So one doesn’t try to test one’s own hypotheses?
I am intrigued by some aspects of this exchange. For a scientist to test a hypothesis, he needs to state such a hypothesis with sufficient clarity to warrant a legitimate testing/experimental methodology. What is the hypothesis of abiogenesis? From some of the comments here, I get the impression the hypothesis would seem to be, “let us mix A with B, and see if something associated with living species eventuates”. I cannot see this as a scientific hypothesis with any clarity.
Oh? So if God makes it rain… we are forced to abandon the existence of the Water Cycle?
Your conclusions are not just incorrect; they represent inconsistent views on how the world plainly functions right in front of our eyes.
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Relativity in general? Do you mean General Relativity? And the statement that the Earth orbits the Sun does not mean that the Sun is the “center of creation.” Nobody is arguing for this, as it is pretty obvious that while the Sun is the ‘center’ of our solar system, our solar system is approximately 25,000 light years from the ‘center’ of the MIlky Way Galaxy. Perhaps this large scale image of our universe will help show our relative location:
I understand just fine that when you are solving problems in Physics, you can choose where to define the origin and in that sense, why you would be correct as your coordinate system is relative. For example, it is quite a lot easier to solve a first year physics problem on say projectile motion when you set the initial position to y=0 instead of y=6360 km (or the radius of the Earth). In that sense, and perhaps in the sense you are suggesting, it is really only the relative distance between coordinates that is meaningful.
And thus, when solving problems using the equations of General Relativity you can define your coordinate system to make it easier. For example, winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 94 or 95 for how a binary pulsar system affirmed Generally relativity’s mathematical prediction to a trillionth of a percent accurate. And yes, they chose a different center for their coordinate system, one in between the two stars, at the ‘center’ of its rotation.
That’s not even wrong.
I completely agree, but winning a Nobel Prize certainly buys researchers a tremendous degree of latitude in their future work.
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He recognizes an inadequacy in our understanding of abiogenesis, not “Darwinism”.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:59, topic:36540”]
I said if materialistic abiogenesis fails. You are not taking into account this qualifier. Will you have a chicken without an egg?
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We don’t need to know where the first life came from in order to study how life changed after it appeared. If a supernatural being created the first life billions of years ago and all life evolved from that shared ancestor, then the theory of evolution would be unchanged. “Darwinism” doesn’t require materialistic abiogenesis.[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:59, topic:36540”]
Actually, not a phenomenon as it hasn’t been observed.
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Where have we observed a supernatural being creating a new life form? If no one has observed this, does this mean that creationist abiogenesis has failed?
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Abiogenesis in this context would be a field of study. To use another example, a scientist can do research in the field of infectious diseases, and create hypotheses dealing with the importance of a specific toxin created by a specific species of bacteria. Szostak is doing something similar. He is creating very specific hypotheses dealing with very specific pathways that could lead to an organism capable of evolving.[quote=“GJDS, post:62, topic:36540”]
I cannot see this as a scientific hypothesis with any clarity.
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It seems pretty straightforward to me.
Hypothesis: Specific nucleotide sequences within lipid vesicles can result in cells with replicating genetic material.
To test the hypothesis he can set up many different lipid vesicles with many combinations of nucleotide sequences, be they DNA or RNA. If each specific experiment does not produce a replicating cell then he can state that the specific hypothesis relating to those very specific conditions has been falsified.
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“Abiogenesis” is not a “hypothesis” any more than “plate tectonics” is a hypothesis.[quote=“GJDS, post:62, topic:36540”]
From some of the comments here, I get the impression the hypothesis would seem to be, “let us mix A with B, and see if something associated with living species eventuates”. I cannot see this as a scientific hypothesis with any clarity.
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I have read scores and scores of papers about prebiotic chemistry. I don’t recall a single one that didn’t advance a specific hypothesis. In fact, compared to many other scientific disciplines, the experimental study of abiogenesis is very strongly hypothesis-driven. There are, of course, whole disciplines that emphasize discovery or development (of, say, technologies) over hypothesis testing, and that’s legit too. But I don’t see how anyone who has read the literature on prebiotic chemistry could claim that it’s not hypothesis-driven.
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And you’re entitled to your opinion. [edited content]
Look up “phenomenon”. I did not bring it up.
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Thanks. Anyway, this is not the topic of this thread.
You brought up abiogenesis. If no one has observed a supernatural deity creating life, does this mean creationism has failed? Do you apply the same logic to all claims, or only the ones you don’t like?[quote=“NonlinOrg, post:69, topic:36540”]
You just don’t understand this topic.
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Then help me understand it. Why would you need to know where the first life came from in order to understand how life changed once it did appear?
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Let me add a few thoughts:
Warm Little Pond (Miller Urey)
Darwin’s “warm little pond” was first mentioned in 1871, years after his “On the Origin of Species” where he said: “probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed”. To this, “…by the Creator” was added in later editions.
It really doesn’t matter what someone speculated long time ago, but it does matter what beliefs drive our future actions. ‘Life having emerged from a warm little pond long time ago and without the help of a creator’ is the current wide held belief and it affects areas as diverse as biology, space exploration, ethics, and robotics. Panspermia is a less popular and more complicated alternative that, besides not explaining how life first occurred, it also contradicts our current knowledge of life being present only on Earth. A third alternative is supported by those that want to reconcile “…by the Creator” in Darwin’s later edition with Genesis 2:7 “God formed the man out of the dust of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life”. These two views are however incompatible as there is no reason to believe God hands over His creation to a Darwinian process immediately after first abiogenesis or any other time for that matter. And if evolution is just a manifestation of God’s will, then the whole evolution narrative needs to be reevaluated.
The evidence for a materialistic abiogenesis is utterly lacking. If it were true, given Earth’s life supporting environment, we would see abiogenesis every day, but instead we never see it and not for lack of trying. We’re told, the decades old, yet often cited Miller Urey experiment was a success as it formed several organic compounds. But how can an abiogenesis experiment that does not produce any life be successful? The utter stagnation in this field tells us that abiogenesis as imagined is unrealistic.
We do have all the building blocks of life so what else might we expect if applying a more or less random series of stimuli were to result in life? We might expect to be capable of reviving dead organisms, we might expect to stop and start life, and we might expect to be able to combine bits and pieces from various organisms to form entirely new ones. But none of these has yet been achieved. If life were an intrinsic function of the matter, we would see life easily form just as we see crystals easily and reliably form whenever the right conditions are applied to certain elements. Always the same and always under the same conditions. And if a very unstable form of matter, how come life is so widespread on Earth?
Is the materialistic abiogenesis even logical? No, not when defined as information emerging out of chaos. If this were true, why not also expect tiny Taj Mahals “emerging” from the soil like mushrooms? And why not tiny nuclear bombs from the same “warm little pond”? How about the Odyssey written in atoms? Of course no one expects these things, and no one in their right mind runs such experiments. But is life not more complex that the Taj Mahal or a nuclear bomb or the Odyssey? Are these not human creations that, unlike life, have been already mastered?
“Warm little pond” is belief in magic and worse than alchemy which at least implied a higher force responsible for the whole universe. But something out of nothing for no particular reason and without any external input is pure magical thinking.
Phenomenon is strictly observed. Creation, like materialistic abiogenesis is belief and not phenomenon. As beliefs, these two cannot fail until a contrary observation occurs or one of them proves illogical.
I cannot be your private tutor. Read the thread again and look up “boundary conditions”. Materialistic abiogenesis is the boundary condition for your materialistic evolution. Can’t have the latter without the former.
Why can’t you have evolution without materialistic abiogenesis? Why can’t you have materialistic evolution of all life from a single organism created by God?
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If evolution is just a manifestation of God’s will, then the whole evolution narrative needs to be reevaluated. Maybe the man is not just a monkey that ate too many bananas and randomly grew a brain. And maybe the dog too evolved into a predetermined design.
False.
Murder is a phenomenon, and people are convicted and executed for them quite often in the absence of witnesses.
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Oxford Concise
Abiogenesis technical term for spontaneous generation.
Google search: Abiogenesis, biopoiesis, or informally the origin of life, is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. Abiogenesis is studied through a combination of paleontology, laboratory experiments and extrapolation from the characteristics of modern organisms, and aims to determine how pre-life chemical reactions gave rise to life on Earth.
Any hypothesis aimed at this subject would, I should think, include a distinction between inorganic/non-living matter, and what is clearly defined (by what is testable) as life. Perhaps you may care to provide a definition that would fit, and could be tested as a scientific notion of life, and the chemical reactions that may give rise to life?
Most experimental notions that are put forward for abiogenesis postulate something - e.g. if we mix gases and add a spark, various chemicals are obtained; if we take portions of organic or tissues or components from bio-entities, and subject them to various conditions, what will we observe? More recently, if we find meteorites contain organic molecules, we would indulge in sometimes scandalous speculation under the guise of testable science.
Plate tectonics deal with observables and real data on phenomena that can be examined in real time, and ideas are put forward based on this. We would not see this area studied by assuming some hypothetical geological feature and then try and guess what it may be by mixing rocks in a lab.
It has already been explained that abiogenesis is simply a field of study. It is not a hypothesis, except insofar as it posits that living things have their origins in non-living materials. It does not require, nor assume, any specific definition of “life.” Indeed I am rather sure that scientists engaged in research pertaining to abiogenesis do not often agree on a precise definition of “life.” This is apparent to anyone who reads the experimental work in this area of research. So, your claim that “any hypothesis aimed at this subject would, I should think, include a distinction between inorganic/non-living matter, and what is clearly defined (by what is testable) as life” is spurious. In fact, it’s worse than spurious, because so much of the work on prebiotic chemistry is not testing any particular hypothesis about “life” but instead testing specific hypotheses about biochemistry.
The rest of your post contains caricatures of OOL research that give me the impression that you do not read it.
The OOL research that I find most interesting involves the exploration of chemical reactions that are thought likely in prebiotic conditions on earth, testing hypotheses about their capacity to generate molecules thought to be precursors of—or known to be elements of—biosynthetic reactions. Recent work, which I have cited on this forum before, has demonstrated the plausibility of reactions previously thought (or postulated to be) unworkable in prebiotic conditions. In my view, a person who has read and understood this literature would never accuse the scientists who do the work of failing to test robust hypotheses. I simply do not understand why you do this.
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To the best of my recollection, I have made no accusation of anyone’s work _ I submit you are far too defensive.
I have tried to discuss a recent paper that made claims of, at least, relevance to origins of life, or chemistry that is relevant to this. I made critical comments, to wit, the conditions used in the lab experiments, and the precursors, were far too different from those in a planetary system, and this invalidated their (what would you like to use) hypothesis, postulate, speculation (?!!). Perhaps if you had entered that debate and made your comments, we would have a better understanding of our respective positions.
This forum is an exchange that should quickly revert to science and faith. It is not, nor have I made it, an exchange on any particular research publication - I make comments after inferences are made on this forum that imply they have a basis in science.
My comments are made on the subject matter (abiogenesis, origin of life, non-living/living) within the context of this forum - we hardly need a lecture on what constitutes a field of study.
First, the theory of evolution says that the human brain evolved through random mutation AND natural selection. It is the selection part that makes the entire process non-random.
If you want to claim that the evidence is not consistent with random mutations, then please cite the evidence. Otherwise, the evidence we do have is consistent with random mutation with respect to fitness.
Traditionally, spontaneous generation was the appearance of modern organisms like flies and mice from inanimate matter in the span of a few days to weeks. This differs quite a bit from abiogenesis.[quote=“GJDS, post:76, topic:36540”]
Any hypothesis aimed at this subject would, I should think, include a distinction between inorganic/non-living matter, and what is clearly defined (by what is testable) as life. Perhaps you may care to provide a definition that would fit, and could be tested as a scientific notion of life, and the chemical reactions that may give rise to life?
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You are assuming that there is an objective and non-arbitrary border between living and non-living. This might not be the case. As I discussed in a previous post, needing rigid definitions and categories is a human bias that reality is not forced to conform to.[quote=“GJDS, post:76, topic:36540”]
Most experimental notions that are put forward for abiogenesis postulate something - e.g. if we mix gases and add a spark, various chemicals are obtained; if we take portions of organic or tissues or components from bio-entities, and subject them to various conditions, what will we observe? More recently, if we find meteorites contain organic molecules, we would indulge in sometimes scandalous speculation under the guise of testable science.
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I think most or even all scientists in the field of abiogenesis would agree that we will probably never know the precise pathway that led to life on Earth since all of the evidence for those events are gone. What they are trying to do is see what possible pathways there are.
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