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Limitations of Science?

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  • #62
    sephir0th
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 390 ✭✭sephir0th


    Episode 1:

    http://www.channel4.com/programmes/sex-death-and-the-meaning-of-life/4od#3427236


  • #63
    Curly Judge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,708 ✭✭✭Curly Judge


    nagirrac;81236677]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.
    Maybe they just took a shortcut?
    I mean, life on earth existed as a series of slimes before the Cambrian explosion.
    Then something set off an unprecedented burst of evolutionary fecundity.
    Some similar "trigger" or "pressure" may have set off the origin of life itself.

    What's wrong with a virus spreading a "meme", you believe in the common cold right?
    I always thought that DNA was a biological construct and that a meme was a social one?


  • #64
    Galvasean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    The 'Cambrian explosion' is something of a myth. This has been outlined numerous times on this forum.

    edit: one such post


  • #65
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    Then prove that fairies and Russel's Teapot don't exist.

    I don't have any position on fairies or Russel's Teapot so don't feel inclined to prove anything, but as you have a position on how life began, ie. the atheist position, go ahead and prove for us how self replicating molecules emerged. Of wait, atheists are not obliged to prove anything, I forgot, silly me..


  • #66
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Sarky wrote: »
    ..such things do not and never will exist, k?

    Einstein went to his grave not believing in non-locality ("God does not play dice with the universe"). I take it you have a higher IQ than Einstein to make such a preposterous statement.


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  • #67
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 4,630 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I don't have any position on fairies or Russel's Teapot so don't feel inclined to prove anything, but as you have a position on how life began, ie. the atheist position, go ahead and prove for us how self replicating molecules emerged. Of wait, atheists are not obliged to prove anything, I forgot, silly me..

    You do know that proof is consigned to the realms of logic and mathematics? You can definitively prove that a logical or mathematical statement is true or false (or indeterminate), for example, but beyond logic and mathematics the kind of proof you're talking about simply doesn't exist. To argue otherwise is to speak nonsense, I'm afraid.


  • #68
    Sarky
    Closed Accounts Posts: 31,967 ✭✭✭✭Sarky


    I wouldn't know about our respective IQs, and IQ being a stupid and worthless measure of intelligence I don't see how that's relevant. But I am pretty clever, thank you very much. I suppose one could say that since I accept non-locality, I actually AM smarter than Einstein.


  • #69
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Sarky wrote: »
    I wouldn't know about our respective IQs, and IQ being a stupid and worthless measure of intelligence I don't see how that's relevant. But I am pretty clever, thank you very much. I suppose one could say that since I accept non-locality, I actually AM smarter than Einstein.

    You accept it because it has been proven. It had not been proven during Einstein's lifetime, it was an unproven hypothesis. So, you're not smarter than Einstein, just benefitted from when you were born.


  • #70
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    gvn wrote: »
    You do know that proof is consigned to the realms of logic and mathematics? You can definitively prove that a logical or mathematical statement is true or false (or indeterminate), for example, but beyond logic and mathematics the kind of proof you're talking about simply doesn't exist. To argue otherwise is to speak nonsense, I'm afraid.

    So why are people who believe in God, a theological or deist position, constantly asked to provide proof?


  • #71
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    I don't have any position on fairies or Russel's Teapot so don't feel inclined to prove anything,
    You claimed you can prove a negative. I'm askign you to show you can by proving clearly fictional things do not exist.
    But as usual you've dodged the question because you realise you can't prove a negative.
    nagirrac wrote: »
    but as you have a position on how life began, ie. the atheist position, go ahead and prove for us how self replicating molecules emerged. Of wait, atheists are not obliged to prove anything, I forgot, silly me..
    But then by your definition you do have positions on both fairies and russels teapot.
    You don't believe that fairies cause rainbows or that russels teapot made the entire universe, you have a position on those therefore are afairist and ateapotist.


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  • #72
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    King Mob wrote: »
    You claimed you can prove a negative. I'm askign you to show you can by proving clearly fictional things do not exist.
    But as usual you've dodged the question because you realise you can't prove a negative.

    But then by your definition you do have positions on both fairies and russels teapot.
    You don't believe that fairies cause rainbows or that russels teapot made the entire universe, you have a position on those therefore are afairist and ateapotist.


    Where did I claim that "I" can prove a negative. You need to pay a little bit more attention to what people write before ranting at them. What I said was that in logical reasoning it is quite common to prove a negative.

    I couldn't be bothered trying to deciper the second part of your sentance, but nice job avoiding the question.. come on, where is your explanatioin for how the first self replicating molecule emerged, don't keep us waiting.


  • #73
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 4,630 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    So why are people who believe in God, a theological or deist position, constantly asked to provide proof?

    I suspect those who ask the theist or deist to provide proof of god's existence define proof in its informal sense; i.e., they're asking for evidence. The interrogator wants evidence for god's existence. It's important not to conflate the definition of proof used in logic (when you mentioned modus tollens you implied this definition) with the more commonly used definition, which is a synonym for evidence.


  • #74
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 25,874 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Where did I claim that "I" can prove a negative. You need to pay a little bit more attention to what people write before ranting at them. What I said was that in logical reasoning it is quite common to prove a negative.
    So then in stuff other than mathematics and pure logic, you can't prove a negative?
    nagirrac wrote: »
    I couldn't be bothered trying to deciper the second part of your sentance, but nice job avoiding the question.. come on, where is your explanatioin for how the first self replicating molecule emerged, don't keep us waiting.
    Via simple chemistry and physics.

    What's your explanation for rainbows in the absence of fairies?


  • #75
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Einstein went to his grave not believing in non-locality ("God does not play dice with the universe"). I take it you have a higher IQ than Einstein to make such a preposterous statement.
    Linus Pauling (one of the greatest chemists of the 20th century and winner of Nobel prizes) believed vitamin c could cure the common cold. Still doesn't make him right.


  • #76
    Sycopat
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 308 ✭✭Sycopat


    nagirrac wrote: »
    self replicating molecule


    I want to make a point, because this has been bugging me a little.

    IIRC Hoyles analysis was not of the probability of self-replicating molecules. It was of modern life arising spontaneously in modern forms. (And he focused on Protein enzymes for this for some reason.)

    He didn't afaik account for the probability that early life was much simpler than modern life, and that modern life itself evolved from simpler forms, and required it to have a full amino acid alphabet. There's probably other stuff he didn't account for which I don't remember.

    I won't be so cruel as to call his thinking flawed, but it's all very much out of date.


  • #77
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Jimoslimos wrote: »
    Linus Pauling (one of the greatest chemists of the 20th century and winner of Nobel prizes) believed vitamin c could cure the common cold. Still doesn't make him right.

    It doesn't cure the cold, it builds up the immune system and people with strong immune systems get fewer colds. About 200mg a day is plenty but the body does not produce it, so you need to have it in your diet. Orange juice is the easiest way. Large amounts not really justified, unless your immune system is really low. It helps with absorption of iron, important for white blood cells.


  • #78
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Sycopat wrote: »
    I want to make a point, because this has been bugging me a little.

    IIRC Hoyles analysis was not of the probability of self-replicating molecules. It was of modern life arising spontaneously in modern forms. (And he focused on Protein enzymes for this for some reason.)

    He didn't afaik account for the probability that early life was much simpler than modern life, and that modern life itself evolved from simpler forms, and required it to have a full amino acid alphabet. There's probably other stuff he didn't account for which I don't remember.

    I won't be so cruel as to call his thinking flawed, but it's all very much out of date.

    People are still making proposals on how we got to self-duplicating molecules like RNA so its hardly out of date. His was one such proposal and there is nothing any better out there yet in terms of credibility in the timeframe. He did his work on the required # of enzymes to build the simplest living cell that could replicate. To do this it had to have RNA or a simpler version of RNA than we currently observe, so you cannot argue how much simpler it was. Even the simplest unicellular organism we are aware of from fossil records (3.5B years ago) is mighty complicated.


  • #79
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    nagirrac wrote: »
    It doesn't cure the cold, it builds up the immune system and people with strong immune systems get fewer colds. About 200mg a day is plenty but the body does not produce it, so you need to have it in your diet. Orange juice is the easiest way. Large amounts not really justified, unless your immune system is really low. It helps with absorption of iron, important for white blood cells.
    There's no evidence to suggest vitamin c can prevent colds either.


  • #80
    nagirrac
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,019 ✭✭✭nagirrac


    Jimoslimos wrote: »
    There's no evidence to suggest vitamin c can prevent colds either.

    There is evidence that vitamin C is required for iron absorption and building white blood cells that are key to the immune system. I am aware of all the studies on colds but personally I believe a strong immune system is a good thing in fighting off any infectious agent, but I could be wrong.


  • #81
    swampgas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭swampgas


    nagirrac wrote: »
    So why are people who believe in God, a theological or deist position, constantly asked to provide proof?

    Maybe it would be better to ask why we ask deists/theists to provide evidence for their position? I think the words proof and evidence are sometimes used interchangeably in this context, although strictly speaking they are different things.

    Believers use the concept of "God" to back up their positions on abortion, marriage, divorce, education, women's rights, medicine, etc. etc. They claim their religious beliefs need to be respected, and that their God needs to be respected.

    Is it not reasonable to ask someone who opposes divorce, say, because they say their God opposes it, to provide some evidence that this God actually exists?


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  • #82
    swampgas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭swampgas


    nagirrac wrote: »
    There is evidence that vitamin C is required for iron absorption and building white blood cells that are key to the immune system. I am aware of all the studies on colds but personally I believe a strong immune system is a good thing in fighting off any infectious agent, but I could be wrong.

    Of course Vitamin C is important, but Pauling went way beyond what was supported by science in his claims:

    http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/pauling.html
    Vitamin C and the Common Cold

    In 1970, Pauling announced in Vitamin C and the Common Cold that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily will reduce the incidence of colds by 45% for most people but that some people need much larger amounts [1]. (The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg.) The 1976 revision of the book, retitled Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu, suggested even higher dosages [2]. A third book, Vitamin C and Cancer (1979) claims that high doses of vitamin C may be effective against cancer. Yet another book, How to Feel Better and Live Longer (1986), stated that megadoses of vitamins "can improve your general health . . . to increase your enjoyment of life and can help in controlling heart disease, cancer, and other diseases and in slowing down the process of aging." [3] Pauling himself reportedly took at least 12,000 mg daily and raised the amount to 40,000 mg if symptoms of a cold appear [4]. In 1993, after undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer, Pauling said that vitamin C had delayed the cancer's onset for twenty years. This was not a testable claim. He died of the disease in August 1994.

    Scientific fact is established when the same experiment is carried out over and over again with the same results. To test the effect of vitamin C on colds, it is necessary to compare groups which get the vitamin to similar groups which get a placebo (a dummy pill which looks like the real thing). Since the common cold is a very variable illness, proper tests must involve hundreds of people for significantly long periods of time. At least 16 well-designed, double-blind studies have shown that supplementation with vitamin C does not prevent colds and at best may slightly reduce the symptoms of a cold [5]. Slight symptom reduction may occur as the result of an antihistamine-like effect, but whether this has practical value is a matter of dispute. Pauling's views are based on the same studies considered by other scientists, but his analyses are flawed.

    The largest clinical trials, involving thousands of volunteers, were directed by Dr. Terence Anderson, professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto [6-9]. Taken together, his studies suggest that extra vitamin C may slightly reduce the severity of colds, but it is not necessary to take the high doses suggested by Pauling to achieve this result. Nor is there anything to be gained by taking vitamin C supplements year-round in the hope of preventing colds.

    Another important study was reported in 1975 by scientists at the National Institutes of Health who compared vitamin C pills with a placebo before and during colds. Although the experiment was supposed to be double-blind, half the subjects were able to guess which pill they were getting. When the results were tabulated with all subjects lumped together, the vitamin group reported fewer colds per person over a nine-month period. But among the half who hadn't guessed which pill they had been taking, no difference in the incidence or severity was found [10]. This illustrates how people who think they are doing something effective (such as taking a vitamin) can report a favorable result even when none exists.


  • #83
    swampgas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭swampgas


    nagirrac wrote: »
    Our reality is a very strange place as shown by modern theoretical physics (consider the challenges of non-locality, the problems a mind as great as Einstein had in accepting it, and the implications of Bell's theorem and later proofs). You think telepathy is weird, consider quantum entanglement and its implications. Serious studies of the paranormal postulate that there are energy fields that influence aspects of our reality that we currently do not understand. What should this field of study be constantly derided as "pseudoscience", do you not think this is flat earth type thinking?

    Please tell me what you mean by "serious studies of the paranormal". Can you provide some links?

    If all that these serious studies do is postulate unknown energy fields, then pardon me if I don't take them too seriously. Do they have any evidence or testable hypotheses?


  • #84
    Gumbi
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,682 ✭✭✭Gumbi


    swampgas wrote: »

    Please tell me what you mean by "serious studies of the paranormal". Can you provide some links?

    If all that these serious studies do is postulate unknown energy fields, then pardon me if I don't take them too seriously. Do they have any evidence or testable hypotheses?
    I guess it depends on the vibratory spectrum, or something.


  • #85
    pauldla
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,247 ✭✭✭pauldla


    Gumbi wrote: »
    I guess it depends on the vibratory spectrum, or something.

    The vibratory spectrum can also be disturbed when you reverse the polarity of a flux capacitor, though. And did they recalibrate their tricorders to compensate for any Theda radiation, I wonder?


  • #86
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,464 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Tricorders? Well, I'm wearing a red shirt. Will that help?


  • #87
    Galvasean
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 30,746 ✭✭✭✭Galvasean


    robindch wrote: »
    Tricorders? Well, I'm wearing a red shirt. Will that help?

    It will help the rest of us (ie: the important people) make good our escape. Unfortunately for you good sir, in space wearing red is universally translated as meaning, "Kill me quickly".


  • #88
    Jimoslimos
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,930 ✭✭✭Jimoslimos


    Gumbi wrote: »
    I guess it depends on the vibratory spectrum, or something.
    Yeah crystals and sh1t


  • #89
    recedite
    Closed Accounts Posts: 13,989 ✭✭✭✭recedite


    nagirrac wrote: »
    You are obviously not very familiar with Philosophy if you believe you cannot prove a negative. Look up "modus tollens".......

    There are scientists who believe in a creator (theists and deists), scientists who believe there is no need for a creator (atheists) and scientists who admit they do not know and take no position (agnostics).
    I looked it up; nothing to do with proving something doesn't exist.
    Its about proving that a statement is false (in this case a premise).

    "Proving a negative" is admittedly a vague wording, and a lot of your differences of opinion with people here stem from using different definitions to the rest of us.
    For example, you seem to be defining an atheist as someone who states that there is no god (incorrect, it is a lack of belief in the positive, not a belief that the negative has been proven)
    And an agnostic as someone who admits they don't know (correct) Under your definitions, the atheist would need to disprove the existence of all gods to validate himself.
    In fact Dawkins will admit to the very slight possibility of a god, and then move on quickly to talk about something else. This makes him an agnostic atheist, the default position that does not require any proof.


  • #90
    Sycopat
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 308 ✭✭Sycopat


    nagirrac wrote: »
    People are still making proposals on how we got to self-duplicating molecules like RNA so its hardly out of date. His was one such proposal and there is nothing any better out there yet in terms of credibility in the timeframe. He did his work on the required # of enzymes to build the simplest living cell that could replicate. To do this it had to have RNA or a simpler version of RNA than we currently observe, so you cannot argue how much simpler it was. Even the simplest unicellular organism we are aware of from fossil records (3.5B years ago) is mighty complicated.


    Sure I can! If the number of amino acids the RNA has to code for is lessened it's going to reduce the complexity requirements substantially. The length of the required storage medium will also drop significantly.


    It doesn't simplify the RNA itself, but it does mean you require less of it, and for it to carry less information. And there are multiple RNA 'states' which can hold that information, not just one. All of which increase the liklihood of hitting on one 'by chance'.

    It's also interesting that you'd propose RNA as the proto-nucleic acid. Did you know RNA can form enzymes? If we replace even some of the hypothethical protein enzymes Hoyle was using in his estimates with Ribozyme analogs, we can potentially remove many instances of translation, further reducing the complexity required for cellular life. Pretty sure that was known when Hoyle was writing though, so he may have accounted for it.

    And to say the simplest unicellular organism from 3.5 billion years ago was pretty complicated seems like a stretch, given that the only thing we know about it was that it metabolized sulfur.


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  • #91
    swampgas
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,619 ✭✭✭swampgas


    Before any self-replicating molecule arrived on the scene, the world was one giant, lifeless incubator. All it took was one self-replicating molecule to occur - it didn't need to be efficient, or complex, or particularly accurate - and it could thrive because it had absolutely no competition. It had the entire world into which to spread, and once that first molecule got going, evolution would have kicked in, as mutations and variations were selected for by different environments and, after a very short interval, by competition with other variants.

    Surely one self-replicating molecule occurring spontaneously once, is not such an unlikely event considering the size of the planet and the timescales involved?


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