The Minimal Genome Project: "Here we report a new cell"

[fmiddel]

@Biosemiosis.org

A reasoned understanding of reality is a virtue on its own. I’m not sure it needs any further justification.

Perhaps you disagree?

No, but my main point has been…what does this lead to? Further investigation? Or a cessation of investigation?

I’m starting to feel like that question is being avoided…

[fmiddel]

[quote=“Eddie, post:103, topic:4930”]
By using the phrase “natural phenomena,” you have introduced an assumption about the very thing that needs to be proved. What if the origin of life was not a “natural phenomenon”? Then scientists, in trying to find a “natural explanation” for it, would stray far from the truth.[/quote]

There’s still a “how” to answer.

Is it the job of scientists to search for natural explanations for the Resurrection? Or for the turning of water into wine?

What would be the problem of that? Wouldn’t we learn something about the “how”?

Would that make what God did less impressive? Or more?

[fmiddel]

@Eddie

My point is that it is intellectually irresponsible for any scientist to duck the “whether” question. It’s the obligation of the scientist to state clearly where he stands on the question. There are three possible stances: assume that the origin was entirely natural; assume that the origin was not natural; keep an open mind on the question of natural versus not natural. Some origin-of-life scientists are frank enough to state bluntly that they think nature is all that there is (e.g., Carl Sagan), and others believe that, but don’t state it, yet try to get away with assuming it. I’m asking for frank disclosure of assumptions. Once a scientist has frankly disclosed assumptions, so that the whole world knows those assumptions, then I am quite content to leave the scientist alone. It’s the attempt to pass off debatable methodological assumptions as the firm conclusions of scientific investigation that I’m objecting to.

Great. So let’s assume that it is provable that God did it. What next?

Or…what if a scientist has no assumptions whatsoever? Are you okay with that?

[Biosemiosis.org]

@fmiddel

No, but my main point has been…what does this lead to? Further investigation? Or a cessation of investigation?

I’m starting to feel like that question is being avoided…

I’ve already answered this question, as have others → Science will continue, and individual scientists will research what they see fit, just as it has always been.

What is your alternative to discovery?

(I don’t intend to try to read into your questions what you are getting at)

[fmiddel]

@Biosemiosis.org

I’ve already answered this question, as have others –> Science will continue, and individual scientists will research what they see fit, just as it has always been.

What is your alternative to discovery?

(I don’t intend to try to read into your questions what you are getting at)

Including origins?

[fmiddel]

@Eddie

According to Thomas Aquinas (though the “Thomist” ECs will never tell you this, as it doesn’t fit with their agenda), God is more impressive – to be precise, his glory is more fully shown – when he acts beyond natural causes than when he acts through them.

It’s quite evident from context that the Resurrection, the calming the storm at the word of a man, the turning of water into wine, the feeding of five thousand, etc., were understood by both the Gospel writers, and all the subsequent tradition, as things beyond the power of nature to produce. They have always been understood as examples of special divine action, not as divine action mediated wholly through natural causes. It would be idiotic for a scientist to expect to be able to explain by natural causes events which (context makes clear) were not to be understood as natural phenomena. It would be as if, in trying to explain the resurrection of Lazarus, a scientist looked for traces of coma-inducing herbs between Lazarus’s teeth, herbs whose effects were known to last for just a few days, allowing for a staged resurrection when Jesus came along. Or as if, in trying to explain the feeding of the five thousand, a scientist looked for evidence that Jesus or one of his disciples had discovered the science of cloning and knew how to duplicate organic matter. Such explanations would be as stupid as they were blasphemous.

There’s a significant difference between trying to figure out what happened in Lazarus’s resurrection and denying that it happened by explaining it away.

Some people truly believe that God “holds up” bumblebees…

[fmiddel]

@Eddie

I have no idea what “God did it” means here. Do you mean, God did it by breaking laws of nature? Or God did by imparting to nature a tendency to form living things?[/quote]

Sorry, I was unclear. Yes, I meant God doing it by breaking the laws of nature…

The first approach would be that of a creationist. The approach of an ID proponent, while not ruling out the first possibility, includes also the second. ID is arguing for design in nature, not necessarily miracles. The point for an ID proponent is that you wouldn’t have life without deliberate design, not that you wouldn’t have life without a miracle.

I don’t disagree with that point of view. But I don’t know how many ID proponents were investigating possibilities of the development of the flagellum. It seems to me that once it becomes an example of irreducible complexity, the argument is done. It is opponents of the theory that pursue how it might have come about…

[quote]Origin of life science, on the other hand, has always (or if this has changed, it is only very recently) worked on the assumption that the collocation of matter that produces life is fortuitous, not designed.

I’m not trying to prove that God did it. I’m trying to explain to people here (at least some of whom won’t have spent the years studying the history and philosophy of science that I have) that there is no valid philosophical foundation for the assumption that life originated without design or plan, by collocations of molecules that might just as well never have happened. If someone believes that the first life formed by accident, it is up to that person to prove this; he cannot assume it as the very foundation of his research. He can offer it as a speculation, and then try to provide a detailed chemical pathway. But he can’t assume it. I’m saying nothing more than that. If you read more into it, e.g., if you think I am arguing for six-day creationism or the like, you are quite mistaken. I’m arguing from a purely secular philosophy of science perspective. (For a parallel attitude, read Thomas Nagel’s book on origins. He’s an atheist, but is critical of assumptions made by many scientists when they write about origins. He sees the philosophical naivete of much scientific and pop-scientific writing.)[/quote]

Arguing for or against “God doing it” is not a legitimate scientific pursuit. It is a metaphysical claim. Even if naturalistic explanations could be found for…well, everything, it still is not proof that God has not done it. It’s a non-falsifiable claim. This is why atheists have more recently argued, not that God “does not exist,” but that, for creation, God is not needed.

If “God as Creator” is Christianity’s primary issue, then that is the arena in which we are choosing to battle.

A much more interesting conversation is the historical veracity of the resurrection…

Either way, the ID argument seems to come really close to “god of the gaps”–“I can’t explain this” or “this seems inconceivable”…thus: GOD!

As Dr. Lamoureux said, if God is God of the gaps, we should be expecting those gaps to be getting larger, not smaller.

That’s what I’m asking for. But in fact, the vast majority of origin-of-life researchers have made reductionist, materialist assumptions; i.e., they have assumed in advance that the real origin of life is exactly the sort of thing that their reductionist, materialist science can investigate. And they have no right to that assumption. They can adopt it as a working, provisional basis for research; but they don’t have the right to insist upon the truth of the assumption in, say, high school science textbooks.

Agreed, completely.

[quote]What they should be saying is: “If life originated by natural means, then it probably came about in a way such as the following…” They should be leaving a door open to the possibility that science cannot explain everything about origins. If they don’t do that, they are guilty of scientism – which BioLogos preaches against.

Or better…this is as far as science can answer this question. Not that they stop looking, but that this is “what we know right now.” They do that with the first unit of Planck time…although striving to peer past that. Not that I have a problem with the looking…

…but claims about what God did or didn’t do are metaphysical, not scientific claims. The irony is that alternative explanations (e.g., “multiple universes”) are also metaphysical claims. I think it was Hawking in The Elegant Universe who argued that M-Theory is “just as good an explanation” for the existence of the universe than God–implying that God is a good explanation for the origin of the universe…

…but if we’re only talking about origins, it’s just “my theory vs. your theory.” If we’re talking about Jesus…that’s a whole other conversation…

[Chris_Falter]

Hi Eddie,

Hope your Tuesday has been a good news day!

@Eddie

I have to conclude that you, influenced by prior views about what ID argues, have read into Behe what is not stated.

You have quite an imagination, my friend Eddie. When I read the book in 2000, I believed every word of it. I was quite hostile toward the theory of evolution at the time.

You should really avoid such speculations about motive.

@Eddie

I’ve asked them to find any clear passage where Behe insists that only supernatural intervention can explain something. Not one person has been able to find any such passage.

“biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent” - Darwin’s Black Box

Moreover, Behe insists that the design of what he calls irreducibly complex systems happened essentially in an instant, rather than slowly.

I concede that you, Eddie, might believe that an intelligent agent who has the ability to create a highly complex system in an instant might not necessarily be supernatural. I would also concede that Behe subsequently (after publication of DBB) argued that such a powerful, intelligent agent was not supernatural, even though he did not voice that qualification in the book.

I would hasten to point out, though, that Behe’s subsequent qualification could very well have been motivated reasoning; he was testifying in the Dover trial, after all, and very much wanted to avoid the notion that intelligent design had anything to do with the constitutionally perilous notion of supernatural agency.

I find the judge’s conclusion compelling (if I might paraphrase it): an intelligent agent who can create magnificent designs in an instant is by definition supernatural, regardless of how anyone might try to spin it while squirming under cross-examination in a federal court.

We may end up agreeing to disagree on this one, I suppose.

@Eddie

Chris: Do you really think that accepting the scientific consensus of evolution, or the possibility of abiogenesis, threatens the integrity of theology?

Eddie: Where have I ever said or implied that?

Well, you stated that Christians like me are on a dangerous path…

@Eddie

There is a danger that Christians who are too eager to show they are “scientific” (by harmonizing theology with current science) will harmonize theology with a science that is becoming outdated.

Calling the evolutionary creationism project “a danger” is roughly equivalent to saying it threatens the integrity of Christian theology, in my book. If you would like to clarify your statement, I would be happy to listen.

@Eddie

So scientists may investigate possible natural answers, and that’s fine.

We certainly agree on this. Not all proponents of ID agree, but I appreciate your personal openness to the scientific project.

@Eddie

But they [scientists] have no right to assume that a natural answer exists.

There are a couple of ways to think about assumptions. There are logical assumptions as in number theory, and there are assumptions that get us out of bed in the morning. I agree with you that, in the logical assumptions as in number theory sense, scientists should not assume their eventual success.

On the other hand, like anyone else on the planet, scientists wouldn’t be doing their work if they were not optimistic about its eventual success. They make the assumption of eventual success as part of their mission in life when they wake up in the morning. But the terminology you have chosen to use seems to rain on the scientific parade–and no one likes their parade to be rained on.

If you can find a way of differentiating the 2 kinds of assumptions, and clarifying that you are speaking of the one, and not the other, then your interlocutors might be more amenable to your points. (If in this last paragraph I have misunderstood your intention, please forgive my error.)

Peace,

Chris Falter

[beaglelady]

@Eddie

By using the phrase “natural phenomena,” you have introduced an assumption about the very thing that needs to be proved. What if the origin of life was not a “natural phenomenon”? Then scientists, in trying to find a “natural explanation” for it, would stray far from the truth.

The tools of science are insufficient to study supernatural phenomena. How do you suggest that scientists search for a supernatural explanation?

[Biosemiosis.org]

[quote]Eddie: I’ve asked them to find any clear passage where Behe insists that only supernatural intervention can explain something. Not one person has been able to find any such passage.

Chris: “biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent” - Darwin’s Black Box
[/quote]

Hi Chris, the quote you used to show Behe demanding supernatural agency. Here is the fuller quote for context:

The conclusion of intelligent design flows naturally from the data itself - not from sacred books or sectarian beliefs. Inferring that biochemical systems were designed by an intelligent agent is a humdrum process that requires no new principles of logic or science. It comes simply from the hard work that biochemistry has done over the past forty years, combined with the consideration of the way in which we reach conclusions of design every day.

What is “design”? Design is simply the purposeful arrangement of parts …

[Biosemiosis.org]

@fmiddel

Including origins?

Yes, including origins.

[Biosemiosis.org]

[quote]Beagle: The tools of science are insufficient to study supernatural phenomena. How do you suggest that scientists search for a supernatural explanation?
[/quote]

One quick point before I butt out:

In the case of ID, it doesn’t attempt to “search for supernatural explanations”. It attempts to demonstrate design through universally observed data.

[beaglelady]

@Biosemiosis.org

In the case of ID, it doesn’t attempt to “search for supernatural explanations”. It attempts to demonstrate design through universally observed data.

But we all know who you-know-who is.