Thanks for weighing in; my question is not a statement of assurance about anything, it is an expression of mystification about how so many people seems so sure that we can get to “zero-probability” without any knowledge whatsoever of the steps involved or the discrete probability of each one of those unknown steps. We don’t even have the beginnings of a rudimentary calculation here, yet people keep expressing skepticism as though they just came away from crunching the number on the back of an envelope. That doesn’t strike me as being the least bit legitimate. I’m not sure that this can be turned inside out and made into a confident statement about what random processes can or can’t do. In fact, I am a little surprised that you viewed what I said as a positive assertion.
I would point out however that “random processes” is perhaps not a fair estimate of what is in play here; as with evolution or any other natural process, I would expect the origin of life, if entirely natural, to be made up of a combination of deterministic, iterative processes and of what we are calling random processes. As we already know with evolution, some combination of heritable variation and selection is all that is needed to render an all but impossible process highly probable, and it is impossible to envision the true range of hypothetical contexts where a process like this may come into play.
I personally lean towards natural processes for a number of reasons, few of which are directly related to what scientists have found or rejected on this subject, although I feel like I’ve already threshed this topic and provided a list of reasons in long and fruitful conversation with Eddie, so I would really rather not retread the same ground. For that reason, I will stick with the question; how exactly do we come to this assurance that the origin of life is so unlikely given only natural causes? I’m curious in your case, since I suspect you have given this subject some careful thought.
This is a statement that we should see more often on this site - I take this to mean that some express a sentiment that is indicative of their personal view, and this is very different from claiming that science has shown this or that.
My personal view may be a bit more complicated than “natural causes”. If we can study something as scientists, my view is that the subject matter is nature, but causes within this context leaves me “cold”. I align myself with the school of thought that more or less says, “we are so far from understanding life, its origins, and related aspects, that as a scientist I am firmly committed to a confession of ignorance on the matter.”
If we add things such as “random”, “causes” “design” etc we simply add to our ignorance and this leads to pointless debates and disagreements.
As a research chemist, I am fascinated by many aspects of biochemistry and in a general way, with biology - frankly I am “gobsmacked” by the complexity, intricacies, interrelated systems, and so on, so I stick to my view that we do not have an adequate understanding - and as scientists, we should feel LESS assured when we discuss these matters. On the origins of life, we should confess our ignorance and as a scientist I “squirm” when I hear some making claims for or against natural causes.
I would have to disagree with the thrust of this comment - I cannot see how an impossible process can be rendered highly probable, and this view is based on many years of considering models and chemical reaction mechanisms, all of which convince me that if something is highly improbable, science inevitably shows us that it is just that. In my experience, some scientists take the view that speculation is legitimate as a way of rendering an improbable thing amenable to scientific study. This is a subjective statement - I prefer to reject the highly improbable, and instead critically examine my theoretical basis and see if I can think past that if my research requires me to so do.
You are right, natural law without God is not purposeful, the problem is that natural law was created by God and cannot be separated from God’s providencial care. God and Nature are not dualistic opposites that Western dualism projects.
This does not mean that God and Nature are one as monism and pantheism say, but God does works in and through nature. Nature is our mother and the universe is our home created by God for our existence and well-being. It is the framework in which we live.
Determinism, design, and Natural Selection are closely related. Let me take the example that I have heard several times to illustrate Natural Selection. An animal with long fur will survive better in cold weather better than a similar animal with shorter fur. This is interpreted to mean that the animal with the longer fur will be selected by Natural Selection.
I would agree but I would say that they creature or allele, animal or plant, which is better adapted to its environment, is selected by Natural Selection, thus generalizing from one simple example, realizing that in real life adaption is always more complex that it appears. However as far as I can see biological science has not taken this logical step…
Is Natural Selection designed? Yes, because it is a very complex process which fits a need in the evolutionary process. Is it determinate? Yes, because in a certain set of circumstances it provides a determinate response, as opposed to a random one. Is it deterministic? No, because there may be several possible responses, which may be chosen. Humans did not grow long hair in response to cold weather, they made warm coats.
Purpose is not based on the ability of the human mind to think. Apes and others are able to use simple tools to harvest and process their food. Birds and others are able to make nests and other habitations to protect their young and keep warm.
God made living things with basic needs that must be met to survive. Living things need to grow or die, this is not determined. It is only by adaption to the environment that this takes place. To that extent living things are determined, but it is not blindly that this takes place, but by trial and error as living creature adapt to each other and our surroundings.
Plants and animals can migrate when the climate changes. Physical things cannot. The waterfall does have a purpose as gravity and water have their purposes in the whole scheme of life. No water, no life. No gravity, no life. Everything plays a role. Everything has a purpose. Nothing is really random in that it is accidental and has no purpose for existence. This is what I mean when I say that Reality is relational.
If Natural Selection is a naturally lawful process, and if an all-knowing God created all naturally lawful processes, then the process and end result of Natural Selection is MINDFUL and PURPOSEFUL.
It’s pretty straightforward.
And so THAT is how your phrase “Natural Selection is determinate” (determinate: cognate of determinism) relates to MINDFUL or PURPOSEFUL processes.
Well, it is hard to argue with agnosticism on a subject that admits of so little evidence. It’s also fair enough that the main contenders for natural causes happen to leave you cold, though I note that the reactions to these ideas seem to vary greatly from one scientist to the next, and I suspect that both the extreme skeptics and the most sanguine proponents all bring strong predispositions to the table. Admittedly, this is a field that remains in its infancy after decades, which is maybe not surprising since there isn’t the slightest bit of evidence available to point us in the right direction, and clever, unverifiable guesswork is a poor basis for any science.
First, you again start with the statement that it is highly improbable or impossible, and I can’t see the justification for this; we simply don’t have any evidence and it is total black box. We are not in a position to guess at the probability of any one step in any unknown process. I feel like there is an argument missing here. Unless you mean that it is impossible merely by chance; then fair enough, but since I’ve never heard anyone but Democritus and co. suggest that the first living being came about by a random collision of a whole bunch of atoms, this seems to have little bearing on the question. Maybe it would help if you clarified what you mean by this.
Putting that to the side, I think you may have misunderstood where I was headed with this point. I was trying to correct the notion that any hypothetical mechanism that we should seek out would be described as a “random process”. This just isn’t true; most processes in nature involve an interesting mixture of random variables and an often complex determinism that relates to the underlying chemistry or to various constraints and feedback mechanisms. To insist on limiting our search and our probability assessments to random process and variables as the basis for early life is to ignore, I think unrealistically, the various ways in which these two factors constantly interact in the organic and inorganic world. We end up merely thinking in terms of the old and fallacious tornado in the junkyard analogy, assuming a huge impossible accident when almost no one thinks life or evolution could possibly come about in this way.
I then used natural selection as an analogy to make the point. My point was that a less complex life form could not possibly lead to a much more complex life form merely be accident (the “hopeful monster” view). These changes instead seem to come about based on an interesting process involving both a random component and a deterministic component, applied iteratively and in parallel throughout the natural world, making this increase in complexity one of the likely outcomes of this adaptive radiation. So in the case of evolution, something that is completely unlikely or all but impossible if we depend on random variation alone is made far more likely by a more interesting combination of steps, random and non-random, that ratchets in the direction of local adaptation.
This is an analogy only; we don’t actually know whether a similar process of variation and selection occurred at the transition between non-life and life, but we certainly know that we can expect a mix of random and deterministic factors and we cannot bet on how they might combine or on what probability might be linked to each stage of the process. For this reason, and because we already have firm examples of how we can get to greater complexity with far greater probability by way of this combination, I think we have every reason to remain far more neutral on this question, or to be driven by other considerations in the absence of better evidence. Again, I’m not sure I want to go into what other factors might affect our leanings and I would like to focus on what I think is the reasonable conclusion that we aren’t in a position to start with any sort of probability at all. That being the case, I would leave the origin of life scientists with the task of reconstructing something for which we have no evidence, few leads, and incomparably less time and space to work with, wishing them much needed luck.
Side note; of course, if you have doubts about the role of natural selection in evolution, my analogy won’t be useful for you, and we are unfortunately left with a bit less common ground to work with. I think the point stands either way, but I’ll leave that to your judgement.
"First, you again start with the statement that it is highly improbable or impossible, and I can’t see the justification for this; we simply don’t have any evidence and it is total black box. We are not in a position to guess at the probability of any one step in any unknown process. I feel like there is an argument missing here. "
Yes I agree with you on this, and that is why I prefer to talk of ignorance instead of probabilities. However the topic of this exchange is randomness, and this has been used in a very general way to argue for an evolutionary notion that even (to some at least) includes the origin of life. I have seen many arguments that seek to link random, with stochastic, with probabilities, and end up with “it seems random to us, but not to God”. If people put forward such arguments (insist on random processes), the counter is obviously vanishingly small probabilities, making such arguments null and void.
The thrust of my comments is to show the fallacy in such reasoning, while your point is to show we cannot have anything, random, probabilities, etc, on a matter that is a “black box” to science. I think we come from different angles but end up agreeing with each other.
Your comment on processes in nature is a general one and it is hard for me to argue for or against this suggestion. I had tried to point out some time ago that scientific research inevitably consists of “things we know” and “things we wish we knew” and the latter may take all manner of ideas and guesses in our thinking - you seem to prefer a mixture of random and non-random processes, direction and deterministic components and so on. I suspect this preference may be based on the general evolutionary ethos that nature consists of random mutations and selection processes. I am very skeptical of this outlook, for the simple reason that it is so general that it becomes, to me at least, vacuous - or a free “get out of the jail of ignorance” card - but that is my outlook, for what it is worth.
So yes, we are not in a position to start with any sort of probability, and origins of life is a task without any firm (by this I mean scientifically testable) data or evidence. I also understand your comment on NS in evolution, as I have doubts on the way this term is used. However we may have common ground on the notion that eventually NS may be replaced with a hierarchy of insights that take the form of scientifically derived theories (or laws) and this will remove current arguments (and bring new ones for debate )
The problem is that you and science show little evidence of understanding how Natural Selection works.
There is absolutely no way we can solve the problem of evolution when we don’t even understand how it works, which includes Natural Selection. However every time I try to begin a discuss of this issue, you and others change the topic. This is really disgusting.
Roger, I understand your passion… I really do. But you struggle so to bend with the trajectories…
How do you know I don’t have any understanding how natural selection works?
Can you summarize Natural Selection into just a sentence or two?
What your colleagues here on this list do is HI-JACK your discussion when you seem to
invent your own vacabulary for how to “prove” things.
For example, I have de-coded your use of the phrase “Natural Selection is Determinate” - - so now I think I can be on-board with you on that. But if I say “Throwing dice is also determinate” … I don’t think you would be willing to agree. But maybe I’m jumping to a conclusion… Would you agree that the movement of dice, seemingly random, IS determinate? … following natural lawfulness… ?
[quote=“Relates, post:6, topic:5555”]
Natural Selection is determinate which means that it is not random. When are people going to accept this scientific fact. Sadly evolutionists including those at BioLogos constantly will not acknowledge this basic truth.[/quote]
A little reading demonstrates that “evolutionists” have long accepted and taught this scientific fact.
Isn’t this the fundamental problem face by anyone who says he can PROVE Intelligent Design?
In my draft questions, you can see that I am not asking questions about what particular things God designed.
For most BioLogos supporters, answer to that question are based on faith. God may have caused the jump from matter-only to LIFE. Or he may have caused the jump from non-human hominid to HUMAN hominid. Or items in between.
It’s a very personal engagement with the Cosmos. And it’s not really the focus of the draft questions I submitted for review.
Jon, while I agree with you that Natural Selection and thus evolution is not random, but determinate, there is something very strange about this process. If evolution is not random, but moving in a clear direction, why is there clear evidence of that direction.
It is well known that Steven Jay Gould has “disproven” the claim that evolution is moving toward more complexity of life. Thus there is a denial that there is no pattern, evolution is not random, but there is no pattern discerned. Very strange
Also Dawkins and others say that evolution is without meaning and purpose. This indicates that it is also random, which reinforces the fact that science has failed to discern the direction of evolution.
It is my experience that evolutionists are still apt to use the millions of monkeys argument to defend evolution, rather than creationists use it to refute evolution. However to say that Natural Selection “promotes(?) adaptation by selecting(?) combinations that ‘make sense’ i.e. that are useful(?) to the organisms.” Is this any kind of explanation of a scientific process?
It is my opinion that this is not an explanation of a determinate biological process that has been scientifically verified.
In this quote the author is defending randomness in evolution, thus indicating that evolution is random and certainly does not say that Natural Selection is determinate.
Using the shot gun, proof text approach to argumentation is not very effective.
Please show me all the quotations you can find from scientists using the “millions of monkeys” argument to defend evolution.
Yes. Because that’s how it works.
No. In this quote the author is saying that random factors in the evolutionary or creative process do not render the whole process rando in a destructive sense. Here is another quotation from the same author in the same book, stating specifically that natural selection is not random and that evolution is not random.
“The dominant component, and the one that does generate adaptive complexity, is natural selection, which, though it is unconscious and impersonal, is the very opposite of random. It is therefore completely mistaken to characterize Darwinian evolution as essentially random, or to describe its products as simply the results of chance.”
So the author actually says the exact opposite of what you claimed they said. You have completely misread the earlier quotation.
That is not what I am doing. I am demonstrating that “evolutionists” consistently say that evolution is not random, and that natural selection in particular is not random. You have not provided any quotations showing that “evolutionists” say that evolution and natural selection are random, and you have not provided any quotations showing that they use the “millions of monkeys” argument to defend evolution.
So Merv, would you affirm that God designed the trunk of the elephant, and the wing of the bat? (I don’t say “created by miraculous intervention”, but “designed”.)
Wonderful! But now you must dread that midnight knock on the door when the Darwin Enforcement Squad of the Evangelical Association for Methodological Naturalism pays you a visit.
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