nagirrac wrote: » The problem with Dawkins is he is as reactionary and closed minded as those he opposes. Science is an evolving aspect of human endeavour and to draw such 99% certain conclusions from limited information as he has is sheer arrogance. The world simply cannot be explained simply in materialistic terms as anyone would even a rudimentary understanding of quantum mechanics accepts. Science is based on what we can objectively describe with our 5 senses but who knows what lies beyond our sensory ability. Science as it currently stands simply cannot answer the big questions; what is consciousness and where does it derive from? where are memories stored or retrieved from say after a concussion? how is knowledge passed on from generation to generation withour direct communication as it clearly is? We are supposed to believe that the sheer perfection of the laws of nature that led to the beautiful world we percieve around us happened by chance, just atoms banging into each other and making DNA. As Fred Hoyle said regarding life developing randomly "like believing a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and making a 747". Genetics as currently understood explains only a fragment of life and how life evolved and continues to evolve. We have a very incomplete understanding of reality and to say that science as we know it today will explain reality to us in time is the height of arrogance. None of the above postulates a God or the lack of a God. Life could have come here from outer space via a comet but then you have to wonder where that life came from. Populist scientists like Dawkins will not lead us towards furthering our understanding of reality, it will be evolutionary giant steps in our species whose minds are more open, people like Einstein who did not feel the need to wage war on those with a belief in a God and was humble enough to accept the possibility of a God.
nagirrac wrote: » As Fred Hoyle said regarding life developing randomly "like believing a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and making a 747".
nagirrac wrote: » Genetics as currently understood explains only a fragment of life and how life evolved and continues to evolve.
nagirrac wrote: » Populist scientists like Dawkins will not lead us towards furthering our understanding of reality, it will be evolutionary giant steps in our species whose minds are more open, .....
Dades wrote: » Maybe you're right, nagirrac, our five senses aren't enough to discover the reality of existence. We should use our chest-based blood pumping organ instead. Science is the only honest method of enquiry because it's the only one that recognises it doesn't have the answers. And when it does suggest an answer it is never accepted as fact until absolutely shown to be so. Science is not atheism, it's simply the method of inquiry that has brought us from living in caves to living in space stations.
MagicMarker wrote: » Also, Einstein was so open minded he thought QM was bullshít, and Dawkins does accept the possibility of a God. But yeah, rant away my good fellow.
nagirrac wrote: » Dawkins on Bill Maher's show described himself as a 6.9 on his own scale of 1-7 in terms of being an atheist. Most scientists are agnostics and almost all theoretical physicists are agnostics. Dawkins appeals to the current anti-religion new atheists who in reality equate science with atheism, most of whom have no real understanding of either subject.
ShooterSF wrote: » Dawkins is agnostic too. He doesn't claim to know no god exists.
King Mob wrote: » A dishonest, stupid argument that even creationists have long abandoned because it makes it so obvious that the person using it either doesn't understand evolution, or is deliberately misrepresenting it.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Just wanted to correct you on this point. Hoyle's argument has nothing to do with evolution. It's to do with how life itself originated.
nagirrac wrote: » No he is not. He is an affirmed atheist so he should nail his colors to the mast and prove his position. Strong atheists have it handy asking others to prove an all encompassing intelligence that we do not understand exists but have nothing but black holes in their own argument. Science is forever filling in dots but increasingly not making much real progress. Compared to the early 20th century science is extremely inefficient i.e. buried up its own ass.
King Mob wrote: » Still even if he is referring to abiogenesis, it's still a stupid, dishonest argument which ignores the ideas of natural selection working on small incremental changes.
King Mob wrote: » Still even if he is referring to abiogenesis, it's still a stupid, dishonest argument which ignores the ideas of natural selection working on small incremental changes. If someone claims that claiming something does not involve magic/aliens/intelligence is random, that person either has no idea what he's talking about or is feigning ignorance. Here's a great video detailing a simplified version of one of the current theories of abiogensis:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg Exactly nowhere in that described process is something impossible, requires the intervention of magic, or is "random".
Cavehill Red wrote: » I'm not interested in defending Hoyle's argument. It's not my argument. I was simply pointing out that you had completely misunderstood it. There is no evolution at the biopoietic point. There is no increment. It goes from off to on.
nagirrac wrote: » Yes, Hoyle was a critic of abiogensis and a firm believer that life originated in space and was transferred by viruses riding on comets to earth.
nagirrac wrote: » Nonsense you say, but unfortunately he is right, even back in those dastardely 1980s.
nagirrac wrote: » There simply isn't enough time since earth's evolution, life had to have originated long ago somewhere else.
King Mob wrote: » So you didn't watch the video then I take it since it shows you exactly how wrong that statement is.
King Mob wrote: » And this is a valid theory.
King Mob wrote: » So you didn't watch the video then I take it since it shows you exactly how wrong that statement is. And this is a valid theory. The argument however either applied to abiogenesis or evolution is still stupid and dishonest. You're welcome to prove his theory. Or address the points I made against his dishonest argument. Ok, prove that then.
Cavehill Red wrote: » so for you to suggest it is definitively an evolutionary process at the point of biopoiesis is the only actual dishonest statement on this entire thread so far.
King Mob wrote: » Where did I say that?
King Mob wrote: » I am only presenting this theory to show that there are well supported, logical and plausible theories for abiogenesis that don't rely on "randomness" or something comparable to the dishonest analogy of a tornado built plane.
King Mob wrote: » So do you think that the model I presented is "random"?
King Mob wrote: » Do you think that it is fair to describe that as "as likely as a tornado in a junkyard making a 747"?
King Mob wrote: » Can it be described as not being incremental or being "off then on"?
Cavehill Red wrote: » Post 7 above.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Logical, yes. Well supported or plausible, not so much.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Don't you? To suggest otherwise would be to imply the hand of a designer.
Cavehill Red wrote: » I'm not qualified to do the maths on that. It's possible that no one is, given the variables, including Hoyle. Certainly the probability of either occurring is quite lengthy though.
Cavehill Red wrote: » This will, I imagine, depend somewhat on your definition of what life consists of. If you think that replicating polymers qualify as life, you may believe this model describes an incremental process. Most biologists wouldn't concur with that definition of life though.
nagirrac wrote: » Hoyle calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes to build the simplest of living cells was 10^40,000 dwarfing the # of atoms in the known universe calculated at 10^80. No way life originated here or made the huge evolutionary steps it did here without outside help. What's wrong with a virus spreading a "meme", you believe in the common cold right?
There simply isn't enough time since earth's evolution, life had to have originated long ago somewhere else.
King Mob wrote: » I say no such thing there.
King Mob wrote: » So what is implausible about it?
King Mob wrote: » No it's not "random" but it's not directed by an intellegence either.
King Mob wrote: » All of the processes in it are just following laws of simple chemistry and physics.
King Mob wrote: » So even thought the statement can't be supported, and is not an accurate comparison to this and other theories he made it anyway... Seems a bit ignorant and dishonest don't you think...?
King Mob wrote: » And these processes could not have produced want we now consider life down the line using natural selection on incremental changes because....?
Cavehill Red wrote: » Um, yes you did.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Bottom-up models posit, as here, very simple proto-cells. Yet no one has ever been able to synthesise one. That would be the main implausibility. This model requires a step that ought to be simple, yet has proved utterly elusive to the top biochemical labs in the world.
Cavehill Red wrote: » It's not random in that it is a logical theory, in that it has an inherent logic. But you shouldn't confuse that with likely, or plausible, or definitive. It's also wildly speculative and hypothetical.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Again, I reiterate, I'm not seeking to defend Hoyle. He can do that for himself. But no, I don't think it is reasonable to suggest he is either ignorant nor dishonest. He clearly believes what he writes, and his scientific credentials likely vastly exceed your own.
Cavehill Red wrote: » I didn't say they couldn't. I agreed the theory was logical. I stated it wasn't particularly plausible, and that it was only one of many, many theories relating to abiogenesis. Personally, I'm agnostic on the issue as it doesn't exactly keep me awake at night. But exogenesis is a perfectly plausible theorem too.
King Mob wrote: » http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=81234042&postcount=7 Here is post 7. Please highlight exactly what you are reffering to as there's nothing in there that could possibly be inferred as what you claimed I said.]
King Mob wrote: » And? Up until recently they couldn't produce a higgs boson in the lab. That didn't make the higgs field theory implausible.
King Mob wrote: » So leaving aside that you think it's implausible, you agree it's possible.
King Mob wrote: » The fact it does exist and is possible and does not rely on any of the nonsense nagirrac says science says the argument he is making is invalid.
King Mob wrote: » But again, he made an unsupported incomparable analogy. If he wasn't ignorant of how incomparable or unsupported it was, then he's being dishonest.
King Mob wrote: » The idea is indeed valid but that just pushes the question back a needless step. I was referring specifically to the dishonest tornado argument.
King Mob wrote: » There's no reason to assume that life was seeded here, there's no reason to assume that life could not have started on Earth. And even if we do, life must have started somewhere, somehow...
Cavehill Red wrote: » A dishonest, stupid argument that even creationists have long abandoned because it makes it so obvious that the person using it either doesn't understand evolution, or is deliberately misrepresenting it.
so for you to suggest it is definitively an evolutionary process at the point of biopoiesis is the only actual dishonest statement on this entire thread so far.
Cavehill Red wrote: » The Higgs Boson has not been proposed as the basic building block from which life generated in a primordial ocean. Are you seriously unaware of the ridiculousness of this comparison?
Cavehill Red wrote: » It's possible until it's disproven. That's how science works. But possible isn't the same as likely, or plausible. It's just a hypothesis, one of very many. No, the existence of a theory doesn't disprove other theories. The proof of a theory is what disproves other theories.
Cavehill Red wrote: » ALL theories relating to the origins of life are unsupported currently. I don't understand what you're trying to convey by the word 'incomparable' in this context.
Cavehill Red wrote: » I must take issue with your accusing an extremely eminent astronomer and scientist repeatedly of dishonesty. Whether he is right or wrong, there is no evidence to suggest that he was being dishonest, and it is sly and disingenuous of you to keep repeating this slur like some redtop lowlife hack, in the hope it will stick.
Cavehill Red wrote: » It is likely that life evolved elsewhere, and likely too that it evolved there before it had a chance to evolve here.
King Mob wrote: » I said no such thing.
King Mob wrote: » It's a good comparision because you are arguing that the model I pointed to was implausible because they had not yet produced this basic building block. Not pointing to flaws in the theory or anything. My point was this is exactly like saying last year that the higgs field theory is implausible because they had not yet produced the Higgs boson.
King Mob wrote: » But I didn't say it disproved theories, I said it invalidated his argument. His argument is: that the mechanisms science proposes rely on chances comparable to <insert ridiculous analogy here>, or rely on impossible steps. I showed him a theory that does not require astronomical chances or impossible steps.
King Mob wrote: » Because it's not a fair analogy. The model I proposed is not equatable to tossing components together and producing something complex and modern. It is a process of small incremental changes regulated by natural selection. It's exactly the same as if it was used as an argument against evolution.
King Mob wrote: » Lol. I like it when some people are self contradictory in the same breath. Again, if he used an unsupported, incomparable analogy, he is being dishonest. If he didn't know it was unsupported or incomparable he was being ignorant.
King Mob wrote: » And it is more likely that the life here arose here.
King Mob wrote: » There's no reason to conclude it could not or did not. and there's no reason to conclude that life here must have come from elsewhere. So using Occam's razor...
nagirrac wrote: » I am anti dogmatic atheist scientists like Dawkins
nagirrac wrote: » Yes, Hoyle was a critic of abiogensis and a firm believer that life originated in space and was transferred by viruses riding on comets to earth. Nonsense you say, but unfortunately he is right, even back in those dastardely 1980s. There simply isn't enough time since earth's evolution, life had to have originated long ago somewhere else.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Yes, you did. You stated that Hoyles misunderstood the process of evolution when he rejected abiogenesis, thereby implying that the origin of life was definitively evolutionary.
Cavehill Red wrote: » It's a profoundly sh1t comparison because the one experiment required the recreation of the conditions a micromoment after the Big Bang, whereas the other merely seeks to replicate the basic conditions of a primordial sea. If you cannot see how these ought to be leagues of magnitude of difficulty apart, I can't help you.
Cavehill Red wrote: » I'm not going to speak on behalf of anyone else, but I don't believe that is a fair rendition of what he said.
Cavehill Red wrote: » The insertion of incremental steps doesn't make Hoyle's assertion a fallacy, since it has thus far proved impossible for the best biolabs in the world to replicate the generation of a protocell that ought to be one of the simplest things possible to make in theory. You still haven't explained what you mean by 'incomparable'. Nor have you demonstrated how Hoyle is being dishonest.
Cavehill Red wrote: » And you continue to ignore the fact that all theories on the origins of life are unsupported, which either by your definition makes all such theorists, including Szostak, ignorant, or much more likely, it makes you ignorant for adhering to such a ridiculous definition.
Cavehill Red wrote: » Care to demonstrate the mathematics proving the relative probabilities of that?
Cavehill Red wrote: » The youth of Earth predicates against abiogenesis
Cavehill Red wrote: » The reality is: No one knows. You reveal a distinctly unscientific closed mind in refusing to countenance the existence of opposing theorems with (currently) equal validity.
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