It has already been explained to you that there is a distinct difference between the abiogenesis that Szostak is researching and biological evolution. The article repeatedly mentions Szostak’s search for the transition of chemistry to biology. Evolution refers to any change over time, whether it is chemical, biological, linguistic or popular culture.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:20, topic:36540”]
The question is: what kind of science is this where there’s only one hypothesis and it is declared true before any proof? Actually, there are alternative hypotheses that the scientific establishment reject out of hand. This is not science, but the dark ages.
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What alternative hypotheses are you referring to? To which alternative hypothesis do you subscribe? Maybe you could begin a discussion, if you were so inclined.
A great deal of confusion and useless exchange is generated by evolutionists who wish to infer that evolution deals with virtually everything, including origins of life from chemicals found on this planet, and others even talk of life required molecules falling on the earth from deep space - and folks, that is how it all began, just believe.
It is indisputable that such wild notions are promulgated and have been argued since I can remember. It is a shambolic situation, where notions that contradict inorganic and organic chemistry are not only discussed by scientists who should know better, but in one case, a US chemist was remove as an office bearer of the ACS for purposely trying to pass of such nonsense as peer reviewed science.
Science can well do without such shambolic propaganda, and evolutionists feed this by sometimes saying “it does not mean biological evolution”, and yet “it may have occurred in this and that way”.
It certainly gives ammunition to their opponents, but most of all, it makes science appear to serve some odd ideology. My view is that Christians should value what is true and avoid such nonsense as origins of life from chemistry and evolution.
When a theory (even just within its already-existing life context) is successful with so much, everybody wants their corner of science to fit underneath the successful umbrella, so they stretch and strain it, or just grab association with it by adopting evolutionary terms or ‘evolution’ itself as a buzzword.
It would be as if, after scientists a couple centuries ago being so enthralled by universal gravitation, invoked that to explain everything from photosynthesis to how matter started clumping together to make living tissue. Such notions would be absurd of course. So I think you are right that evolution easily slides over into a capital ‘E’ mode of being an ideology rather than a mere science.
And it doesn’t hurt those same enthusiasts that brandishing this flag feeds the alarmist anti-evolutionary fires of religious fundamentalists. I suspect that such happy disassociation and disavowal from these denialists, and provocation of the same, has been the larger agenda rather than any actual rational thought or scientific integrity. It is the fuel that denialists need to keep the funds coming in - a happy and unacknowledged symbiosis between ostensible “enemies” to help keep an incoherent conflict thesis alive, and a sad legacy for those who pursue real scientific endeavor.
This is the crux of the matter and I am afraid to say, has been a burden to those biologists who are interested in advancing their discipline (I say this as a scientist who has tried to ‘put myself’ in a biologist’s place - I would find all stuff from chemistry to religious/atheist culture wars a distraction at best, and a serious handicap to intellectual endeavour at worst).
It has also had a very negative impact on serious Christian endeavour on understanding the creation from nothing, the transcendence of God, and of the Trinity.
Or, I believe, if God planted a simple self-replicating molecule, or simpler molecules which formed one, etc. If a simple prokaryote could have evolved to produce a human over long periods of time, through processes we have come to understand relatively recently, it seems to me that these are possible as well, through processes that we do not presently understand.
I will try to dig up this reference - from memory I provided some information in a BioLogos post some time ago, but I have not kept a complete record of all posts - (?) he was a President of the American Chemical Society and he eventually published his paper in an Israeli Journal. This caused a scandal and I think he was forced to resign. If I can hunt this out I will provide the relevant references.
My notes contain this:
Papers are found in Accounts of Chemical Research”, Volume 45, Issue 12, Pages 2023-2222. All of the papers deal with origins of life for evolution. An example is: Jason E. Hein and Donna G. Blackmond who states, “….Even while some synthetic issues for plausible prebiotic construction of RNA remain unsolved, our work has focused on coupling these synthetic advances with concepts for the evolution of biomolecular homochirality. Drawing on our own findings as well as those from others, we present an intriguing “chicken or egg” scenario for the emergence of single chirality of sugars and amino acids.”
Other papers include statements such as, “life is evolution”, and “The advent of life from prebiotic origins remains a deep and possibly inexplicable scientific mystery. Nevertheless,….”
You need to read these papers for yourself; you will find that my remarks are reasonable in terms of emphatic certainty of evolution, but ….
There is an interesting book that contains a chapter on how popularisers of science often turn it more into science fiction and how this could be viewed Google can rovide you abstracts from this.
This has a familiar ring, but my interest during that time was more on notions that meteorites contain amino acids and when these pass some stars (neutron stars come to mind, but I may be wrong), this somehow led to optically relevant forms of amino-acids required for life. This was, if I remember, something put forward by more than one person - thus why I did not make a special note for this one ACS chap.
The accusation that I highlighted was about “passing off nonsense… as peer-reviewed science”, a scandal that led to removal from office. I can find no report of this on any research topic. I would very much appreciate documentation.
You are projecting. Nothing Szostak says implies what you are trying to claim. Szostak is working on abiogenesis, not evolution. [quote=“NonlinOrg, post:12, topic:36540”]
Humor me and let’s just say this may be bad science. If so, what about the young, and no doubt intelligent, members of Szostak’s team? Is he leading them to the Promised Land or to a dead end in the scientific desert? And what about the numerous other groups out there wasting their intelligence on chasing the same ghost? Of course, a few alchemists also stumbled upon important discoveries, but a lot more useful science would have resulted had these alchemists focused instead on solving real problems.
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The origin of life is a real problem in science, so I don’t see how they are wasting their time. Even an “unsuccessful” research process will eliminate paths for abiogenesis that don’t work. Every scientific research program is tackling questions that don’t have an answer, so the same criticism could be leveled at every single research project.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:12, topic:36540”]
The other thing you might want to consider is: when you start some research to demonstrate something to someone it means you already have a prejudice which is much different than a hypothesis. It is bad science.
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You are projecting again. You are very prejudiced against abiogenesis research.
Doesn’t change the fact that the question of abiogenesis and evolution are not dependent on one another. Someone testing abiogenesis is not testing evolution. You are simply wrong about that.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:20, topic:36540”]
The question is: what kind of science is this where there’s only one hypothesis and it is declared true before any proof?
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You can only test one hypothesis at a time.
If you don’t like this hypothesis, then please describe the scientific hypothesis that you think Szostak should be testing, and the experiments he should use to test that hypothesis. It seems to me that lipid bilayers and a bit of nucleotide bases is a valid place to start. From the article you linked:
This first, simple “protocell,” which Szostak is trying to recreate in the lab – nothing but a curl of genetic material surrounded by a fatty skin-- started copying itself with minor variations, and these variations conferred advantages on some cells. This variety led to the competitive process of Darwinian evolution, Szostak says, and eventually to the tree of life as we know it today.
“The key thing,” Szostak says, “is to get started: to go from zero genes to one gene.” This moment of “getting started” is the focus of Szostak’s research: to discover the first “living chemistry”, or, as Szostak puts it, “that transition from chemistry to biology”: when a clump of molecules first became a living thing.
What do you think Szostak should start with? Lipid bilayer and amino acids? What exactly?
You are mistaken. I am looking for reasonable documentation of a public accusation. In my opinion, you should document your accusations for your own sake.
Based on your public comments here, I think it is most likely that you are referring to the self-plagiarism story described and thoroughly documented here. The story involves a very silly press release (by the ACS, according to the blogger) and then the detection of self-plagiarism leading to self-retraction of the paper. There is no mention of any issue with the scientific content of the paper (which is about a possible chemical scenario) nor is there any mention of any resignation of any position. Of course I could have missed details.
It could be that you have knowledge or evidence of some actual scandal about “purposely trying to pass of such nonsense as peer reviewed science” leading to a resignation, but it seems that would be a different story.
Would you consider retracting your accusation? It seems to be inaccurate.
God could have started the Big Bang with natural laws in place that were able to produce life on their own without any needed intervention. I don’t see how this is any more problematic than God allowing lightning or clouds to form through natural means. Christians seem to find religious inspiration and fulfillment through nature, so I don’t see why a natural origin of life should be any different.
I could be wrong, but it seems that ego can rear its head in these discussions. We can look back to Galileo’s time when people thought the Earth was the center of the creation. Moving Earth from the center was a bit hard on some people’s egos. The same happened when Darwin demonstrated how humans were a part of nature, that they came about like all other species (at least the physical part). This took humans out of the center of biology. Abiogenesis threatens the same ego, that life, and humans by extension, came about through some special process that put them above the rest of nature. Then there are also some Christians who feel special being part of God’s creation instead of needing to be separate from it, so I don’t want to paint with too large of a brush.
GJDS said he was relying on memory, so I think we can take it with a grain of salt. If he doesn’t have the time or inclination to dig up the reference, it’s no big deal. It’s just a conversation, not a position paper.
I had in mind the statements regarding optical isomers of amino acids produced (or words to that affect), and other statements of life commencing with meteors - this is what I regard as nonsense - if my recollection of this individual’s role in such nonsense is incomplete, so be it. However you can easily find material on the substance of my comment.
Christian theology (and I am sure this is true for Orthodox and Protestant theology), does not speculate on what God may or may not do. Such terminology is inappropriate. The Creation is not there out of necessity to God, nor is God bound in some way to do this or that regarding the Creation. This is understood if we comprehend the transcendence of God. Since the doctrine is creation from nothing, we would find it difficult to provide a scientific discussion on such nothingness, and this includes time, space, energy, matter.
It is important to realise this as it frees scientists from feeling they must be either theists or atheists before they can do science. To a Christian, science is a study of the Creation placed here by God. To an atheist he studies what is there. Theology may continue the discussion for Christians, while atheists do not join in such a discussion.
