?”

How does one falsify metaphysical naturalism or the assertion that all life forms are in transition and what survives survives?


Havok: “And scientists of all persuasions are unimpressed with ID advocates assertions.”

Well, that’s obviously not true, given the scientists of the various disciplines who reject evolutionary theory in favor of intelligent design.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

Michael: The evidence against abiogenesis is staggering, and the more we learn, the worse the case for it gets.

Havok: “Really? And yet we learn more and more, and the possibilities increase. If things were as hopeless as you imply, why is the scientific research so active, and why isn't there a large amount of (positive) research coming out of the ID community (or really, any research)?”

Yes. Really. The more we learn, the more improbable it looks. Indeed, it certainly cannot be affirmed or falsified. I don’t think you understand the nature of the matter at all. Abiogenetic research is not the science of demonstration, it’s the science of imaginative hypothesizing. The real work along this line is bioengineering on the back of extant biological material which involves intelligent design, namely, us. Are you sure you read my article?


Havok: “Natural selection, which seems to be what you're alluding to here, isn't premised on metaphysical naturalism, but rather upon empirical observations.”

Natural selection supposedly affecting speciation at the macro-evolutionary level is most certainly premised on a metaphysical naturalism. That cannot be observed.


Havok: “There are many that disagree, but I think you're probably right - that Genesis assumes the preexistence of matter/the universe.”

Well, there’s universal agreement on creation ex nihilo among orthodoxy, i.e., that the universe did not always exist according to the Bible, but it’s not clear that the narrative in Genesis begins before or after the moment of its creation.


Havok: “This is far from correct, it seems. In Genesis, the earth is created prior to the sun and stars, and the moon, contrary to the empirical evidence. In Genesis, the heavens are separated from the earth was a solid barrier (the "raqiya`"). I'm sure you're familiar with this.”

Yes. I’m familiar with the raqiya`. Of course, the ancient near-eastern, geocentric cosmology of the Hebrew’s was all wrong. I’ve written on the matter many times.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

_____________________________

Excerpt:

Obviously, beyond the fundamentals of origin and purpose, the ideas regarding our current state of knowledge are not contained in the Bible.

While the Bible does make a number of empirical claims, these are few. Among other things, God created man to govern and tend to the affairs of the Earth and its contents; He leaves the details of scientific investigation and discovery to us.

The ancients had no inkling as to the vastness of the universe in which they lived. Certainly what they could divine boggled their minds even within the constraints of their primitive technology. Their technology, of course, at the time of the writing of the Torah, was little more than the unaided apparatus of sensory perception with regard to astronomical concerns.

Imagine what they would have made of the vacuum of quantum mechanics, particles at the subatomic level randomly jumping in and out of existence. The Big Bang. The exertions of dark matter and dark energy on the perceptible fabric and forces and contents of the cosmos. Empty space, a substance of sorts after all with a force of its own. What the?! We’re scratching our heads. The more we know, the weirder things get. The more we learn, the less we know. Each new answer raises a multitude of new questions

Meanwhile, back in the geocentric realm of the ancients, the world was flat, literally supported by pillars anchored in “the foundations of the Earth” below. Sheol was a physical place residing at some depth beneath their feet. Below the foundations of the Earth, resided the waters of the great deep. The heavens were enclosed within a spherical dome, equipped with massive “flood gates” that periodically swung open to let in the rain, that is, the waters of the firmament stored above the heavens in the space between the spherical enclosure of the heavens and a spherical outer shell, the apparatus of the raqiya`. These waters were continuously replenished by the waters of the great deep below. The Moon, the stars, the Sun, the solar system, the entire cosmos!—all of these things were thought to reside within the inner enclosure above the Earth, with the entire spherical structure suspended by the hand of God whose Heaven of heavens lay beyond.

See link: http://io9.com/5586362/a-scientific-diagram-of-the-ancient-hebrew-cosmos

Now read Genesis with that description and the picture depicting the ancient Hebrews cosmology in mind and watch it jump out at you, literally just so. This is precisely how they imagined things to be. Though wrong, their cosmology was rather ingenious, really, given the level of their calculi and means of discernment.
_____________________________

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

The ancients believed that that the Earth was flat, that “the foundations of the Earth” were put down before anything else, then the “heavens” as enclosed by the larger, spherical superstructure. And as you say, God later added the sun, the moon, the stars and the other planets. . . .

So? Their cosmology was all wrong. It’s not a problem. Genesis is a theological treatise concerned with the issues of origin, sovereignty, purpose and the like, not a scientific treatise. The lesson here is that God leaves scientific discovery and development to us and reveals Himself to us accordingly, i.e., in the terms of our current understanding of things at any given point in time. Beyond that, theologically speaking, the Earth is the foundation of man’s designated domain within the cosmos over which he was given rule. We’re well beyond the geocentric cosmology of the ancients today, and God is speaking to us all the time via His creation.. He speaks to us via the classic laws of logic and the operational aspects of identity’s comprehensive expression, which includes the axioms of mathematics. All these things point to His existence. The more we learn, the more we know about His creation and, subsequently, about His nature.

The cosmos is our playground. God gets a kick out of our play and discovery. Think: “Look what I found today, Papa.”


Havok: “Not at all. I think the bible should be read in context, being the context of pre-scientific civilisation. I don't think it's reasonable to stretch your interpretation to breaking point in order to save the texts of the bible.”

Excellent! Then you’ve got the right idea, and God expects us to responsibly understand His special revelation in these very terms and to adjust our hermeneutics accordingly. The problem I have with abiogenesis and evolutionary theory proper, however, is that they are premised on a metaphysical naturalism. In my opinion and that of most orthodox believers, neither the latter nor its subsequent application to natural history in terms of origin and speciation can be reconciled to the biblical view on account of certain theological and doctrinal concerns, and we see no scientific or scriptural necessity to concede the Bible’s mechanistic naturalism. The God of the Bible is a personal deity directly and continuously interacting with His creation in truth and in love.


Havok: “You haven't shown that your claimed "rational apprehansion of axiomatic propositions" is reasonable. Perhaps I missed that part?”

The rational axioms of being are many and complex, and include the fundamentals of mathematics’ calculi and geometric forms. They are ontological in nature. But the immediate axioms are logical arguments that go to the problem of origin and the nature of the construct of divinity itself. The idea of God objectively exists in and of itself: it imposes itself on our minds in terms of origin without our willing that it do so. The irreducible primary of being is the inanimateness-consciousness dichotomy. The possibility of God’s existence cannot be rationally denied, and the idea of God, unlike the material realm of being, is not subject to the challenge of infinite regression. The atheist necessarily proves the cogency of these assertions every time he denies there be any substance behind the construct.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

Havok: “I know the science as well, and I'm telling you that unless one presupposes some form of Christianity, there are serious problems.”

But what we’re ultimately talking about here is the presupposition of a mechanistic naturalism as opposed to a metaphysical naturalism. Biblical Christianity holds to the former. If the former is correct there’s no problem for Christianity in regard to the empirical data, and evolutionary theory would be an illusion of the materialist’s own making.


Havok: “Yet there is no scientific reason to suppose anything other than naturalism, and a scientific/empirical epistemology lends support to metaphysical naturalism, and undermines supernaturalism.

Agree. The material realm of being operates according to a certain set of physical laws governing causality. I’m fine with that. But this notion of yours that “a scientific/empirical epistemology lends support to metaphysical naturalism, and undermines supernaturalism” is nonsense. Indeed, it’s a pseudo-scientific assertion. Essentially, you’re implying that science can affirm or falsify the transcendent! It can do no such thing. Science cannot and does not deal with the transcendent. So the limits of sensory perception and the limits of scientific inquiry constitute ipso fact the limits of existence? If you’re not talking about empirical data, you’re not talking about science at all. You’re talking religion, making theological claims, albeit, to the negative. And with regard to the ultimate origin of terrestrial life, scientific ID, which does not presuppose a transcendent cause of intelligence, has, by far, the better of the argument next to abiogenesis in light of the research.


Havok: “The problem as I see it, is not that you cant rationalise these problems away. The problem is that you have to - there is no apparent reason why these things are inaccurate. Even if we read them as purely poetic, they're still inaccurate.”

There’s nothing to rationalize. Genesis simply is not a scientific treatise, and it was wrongfully, though understandably, misinterpreted as such to some extent in the pre-scientific past. God leaves science to us and expects us to apply a sound model of hermeneutics to His special revelation accordingly, to systematically adjust our hermeneutics relative to our ever-evolving understanding of the actualities of the material realm of being over time. It’s not a problem for me. I understand what God expects, and the epistemology of the Bible is a rational-empirical construct predicated on a mechanistic naturalism. It’s not a static epistemology.


Havok: “Michael, could you show how you derive your epistemology from the bible?”

Yes, I can. But it’s complex and begins with the first principles of being. I attempted to explain it to some Objectivists, and we never got past first base because the first principles utterly destroy Objectivism’s harebrained non-sequiturs. LOL! They were having none of that!

For a good laugh, check out my recent post, which summarizes my experience with them: http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2013/01/objectivist-cult-member-says.html

Havok said...

Yes. Really. Darwin expected...
I don't think we should put much emphasis on what Darwin did or didn't expect, but rather on what we should expect were the modern theory fo evolution at work.

Neo-Darwinism simply asserts that all species are in transition and what survives survives.
You seem to be taking a strange view of what is meant by "species" in biology.

As for the dearth of such transitional forms in the Darwinian sense . . . all species are in transition and what survives survives. That’s pretty much what it amounts to.
All species show features more similar to their ancestors than to their descendants (and vice versa). I'm sure you're aware of the growing number of fossils which are considered good examples of transitional forms, such as Archaeopteryx, Tiktaalik Rosea, and even the fossil record showing the evolution of whales, horses and humans.

Every qualified expert presupposing a metaphysical naturalism, Havok?
No, since there are large number of biologists who are Christians, who accept the tenants of evolutionary theory (Ken Miller and Francis Collins are probably 2 of the more famous examples of this).
No "presupponsing a metaphysical naturalism" is required.

The law holds that all life arises from life; i.e., life cannot and does not arise from non-living material.
Yet "life", as far as we can tell, is simply very complex chemistry.

if abiogenesis were to ever be affirmed, which, in truth, cannot and will not ever happen,
What evidence do you have to support this confident assertion, Michael?

How does one falsify metaphysical naturalism or the assertion that all life forms are in transition and what survives survives?
Well, for me metaphysical naturalism is a tentative conclusion arrived at after considering the evidence, and so simply adducing sufficient positive evidence for non-naturalism will falsify it as far as I'm concerned.
All life forms are in transition seems to be an observation of the world, rather than an assertion, since descent with modification is rather plainly true.
I don't see the relevance of your tautology.

I also don't see where you've presented any probability calculation for theistic genesis occuring - which is what I explicitely requested.

Well, that’s obviously not true, given the scientists of the various disciplines who reject evolutionary theory in favor of intelligent design.
Notice that I didn't say ALL scientists, but scientists of ALL pursuasions.
So we have Christian scientists who reject ID arguments (Ken Miller and Francis Collins, for example), Muslims scientists, Hindu scientists, and on and on. And they and atheist scientists don't appear to reject ID arguments because they hold to metaphysical naturalism, but rather on the merits of the arguments themselves, which are found to be wanting with boring regularity.

The more we learn, the more improbable it looks.
So as we learn more and more of the possible steps life might have taken from simple chemistry to complex cells, with a number of promising possibilities in various areas, abiogenesis somehow becomes less probable?
I think you have your probabilities mixed up, Michael.

Indeed, it certainly cannot be affirmed or falsified.
It can indeed be falsified. In fact many hypothesis relating to abiogenesis have been falsified, as I'm sure you're aware.
As for affirming it, while you're right that we cannot yet say "Here is the explanation for abiogenesis", we can say "We have many pieces worked out to varying degrees, research continues apace, no issues which throw the entire research program into doubt have surfaced, and there is no real, current, alternative on offer", or shortened down "We don't know how life began, but it's a decent bet that some form of abiogenesis is the explanation".

Havok said...

Natural selection supposedly affecting speciation at the macro-evolutionary level is most certainly premised on a metaphysical naturalism. That cannot be observed.
Rubbish - scientists have observed speciation events.
You seem to treat the term "species" as it is used in biology, as if it had the same meaning when used in metaphysics (particularly Thomism) - as if "species" cannot change for some reason.
I can see no other reason for your assertion that it cannot be observed.

Of course, the ancient near-eastern, geocentric cosmology of the Hebrew’s was all wrong. I’ve written on the matter many times.
Great. So why didn't your god ensure that what was written was actually accurate? As I mentioned, the innacuracies don't seem to add anything to the "poetic" nature of the texts. Why wouldn't god ensure that what was written was accurate, especially since god would also know all of the problems that would results from such innacuracies.

While the Bible does make a number of empirical claims, these are few. Among other things, God created man to govern and tend to the affairs of the Earth and its contents;
They only seem to be few when you take the obviously false statements out of the running (like the flatness of the earth, geocentrism, etc, etc, etc).

He leaves the details of scientific investigation and discovery to us.
You still haven't indicated why this is the case, Michael - simply asserted that it is, since god has not in fact helped us with scientific investigation and discovery.

The ancients had no inkling as to the vastness of the universe in which they lived.
And yet god knew, and could have informed them in the same manner that you claim god informed them he created man.

Meanwhile, back in the geocentric realm of the ancients, the world was flat, literally supported by pillars anchored in “the foundations of the Earth” below. Sheol was a physical place residing at some depth beneath their feet. Below the foundations of the Earth, resided the waters of the great deep. The heavens were enclosed within a spherical dome, equipped with massive “flood gates” that periodically swung open to let in the rain, that is, the waters of the firmament stored above the heavens in the space between the spherical enclosure of the heavens and a spherical outer shell, the apparatus of the raqiya`. These waters were continuously replenished by the waters of the great deep below. The Moon, the stars, the Sun, the solar system, the entire cosmos!—all of these things were thought to reside within the inner enclosure above the Earth, with the entire spherical structure suspended by the hand of God whose Heaven of heavens lay beyond.
And your god, if it existed, would have known the truth, and been able to impart accurate knowledge to the ancients, to record in the bible. And surely, since your god is supposed to hate lies and untruths, he would have corrected these errors (and being omnipotent and omniscient, he couldn't fail to know how to correct these false beliefs, and actually correct them).

Though wrong, their cosmology was rather ingenious, really, given the level of their calculi and means of discernment.
Their cosmology was also shared with their neighbouring peoples.

Genesis is a theological treatise concerned with the issues of origin, sovereignty, purpose and the like, not a scientific treatise.
So WHY did your god put in scientific mistakes, Michael?

The lesson here is that God leaves scientific discovery and development to us and reveals Himself to us accordingly, i.e., in the terms of our current understanding of things at any given point in time.
Or, the lesson is that these texts were written by humans without the benefit of divine knowledge, since they contain errors, errors that reflect the state of human knowledge at the time of their writing.

Havok said...

He speaks to us via the classic laws of logic
The laws of logic are the results of humans, and something that it took quite some doing to conceive of.
I don't see any reason to think that god "speaks to us" through them.

and the operational aspects of identity’s comprehensive expression,
I have no idea what you mean by this.

which includes the axioms of mathematics.
Much like the laws of logic, these are human ideas.

All these things point to His existence.
Or the existence of a multitude of gods - after all, math and logic find their origins outside of Abrahamic monotheism.

The more we learn, the more we know about His creation and, subsequently, about His nature.
Which presupposes your god exists, and created everything.
Weren't you complaining about a presupposition of materialism earlier? Here you appear to be commiting the same crime.

The cosmos is our playground. God gets a kick out of our play and discovery. Think: “Look what I found today, Papa.”
Why would god get a kick out of it?
Why would god even have emotions (the existence of which seem to have very good biological reasons, but no "supernatural" reasons)?

The problem I have with abiogenesis and evolutionary theory proper, however, is that they are premised on a metaphysical naturalism.
Which is false - abiogenesis and the theory of evolution are not premised upon metaphysical naturalism, but rather on the fact that a commitment to methodological naturalism has proved spectaularly successful, with no real competitors for providing justified knowledge of the world.
And your problem with this appears to be premised on your own commitment to metaphysical supernaturalism.

In my opinion and that of most orthodox believers, neither the latter nor its subsequent application to natural history in terms of origin and speciation can be reconciled to the biblical view on account of certain theological and doctrinal concerns,
I agree with you here.
Though we should note that Catholicism accepts the theory of evolution (at least, a teleological variant thereof), and is the largest sect of Christianity (though I'm sure many Catholics don't follow the "party line").

and we see no scientific or scriptural necessity to concede the Bible’s mechanistic naturalism.
I agree there is no scriptural necessaity spelled out, but the scientific reasons appear to be many - not least your observation in the previous sentence that evolutionary theory cannot be reconciled with the biblical view.

The idea of God objectively exists in and of itself: it imposes itself on our minds in terms of origin without our willing that it do so.
I find ontological arguments, which this seems to be a species of, rather unconvincing.
There are no successful ontological arguments, to my knowledge.

The possibility of God’s existence cannot be rationally denied,
you'll need to describe what you mean by this, as I find the god concept itself to be incoherent - I'm not aware of any definitions of the god concept which are consistent and which describe the traditional god of Christian theism.

The atheist necessarily proves the cogency of these assertions every time he denies there be any substance behind the construct.
You'll need to describe this in more detail too.

Biblical Christianity holds to the former.
I don't think you've shown this to be the case.

If the former is correct there’s no problem for Christianity in regard to the empirical data, and evolutionary theory would be an illusion of the materialist’s own making.
Except of course that evolutionary theory doesn't presuppose metaphysical naturalism, but rather a methodological naturalism, and that you have admitted that evolutionary theory is not reconcilable with biblical Christianity. There are serious problems for Christianity as you conceive of it.

Havok said...

But this notion of yours that “a scientific/empirical epistemology lends support to metaphysical naturalism, and undermines supernaturalism” is nonsense.
I don't see why.
The methods of science (and more broadly, intersubjective empirical inquiry) lead us to justified (though provisional) knowledge of the world. The results of this inquiry don't provide support for the existence of the "supernatural", and so called "other ways of knowing" tend not to enjoy the same methodological and epistemological support that science does. Therefore, since the "other ways of knowing" don't tend to result in justified knowledge about reality, and science lends no evidence for the supernatural, it seems I am justified in tentatively accepting metaphysical naturalism.

Essentially, you’re implying that science can affirm or falsify the transcendent! It can do no such thing.
It depends on what you mean by "the transcendant".

Science cannot and does not deal with the transcendent.
Only if the transcendant has no empirical impact. If that is the case, we can act as if the transcendant doesn't exist, since for all intents and purposes, it does not.

So the limits of sensory perception and the limits of scientific inquiry constitute ipso fact the limits of existence?
No, but since we have no reasonable, justified knowledge that there is anything outside the limits of what science has shown us, we're not warranted in believing there is.
Where science stops, we can say "I don't know" not "god is there".

If you’re not talking about empirical data, you’re not talking about science at all.
That is true, but only because intersubjective empiricism is the basis of the methods of science.
If some other methodology for acquiring justified knowledge was discovered, then science could (and would) be modified to encompass this.
Such a thing is yet to be put forward.

You’re talking religion, making theological claims, albeit, to the negative.
Not at all. I'm making philosophical claims based upon empirical evidence and methodological concerns related to what we are and are not justified in saying we know.

And with regard to the ultimate origin of terrestrial life, scientific ID, which does not presuppose a transcendent cause of intelligence, has, by far, the better of the argument next to abiogenesis in light of the research.
Except that scientific ID, which refuses to put forward any attributes of the designer, and relies upon gaps in our knowledge, rather than positive arguments, does not in fact have the better of the argument.
Without postulating some attributes of the designer, we can't say whether or not such a being or beings is capable of originating life as we find it on earth, would desire to originate life as we find it on earth, and was actually around when life arose on earth.
ID arguments are failures.

Genesis simply is not a scientific treatise, and it was wrongfully, though understandably, misinterpreted as such to some extent in the pre-scientific past.
God would have know the correct empirical claims to make.
God could have communicated them to the author(s) of the texts.
God would have known the confusion, and suffering that such false beliefs would lead to.
God would have wanted to avoid this confusion and suffering.
God could have prevented this confusions and suffering.
Therefore could would have prevented this confusion and suffering.
Even something as simple as making it clear TO ALL that these were not scientific treatises would have been better, and therefore we could expect it to be the least your god would have done.

Havok said...

God leaves science to us and expects us to apply a sound model of hermeneutics to His special revelation accordingly, to systematically adjust our hermeneutics relative to our ever-evolving understanding of the actualities of the material realm of being over time.
Except when it comes to evolution, because for some reason you cannot budge on that (though you will on cosmology, geology, and various other fields).
Why is that, do you think?

I understand what God expects,
At least you think you do. I'm sure those who, according to you, misinterpreted the creation story in genesis (and continue to do so) claim they also understand what god expects.

and the epistemology of the Bible is a rational-empirical construct predicated on a mechanistic naturalism.
I've asked you to point out how you arrived at this claim. Could you point me to any actual blog posts or comments you've done? Or point to some passages from the bible which support this claim?

But it’s complex and begins with the first principles of being
I expect i'll disagree from the outset, due to this, but I would still be interested in the derivation.

I attempted to explain it to some Objectivists
I remember you mentioning it.
I'm not an objectivist, and my main aim is to figure out whether I'm mistaken and why (and whether others are mistaken, and why) rather than proving myself to be correct (though at times I'm sure my comments come accross as being more about proving than understanding) :-)

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Havok: “I'm sure you're aware of the growing number of fossils which are considered good examples of transitional forms, such as Archaeopteryx, Tiktaalik Rosea, and even the fossil record showing the evolution of whales, horses and humans.”

Sure. But ultimately I’m aware of the assumption of a common ancestry premised on an unfalsifiable metaphysical naturalism.


Havok: “No, since there are large number of biologists who are Christians, who accept the tenants of evolutionary theory (Ken Miller and Francis Collins are probably 2 of the more famous examples of this). No ‘presupposing a metaphysical naturalism’ is required.”

Well, sure. But that’s rare, and in any event they do assume a common ancestry, which in my opinion is not compatible with the Bible. Also, I find Miller to be an especially intolerant and obnoxious person who does not respect the fundamental rights of others given his habitual involvement in court cases aimed at blocking school choice as he simultaneously works to impose his religious beliefs in the public schools in the name of science. Also, I’m not deceived by Miller’s argument against Behe’s hackneyed rendition of irreducible complexity (See link: http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2011/02/the-debate-with-labsci-continues.html).


Havok: “What evidence do you have to support this confident assertion, Michael?”

Havok, abiogenesis in and of itself simply resides beyond the realm of falsification. That is precisely what the research has shown us. Are you sure you read the article and understand the circumstances? How does one affirm a natural process of chance variation when one cannot replicate, let alone fathom, the actual conditions or extract intelligence from the process of evaluation?


Havok: “All life forms are in transition seems to be an observation of the world, rather than an assertion, since descent with modification is rather plainly true.”

My response to Labsci on this point:

“You imagine a biological history consisting of an unbroken chain of natural cause-and-effect, mostly driven by the mechanism of natural selection, and believe that this scenario provides the “best explanation of the differences and similarities between all living things on Earth.” I see a biological history consisting of a series of creative events and episodic extinctions, and believe that this scenario provides the best explanation for the abundance and vast variety of life, and expect that all forms of terrestrial life would necessarily share certain genetic and morphological characteristics, including the inherent ability to affect adaptive variations within. The evidence would look the same either way.”

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

Havok: “So as we learn more and more of the possible steps life might have taken from simple chemistry to complex cells, with a number of promising possibilities in various areas, abiogenesis somehow becomes less probable? I think you have your probabilities mixed up, Michael.”

Actually, what the research shows is that we don’t have the first clue as to how life could have possibly begun without preexistent information, let alone attain to complex cells from simple chemistry. I see no promising areas. We are at an impasse.


Havok: “It can indeed be falsified. In fact many hypothesis relating to abiogenesis have been falsified, as I'm sure you're aware.”

Indeed, certain hypotheses related to abiogenesis have been falsified. I discuss those. But the falsification of abiogenesis in and of itself is a monster of a problem. We can’t get beyond the barrier of information.


Havok: “Rubbish - scientists have observed speciation events.”

At the micro-level within species, not at the macro-level of specie transmutation! What are you talking about?


Havok: “So WHY did your god put in scientific mistakes, Michael?”

But God didn’t “put in scientific mistakes,” Havok, and neither did the inspired writers really. That is to say, they worked with the knowledge they had at the time, and, by the way, much of the ancients’ astronomy was right. They weren’t wrong about everything. Since that time much of what they believed to be true about the cosmos, mind you, prior to the development of the scientific method, has been systematically falsified. That’s how things work; that’s the way of things relative to the acquisition of empirical knowledge ordained by God. You’re making a teleological argument with regard to God’s sovereignty. God revealed Himself to man as Creator and sovereign Lord while allowing that his children express these theological truths in the empirical terms of their t understanding. So what? God leaves scientific discovery and technological development to us. I don’t have a problem with that.


Havok: “The laws of logic are the results of humans, and something that it took quite some doing to conceive of. I don't see any reason to think that god ‘speaks to us’ through them.”

That’s not true. The three classic laws of logic as well as the operational aspects of identity’s comprehensive expression, for example, are universally self-evident and have been known since time immemorial. They were formally defined in terms of the subject-object dichotomy during the classic era by Aristotle and others. That’s all. The operational aspects of human expression relative to the classic laws of logical identity are the univocal (the literal), the analogical (comparison/contrast) and the equivocal (metaphor).


Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

Havok: “Much like the laws of logic, these [mathematical axioms] are human ideas.”

Uh . . . that’s not true either. The fundamentals of the counting number line and, subsequently, the basic operations of mathematics (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication), and geometric forms are universally self-evident.


Havok: “Which presupposes your god exists, and created everything. Weren't you complaining about a presupposition of materialism earlier? Here you appear to be commiting the same crime.” [sic]

Not at all. Objectively speaking, that is, for the sake of argument, I’m aware of my biases and those of others. I find that others seldom are. That’s the point. Beyond that, I know the God of the Bible exists. He revealed Himself to me. So I’m not merely guessing here.


Havok: “Why would god get a kick out of it? Why would god even have emotions (the existence of which seem to have very good biological reasons, but no "supernatural" reasons)?”

The God of the Bible is a personal God. Of course He has emotions. Why wouldn’t He get a kick out of His children’s play and discovery? You might as well ask why the sky is blue.


Havok: “Which is false - abiogenesis and the theory of evolution are not premised upon metaphysical naturalism, but rather on the fact that a commitment to methodological naturalism has proved spectaularly successful, with no real competitors for providing justified knowledge of the world.” [sic]

It is not false. You’re talking about two different things here.


Havlok: “And your problem with this appears to be premised on your own commitment to metaphysical supernaturalism.”

I hold to a mechanistic naturalism.


Havlok: “I find ontological arguments, which this seems to be a species of, rather unconvincing. “There are no successful ontological arguments, to my knowledge.”

Wrong. You’re talking about ontological arguments as if they were proofs of God’s existence. That’s not what they are at all. They’re proofs that the Idea of God in and of itself is derived from reason, not faith. They also prove that the idea of God, unlike the material assumptions of metaphysical naturalism, is not subject to infinite regression. Finally, the mathematical ontologicals demonstrate that we are surrounded by rational and material infinities. They are universally self-evident and cannot be countered.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

I write: “The atheist necessarily proves the cogency of these assertions every time he denies there be any substance behind the construct.”

Havok: “You'll need to describe this in more detail too.”

No I don’t. I already have, on this blog and yours. It’s self evident. Come on, Havok. You’re being obtuse.


I write: “But what we’re ultimately talking about here is the presupposition of a mechanistic naturalism as opposed to a metaphysical naturalism. Biblical Christianity holds to the former.”

Havok: “I don't think you've shown this to be the case.”

Uh . . . what? Well, quite obviously the Bible holds that the transcendent realm of being exists and that the material realm of being is normally governed by a specific set of physical laws except in those rare occasions when God demonstrates His sovereignty over His Creation and suspends them in the performance of miracles. That would be a mechanistic naturalism as opposed to a metaphysical naturalism.



Havok: “Except of course that evolutionary theory doesn't presuppose metaphysical naturalism, but rather a methodological naturalism, and that you have admitted that evolutionary theory is not reconcilable with biblical Christianity. There are serious problems for Christianity as you conceive of it.

That doesn’t follow. You’re talking about evolutionary theists now. If the evolutionist is assuming a common ancestry he most certainly is not presupposing the mechanistic/methodological naturalism of the Bible in my opinion, and the materialist most certainly is not presupposing anything but a metaphysical naturalism. And given that neither is subject to falsification, I don’t see any problem for Christianity. I hold that the mechanistic naturalism of the Bible is correct in regard to the biological history and the alternate views are dead wrong. There’s nothing inherently inconsistent with that stance.


Havok: “I don’t see why.”

You don’t see why scientific/empirical epistemology and metaphysical naturalism are not synonymous? You don’t see why science cannot and does not affirm or falsify assertions about non-empirical phenomena? You don’t see why science cannot even affirm or falsify either a metaphysical or a mechanistic naturalism? You don’t understand why one is not talking about science unless one is talking about empirical data? And as far as this notion of yours that empirical data doesn’t support the conclusion that God must be, that’s your opinion. I believe the data does support that conclusion, though, of course, not in any formal sense in terms of affirmation or falsification. You’re merely asserting your atheism as if your personal evaluation of the data were absolute. I see God’s fingerprints all over the universe and certainly do not arbitrarily limit the extent of existence to the limits of sensory perception or those of scientific inquiry. You cannot offer any rational justification for the limits of existence based on those limitations. That’s pseudo-scientific claptrap.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

[continued . . .]

Havok: “Only if the transcendant has no empirical impact. If that is the case, we can act as if the transcendant doesn't exist, since for all intents and purposes, it does not.”

No. You can act as if that’s the case. I don’t have to. I know metaphysical naturalism is a crock.



Havok: “No, but since we have no reasonable, justified knowledge that there is anything outside the limits of what science has shown us, we're not warranted in believing there is. Where science stops, we can say ‘I don't know’ not ‘god is there’.”

You’re contradicting yourself. “[W]e're not warranted in believing there is”?! And why would that be? “Where science stops”?! The limits of sensory perception and scientific inquiry! Make up your mind. Science cannot affirm or falsify the existence of spiritual transcendence. Period! There is no therefore unless you’re wandering off the path into the realm of pseudo-science, in truth, theology pretending to be science. There is absolutely no legitimate basis whatsoever for holding that science is the end of knowledge, let alone the end of justified knowledge. We have plenty of justified knowledge of both a rational and empirical complexion to conclude that God exists. You’re not talking about the limits of knowledge at all. You’re merely going on about the limits that you personally place on knowledge for yourself.



Havok: “Except when it comes to evolution, because for some reason you cannot budge on that (though you will on cosmology, geology, and various other fields).
Why is that, do you think?”


You’re imagining nonexistent equivalents. And you know the reason I don’t budge. Evolutionary theory is simply not compatible with the Bible’s doctrinal/theological concerns as they relate to natural history. The rest is just you simply rejecting the notion that the biblical God leaves science to us, albeit, against the backdrop of His biblical guidelines. In my opinion, evolutionary theory is nonsensical, unfalsifiable and non-biblical.

Geology and other fields?

END

Havok said...

But ultimately I’m aware of the assumption of a common ancestry premised on an unfalsifiable metaphysical naturalism.
The hypothesis of common ancestry is supported by empirical evidence. There is no premise of "unfalsifiable metaphysical naturalism" required.

Well, sure. But that’s rare, and in any event they do assume a common ancestry, which in my opinion is not compatible with the Bible.
No, it's not rare. A lot of the biologists in the USA, for instance, would be Christians, since a lot of the population is generally. These biologists, on the whole, accept evolution as it is scientifically understood.

given his habitual involvement in court cases aimed at blocking school choice
I assume you're referring to the Dover trial, and similar things.
If so, this is a ridiculous point to make. Science classes should teach science. ID is yet to be shown to be a fruitful scientific hypothesis, and therefore should not be taught in science classes.
It's really as simple as that, and it is something that ID advocates don't seem to understand.

as he simultaneously works to impose his religious beliefs in the public schools in the name of science.
Which religious beliefs is he trying to impose on public schools?

Havok, abiogenesis in and of itself simply resides beyond the realm of falsification.
While possibly incorrect in theory, this is not correct in practice.
In theory, ANY empirical claim is beyond falsification IF you're willing to make sufficient ad-hoc assumptions.
For example, YEC claims are perfectly adaptable to the evidence, all contrary evidence is explained away using ad-hoc assumptions (radioactive decay was faster in the past, Satan buried the fossils, God created the starlight in transit, and on and on).
Specific hypothesis under the umbrella of abiogenesis HAVE been falsified. Other hypothesis are currently being researched, or have shown to be useful (Szostak's work seems to be an example of the latter).

How does one affirm a natural process of chance variation when one cannot replicate, let alone fathom, the actual conditions or extract intelligence from the process of evaluation?
For a start, we can work out what the behaviour of organic chemicals will be under various circumstances. Those circumstances can be informed by evidence gathered from geology, indicating conditions of various environments on earth billions of years ago.
Your comment about extracting intelligence seems either mistaken or irrelevant.

I see a biological history consisting of a series of creative events and episodic extinctions, and believe that this scenario provides the best explanation for the abundance and vast variety of life, and expect that all forms of terrestrial life would necessarily share certain genetic and morphological characteristics, including the inherent ability to affect adaptive variations within. The evidence would look the same either way.
The evidence would not necessarily look the same either way.
For a start, we have modern evidence for the mechanisms of evolutionary theory, and so we know that these mechanisms could have been responsible for these changes in the past. You have no such mechanisms to rely upon. Also, it would depend on the capabiilties and desires of the "creative" agent that you're postulating. For instance, we could assume that an omnipotent, omniscient agent would create "optimally", and could look for evidence of optimality to these putative "creative events" - and when we do look at what you're claiming are "creative events" they do not appear to be "optimal".
Sure, you may respond that this agent wanted things to be less optimal for some reason, but you'd then have to figure out what that reason might be, and what other observations we could expect were this the case (and then go out and see if those observations are supported), otherwise postulating non-optimality is simply ad-hoc.

Havok said...

Actually, what the research shows is that we don’t have the first clue as to how life could have possibly begun without preexistent information,
What do you mean by "information" here Michael, and why does life depend upon it?
In what form was this "preexistent information"?

let alone attain to complex cells from simple chemistry. I see no promising areas. We are at an impasse.
And yet research continues apace, and our knowledge increases with it - the impasse you're claiming we're at does not seem to in fact exist.

We can’t get beyond the barrier of information.
Do you mean Shannon information, Kolmolgorov complexity (the 2 main measures as used in information theory)?
Or do you mean something ill defined, intentionally vague, and/or operationally useless, like Demski's "Complex Specified Information"?

At the micro-level within species, not at the macro-level of specie transmutation! What are you talking about?
Well, since evolutionary theory only predicts what you're calling "micro-level" speciation (species divergence), rather than something else, and we have observed this, I don't see what the problem is.
What are YOU talking about?

But God didn’t “put in scientific mistakes,” Havok, and neither did the inspired writers really.
If your god existed, then he would have allowed his inspired writers to include false information in the bible, knowing full well the confusion that would result.
If the bible is wrong on the things that you accept science has shown mistaken, why is it not mistaken on things you don't accept, such as evolutionary theory?

That’s how things work; that’s the way of things relative to the acquisition of empirical knowledge ordained by God.
Except when it comes to biological evolution, where you simply cannot accept the falsification of the biblical account, even though it too appears to be based on the knowledge of the ancients.

God leaves scientific discovery and technological development to us. I don’t have a problem with that.
I still don't know where you have justified this position Michael.
Why is it that your God leaves science to us, such that countless people have suffered and died, while a simple explanation about personal hygene and a quick mention of the germ theory of disease would have saved them?
Your god is supposed to care about every person, after all.

The three classic laws of logic as well as the operational aspects of identity’s comprehensive expression, for example, are universally self-evident and have been known since time immemorial.
That's because they're modelled upon observations of the mid-sized reality we humans operate in. They're unable to represent the quantum phenomena that underly the mid-sized world we inhabit, and quantum logic has certainly not been known since time immemorial.
Also, I'm not sure you're claim of them being "universally self evidence" is correct :-)

The fundamentals of the counting number line and, subsequently, the basic operations of mathematics (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication), and geometric forms are universally self-evident.
Again, they're based upon the mid-sized world we find ourselves in. They're insufficient to express things like transfinite numbers.
And again, not sure they're universally self-evidence.

Havok said...

Beyond that, I know the God of the Bible exists. He revealed Himself to me. So I’m not merely guessing here.
Just like Allah has revealed himself to Muslims, and Vishnu has revealed himself to Hindu believers, and Buddhists have gotten glimpses of Enlightenment and Nirvana.
Such religious experiences tend to mirror or be interpreted in light of the faith tradition of the culture the experiencer is in.
Of course, such experiences could also be nothing more than psychological/mental/neurological events with no external referent required (and many of the facets of these experiences can either be induced in the brain, etc).
Without knowing any details of your experience, I'm not sure how you can say you "KNOW" god revealed himself to you, rather than you simply having had completely natural psychological/mental experience which you were subsequently convinced was veridical?
What method(s) can we use to distinguish between "real" revelations and "false" revelations?
Here science is once again no friend to your position.

The God of the Bible is a personal God. Of course He has emotions.
Why "Of course"?
The god of classical monotheism is so different from us that cmoparison seems fairly useless.
Humans (and other animals) have emotions for good evolutionary reasons. What reasons are there for your god to have emotions?

Why wouldn’t He get a kick out of His children’s play and discovery? You might as well ask why the sky is blue.
Why would something so totally alien to us get a kick out of anything?
This is a being that is postulated to be completely unlimited in knowledge and power, remember, not the "super human" god(s) of literature from which is derived.

Also, we know why the sky is blue (or at least why the sky refracts certain wavelengths in the range which has the arbitrary english label "blue" applied to it).
Do you have any similar explanation (including the actual details, rather than my brief outline) for why god has emotions and gets a kick out of us?

It is not false. You’re talking about two different things here.
Is it false. You continue to assert that common descent is premised on metaphysical naturalism. It is not, it is the RESULT of applying methodological naturalistic investigation (rather, intersubjective empiricism, formally carried out).

I hold to a mechanistic naturalism.
Do you not hold to some dualistic notion which holds that the supernatural (ie. god) exists?
How does this sit with your "mechanistic naturalism", especially in light of the the problem of interaction, as well as the lack of positive evidence for any such interactions (and the strongly supported theories with which it conflicts)?
You claim you hold to a mechanistic naturalism, but how does that mesh with your commitment to metaphysical supernaturalism and interventionism?
Can we just claim that any gap in our knowledge is cause for invoking your gods action?
If not, under what conditions is such an "argument from ignorance" or "god of the gaps" argument valid? When is it not valid?

They’re proofs that the Idea of God in and of itself is derived from reason, not faith.
How so, given that there appear to be no coherent definitions of "god" to be found?

Havok said...

They also prove that the idea of God, unlike the material assumptions of metaphysical naturalism, is not subject to infinite regression.
This too is false, since there is no reason to think that the universe (not our visible, co-moving patch, but everything that exists) is not "eternal" in the relevant senses that you god is claimed to be?
Also, it seems that the only reason your god supposedly solves the infinite regress is through assertion - god is "defined" as being uncaused, eternal etc. If that gets god out of the inifinite regress, then it can get the universe out of it (the universe is defined as being "uncaused", eternal, etc). And if that doesn't get the universe out of the infinite regress, then it seems to be little more than special pleading to say the concept of god (assuming it is coherent - which has not been shown) is safe.

No I don’t. I already have, on this blog and yours. It’s self evident. Come on, Havok. You’re being obtuse.
Simply asserting something as being self evidence doesn't make it so Michael, and you've done little more than assert it.

Well, quite obviously the Bible holds that the transcendent realm of being exists and that the material realm of being is normally governed by a specific set of physical laws except in those rare occasions when God demonstrates His sovereignty over His Creation and suspends them in the performance of miracles.
This is not quite obvious at all.
From my reading, the bible shows no real "demarcation" between any transcendant realm of being and the material realm - perhaps I'm mistaken, or perhaps you're reading this into the text. I'm also not aware of where the bible demonstrated an understanding that the material world is governed by "physical laws".
We could probably agree that science DOES show such a demarcation line between these two realms, from the simple fact that science gives no reason to think gods, angels, demons etc exist.

If the evolutionist is assuming a common ancestry he most certainly is not presupposing the mechanistic/methodological naturalism of the Bible in my opinion,
Well, that's your opinion.
I'm still waiting for you to show how your approach to knowledge, including a mechanistic naturalism, is derived from the bible.

and the materialist most certainly is not presupposing anything but a metaphysical naturalism.
Materialism is not the same as naturalism. A naturalist could believe that things other than matter exist (abstract objects like numbers, could exist in a Platonic realm, for instance).
It might be better to say Materialism, or Physicalism (perhaps attaching "Metaphysical" to the beginning of them) if they are what you mean.

And given that neither is subject to falsification, I don’t see any problem for Christianity.
Materialism and physicalism seem to me to be subject to falsification - simply show that there is more to reality than their ontologies allow.
Naturalism would be a little harder, since it is a broader metaphysical claim.

I hold that the mechanistic naturalism of the Bible is correct in regard to the biological history and the alternate views are dead wrong.
If your "mechanistic naturalism" is equivalent to the methods of science (or even just intersubjective empiricism), then the biological views of the bible is wrong, since you yourself admit that the findings of science regarding biology (ie. evolitionary theory, including common descent) are not compatible with your Christianity.
If "mechanistic naturalism" is premised on some understandings from the bible being true BEFORE empirical investigation is carried out, and premised on the understanding that the results of empirical investigation MUST agree with the understanding from the bible, then I think you have some special pleading going on.

Havok said...

There’s nothing inherently inconsistent with that stance.
Not inherently, since it could have turned out that empirical investigation agreed with the biblical claims. But they do not, hence your application of empirical investigation, and your dismissal of results which do not fit your prior beliefs, does seem to be rather inconsistent - it seems you'll accept the findings of science unless they contradict a belief you hold tightly.

You don’t see why scientific/empirical epistemology and metaphysical naturalism are not synonymous?
Well, metaphysical naturalism is a thesis regarding ontology, rather than what we know.
Science provides justification for what we know, which informs our ontology.

You don’t see why science cannot and does not affirm or falsify assertions about non-empirical phenomena?
Science as it is currently practiced, as you point out, cannot speak about claims which lack empirical content.
But I see no reason to take such claims seriously - what possible impact on our lives could they have?

And as far as this notion of yours that empirical data doesn’t support the conclusion that God must be, that’s your opinion.
Actually, it's my conclusion after assessing the evidence, and it is shared by the majority of experts regarding their fields (it seems that believing scientists tend to find gaps for god outside their areas of expertise, like Ken Miller placing god's actions in the realm of quantum phenomena).

I believe the data does support that conclusion, though, of course, not in any formal sense in terms of affirmation or falsification.
For a start, how can the evidence support a conclusion, without affirming it?
Secondly, you're wanting to have your cake and eat it to. You stated above that empirical observations are useless when assessing supernatural claims. And now you're saying that empirical observation supports your supernatural claims.

You’re merely asserting your atheism as if your personal evaluation of the data were absolute.
No, I'm ARGUING that a reasonable evalation of the evidence which does not presuppose the existence of any god or gods, will not result in a conclusion that a god or gods exist.

I see God’s fingerprints all over the universe and certainly do not arbitrarily limit the extent of existence to the limits of sensory perception or those of scientific inquiry.
For a start, people have and do see the fingerprints of numerous different, mutually exclusive deities in existence. These "fingerprints" are almost innevitably the results of "god of the gaps" reasoning, placing a persons preferred deity as the explanation for a phenomena without a positive argument for that conclusion, as if that specific god were the default position.
Secondly, while I accept that existence may actually transcend matter (it seems likely to be logically possible), I see no reason to think that it actually does - positive reasons, not arguments from ignorance or personal incredulity.

You cannot offer any rational justification for the limits of existence based on those limitations. That’s pseudo-scientific claptrap.
No, it's philosophical "clap trap" based upon a reasonable appraoch to knowledge regarding reality (ie intersubjective empirical investigation), and then letting that knowledge inform your ontological commitments, trying to keep unjustified or ad-hoc metaphysical claims to a minimum, and admitting ignorance when ignorance exists, rather than inserting your favoured deity without positive reasons to do so.

Havok said...

No. You can act as if that’s the case. I don’t have to. I know metaphysical naturalism is a crock.
I act as if that's the case because we live in an empirical world (whether or not there is anything other than that), and things without empirical impact therefore do no impact our world.
Also, you don't appear to have reasonable justification for your claim to KNOW that metaphysical naturalism is a crock (not to mention that you seem to think that Materialism and Naturalism are identical).

Science cannot affirm or falsify the existence of spiritual transcendence. Period!
As I pointed out, this is only if "spiritual transcendence" has no empirical impact.
And if there is no empirical content to your "spiritual transcendence" hypothesis, then why bother with it at all?
How would you know whether your claims regarding spiritual transcendence were true or false (even provisionally)?
What methods are used to test these claims?
If these claims cannot be tested in any reasonable fashion, then why think they reflect the wider external reality?

There is absolutely no legitimate basis whatsoever for holding that science is the end of knowledge, let alone the end of justified knowledge.
Science does result in justified, if provisional, knowledge.
I'm not aware of any other methodology or process, or whatever, which results in justified knowledge (whether provisional or not) of reality.

We have plenty of justified knowledge of both a rational and empirical complexion to conclude that God exists.
Such as what Michael?
Science (the process which concerns itself with empirical knowledge) provides no reason to conclude a god or gods exist.
Philosophy, which concerns itself with rational enquiry more generally, provides no good reason to conclude a god or gods exist.
Theology ASSUMES a god or gods exist.
Revelation provides conflicting narratives with no way to discern which might be (more) true, without relying upon science or philosophy (which, as above, provide no good reasons to conclude a god or gods exist).

You’re not talking about the limits of knowledge at all. You’re merely going on about the limits that you personally place on knowledge for yourself.
I'm talking about how we can be justified or warranted in believing something about reality. Currently science is THE way to judge these sorts of knowledge claims, and science provides no good reasons to suppose a god or gods exist.

You’re imagining nonexistent equivalents.
I don't think I am, but I'm willing to admit I'm wrong.

Evolutionary theory is simply not compatible with the Bible’s doctrinal/theological concerns as they relate to natural history.
So is geology (Noah's flood, for instance), but you seem to accept that? Or do you deny geology as well?

The rest is just you simply rejecting the notion that the biblical God leaves science to us, albeit, against the backdrop of His biblical guidelines.
A claim which you've given no good reason to think is true.

In my opinion, evolutionary theory is nonsensical, unfalsifiable and non-biblical.
Well, as you rightly point out that is merely YOUR OPINION.
My opinion, and the opinion of probably millions of experts in the field, is that evolutionary theory makes sense, is falsifiable - the legitimate consensus of experts is against you.
Whether or not evolutionary theory is un-biblical is a more contentious claim. I would agree with you, while experts (the previously mentioned Miller and Collins) would disagree with both of us.

Geology and other fields?
Geology is not compatible with the flood of Noah (not sure where you stand on the flood).
DNA analysis is not compatible with belief in a literal Adam & Eve.
Cosmology is not very compatible with claims that humans are special (the visible universe is so huge).
Historical investigation does not seem to be particularly compatible with the claims of the bible.
It comes down to how you rationalise and interpret the bible.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

We seem to be rehashing the same things over and over again. I will leave you with this link and the prayer that you would come to know the Lord Jesus as your Savior.

http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2013/02/know-your-eneny.html

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Geology and other fields?
Geology is not compatible with the flood of Noah (not sure where you stand on the flood).
DNA analysis is not compatible with belief in a literal Adam & Eve.
Cosmology is not very compatible with claims that humans are special (the visible universe is so huge).
Historical investigation does not seem to be particularly compatible with the claims of the bible.
It comes down to how you rationalise and interpret the bible.


Rawlngs: Nonsense. There is no need to rationalize anything. There is absolutely no division between the evidence and God's word. That is your fantasy. It is all smoke and mirrors. I cannot stress this enough. You must call upon the Lord and be saved.

Havok said...

Michael: Rawlngs: There is no need to rationalize anything.
This isn't true. You've already rationalised the Genesis creation account. YEC's certainly don't agree with your interpretation. I suspect a lot of OEC's wouldn't either.

Michael: There is absolutely no division between the evidence and God's word.
This is nonsense. The texts of your holy book indicate a number of discrepancies with the empirical evidence. I've pointed out a few of them.

Michael: I cannot stress this enough. You must call upon the Lord and be saved.
There's no reason to think your god exists, so calling upon this being would be nonsensical.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Sorry, I wasn't able to get back to you sooner.

You assert the following opinions—private subjective impressions—as if you were presenting indisputable historical and scientific facts. Your insinuations are categorically false, unscientific and ultimately premised on nothing more substantial than, once again, the presupposition of an ontological naturalism. Your mind is spiritually and intellectually closed to the possibilities.

Havok: [1] Geology is not compatible with the flood of Noah (not sure where you stand on the flood). [2] DNA analysis is not compatible with belief in a literal Adam & Eve. [3] Cosmology is not very compatible with claims that humans are special (the visible universe is so huge). [4] Historical investigation does not seem to be particularly compatible with the claims of the bible.

1. False. Both the archeological and the geological evidence support the occurrence of a catastrophic flood, but you’re thinking a literal, world-wide flood, when in fact there’s no reason to assume that from scripture.

2. False. There is no DNA analysis that could possibly refute a supernatural provision for human origin.

3. False. On the contrary, the universe, particularly the composition of our solar system, is amazingly conducive to terrestrial life. I see God’s fingerprints all over the universe; you see a mindless expanse. The God of the Bible always blesses His creatures in great abundance. The grand cosmological display is for us. We are that special to Him.

4. False. Look, Havok, I’ve refuted this nonsensical claim of yours about history on your blog already. You just keep repeating this over and over again, like a broken record, based on scholarship, indeed, the minority body of scholarship, that suits your bias.
___________________________________________


You write: "You've already rationalized the Genesis creation account. YEC's certainly don't agree with your interpretation. I suspect a lot of OEC's wouldn't either.

Havok, I haven't "rationalized" anything. That's your biased characterization of a complex hermeneutical necessity expressly reveled by God in scripture with regard to scientific discovery. As for OEC's, I have no idea what you mean. As for YEC's, no they wouldn't agree with an older earth or universe. So? God's general revelation (creation) tells us they're wrong. God’s creation and God’s word stands.

Michael: There is absolutely no division between the evidence and God's word.
Havok: This is nonsense. The texts of your holy book indicate a number of discrepancies with the empirical evidence. I've pointed out a few of them.

No! Havok, what is wrong with you? Once again, you have expressed a view of reality based on the unfalsifiable presupposition of an ontological naturalism as an indisputable fact. All you’re really saying in the final analysis is that the supernatural does not exist because all of existence is natural; i.e., God doesn’t exist because God doesn’t exist. It just flies right over your head.

Michael: I cannot stress this enough. You must call upon the Lord and be saved.
Havok: There's no reason to think your god exists, so calling upon this being would be nonsensical.

Precisely! God doesn’t exist; therefore, the alternate scenarios of a mechanistic naturalism, which would refute your worldview, are impossible! Your worldview begs the question.

Havok said...

Michael: 1. False. Both the archeological and the geological evidence support the occurrence of a catastrophic flood,
Catastrophic floods, plural, in various places around the globe, caused by various natural phenomena.
Which particular one of these floods do you associate with the flood of Noah, and what evidence do you have to support this association?

Michael: but you’re thinking a literal, world-wide flood, when in fact there’s no reason to assume that from scripture.
There's quite a few reasons to think the story of Noah in the Christian bible would indeed be a world wide flood. The flood is brought about to detroy all the flesh on all of the earth (Gen 6:13, Gen 6:17, and so on) the mountains were covered (Gen 7:19-20, etc)
Of course I agree with you that the empirical evidence shows the world wide flood as such never happened, but again, as with the creation account, I ask you why there are such errors in the bible where they do not appear to be necessry.

Michael: 2. False. There is no DNA analysis that could possibly refute a supernatural provision for human origin.
DNA analysis shows that there was never a 2 individual bottle neck to the homo population. DNA analysis shows that mitochondrial Eve and Y chromosome Adam did not live at the same time.
Of course if your god existed it could have specially created mankind, as depicted in the bible, without any ancestors, and just made it appear as if mankind had evolved through natural mechanisms, as the evidence indicates, but there's no reason and no evidence to suggest this is the case. In fact, such a claim appears to be unfalsifiable, and therefore useless as an explanation for human origins.

Michael: 3. False. On the contrary, the universe, particularly the composition of our solar system, is amazingly conducive to terrestrial life.
The vast majority of the solar system is not conducive to terrestrial life, and large parts of our own planet are not conducive to human life. You have a strange definition of "conducive".

Michael: I see God’s fingerprints all over the universe; you see a mindless expanse.
False. you assert god's fingerprints, I accept what investigation shows.
If you can demonstrate God's fingerprints, then please do so.

Michael: The God of the Bible always blesses His creatures in great abundance.
For the vast majority of animals that have ever existed, including humans, life is and has been short and brutal. you have a strange definition of "great abundance".

Michael: The grand cosmological display is for us. We are that special to Him.
What great humility you show Michael. Since the :grand cosmological display" is a result of mindless forces, this seems to be a false assertion on your part. Perhaps you could provide some evidence for this assertion.

Havok said...

Michael: 4. False. Look, Havok, I’ve refuted this nonsensical claim of yours about history on your blog already.
That's simply mistaken Michael.

Michael: As for YEC's, no they wouldn't agree with an older earth or universe. So? God's general revelation (creation) tells us they're wrong. God’s creation and God’s word stands.
False. "Creation" shows God's word to be mistaken. The lengths that you and others are willing to go to in order to rationalise away these inconsistencies is evidence against your position, and for your apparent desperation to believe as you do.

Michael: Once again, you have expressed a view of reality based on the unfalsifiable presupposition of an ontological naturalism as an indisputable fact.
False. I've said before that naturalism is a conclusion I've come to rather than a presupposition. No matter how many times you assert the contrary it won't make it true.

Michael: All you’re really saying in the final analysis is that the supernatural does not exist because all of existence is natural; i.e., God doesn’t exist because God doesn’t exist. It just flies right over your head.
False. I'm saying that there is no good reason to believe the supernatural exists, and good reasons to think the supernatural doesn't exist, and therefore naturalism is likely to be true.
You seem to be mistaking my position for the opposite of your own - you appear to take the existence of God/the supernatural as a presupposition.

Michael: Precisely! God doesn’t exist; therefore, the alternate scenarios of a mechanistic naturalism, which would refute your worldview, are impossible! Your worldview begs the question.
False. I'm not assuming God doesn't exist - I'm stating that there is no good reason to believe your god exists a priori, and no good evidence to support the existence of your god. The same applies to all gods humans have believed in, and the supernatural generally. Therefore, naturalism appears to be the best supported position to take, though this conclusion is provisional and open to revision.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Havok: The hypothesis of common ancestry is supported by empirical evidence. There is no premise of "unfalsifiable metaphysical naturalism" required.

Havok, you just don’t get it. You still don’t grasp what I’m telling you. The hypothesis of a common ancestry is NOT necessarily supported by the empirical evidence at all . . . unless one assumes the unfalsifiable premise of a metaphysical naturalism. This is readily self-evident, and has been explained to you a number of times in a number of different ways. The fact of the matter is that most evolutionists are utterly unaware of their metaphysical bias or its implications, including the professional scientists among them.

Havok: No, it's not rare. A lot of the biologists in the USA, for instance, would be Christians, since a lot of the population is generally. These biologists, on the whole, accept evolution as it is scientifically understood.

Havok: The hypothesis of common ancestry is supported by empirical evidence. There is no premise of "unfalsifiable metaphysical naturalism" required.

*Sigh* Havok, I’m NOT saying that so-called Christian biologists are rare! Hello! I’m saying that the evolutionist who does not unwittingly presuppose a metaphysical naturalism is rare, and the latter most certainly is required to support the theory.

Look. The rest of your comments are much the same. You're simply not grasping the totality of the matter. It does not appear that you are capable of stepping outside your worldview long enough to grasp the implications of a mechanistic naturalism with regard to the empirical evidence. If you were you would stop prattling this nonsense that Darwinian theory in general and its proponents' typical derision for Creationism or Intelligent Design theory in particular do not rest on the assumption of a metaphysical naturalism.

Until you either grasp or acknowledge that, nothing else I'm telling you will ever compute.

Only two or three evolutionists with whom I have spoken, including a scientist, have had this prerequisite epiphany, and the one that did fled the conversation!

Rian said...

Havok here:

The hypothesis of a common ancestry is NOT necessarily supported by the empirical evidence at all . . . unless one assumes the unfalsifiable premise of a metaphysical naturalism.
This seems to be a patently false claim. From a Bayesian perspective, the empirical evidence we have (ie. nested hierarchy) is exactly what would be expected if the hypothesis of common descent were true.
I don't see where this is premised on metaphysical naturalism (nor why metaphysical naturalism is unfalsifiable).

If you were you would stop prattling this nonsense that Darwinian theory in general and its proponents' typical derision for Creationism or Intelligent Design theory in particular do not rest on the assumption of a metaphysical naturalism.
Until you actually demonstrate that the critiques ARE premised on such an assumption, I don't feel your derision need be taken seriously.

Only two or three evolutionists with whom I have spoken, including a scientist, have had this prerequisite epiphany, and the one that did fled the conversation!
Perhaps the problem then lies not with my inability to understand, but with your inability to explain yourself?

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Given that it’s readily self-evident. . . .

However, check out my discussion with Labsci: http://michaeldavidrawlings1.blogspot.com/2011/02/labsci-and-i-discuss-evolution.html

Maybe that will help.

Rian said...

Given that it’s readily self-evident. .
Well, since you say only 3 people you've explained it to have "got it", this claim seems obviously false.
It certainly isn't self evident to me.

I'll have a read of your linked conversation and see whether it explains your position more clearly.

Rian said...

After reading the link (and the second debate post) I think your position is clearer, but I don't see any demonstration of an a priori presumption of naturalism on the part of biologists.
At best, from those writings, I see you decrying evolutionary biologists for appealing to mechanisms and forces that are active today and can be studied in the lab and in the wild (various types of mutations and copying errors, and means of selection), while you appeal to forces and mechanisms (if acts of your god could be called that) that are not obviously active today and have not been studied in the lab (and perhaps, depending on how you define your god and it's actions, cannot be studied in the lab).

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

No. Not at all. That would be silly. Spiritual matters/entities cannot be "studied in the lab". They're spiritual matters/entities, not empirical.

Not active today? You just demonstrated your empirically indemonstrable presupposition of an ontological naturalism, i.e., that all of biological history is an unbroken chain of natural cause and effect.

Rian said...

They're spiritual matters/entities, not empirical.
If these spiritual matters/entities effect matter, then they're empirical and can be studied.
If they're not empirical and cannot be studied, as you're claiming, then we can disregard them as they might as well not exist.

You just demonstrated your empirically indemonstrable presupposition of an ontological naturalism, i.e., that all of biological history is an unbroken chain of natural cause and effect.
That's not a presupposition Michael, that's simply a reasonable conclusion arrived at after studying the evidence.
If you can provide reasonable evidence that there is another option besides natural cause and effect, then there would be reason to doubt my this conclusion, and since the conclusion is provisional, and apportioned to the evidence, I have no problems revising it.

Rian said...

Ps. To my last point about providing another option - simply pointing out that our current knowledge doesn't provide all the answers, or explain everything is not the same as providing an additional option.
You'd need to present a positive case for your claim.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Rian writes: "Ps. To my last point about providing another option - simply pointing out that our current knowledge doesn't provide all the answers, or explain everything is not the same as providing an additional option. You'd need to present a positive case for your claim."

But, Rian, I'm not merely "pointing out" a gap in our current understanding of things. Indeed, your observation necessarily implies or assumes that abiogenesis is true. All you're really saying--and you do it unwittingly--is that the affirmation of abiogenesis is merely a discovery of this or that piece of the puzzle away. But what I've shown, what you don't or won't acknowledge, is that there can be no such missing piece to the puzzle, because the solution you propose is a fantasy.

No where in my article do I premise the only sensible alternative on any lack of proof for the materialist's fantasy. That doesn't even make sense when I state what you just said in all actuality, does it? You're not thinking straight; you're not hearing yourself.

I have clearly shown that abiogenesis is hogwash. Period. It is a non-starter, and this is empirically and logically obvious. Or at the very least I've shown that it's unfalsifiable.

Rian said...

I have clearly shown that abiogenesis is hogwash. Period.
You have not shown this.

It is a non-starter, and this is empirically and logically obvious.
It is neither empirically nor logically obvious that abiogenesis is impossible.

Or at the very least I've shown that it's unfalsifiable.
I don't think you've done that either.

Sorry Michael, I simply don't buy what you're selling.

Michael David Rawlings, a.k.a. "Bluemoon" said...

Abiogenesis is simply not falsifiable. That is readily self-evident.

God bless you, Rian. We'll have to agree to disagree. I sure wish I could meet you face to face, hang out. Sure. The technology that allows you and I to interact like this is cool. It's great. But. . . .

Rian said...

So you cannot think of anything which would run counter to the claims of abiogenesis?

I'm sorry Michael, but various scenarios of abiogenesis are falsifiable. Whether you think it self evidently the case doesn't make it actually the case.