December 23, 2012

  • Discussion with a scientist friend series, part 2

    (Continuation of the "discussion with a scientist friend series", see  http://tim223.xanga.com/770288549/dialog-with-a-scientist-friend-part-1/  )

     

    Sue: Last week you said that you had several reasons why you believe in an invisible God.  You mentioned one of them: the fact that there is matter/energy and order in the universe.  What are some of your other reasons?

    Tim: Sure.  Another reason that I believe in God stems from the question of how life began.  The Bible says that God created all the plants and animals in various "kinds", or families.  These then gradually experienced genetic variation over the years.  For example, Rottweilers and Chihuahuas would both come from a single "dog" kind created by God in the beginning. On the other hand, the naturalistic explanation for how life began is... well... there actually is no accepted explanation.  There are four or five theories, but scientists are divided about them, and there are major problems with each of them.

    Sue: So you're saying that you believe in God because scientists have not yet figured out how life began?

    Tim: Well, there are these two main explanations for how life began: either God created life, or somehow a living cell formed by chance (called "abiogenesis") and then evolved into all life we see around us today.  After more than a hundred years of investigating different scenarios for how a living cell could have formed by chance, scientists still have no plausible theory.  So I conclude that the Bible's account is more scientifically viable.

    Sue: What are the different scientific theories of abiogenesis that you find hard to believe?

    Tim: It seems to me that there are two basic ways in which naturalists have tried to answer the abiogenesis question.  One is to say that "the origin of life was a very lucky accident", the other is to say "the origin of life was very easy and straightforward and bound to happen sooner or later".  This latter idea is called self-organizing complexity, and suggests that there might be simple scientific principles such that life would be 'guaranteed' to eventually arise.  For example, hurricane cloud formations spontaneously form a complicated-looking spiral shape, but this shape is not designed... it is simply due to Coriolis forces.  The problem is that such spontaneous self-organization has never been seen to happen for cells and cellular components in the lab.  This is because cellular parts are truly complicated and need a complex sequence of precisely arranged proteins and nucleotides to work properly. In contrast, hurricane spirals or rock crystals or other self-organizing patterns have a very simple pattern.  So very few scientists believe that life self-organized anymore.

    Sue: Didn't the Miller-Urey experiment prove that the basic building blocks for cells can arise spontaneously given some lightning in a prebiotic soup?

    Tim: The Miller-Urey experiment showed that very small amounts of amino acids would form, in very carefully controlled conditions where the compounds were continuously removed from the apparatus to prevent them from being broken down.  Actually, only 7 of the 20 amino acids necessary for life were ever found, and of those 7, it was always a racemic mixture, whereas cellular proteins require purely homochiral amino acids. http://creation.com/origin-of-life-the-chirality-problem   So really their experiment showed how improbable it is that even the building blocks for proteins could form by chance chemical conditions (much less the proteins themselves). http://creation.com/why-the-miller-urey-research-argues-against-abiogenesis

    Sue: Ok, what about the 'RNA-world' hypothesis?  I've heard that it is a popular explanation for abiogenesis.  Also there are 'DNA-first', 'protein-first', and 'metabolism-first' hypotheses.

    Tim: Right. The 'RNA-world' hypothesis is that somehow an RNA molecule formed which had the ability to catalyze the formation of copies of itself.  Once this "self-replication" process began, eventually mutations began to occur and the "fitter" molecules (more resistant to degradation) survived, and over time it turned into a living cell.  Unfortunately, the lab experiments for this have only shown RNA molecules which can catalyze already-existing pieces of itself (e.g. it can catalyze the polymerization of a 15-base-pair fragment of itself and a 17-base-pair fragment of itself into the full 32-base-pair molecule, as long as the fragments are purely homochiral)... such molecules are not able to build themselves up gradually. Likewise the DNA-first hypothesis has seen even less laboratory evidence for successful self-polymerization (no more than 4 or 5 base-pairs have ever been seen to spontaneously self-polymerize) or self-replication, or spontaneously generating a working DNA/RNA system.  Both DNA and RNA need special chaperone and handler proteins when they are in solution together, otherwise they will stick to each other and prevent creation of a working translation system.  http://crev.info/2011/08/110802-cell_chaperones/  A single DNA gene would be unlikely to have been formed by chance, but even an assumed "simplest-possible cell" would need at least 387 protein-coding and 43 RNA-coding genes. http://creation.com/how-simple-can-life-be The protein-first hypothesis is equally unlikely, for at least three reasons.  First, the peptide bonds are thermodynamically unfavorable, and thus do not spontaneously occur.  Second, even if a protein was to spontaneously polymerize, only a very small percentage of random amino acid sequences produce stable folded proteins (for example, a short 150-aa protein has only a 10^-75 chance of folding stably).  Third, even if a protein happens to form and stably fold, it is even less likely that the sequence happens to form the correct shape for the appropriate biological function needed (probability on the order of 10^-164, according to Stephen Meyer, "Signature in the Cell", page 217). http://tim223.xanga.com/753422666/god---imaginary-friend/?nextdate=1522396684&direction=n#1522396684 http://creation.com/loopholes-in-the-evolutionary-theory-of-the-origin-of-life-summary The metabolism-first hypothesis suggests that a steady system of chemical reactions developed first, and gradually over time this system began to become more complicated, until eventually DNA and RNA arose in the process (since the energy gradient was already there).  While chemical reaction systems can certainly arise, any gradual change in the reactions is not able to accurately preserve the 'information' of the reaction chain... it is unable to pass-along the information accurately to future metabolic reaction systems.  So this approach doesn't work either.  Some kind of information-carrying molecules are needed. http://crev.info/2010/01/metabolismfirst_origin_of_life_won146t_work/

    Sue: Why does the first cell have to arise fully formed, by "random chance"?  Couldn't it have first formed in a simplified version, and then gradually evolved to become more complex, like the cells we see today?

    Tim: Well, for 'evolution' to occur, there is a lot that is necessary inside this first 'proto-cell'.  It would need to have a way of accurately passing along its genetic information to its progeny, and methods of acquiring nutrients, inter-cellular communication, and especially mechanisms for replicating itself.  Although many scientists hope that someday a 'proto-cell' like you're describing will be shown in the lab, the scientific knowledge we currently have suggests that it will never happen.  Constructs are either too simple to live and reproduce, or too complicated to have been formed by chance... there doesn't seem to be anything in between.

    Sue: But given enough time, just about anything could happen!   I mean, even if it took a billion years, and a billion galaxies, there is so much time and so many opportunities for life to have arisen, that it's just bound to have happened.  Actually, the very fact that we're here talking about it proves that it did happen!

    Tim: Actually, no, that would be circular reasoning, to say that the first life "must have arisen by chance, otherwise we wouldn't be here talking about it."  I could say just the same thing about God creating life.

    Sue: Alright, but given enough time, surely it could have happened somewhere in the universe.

    Tim: Let's do a thought-experiment for a moment.  If you found a note on the lab bench saying "Hi Sue", and I told you that I thought it had been produced by random natural processes, how would you respond?  Let's say I proposed that the air-conditioning fan happening to blow a pencil off the shelf onto a nearby piece of paper, and then blew the paper onto your bench.

    Sue: I would say that's a silly hypothesis.  Of course it must have been written by a human.

    Tim: Why?

    Sue: Well, whenever I've found written notes in the past, they've always been written by humans.

    Tim: But what if I told you that this note was really from a random non-intelligent source, and I said to you "even though it sounds improbable, consider how much time has elapsed in the universe, and how many galaxies there are... so surely it is possible that in at least one location and time, exactly this random event has occurred..."?

    Sue: Ha ha.  So you're saying that my objection about the first cell falls into the same category?

    Tim: Yes... You're correct that we need to consider not only the "unlikelihood" of an unlikely event happening, but also the "probablilistic resources" available.  If there were a billion fans blowing a billion pencils onto a billion pieces of paper, in a huge building right next door, it might be more plausible.  But with just one fan, it is not plausible.  In this case, the probabilistic resources are still smaller than the unlikelihood.  Along the same lines, various mathematicians have suggested "upper bounds" to rule out impossibly improbable events.  For example, Dembski suggested that if the number of elementary particles in the universe (~10^80) could interact with each other continuously as fast as possible (the Planck time, 10^-43 seconds) for the amount of time since the (alleged) Big Bang (10^16 seconds ago), this would give a limit of 10^139 maximum possible interactions.  Thus, any event or chance molecule formation which was less probable than 10^-139 should be considered impossible.  The formation of even one functional protein by chance is less likely than that.  So we ought not to believe that it formed by chance.

    Sue: So that leads you to believe that God created life?

    Tim: Yes, it is another piece of evidence...  Scientifically-speaking, there is no plausible theory for how the first cell could have arisen.  On the other hand, the Bible explains that God created all kinds of life, in the beginning.  Just like you should legitimately conclude that a person wrote a note on your bench, we should conclude that our origins are not random... we are from God.  As the Bible says, "We are His people, the sheep of His pastures."

    Sue: But I can't believe that, because it's not scientific.  It's not scientific to say that "God created life".  God is invisible.  He is not measureable or observable.

    Tim: If you found a penciled note on your desk, would it be 'scientific' to conclude that it was written by an intelligent person rather than formed by blind random chance processes?

    Sue: That's different, because humans are observable.

    Tim: How would you define "scientific"?

    Sue: The study of physical, observable objects through repeatable, empirically-verifiable experimentation.

    Tim: So you're saying that you can't believe in God, because he is not scientific... by which you mean, not currently observable...?

    Sue: Yes.

    Tim: It turns out that God has made Himself observable, through certain historical interactions. But also, why should you assume that if you can't observe God, that means He doesn't exist?  That's like saying, "I didn't see anybody write that note on my bench; therefore I believe it must have had a chance origin."

    Sue: No, it's different in principle.  The author of the hypothetical note on my bench would be visible, so I can believe in him or her.  But God is invisible.

    Tim: I'm not following your logic.  I agree with you that we should not believe in things that we have no evidence for.  But what if there is evidence that an invisible, unobservable God does exist?  For example, the presence of life on earth, which all of our naturalistic scientific theories can't explain?  Not to mention the existence of matter/energy and order, that we discussed last time... and several other reasons to believe in God which I can share in the future.  Why should God's being "unscientific" (invisible) force us to conclude that He doesn't exist?  Isn't it possible that a Being could exist who might not be accessible to our scientific methods?

    Sue: Well, I prefer to only believe in things that I can see and verify scientifically, repeatedly, in the lab.

    Tim: Like abiogenesis?

    Sue: Even though it hasn't yet been shown in the lab, in principle it could be, some day.  So I would rather believe in abiogenesis than in God, because I prefer to stick with the visible world.  Besides, I think that you are committing a "God-of-the-gaps" fallacy by believing that since we haven't yet figured out exactly how random physical processes could create the first cell, therefore God did it.

    Tim: Have you considered that you might be committing a "chance-of-the-gaps" fallacy in the same way?  It sounds to me like you are saying, "No matter how improbable, I will continue to believe that somehow, time and chance produced the first living cell."  This is essentially assigning infinite powers to 'Chance', to do anything and everything.

    Sue: Ha ha.  Well, ok, I'm committing the chance-of-the-gaps fallacy, and you're committing the God-of-the-gaps fallacy.  Is there any way to break out of our presuppositional lockdown?  Also, I am running out of time here, but maybe we can continue this discussion in the future.

    Tim: Sure... there are three more main reasons why I believe in God, which I'd be glad to share more about in the future: (1) evolution can't explain the origin of genetic information, (2) Jesus' life, death, and resurrection from the dead, and (3) the existence of objective morality.  I think that the history surrounding Jesus in particular is able to break us out of our 'presuppositional lockdown'... because in Jesus, the invisible God made Himself known in tangible human flesh...   Until next time then!

     

    To be continued...

Comments (8)

  • "Tim: Like abiogenesis?

    Sue: Even though it hasn't yet been shown in the lab, in principle it could be, some day. So I would rather believe in abiogenesis than in God, because I prefer to stick with the visible world."

    Sounds like science by the Hope-and-Change Hypothesis. What is visible about abiogenesis? Nothing. Nothing about the past ever will be visible unless we discover time travel. Sorry, but your friend is a krank.

    And where is the God-of-the-gaps fallacy being committed when we rely primarily on revelation/testimony?

  • @soccerdadforlife - Thanks Tom... good points!

  • That we don't know how the first cell arose (though there are some interesting hypotheses that seem plausible, though they're a bit over my head so I can't say for sure how plausible they are - link) and haven't seen it occur in the lab is irrelevant, the variables involved are like a combination lock, the fact that a combination to unlock a safe is made up of only 10 simple, common numbers doesn't mean the code will be easy or quick to crack. Abiogenesis is a much more complex "code" to crack and just like a password with numbers and letters has exponentially more possible combinations than one with numbers alone, the fact that elements and chemicals react differently under a wide range of pressures, temperatures and by a wide variety of forces (electricity, mechanical forces etc) makes it a huge pain in the ass to figure out the origins of simple chemicals, let alone the first proto-cell.

    Scientists tried for decades to figure out how the 4 chemical components of RNA may have arisen by themselves with no success. When they finally figured out two of them the "combination" was hardly exotic - mix a few common chemicals and elements, put them in water, expose them to mechanical forces like waves and then evaporate the water they're in and that forms the first component of RNA - then put that component back into water and expose it to sunlight and the UV rays will make some of the first component turn into the second component spontaneously.

    It could take scientists a year to figure out the next two components, or a decade, or a century. But that's the nature of the beast. The only way to figure it out is like plugging random permutations into a safe until they blindly stumble on the right one. And science has not yet progressed to the point where they can just plug it into a computer and simulate every possible combination of elements.

    As for your creation.com links, they're big fat liars. They claim only left-handed amino acids formed as a result of the miller-urey experiment, a quick google search shows that the experiment yielded both right and left handed amino acids and the initial results were the formation of 11 amino acids and after miller died scientists opened sealed tubes from the experiment which had been set aside and they yielded more types of amino acids than exist in all of life.

    The further implication that they had to treat the samples with kid gloves to keep the amino acids from breaking down is BS - amino acids form spontaneously in everything from volcanic heat vents to glacial ice to outer space and are abundant in nature.

    Creationist websites lie. All the time. That's their job.

    And if this "scientist" friend exists (the conversations are fake but allegedly based on actual conversations) then a) are you going to invite her to comment, and b) what are her credentials?

  • @soccerdadforlife - You just defeated... tim.

    It's a fictional conversation.

  • @agnophilo - 
    Thanks Mark for your comments.

    You wrote: "As for your creation.com links, they're big fat liars. They claim only left-handed amino acids formed as a result of the miller-urey experiment"

    Which article that I linked to claimed this?

    You wrote: "The further implication that they had to treat the samples with kid gloves to keep the amino acids from breaking down is BS - amino acids form spontaneously in everything from volcanic heat vents to glacial ice to outer space and are abundant in nature."

    CERTAIN amino acids form spontaneously, (the very simple ones like glycine and alanine) while others are very rare, and others have never been found to form spontaneously. (The figure I quoted of only 7 amino acids found out of the 20 used in cells is the updated figure based on the recent paper you cited where they used more sensitive measures on the old vials. While that paper that more than 7 amino acids were found, only 7 of those were from the 20 used in cells). Amino acids also break down spontaneously, contrary to your statement. And yes, of course they are currently abundant in the natural world, because they are made by living organisms. But this is irrelevant to the question of the origin of acids before the first life.

    You asked about my friend on whose conversations are based this dialog... actually this series is based on conversations with many friends. You are one of them. While I disagree with your viewpoint, I appreciate your time and your input.

  • @tim223 - Thanks Mark for your comments.

    "Which article that I linked to claimed this?"

    Actually this is my mistake, I thought that is what they meant by the comment about homochirality, but they're making a different argument about handedness.

    [You wrote: "The further implication that they had to treat the samples with kid gloves to keep the amino acids from breaking down is BS - amino acids form spontaneously in everything from volcanic heat vents to glacial ice to outer space and are abundant in nature."]

    "CERTAIN amino acids form spontaneously, (the very simple ones like glycine and alanine) while others are very rare, and others have never been found to form spontaneously."

    At one point zero amino acids were known to form spontaneously. I would not be surprised if we discover that the 7 figure is low. And even if it isn't, life may have once not used the amino acids it does today.

    "(The figure I quoted of only 7 amino acids found out of the 20 used in cells is the updated figure based on the recent paper you cited where they used more sensitive measures on the old vials. While that paper that more than 7 amino acids were found, only 7 of those were from the 20 used in cells)."

    Actually hundreds of types of amino acids exist in life, 20 are used in proteins. But fair point that the article was closer to the truth than I thought at first glance (I read the stuff about the old vials after reading the creation.com article).

    "Amino acids also break down spontaneously, contrary to your statement."

    What doesn't? And that isn't contrary to my statement.

    "And yes, of course they are currently abundant in the natural world, because they are made by living organisms. But this is irrelevant to the question of the origin of acids before the first life."

    What I said was that they spontaneously form in everything from ice to volcanic conditions to outer space - as in in sterile laboratory experiments. You can freeze chemicals long term and they produce amino acids, you can heat them and they produce amino acids, you can put electricity through them and they produce amino acids, and amino acids form in vast quantities in space and rain down in meteorites. Are there living things in space making the vast clouds of amino acids we detect with radio telescopes?

    "You asked about my friend on whose conversations are based this dialog... actually this series is based on conversations with many friends. You are one of them. While I disagree with your viewpoint, I appreciate your time and your input."

    So you're lying then. You said these were based on discussions with a single, scientist friend of yours - emphasis on scientist.

    And the "sue" answers are not in any way based on any answer I've ever given you to any question or comment. I don't think I've seen an answer yet in one of these blogs that I would give to a question.

  • @agnophilo - 
    Hi Mark,
    Thanks for your clarifications and comments.

  • @tim223 - Every other comment in my feed is an evangelical christian giving me a syrupy-sweet brushoff.

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