March 15, 2011
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"...don't tell the creationists..."
John Horgan recently said on his blog at Scientific American magazine that secular scientists still have no good theory for how life could arise from non-living chemicals. "Don't tell the creationists," he says! (as if we aren't fully aware...) The main contenders for abiogenesis theories these days are self-catalyzing RNA molecules (whose problems Horgan lists, and Stephen Meyer enumerates in his book "Signature in the Cell"), and "Panspermia", the idea that life on earth must have come from somewhere else in the universe. Panspermia merely pushes the problem somewhere else, of course.
Horgan tries to claim that his naturalistic approach is more "honest", however. Here's a quote:
"Creationists are no doubt thrilled that origin-of-life research has reached such an impasse..., but they shouldn't be. Their explanations suffer from the same flaw: What created the divine Creator? And at least scientists are making an honest effort to solve life's mystery instead of blaming it all on God."
If the divine Creator God had a beginning, then yes, He would need a cause. But since He is eternal and never had a beginning, He needed no cause.
A naturalist might say, "You believe in an eternal God, I believe in an eternal universe. We both believe in something eternal, but at least I can see the universe, whereas I can't see God. My position is more rational because I'm building my beliefs on the available observable evidence."
There are three problems with this. First, according to observable scientific principles such as the laws of thermodynamics, all the matter/energy in closed systems is constantly moving into a less-usable state (higher entropy). So if the universe was really eternal, it would have already come to a "heat death", a cold, homogenized "stew" of molecules evenly distributed everywhere. The fact that there's still lots of usable energy around (e.g. the stars) indicates that it had a beginning, some finite time ago. (Someone might postulate a constantly exploding-and-contracting universe that has been 'reborn' an infinite number of times every few billion years with no loss of energy... but how "observable" would that theory be?!? That's about as observable and rational as postulating that an invisible 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' created the universe!
Second, which Cause better explains the world we see around us? If all life arose from nonliving chemicals, then morality is merely an illusion, as are also consciousness, choice, love, and rational thought itself. Furthermore, are all design inferences inherently "dishonest", as Horgan seems to imply? Suppose I found a scrap of paper stuck under my front door one day, with the following text: "Dear Tim, I think you're cute. Signed, a secret admirer." I could attribute this object to three types of causes (or a mixture) - necessity, chance, or design.
- "Necessity" would be, for example, a secret miniature printing press buried behind a trap door in my wall which stealthily swung into action in the middle of the night and stamped out such a note every few years, inserting it beneath the doorstep before lapsing into hibernation again. That would explain the paper, but the chain of causality would next move to "where did the printing press (a more complicated object than the note) come from?"
- "Chance" would be, for example, the hypothesis that the wind just so happened to blow a pencil and a scrap of blank paper out of the trash dump on the other side of the city, and just so happened to rub the pencil against the paper as they tumbled down the street, and just so happened to form legible english letters and words which created a coherent set of sentences, and just so happened to insert the paper under my front door during the night. Is it possible? Sure. What's the probability? A lot bigger than the probability that one self-replicating cell would form by chance...
- "Design" would be the hypothesis that some unknown "intelligent agent" wrote and delivered the note.
If I inferred design, would that be a "dishonest" inference? Would it be irrational? Would it be "unscientific"? Would Horgan say, "No no no, you must keep trying to think up a way that it could have happened by chance! You must keep making an honest effort to solve the mystery of the note's origin by postulating non-intelligent causes, rather than blaming it all on some unknown intelligent agent!"
Third, there is indeed real-world evidence for the existence of the Biblical God. Jesus of Nazareth was born at the prophesied time and place, performed miracles and taught about (and in accordance with) the God of the Old Testament, was killed, and then raised to life again and was seen by hundreds of people. While God is currently invisible, He has provided ample historical evidence of His existence and character to those who take the time to investigate...
Comments (25)
Origin of life research has met an impasse? This from a non-scientist. I've probably posted videos about abiogenesis research that goes all the way back to the beginning, and scientists just recently figured out how just evaporation and sunlight can produce two of the four components of RNA. Progress is being made in the field of abiogenesis all the time, even though it is tremendously difficult to look for something when you don't even know what you're looking for.
Your second assertion is that morality is meaningless if life was not created. This makes no sense, and seems to stem from fear-based evangelism more than logic and reason. What does something's origin have to do with it's meaning? If you die by accident is it less tragic than if it's by design? If the natural universe did arise naturally and god came across it, looked it over, thought it was interesting, and instantly poofed an exact duplicate universe into existence so he could observe it - are you telling me that the duplicate is meaningful, but the original is not? Why? I get that you feel warm and fuzzy about the idea of creation by a loving god, but that does not mean life is meaningless without that concept. That is like saying "I like x style of music, I find great meaning and beauty in it. Therefore if someone hasn't heard or doesn't like x style of music, their life must be meaningless and devoid of beauty". You are judging other views of the world not for what they are, but by looking down your nose at them from within your own. And the goal is not to understand other points of view, but to reinforce and promote your own.
The last argument is a bad argument for the same reason it was when it was refuted several hundred years ago. The refutation was as follows: We know a watch is created not by it's inherent properties, but by experience, because we can visit a watchmaker's shop, buy them in stores etc. We do not know that the universe was created by experience as we have never observed a universe being created directly or indirectly, thus the two are not comparable.
The universe does not have a bar code or a trademark symbol or a logo or a "made in heaven" sticker, or any of the hallmarks of manufacturing. And the design we do see in life we have good explanations for. Explanations you may not want to entertain, but good explanations nonetheless. And the naturalistic view has the benefit of explaining not just the positive, but the myriad of negative but very intricate and well-designed things, like the bubonic plague which is fantastically complex. Or did a loving god make that too?
And the difference between your website and wikipedia is wikipedia actually lists both the idea and the criticisms of the idea. Dembski's arguments have been flatly disproven for ages.
@agnophilo -
Thanks for your thoughts, Mark.
Here are some interesting quotes related to evolution and meaning and morality. They do not necessarily directly refute your claims (I would certainly agree with you that people can create "subjective meaning" in their lives), but they do tend to point out that evolution does not lend itself to objective morality and meaning.
The position of the modern evolutionist . . . is that humans have an awareness of morality . . . because such an awareness is of biological worth. Morality is a biological adaptation no less than are hands and feet and teeth . . . . Considered as a rationally justifiable set of claims about an objective something, ethics is illusory. I appreciate that when somebody says 'Love they neighbor as thyself,' they think they are referring above and beyond themselves . . . . Nevertheless, . . . such reference is truly without foundation. Morality is just an aid to survival and reproduction, . . . and any deeper meaning is illusory . . . .
- Michael Ruse, "Evolutionary Theory and Christian Ethics," in The Darwinian Paradigm (London: Routledge, 1989), pp. 262, 268-9.
A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him the best ones.
- Charles Darwin, Autobiography of Charles Darwin (1958) p.94
"If a person doesn’t think that there is a God to be accountable to, then what’s the point of trying to modify your behavior to keep it within acceptable ranges? That’s how I thought anyway. I always believed the theory of evolution as truth, that we all just came from the slime. When we died, you know, that was it, there is nothing, and I’ve since come to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is truly God, and I believe that I, as well as everyone else, will be accountable to him."
--serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer as spoken during an interview with Stone Phillips on Dateline NBC, which aired November 29, 1994. Dahmer himself was murdered in a Wisconsin prison the day before the interview was aired.
Dahmer’s NBC statement is quoted by author Roy Ratcliff in his book DARK JOURNEY DEEP GRACE (Leafwood Publishers, Abilene, TX, 2006, p. 55)
"There have in the past been attempts to base a morality on evolution. I don't want to have anything to do with that. The kind of world that a Darwinian, going back to survival of the fittest now, and nature red in tooth and claw, I think nature really is red in tooth and claw. I think if you look out at the way wild nature is, out there in the bush, in the prairie, it is extremely ruthless, extremely unpleasant, it¹s exactly the kind of world that I would not wish to live in. And so any kind of politics that is based upon Darwinism for me would be bad politics, it would be immoral.
Putting it another way, I¹m a passionate Darwinian when it comes to science, when it comes to explaining the world, but I¹m a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to morality and politics."
-- Richard Dawkins The Descent of Man (Episode 1: The Moral Animal) (radio shows done in Jan/Feb 2000 at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, produced by Tom Morton)
"Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either."
- Will Provine, Origins Research 16(1), p.9, 1994.
"I¹m not very grateful for Darwin, although I suspect he was right. His ideas make people crueler. Darwinism says to them that people who get sick deserve to be sick, that people who are in trouble must deserve to be in trouble. When anybody dies, cruel Darwinists imagine we¹re obviously improving ourselves in some way. And any man who¹s on top is there because he¹s a superior animal. That¹s the social Darwinism of the last century, and it continues to boom." (Wampeters, 238)
- Kurt Vonnegut - Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons. New York: Dell Publishing,
1974.
"Ultimately the life of a man is of no greater importance to the universe than the life of an oyster."
- David Hume
I have found that none of these things actually matter to those who reject creation. All they care about is their own belief system and what makes creationists look foolish.
First of all, like agrophilo said, there is progress being made in the field of abiogenesis all the time. This is a faulty argument that religious people have made for ages. They claim that since we don't know the origin or cause of something, we may as well ascribe it to God. But we used to do that with everything we didn't understand until we realized the sun rises every day due to the rotation of the Earth, the flowers bloom due to chemical reactions in the seeds, etc. I'm not say it's impossible that we were created by God, but saying we don't understand how it happened and then immediately ascribing it to God is not a view I can get behind. I'd rather just say that I don't know.
Also, my view on morality is a bit different than most. I think the basis of morality comes from our visceral reactions, which we later rationalize. It has been evolutionarily programmed in us that killing other humans is wrong because we are social creatures and killing other humans in the group would have been disadvantageous for the group, and therefore for ourselves. It feels wrong, therefore we say it must be wrong. Not to mention that doing something to a person opens up the possibility of that action being done to us, which is where I think the origins of the golden rule of morality come from. The we extrapolate from the moral rules we figured out from our visceral reactions by using the logical part of our brains, and this is how we develop moral systems for actions that we have no emotional stake in. To put it simply, everything we think and feel comes from neural firings in our brain, and this includes love, friendship, morality, and rational thought. But there are evolutionary reasons why we have all of these, so it's not like they're there for no reason. They may have initially popped up by chance in a way, but evolution made sure we retained them.
The note example is not a very good example. First of all, in the link you provided, he says this: "Thus, the total number of state changes in all elementary particles since the Big Bang cannot exceed 10^150, and anything with a probability of less than 10^-150 cannot be due to chance." This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of probability. That's like saying if i flip a coin once, I can't get heads or tails because I would need two flips to get one of those. Secondly, what if this pencil and paper coincidence had happened in the past, but the paper never landed on someone's doorstep and therefore was never seen? We can say it has never been recorded to happen, but not necessarily that it never happened. Furthermore, there's been a lot more time in the universe where a cell would have been formed by random chance than when paper and pencil were around. And finally, there is no force keeping the paper in its state, but once the self-replicating cell formed, the force keeping it alive was inherent in itself. It was self-replicating, and therefore was driven to reproduce by definition.
I don't think that Horgan meant that assuming a designer is always dishonest (or at least, I hope he didn't, but if he did, then you can assume the rest of this is my view). I would assume that he meant that assuming a designer as the origin of something with no good evidence is intellectually dishonest. It is also intellectually dishonest to not keep searching for that cause if you don't have good evidence either way. If we use your secret admirer example, you could assume that the note was written by the girl you like and not do any investigation, or you could look at the given evidence and try to figure it out (from handwriting, sentence structure, etc). Obviously the best way to be honest with yourself is by the second choice, but the first choice is more analogous to what a lot of people do (not just religious people, atheists can also fall prey to believing a theory blindly without good evidence). To be intellectually honest, we have to be constantly questioning the world around us.
interesting post, Personally I believe that we should never stop questing or investigating. Science is does not have all the answers. Eventually every belief requires a leap of faith. Science cannot confirm or deny the existence of a creator. Science cannot prove the origin of life. Science can only show what is possible, it cannot prove that it happened that way.
@mtngirlsouth -
Creationists make themselves look foolish. We need not another human being for this.
This post is a complete failure. You're parroting old "arguments" that have been refuted conclusively already.
And no, I will not engage you in debate. It would be pointless. Your eyes are closed to the obvious, and no amount of reasoned argument will convince you.
@haloed - Bingo. Their "theories" and "arguments" are weak at best, and utterly laughable at worst. Usually the latter.
@wearywalden - Nobody in science would ever tell you that science has all the answers. If they said that, they'd be talking out of their rear - and they're probably not a scientist.
You're right that science cannot confirm or deny the existence of a creator...but science doesn't even care about a creator so long as the observable evidence accounts for what we see and can be used to make testable predictions. You can't make any testable predictions with a creator (unless you want them all to fail), so science doesn't count it as a viable option (a la, "God did it, the end"). Is your statement about making leaps of faith just an attempt at bringing rational thought down to the level of religion? That's petty.
Horgan is philosophically incompetent, to be sure.
While I am in sympathy with your aim, I wish to discuss your method.
First, both creationists and evolutionists deal with the same evidence. They differ as to methods. Creationists may look at the physical evidence, but they also consider the historical evidence from the only available eyewitness--God. The question of origins is a question of history. Hence, historical methods should be used to investigate origins. Using scientific methods to investigate history is a categorical error. Natural processes tend to destroy physical evidence. The longer they operate, the more physical evidence they destroy. Hence, the naturalistic claim that there were millions of years necessarily asserts that a great deal of physical evidence has been destroyed, which is why the discovery of dinosaur soft tissue has been such a surprise to naturalists. That physical evidence is consistent with thousands of years, but not with millions of years.
Second, the SLOT argument is controversial even among creationists. Hence, its use is not recommended. An argument along the lines of SLOT would require a great deal more research.
Third, when looking at the physical evidence, why should we be limited to only two choices--creation or evolution? There are an infinite number of radically-different theories that could be constructed based on the physical evidence, including panspermia or the Gaia hypothesis of front-loading. All of them would agree with the available evidence or could be made to do so with minimal modifications. All theories can be made to be sufficient, but the question of a theory's necessity is out of reach without an adequate epistemology.
Fourth, if you're going to refer to historical evidence from the Bible, which is controversial, then you need to answer the questions which make it controversial.
@haloed - You think that creationists look foolish? I think that you're looking in a mirror. P lol
@Liquid_Pain_523 - The progress in abiogenesis so far is equivalent to jumping across a puddle. In order to be believable as to its sufficiency, it would need to be able to jump across the widest part of the Pacific Ocean, but so far abiogenetic researchers are still debating whether a puddle has been jumped. Of course, even if the Pacific Ocean were to be jumped, that wouldn't answer the question of necessity. What if biologists were to discover several different ways that abiogenesis could have occurred? How would you select between them? What if none of them was how abiogenesis occurred? What if abiogenesis wasn't even involved in origins?
@Liquid_Pain_523 - Thanks for everyone's comments, and especially Liquid_Pain_523 (Otto?) for your thoughtful reply.
Responding briefly to your points -
- Any argument for a creator must automatically be a "God-of-the-gaps" argument (why? why couldn't it be a "inference to the best explanation" or a detection of elements which are hallmarks of intelligent design, like specified complexity?)
- Our teachings about morality come from our visceral reactions and feelings (and so they are relative... one's "standards" are free to change depending on one's feelings... this was what I was saying about the naturalistic view of morality)
- Dembski's "universal probability bound" (UPB) represents a fundamental misunderstanding of probability (I don't follow your argument here... Dembski proposes it as a way to detect design. If you reject his 'explanatory filter'/UPB method, then what would be your alternative method for rigorously detecting design?)
- The pencil/paper might have landed elsewhere than on my doorstep, or at some other time (which indeed adds to the improbability of it landing on my doorstep at this particular time... this also brings up the point of "probabilistic resources" - e.g. what if there were a thousands dumps filled with slips of paper and pencils all around my city, such that people were always finding slips of paper with random scribblings all over the place on the ground... this would reduce the improbability of finding the note... this leads to Dembski's UPB, asking "how can one say that something is too specifiedly-improbable to have occurred by chance, after factoring in all possible probabilistic resources?" http://www.iscid.org/papers/Dembski_ChanceGaps_012002.pdf )
- "...once the self-replicating cell formed..." (reminds me of the "assume a can-opener..." joke
But your point is that the first cell could have formed a long time ago and continued for a long time before evolving further, meaning that the probabilistic resources included billions of years. Unfortunately, as you know if you've ever tried to grow cells in the lab, cells tend to die very easily...)
- "assuming a designer as the origin of something with no good evidence is intellectually dishonest" (i.e., assuming a designer without first investigating to see whether there is any evidence for a designer or checking whether the item in question might be due to a "necessary cause" or "reasonably probable chance processes" would be intellectually dishonest.
I agree. Regarding God as Creator, I do NOT simply argue "I don't know how we could have evolved, therefore, God must have done it" (a God-of-the-gaps argument). Rather, I notice on the one hand, positive evidence for God as Creator (Jesus' historical life and teachings, and the Bible), and on the other hand, much scientific evidence showing that random and deterministic physical/chemical processes are unable to produce even a single self-replicating cell on their own.
On your part, how do you avoid a "chance-of-the-gaps" argument? I.e., the general attitude among abiogenesis researchers seems to be "Well, we haven't figured out yet how it happened, but give us a little more time (and funding), and eventually we'll figure out how the first self-replicating cell arose from nonliving chemicals... because Chance can do ANYTHING, given enough time and planets." How is this not a chance-of-the-gaps attitude?)
I agree with you that it's good to keep questioning. I appreciated your feedback, and feel free to stop by my blog again in the future.
@soccerdadforlife - good point about "observational science" vs "historical science"/"forensic science."
@CoderHead - rational thought bring many people to religion, my point was that people who claim there is no God, or that the Earth has no creator are also taking that on faith, it cannot be proven.
@wearywalden - I haven't met a ton of people who claim to know there isn't a god. I suppose that would be a statement of faith. As for the Earth having a creator, too many questions arise in the rational mind to be able to accept that on faith. Just the simple fact that we can't even inhabit 77% of the planet speaks to that.
It takes faith to say there is no creator because it cannot be proven, but there is currently nothing wrong with questioning either side's assumptions. I am not sure what you mean by your last statement. Why does the fact that we cannot inhabit 77% of the planet mean there is no creator?
@haloed - I love it when unbelievers unwittingly prove the Bible to be true. You make me smile!
Actually, I like the earlier comment that both creationist and evolutionary theories should be able to predict some real world outcomes. For example, the creationist model (young earth of between 10,000 - 60,000 years old) would predict that diamonds should contain some detectable amount of C-14 while the evolutionary model (old earth of millions or billions of years old) would predict that diamonds contain none.
How is it that diamonds are not being tested for the presence of C-14 by which to support or detract from one model or the other?
@craigwbooth - Yes... and when they are tested, they do show C-14... http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/aid/v2/n1/radiocarbon-in-diamonds&vPrint=1
@tim223 - Morality isn't a problem to an existentialist, sympathy, empathy, philosophy and utilitarianism are more than enough basis for a moral worldview, and I would argue that we do not actually follow biblical morality and almost invariably reject it in favor of common sense ethics, sympathy, empathy etc. Or have you killed many witches lately?
@wearywalden - Admitting you don't know (which science does all the time) does not require a leap of faith.
@mtngirlsouth - Demonstrating one true thing in a book does not mean everything in that book is true. I could easily find many correct statements in Mein Kampf.
@craigwbooth - The test itself contaminates the sample, because you have to combust the diamond in order to get the reading, combustion is oxygen-based and all oxygen contains trace amounts of the carbon-14 isotope.
@tim223 - Read the above response - the people pretending those results mean that diamonds are young are lying or incompetent. Oh, and so is answers in genesis. About a lot of things.
@agnophilo - "all oxygen contains trace amounts of the carbon-14 isotope"
Mark, could you provide a source for this claim? If one generates pure lab-grade oxygen via hydrolysis of water, where would the alleged C14 come from?
@tim223 - Well I meant in nature, I don't know if it's possible to remove all c-14 from a sample or if it's possible to operate the necessary equipment in such sterile conditions (the equipment would need to be scrubbed of c-14 traces too.
The amount of c-14 in air is known and when scientists do an analysis they know what amounts of what particles came from the air used for combustion and ignore them - dishonest scientists do not.
However I've never found an article explaining how they did the test with oxygen with no c-14 isotopes in it, just articles on religious sites about c-14 dating that just took the old article and put "and the samples aren't contaminated" into it.
@agnophilo - Hi Mark,
Have you read the original RATE articles? (e.g. http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Carbon-14-Evidence-for-a-Recent-Global-Flood-and-a-Young-Earth.pdf ) When you imply that scientists who find high background C14 are "dishonest", are you only singling out creationist scientists, or also the other scientists and AMS labs throughout the world who note such levels? (e.g. their 'table 1', and the actual AMS lab which performed their analysis)
@tim223 - No, I said scientists who interpret the data dishonestly are dishonest. And as far as the global flood, here is a blog I did awhile ago called "13 reasons why the genesis flood never happened" and another one entitled "6 reasons the flood did not make the geological column" (radiometric dating is just one item on the list). It's also worth noting that there are 18 different kinds of radiometric dating which can be used to cross-confirm each other (which he seems to ignore). It's also worth noting that rocks are used to date the ages of geological layers, not fossils, primarily because fossils are permeable to air and water and easily contaminated. This is also why DNA survives much longer in amber than in a bone, which is porous.
It is also worth mentioning that the institute for creation science is engaging in pseudoscience. In science the conclusion comes last, not first.
@agnophilo - "Admitting you don't know (which science does all the time) does not require a leap of faith." that is true
@agnophilo - Hi Mark,
Responding to the issues you raised:
1. "It is also worth mentioning that the institute for creation science is engaging in pseudoscience. In science the conclusion comes last, not first."
What is the "institute for creation science" to which you refer?
On the alleged pseudoscience, would you also agree that evolutionist Richard Lewontin is engaging in pseudoscience because of his materialism which comes first, not last? As stated by Lewontin:
"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."
(as cited in http://tim223.xanga.com/753422666/god---imaginary-friend/)
2. Am I correct in understanding your current position on the RATE C14 experiments as:
a. Yes, there were indeed surviving C14 molecules, as measured by "honest scientists" in the commercial AMS labs
b. Yes, the procedures were performed correctly using pure oxygen and without contamination, by these "honest scientists" in the commercial AMS labs
c. However, the interpretation drawn by the RATE team, that the samples could not have been older than 50-100 kA, was wrong and "dishonest"
d. ( What is your alternate interpretation of the C14 data? )
@tim223 - What is the institute for creation science? The creationist organization you are citing. icr.org = institute for creation science. And I think he's espousing a philosophical view in a philosophical article about the merits of his philosophical worldview, not pretending that it's science. And the things he gives as examples of things accepted against common sense are things like past events being observable due to the time lag from light getting to the earth etc. He is not, as the out of context quote is suggesting, saying we should accept any hogwash as long as it's materialistic. He was talking about accepting things that can be empirically proven despite the fact that they go against our common sense.
As for the RATE team, I'd have to know more about their specific methodologies, but I doubt it's even possible to produce "pure" oxygen, there are trace amounts of everything in everything. But if they were mis-using radiometric dating techniques to "prove" their inaccuracy it wouldn't be the first time creationists have done so.
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