Well, hear about it anyway:
Can chemistry crack the mystery of the origin of life? Or does the information required for Life to begin point beyond naturalistic explanations?
Justin is joined by Perry Marshall who has established the $10m Evolution 2.0 Prize for anyone who can show a natural explanation for life. Lee Cronin of Glasgow University is confident that his experimental research could win it. Denis Noble also joins the conversation as they discuss the nature of life and whether current evolutionary theory can account for its origins.
“Unbelievable? How on Earth did life begin? Lee Cronin, Perry Marshall and Denis Noble on the origins of life” at Premier Christian Radio
More re the $10 million prize.
Interesting to see Denis Noble taking part in the discussion.
See also: The Science Fictions series at your fingertips – origin of life What we do and don’t know about the origin of life.
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Darwin provided the explanation over 150 years ago.
https://www.ted.com/talks/lee_cronin_making_matter_come_alive/up-next?language=en
Here’s a recent presentation on the OOL:
https://youtu.be/h1KqvoLEj7c
Perry Marshal should give the prize to both Jack Szostak and Lee Cronin, right?
It seems like this OOL prize will be awarded soon
https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0/update/2770
https://www.ft.com/content/dcb2ea12-83c8-11e9-9935-ad75bb96c849
Wishful thinking is not scientific evidence, PavelU. In order to get the prize scientific evidence is required
PavelU, hate to disturb you in your atheistic daydreams for a naturalistic OOL but,,,
PavelU
i watched Cronin’s TED video. It is from 2011.
It looks like Cronin was hallucinating during the presentation
…. and so are you PavelU.
21st century science HAS NOTHING TO OFFER in order to explain the origin of life.
in 2014, Suzan Mazur interviewed Harvard professor and Nobel laureate Jack Szostak who said:
“Life in lab in 3-5 years, most likely in 3 years ”
again, Szostak said that in 2014
Now, in 2020, Jack Szostak HAS NOTHING …
Moreover, this Harvard professor and Nobel laureate Jack Szostak retracted his 2016 OOL paper (NATURE):
from RetractionWatch.com:
“”Definitely embarrassing:” Nobel Laureate retracts non-reproducible paper in Nature journal”
“A Nobel Laureate has retracted a 2016 paper in Nature Chemistry that explored the origins of life on earth, after discovering the main conclusions were not correct. ”
https://retractionwatch.com/2017/12/05/definitely-embarrassing-nobel-laureate-retracts-non-reproducible-paper-nature-journal/
Publicly acknowledging errors when they are pointed out and retracting papers in which they appear is a feature of science not a bug.
.
… so is confronting contrary evidence.
OOL hype is like Global warming hype. It is always off in the future somewhere but never materializes.
Sev
And the fact that the errors are identified by other scientists who generally agree with the “paradigm”, and addressed through the process that has been put in place as a check and balance, should lead credence to the process. A more important question would be “how many errors in the thousands 🙂 of ID papers have been identified and retracted”?
^^^^^^^^^^^
Too funny, Darwinian evolution does not even qualify as a science:
Karl Popper stated that “In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.”
And as Denis Noble, President of International Union of Physiological Sciences, stated, “it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”
Stanford Professor Paul Ehrlich stated that the Theory of Evolution ‘cannot be refuted by any possible observations’ and is thus “outside empirical science.”
Moreover, it is not that Darwinism has not already been falsified time and time again. It is that Darwinists themselves simple refuse to ever accept any falsification of their theory.
Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory:
Verse:
Besides Darwinists refusing to adhere to the criteria of falsification for their supposed scientific theory, by any other reasonable measure that one may wish to judge whether Darwinian evolution even qualifies as a science or not, as is shown in the following video, Darwinian evolution fails to meet those criteria as well:
Simply put, Darwinian evolution simply fails to qualify as a rigorous and testable science by any reasonable measure one may wish to invoke and is therefore more properly classified as a pseudoscience, even as a religion for atheists, rather than ever being classified as a real and testable science.
So, I actually watched the whole program, and here are my takeaways:
1) Denis Noble’s primary (only?) contribution was to emphasize that DNA was something of a “database” of information for a living cell, and that the origin of DNA was not as important as the origin of the cell and its processes. No argument there. His one statement made an implication that I don’t think is accurate – namely, that evolutionists are superior because it is better to try to find a naturalistic explanation than just throw up your hands and say it can’t be done. I have never heard anyone, ID, YEC, Neodarwinian or otherwise argue that scientists should stop OOL studies – most anti-evolutionists are in much favor of it, since (so far) they only bolster the claim that intelligent design is required and naturalistic explanations are exercises in frustration, futility and obfuscation.
2) For the most part, I found Perry Marshall to be eminently reasonable. He noted that the origin of information as symbolic code to be interpreted was key to the definition of life. Unfortunately, he also made one reference to how he came to his view of “Evolution 2.0” as an engineer that I found, frankly, illogical (additional comment below). He also made passing reference to the disagreements between chemists and biologists on OOL approaches, and made what I felt was a fairly accurate remark that most scientists working on OOL studies try to disingenously re-define life as simply replication, sans the information component.
3) Lee Cronin is a typical OOL scientist. He wants to a) redefine “life” as something other than what we recognize as life, b) propose as “life” a set of chemical reactions that result in a certain type of “salt” replicating until all available chemicals are consumed, and then c) wave the magic “…and extrapolate ad infinitum…” magic wand over the process so that he can then d) declare victory. “Look! A replicator that reduces alternatives and has an ‘assembly’ pathway! I win!” No explanation of how you get RNA, cell walls, DNA, homochirality, etc. – you know, all the stuff that makes up actual, real life forms. And then he had the nerve to say that James Tour just didn’t understand the science and math. Without, you know, actually providing any examples of a single error Tour had supposedly made/said. I suspect that his research will quickly end with his “salt life” experiment, and that he will spend the rest of his career trying to market his results as having some relevance to OOL, which will be quickly and summarily dismissed by the prize committee as merely a trivial experiment in chemical (non-biological) reactions.
Overall, I found the program interesting, but not terribly enlightening. If you are looking for a very, very basic description of the problems of OOL, and a potential step 1 of step 1 of step 1 of getting from chemicals to biology, this provides that. If you were looking for any real information on advances in OOL research, or why Lee Cronin thinks his research has accomplished any type of significant measurable step towards a naturalistic origin of the cell, none of that is in here.
Coda: I was extremely disappointed in Mr. Marshall’s supposed eureka moment, in which he states that, as an engineer, the fact that cells are designed in such a fashion to self-repair, adapt to their environment, etc., somehow contradicts the ID argument. It’s somewhat similar to claiming that because a piece of code has exception handling and the ability to execute alternate methods when provided different inputs, that must mean that the code didn’t need a programmer to program it! As an engineer myself, I didn’t find it particular convincing.
More datapoints for the Salem Hypthesis.
Bornagain77 @ 12
Evolution is recognized and accepted as a theory in science by those far better qualified than you or I to adjudicate on the matter – biologist themselves. Unfortunately for you, the philosopher Paul Nelson admitted that ID fell short in this respect:
Moving on, however:
You should at least try to understand the basics. Darwin knew nothing about the genome so had nothing to say about whether mutations were random or directed. And, no, the vast majority of mutations in the genome are not found to be “directed”, certainly not in the sense you are implying.
Darwin’s theory of natural selection offered a naturalistic alternative to creationism which was the only credible explanation for the appearance of design up to that point. It may well be that natural selection is no longer considered to be the primary engine of variation but the much bigger problem for ID/creationists is why we should observe any variation at all in what should be the perfect creations of a perfect creator.
Again, Darwin knew nothing about DNA. He did not propose that “brand new” species would arise just from mutations. He simply argued that descendent species could arise from natural selection acting on variations in the parent species. And there is plenty of experimental evidence for mutations in DNA having dramatic effects on the phenotype.
Whether or not you agree with it, you should at least be aware that current thinking holds that the majority of mutations are neutral or nearly-neutral in effect, a much smaller number are detrimental and an even smaller number still are beneficial. The theory argues that natural selection will filter out the detrimental effects leaving only the beneficial to have any effect, the neutral mutations being effectively invisible to selection.
Darwin was aware that fossilization was a rare occurrence so gaps were to be expected. The sudden appearance of some species could simply be an artefact of the coarse-grained image preserved in the fossil record. On the other hand, significant environmental changes could allow life to flourish relatively rapidly which could appear as an “explosion” even though it lasted for tens of millions of years.
Axe’s case is simply another variant of the argument from incredulity. He can’t imagine how genetic or protein fold pathways to complex organs so they could not have happened.
How does Loennig show that all these plant species generated organs purely for the benefit of other species rather than for themselves?
Chalmers referred to the hard problem of consciousness not the insoluble problem of consciousness. No, we do not have a materialistic explanation for consciousness – yet – but our ignorance does not mean that there isn’t one.
The theory of evolution is about living creatures. It says nothing at all about the ontology of mathematics or Platonic realms.
Is a map an illusion? It is certainly not a one-to-one presentation of all the features of a landscape but, as a model created from the abstraction of salient features, it is nonetheless a very useful tool for navigating around it. As for the existence of objective reality being observer-dependent, you still haven’t answered the question of, if nothing exists before it is observed, what is being observed in the first place?
What is meant by “information” here because it sounds very much like you are equivocating between different usages?
Science does not deal in truth but in explanations. The truth-value of an explanation lies in the extent to which it is found to correspond to the phenomena for which it is intended to provide an account.
The difficulty of explaining scientific concepts in non-teleological terms most probably arises from human languages having evolved originally to explain and describe the activities of purposive agents like human beings and other animals. The need for non-teleological terminology is a much more recent requirement.
Your problem is that, while there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered, none of the objections listed above, especially those of more tangential relevance, taken either singly or in concert, amount to an irrefutable falsification of the theory of evolution.
At 15 Seversky proves exactly what I wrote at 12
“Here are a few falsifications of Darwinian evolution that Darwinists simply refuse to ever accept as falsifications of their theory:”
And indeed Seversky simply refuses to ever accept anything as falsifying evidence for his theory.
Earth to seversky- There isn’t any scientific theory of evolution. Natural selection has proven to be impotent as a designer mimic. And only the willfully ignorant thing that Intelligent Design means perfect design.
It’s very telling that not one evo can refute what Dr. Axe presented in peer-review. All you have is imagination and wishful thinking. Neither of those is science, though.
And science deals in truth. Obviously you don’t know jack about science.
Falsify evolutionism? We are all waiting for the testable methodology. Right now there are so may holes and unanswered questions that yours doesn’t even rise to the stage of a hypothesis.
Seversky
That’s a philosophical and theological critique of creationism. You’re starting with the claim of a perfect creator and then working back to see if the creation is also perfect. But ID does not talk about the nature or properties of the creator. A discussion about Christian creationist ideas requires a much deeper analysis.. It’s a religious argument so you have to be more aware of Christian theology. ID does not require the religious understanding of that sort.
You mentioned an “unimaginable being” just previously as a problem with recognizing God.
But more importantly, if evolutionary theory could actually demonstrate what it claims, there wouldn’t be any need for anyone to have to imagine how it could work. Until then, evolution does, indeed require a very wild and vivid imagination.
@Drc466
I agree with your analysis.
Feedback loops degrade subsequent outputs with more noise. This seemed like the typical evo hype that has been thrown around for years. blind unguided chance, builds sophisticated systems. I did not like the reference to ID as God needing to intervene. (the typical misunderstanding of ID) God created 1st, and then 2nd, providence. The universe smacks of front loading during the creative event. In the beginning was the word (logos), information. They do not have a driver for these proposed systems.
As mentioned, there’s no evidence of that.
Even more, that blind, unintelligent effects can create conscious, rational, intelligent minds.
It’s beyond absurd and I can’t believe anyone can still defend evolutionism.
The only way to do it is to be completely ignorant of what is required and what the science shows.
As a sidenote, there is nothing more irritating than the constant (invalid) refrain from evolutionists of “argument from incredulity”. And the variant “God of the Gaps” or “Goddidit” accusations.
When a scientist, engineer, or layman for that matter, conclusively demonstrates mathematically or empirically that something is impossible, that is not an “argument from incredulity”. It is a proof requiring evidence to the contrary.
Say, for example, that I make the claim “Iron doesn’t float”. That’s not an argument from incredulity, that is a positive hypothesis based on experimental observation that contradicts an alternate theory, that iron does float.
Now, a clever individual may come along, create a boat from the iron, and say, “Look – iron does float. Your theory is falsified.” Which may lead me to restate my theory – “Iron not shaped in such a fashion to capture ‘lighter than water’ materials within its volume does not float”. Again – this is not an argument from incredulity, it is a theory that requires contrary evidence to disprove.
So, when Dr. Axe presents mathematical and empirical evidence that new gene and protein folds cannot occur via gradualistic processes, that is not an “argument from incredulity”. It requires falsification. Merely stating “yeah, we can’t provide you any empirical evidence, mathematical equations, or even realistic computer models that contradict that assertion, but you’re wrong because argument from incredulity!” is not just invalid, it’s outright offensive. And ignorant. And yet, evolutionists do it all the time!
“Organic molecules degrade in 1000’s of years not millions. Original organic material has been found in these fossils. Therefore, they cannot be millions of years old.” – “Argument from incredulity!”
“Mutation experiments demonstrate a limit of random mutations before the organism becomes non-viable, and no evidence than mutations can add new information.” – “Argument from incredulity!”
“Mutation rates in genetic material show that even the millions of years evolutionists claim occurred are insufficient to account for any major phyletic transition” – “Argument from incredulity!”
“The time period for the ‘Cambrian Explosion’ is significantly too small to allow for the wide variety of body plans that appeared during this period.” – “Argument from incredulity!”
“2 + 2 does not equal 22” – “Argument from incredulity!”
It’s really tiresome, don’t you think? If I ever use the phrase, I hope someone slaps me. If you honestly believe that someone is postulating a theory based solely on whether or not they personally believe something is possible, then you should be able to offer a reasonable explanation of how it is possible, not just hide behind mommy’s “argument from incredulity” skirt. So childish.
Functional Specified Complex Organization and Information ?
Functional Complexity and Complex Functionality ?
Here’s a recent paper, among many others, that shows that biology research is increasingly unveiling an amazing system, which must be carefully studied in order to be understood well:
Ciliogenesis associated kinase 1: targets and functions in various organ systems
Regulation of CILK1 by phosphorylation
Intrinsically disordered but functionally critical non?catalytic domain
CILK1 substrate phosphorylation consensus
CILK1 in lung morphogenesis and primitive alveoli formation
CILK1 in skeletal development
CILK1 in inner ear development and auditory function
CILK1 in cardiac development
CILK1 in kidney and adrenal glands
CILK1 targets in signalling pathways
Targeting Raptor in mTORC1 signalling
Targeting Scythe in autophagy
Targeting GSK3? in hedgehog signalling
Conclusions and perspectives
Does CILK1 have cellular functions separate from the primary cilium?
What are the environmental stimuli that activate or inactivate CILK1?
Do CILK1, MAK, and MOK have similar or distinct functions and mechanisms of action?
For those of you who did not understand it before, here’s a better explanation of OoL by Lee Cronin, the potential winner of the Evo 2.0 $10M prize:
https://youtu.be/Mhr9NkOQgwE
Is that guy really a professor at a university in Scotland ? So much nonsense.
What prize did he win? I didn’t get that memo.
OLV, I usually say functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information, FSCO/I. KF
DRC466, I headlined your comment at 21 KF
Sev, 15 (& attn PU):
And the empirically observed undirected blind chance and mechanical necessity driven origin of digital codes, machine languages and associated algorithms with execution machinery is ___________
The observed spontaneous origin of novel cell based life or the equivalent, on blind chance and machanical necessity is _______
The observed spontaneous origin of the 10 – 100+ Mbit genome increments leading to novel body plans [~ phylum level, cf Cambrian fossil revolution) is __________
The observed emergence of free, responsible, actually rational, language using, en-conscienced mind through blind chance and mechanical necessity is __________
The observed production of FSCO/I — e.g. meaningful text — beyond 500 – 1,000 bits by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity is _______ (Where, stunts like Weasel need not apply)
The Nobel or equivalent prizes for such stunning successes includes ____________ working in the following institutions _______ and replicated by _____________ and here are the headlined splash announcements of said prizes in newspapers of record _________
Bluff on “Salem Hypothesis” called. Show your cards.
KF
PavelU
==Darwin provided the explanation over 150 years ago.==
So those who are still working on it (and those who put a prize worth $10mln) are just uneducated villagers, right? 😉
==Lee Cronin, the potential winner==
Oh yes, let’s wish him good luck getting the prize 😉
Here’s the answer to the OOL question:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610715000115
PavelU, it is clear that you do not even read your papers that you cite. If you continue to spam us with flagrant literature bluffs, I will request to have you removed from UD.
You current claim is:
Yet here is what the paper actually says,
And number 1 on their list of unsolved problems, directly contrary to PavelU’s claim, is, you guessed it, the Origin of Life,
PavelU, unlike your literature bluffs, I am not bluffing in my warning to you.
@29 PavelU: ‘Here’s the answer to the OOL question’:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article
And what is that ‘answer’, please?
‘Science stop your endeavors! The Origen of Life is no longer a mystery!’.
Oh wait…