Re: Ool - out at first base?

On 19/12/2024 1:17 am, Martin Harran wrote:

On Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:32:30 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
 

On 18/12/2024 12:07 am, Martin Harran wrote:

On Mon, 16 Dec 2024 14:20:36 +1100, MarkE <me22over7@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 16/12/2024 1:53 am, Martin Harran wrote:
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<snip>
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No, wrong. Demonstrating an existing theory to be false has no
requirement to provide and demonstrate a viable alternative*.

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In regard to demonstrating a theory to be false, you haven't done
that, all you have done is identify areas that have not been
explained, at least not yet. There is nothing at all unusual about
that in science. Darwin's ToE was initially unable to explain how
traits and characteristics got passed on between generations; it took
Mendel to do that. In making his claims about heliocentrism, Galileo
was unable to explain tides and stellar parallax, it took a couple of
centuries to sort all that out. In neither case were the claims false.
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You seem incapable or unwilling to grasp that *unexplained* does not
equate to *wrong*.
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In regard to a viable alternative, you have put an alternative forward
- supernatural causes - but you have provided nothing whatsoever to
support its viability. Again, you seem incapable or unwilling to grasp
that even if A is wrong,that does not automatically mean that B is
right, that B needs to stand on its own grounds. That is the
fundamental flaw in ID which is what you constantly mimic.

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Not playing tit-for-tat, but I return a similar criticism: you seem
incapable or unwilling to grasp or maintain a coherent focus on the
content, logic and qualifications of my argument.

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Content: OOL is too complicated and too many unexplained gaps to be
due to natural processes.

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I've been putting forward problems that have been described as a paradox
(e.g. tar), or that I'm suggesting may have P = 0 (e.g. warm little pond
continuous operation over millions of years). That is, I'm looking at
potential showstoppers, no just "too complicated" or "too many
unexplained gaps". At the same time noting that there is a degree of
subjectivity and overlap in these categorisations. And of course, in
each case supporting evidence is needed.

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OK, change my summary to:
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"Content: OOL is too complicated, too improbable and too many
unexplained gaps to be due to natural processes."
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Seems like a difference that makes no difference.
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Logic: because of that complexity and those gaps, ideas and
explanations based on natural processes must be wrong - therefore OOL
must have been due to supernatural causes.
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Have I missed anything in those two parts?
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I'm not sure what qualifications you mean, I may have missed them.

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A key qualification is my option 1 and 2 proposal, which is much more
nuanced than your summary.
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That said, I do appreciate your engagement with these ideas and your
willingness to concede the point below. And I may need to more carefully
consider some of the objections raised by yourself and others (what
would you suggest they might be?).

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My suggestions:
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#1
Drop the probability arguments. Once something has happened, the
probability of it having happened is totally irrelevant. The odds of
anyone winning the Irish Lotto jackpot are one in 10.5 million. The
jackpot is likely to be worn sometime within the next few weeks;
whoever wins it, the 10.5 million to 1 odds of them having done so are
irrelevant.

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When you say, "Once something has happened", I assume you're applying
this to life happening. It goes without saying that life happened, and
assuming you're not stating the obvious, I deduce you're saying that
life happened in a particular way - i.e. by naturalistic means, as a
given. Could you clarify your point?

 All sorts of problems with using probability in regard to OOL (and the
fine tuning argument in general). The problems have been hammered to
death many but here is my own overview on them.
 First of all, take the simple example I gave of the Irish Lotto. Let's
say Patrick Murphy wins the jackpot this week. Your argument is
essentially the same as somebody who knows him saying "Patrick is not
a particularly clever guy, with odds of over 10 million to one, he
couldn't possibly have won it on his own, he must have had some kind
of help - or maybe he's clairvoyant!
 You may argue back that those odds are quite low compared to the odds
involved in some of your OOL calculations so let's imagine he goes on
to win next week as well. That's now odds of over 110 million to one
so your suspicions would be well and truly raised about something
untoward going on. Let's say he wins it a third weeks in a row; that's
odds of over a billion to one so according to your logic, that was
impossible, there definitely had to be some sort of intervention.
 The first thing you are missing is that once Patrick has won the first
week, is odds of winning a second consecutive week are the exact same
odds as anyone else entering that week. Once he has won two weeks in a
row, his odds of winning a third consecutive week are the exact same
odds as anyone else entering that week.
 The second thing you are missing is that the natural development is
not just random events. There is an underlying principle in nature
that things that offer an advantage tend to endure; things that are
disadvantageous tend not to endure. We see that particularly well
demonstrated in biological evolution with the Natural Selection
process, but it applies to other processes as well -trial and error is
a common feature of the design process of which you are so fond with
idea and processes that don't work out being discarded and ones that
do work out being retained and built upon. There is no reason not to
apply the same principle to the processes that led to OOL.
 The third thing you get wrong, and arguably the most important one, is
that you assume there is something improbably unique about a
particular outcome. Let's use the usual example of dealing cards. If
you deal out a full pack of cards into 4 hands, the odds of each hand
getting 13 cards of one suit in sequence with the first hand getting
hearts, the second getting spades, the third getting diamonds, the
fourth getting clubs are approximately 8e67 to one - that's 8 followed
by 67 zeros. If you dealt that hand of cards at a bridge competition,
there would be uproar, all the competitors would come to your table to
see the hands, you'd likely get your photo and a write up in your
local newspaper. The thing about it is that there is nothing
inherently exceptional about that hand, It had the exact same chance
of being dealt as any other deal of 52 cards into 4 hands; every time
someone deals a bridge hand they are creating a result where the odds
were 8e67 to one. The only reason it looks so exceptional is that that
humans have chosen to regard it as special. The same applies to OOL;
the only reason OOL as we have experienced it looks exceptional is
because we have chosen to regard it as special. There is no reason to
think that if different processes had taken place, that some other
life form would not have developed.

Let's say for a moment that naturalistic formation of life is not possible, and life was created by God through supernatural intervention.
Which is in fact the contention of the creationist camp, myself included.
Your comments above seem to make no allowance for this option. You seem to be saying, regardless of any calculated or claimed probabilities or potential natural limitations, life happened, and happened by natural causes. The only legitimate activity now is to work backwards to establish how nature may have done it.
Is that in effect what you're saying?

 

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Regardless, at the core of the origins question is probability. For
example, Dawkins book title "Climbing Mount Improbable" demonstrates
precisely this. Why was it written? To address a legitimate question - a
question of probability.

 It's a long time since I read "Climbing Mount Improbable so I'm not
sure in what context Dakins used probability but I'd be absolutely
certain that it wasn't to support the idea of divine intervention!
 

 > >>

I'm interested to hear your response to this before addressing your
other suggestions.

 I did make 5 suggestions with probability possibly the least important
so I'd certainly like to hear your response to the others.
 

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#2
If you are talking about God, then talk about God; stop using weasel
words like "designer" and "supernatural causes". It just sounds as if
you don't have confidence in or are embarrassed talking about the God
you believe in.

I use "designer" and "supernatural causes" for accuracy, not evasion. If an appeal is made to non-natural causes on the basis of scientifically determined inadequacy of natural explanations (say), all that can be inferred in this context is that the alternative cause must be "supernatural".
Personally, I'm happy to say "God", but not from science, rather from faith and theology.

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#3
Stop trying to 'prove' your God hypothesis on the basis of gaps in the
potential pathways suggested by others; you have to show arguments
supporting your hypothesis in its own right.

There's not a symmetry here with identical requirements. It's not a case of science and the scientific method being applied equally to the nature hypothesis and the God hypothesis.
Rather, it would be science finding (provisional) inadequacy of naturalistic explanations, and that finding being a scientific pointer, a point of departure, to the God hypothesis.
Note that I'm not saying this is a requirement for belief in God. Rather, it would merely provide additional evidence, in this case from science itself.
I've called it a "point of departure" from science, not because it undermines or contradicts science, but because it is located beyond the bounds of science, and in the domain of metaphysics and theology.

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#4
In regard to making your case to the science community, you need to
offer some kind of suggestion as to how God might have gone about
this; for example, you need to explain why he fiddled about with the
precursors to your first protocell.
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God is eternally preexisting, nonmaterial, above and beyond time, matter, energy, but creating and controlling these.
God conceived of all created things before they came into being.
God spoke and there was...spacetime, matter, energy.
God created the initial low entropy state of the universe.
God designed physics, the periodic table, etc, as building blocks capable of being fashioned into all created things.
God designed all living things and spoke them into being, either directly, or indirectly through innate capacity for change and adaptation.
Etc.

#5
In regard to making your case to religious believers, you need to
offer some explanation of how you get from God fiddling about with
protocells to us having a relationship with him and him sending his
son to us.

Nature provides general revelation: "For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse." (Romans 1:20)
The Bible provides special revelation: of us having a relationship with him and him sending his son to us.

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That should be enough to be going on with!
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To recap some points:
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- If the tar paradox is connected with configurational entropy, then
that is potentially a hard stop
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- If the first protocell must have a warm little pond or connected ponds
supplying concentrated activated canonical nucleotides continuously for
millions of years, this may arguably be a geological impossibility
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