We are told: The recipe for the origin of life has been revised

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 29, 2020

Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life}

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The proposed revision is a tweak on RNA world:

Recently, Nobel laureate Jack Szostak’s lab made serious headway in answering the life origin question by publishing the first recipe for making a spontaneously self-reproducing gene in a 2020 Journal of the American Chemical Society paper…
These observations together point to a chemically functional role of ANAs [arabinonucleic acids] that would significantly increase the rate of RNA synthesis and stability in the environment of a primordial Earth. Szostak’s unusual addition to his recipe likely became the “secret ingredient” to making the most plausible RNA-filled gazpacho to date. And with that, the scientific debate around the origins of life on Earth keeps on simmering.
Lauren Gandy, “Scientists have revised the recipe for the first gene and the origin of life” at Massive Science

Scientists revising their origin of life theories is—in the present climate—somewhat like fiction writers revising their novels. Nothing in the world wrong with it. But let’s be clear what level of real-world information we are talking about.

See also: Astonishing! Astrophysicist determines that the odds are against a random origin of life. One might ask why he thinks that “science” must find a random origin for life. Who decided that life originated randomly? What if it did not? Is science still committed to finding a random origin?

and

Welcome to “RNA world,” the five-star hotel of origin-of-life theories

Comments

EG, >>if life arose through natural processes, currently the leading theory, then language, however likely, is a consequence of natural processes.>> Do you see the lurking begged questions? There is a well known trichotomy of causal factors, blind chance, mechanical necessity, intelligently directed configuration. Where, if DNA and associated execution machinery are NECESSITATED by laws and circumstances of origin of the observed cosmos, we have fine tuning on steroids. Where, of course the physics and circumstances of the observed cosmos permit such phenomena, just as they permit PC's, ARM processors and the like. Such fine tuning would simply bake the design into the physics of the cosmos and your sense of "natural" would be pointless. As for chance, you have been around UD for years, so if you don't know the implications for config spaces for just 500 - 1,000 bits it is because of ideological blindness not want of such being repeatedly pointed out. Or maybe you have been so busy sneering at 1,000 word rants that it has never dawned on you that there are substantial issues you need to address cogently. At this stage, I am pretty convinced that you are not a reasonable, responsible participant in a discussion but are instead little more than an ideological obscurant tossing out objections as a sneering distraction. You have destroyed whatever shreds of credibility you may have had. So, the following is for those who are actually serious. Where, first, as say AutoCAD shows, effectively any 3-d structure can be informationally specified in a description language string, ultimately in a chain of Y/N questions. So, contemplation of the config space of strings of bits or such length is WLOG. For n bits, there are 2^n possible configs from 000 . . . 0 to 111 . . . 1. Every conceivable message expressible in n bits is in that list. For 500 and 1,000 bits, that's 3.27*10^150 to 1.07*10^301 possibilities. Where also, it is easy to see that FSCO/I requires a cluster of right-sized, key-lock fitting, properly aligned and coupled parts as we may see from protein synthesis. This means that functionality based on such configuration comes in islands deeply separated by seas of non function. In that light it is easy to see that for 10^57 atoms to 10^80, searching at say 10^12 - 14 configs per second [compare speed of organic reactions], the sol system or observed cosmos cannot credibly blindly search any but a negligible fraction of the possibilities. And search for a golden search runs into the problem that a search samples a subset. So, the space of searches is the power set, which will have cardinality 2^[2^n]. Calculator smoking territory. Blind chance is not a credible source for FSCO/I. Where, language is precisely an example of such. That is, there are good reasons to regard language as a strong signature of design. In which context, your resort to question begging and to antics with statistricks, speaks volumes on the fundamental weakness of your case. KFkairosfocus_{May 3, 2020
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Bornagain77 @ 59
Seversky may claim that he can live his life consistently as if his atheistic materialism were actually true, but, as with practically everything else that Seversky says, that claim is a lie. Seversky, nor any other atheist, lives his life consistently as if atheistic materialism were actually true.
If I wanted to, I can live a perfectly consistent life as an atheist if, for no other reason than, I am free to construct any "worldview" that suits me. I don't have to stand around waiting for some deity to tell me what to do. Christians, on the other hand, have a real problem with living according to some coherent and consistent "worldview" given the inconsistencies and contradictions that are found in the Bible. In practice, they can only really do it by rejecting or at least ignoring a lot of what is found in the Old Testament.Seversky_{May 3, 2020
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Earth to seversky- Theories are only materialistic if you can show that materialistic processes produced what we observe. You can't do that.ET_{May 3, 2020
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Bornagain77@ 58
As should be needless to say, Seversky has more than a small problem with his claim that gravity is a ‘purely materialistic’ theory since gravity, via black holes, is shown to exist whilst the material particles themselves are ‘losing dimensionality completely and disappearing irrevocably into the singularity’ at the singularity of a black hole.
First, I refer you first to the law of conservation of mass/energy, which asserts essentially that mass/energy are neither created nor destroyed, although they may change form. Second there is passage from the Wikipedia entry on black holes
Black holes of stellar mass are expected to form when very massive stars collapse at the end of their life cycle. After a black hole has formed, it can continue to grow by absorbing mass from its surroundings. By absorbing other stars and merging with other black holes, supermassive black holes of millions of solar masses (M?) may form. There is consensus that supermassive black holes exist in the centers of most galaxies.
The problem is not with my claim but with your understanding.
Newton’s postulation that “the same force that caused an apple to fall at the Earth’s surface—gravity—was also responsible for holding the Moon in orbit about the Earth”, did not arise out of thin air, and especially did not arise from atheistic materialism, but arose from his belief in God. As Paul Davies commented, “Isaac Newton first got the idea of absolute, universal, perfect, immutable laws from the Christian doctrine that God created the world and ordered it in a rational way.”
Once more, it doesn't matter where he got it from, the theory as stated is materialistic. It describes observable physical reality, not Newton's personal beliefs about who created it all.
And it was not just Newton, but it was all the Christian founders of modern science who held this view. As Paul Davies further noted, “All the early scientists, like Newton, were religious in one way or another. They saw their science as a means of uncovering traces of God’s handiwork in the universe. What we now call the laws of physics they regarded as God’s abstract creation: thoughts, so to speak, in the mind of God. So in doing science, they supposed, one might be able to glimpse the mind of God – an exhilarating and audacious claim.”
Yes, we know. Christian scientists were inspired by their Christian beliefs. Some US astronauts and others were inspired to join NASA by their love of Star Trek. That doesn't make the TV show a documentary or mean they believed they were propelling themselves through space with "warp drive".
Actually Seversky, since Seversky is a causal agent himself, does understand the basics of ‘how’ Goddidit.
Causal agents or not nobody - not you, not me, not Paul Davies, not Einstein - has any idea how God is supposed to have done it.
Seversky’s denial of the reality of his own agent causality is simply insane.
I'm not denying the reality of my own experience of exercising free will. Neither am I denying that there are many aspects of physical reality both inside and outside myself of which I am unaware and over which I have little or no control, regardless of what I might will. I believe the same is true for you.Seversky_{May 3, 2020
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Ed George:
if life arose through natural processes, currently the leading theory,...
There isn't any such theory. There is only hope that is based on personal biases and willful ignorance.
As far as we know, and there is some disagreement on this, humans are the only life on earth that has developed language. This in spite of many species having some level of intelligence. Given this, the only inference you can make is that alphanumeric languages (including DNA) are the result of human intelligence.
No. Only an imbecile would say that. If it couldn't have been humans then we infer it was some other intelligent agency. Nature has already been eliminated. Our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships still rules the inference. And that inference is open to refutation is someone can demonstrate that nature can produce communication codes, from the bottom up.ET_{May 3, 2020
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Now that Dr Szostak got a piece of RNA in his primordial lab, can he describe how to get a functional RNA that can be used to regulate some biological processes? What function(s)? Can he describe how to get the DNA that codes for regulatory ncRNAs and pre-mRNAs ? How does he plan to get the TF-binding DNA sequences, promoter regions, enhancer sequences, epigenetic markers, histone code?jawa_{May 3, 2020
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Ed George:
Making an inference to a single example (human language) is statistically invalid.
It wasn't a single example. But a single example is still one more than you have.ET_{May 3, 2020
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AaronS1978 @ 57
A similar question can been asked of atheists. (Assuming you didn’t ask what I think you asked) Why do they even care that religious people have a belief in God.
On January 8 1697 - I remember the date because that's also my birthday - a Scottish student called Thomas Aikenhead was executed following conviction on a charge of blasphemy, the last person to suffer that fate in Great Britain. He was incautious enough to express atheist sentiments in discussions with Christian "friends", one of whom ratted him out to the authorities. In 1987, in a public interview, there was allegedly the following exchange between then Vice-President George H W Bush and an atheist activist called Rob Sherman:
I asked Mr. Bush, “What are you going to do to win the votes of Americans who are atheists?” Mr. Bush replied, “I guess I’m pretty weak in the atheist community. Faith in God is important to me.” I followed up: “Do you support the equal citizenship and patriotism of Americans who are atheists?” Mr. Bush replied, “I don’t know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God.” After other reporters asked a few questions about issues that they were concerned about, I was then able to get in one more follow-up question on my subject: “Do you support the constitutionality of state/church separation?” Vice President Bush responded, “I support separation of church and state. I’m just not very high on atheists.”
I say "allegedly" because, although Sherman never deviated from his claim, it has not been possible to very that the exchange took place as reported. Nonetheless, the sentiments attributed to Bush were widespread at the time and are still around today. So if Christians will leave us alone, I will leave them alone.Seversky_{May 3, 2020
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Does this breakthrough qualify Dr Szostak for the coveted Evo2.0 OOL $10M prize? Any news from Dr Denis Noble and Dr George Church on this? Would they have to split the prize between Dr Cronin and Dr Szostak? Should Dr Venter be included too? What’s Perry Marshal’s take on all this? Would he prefer to invest their funds in Szostak’s results instead of Cronin’s, leaving Venter out too? :)jawa_{May 3, 2020
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Barry Arrington: Yes, Upright Biped tracked the thread and outlined all the times you tried to change the subject, obfuscate and dissemble. Hang on: I asked Upright BiPed a question at comment 84 I believe. Granted, it may have been slightly off the main topic of the thread but I asked a question. IF Upright BiPed thought I was trying to deflect the discussion or change the subject then all he had to do was say so. When I figured out that he wanted to address a topic other than what I had brought up I bowed out, with no animosity. By stamping your feet and refusing to engage with their ideas? Another cowardly lie. I was trying to engage with a particular idea; Upright Biped was working on something else so we didn't match up. What's the problem? Then why did you try to change the subject and refuse to engage UB on the point he was making? Because I was asking about something else. He didn't want to engage with that, fair enough. I stopped. I did not castigate him or berate him or call him names. I quit. JVL, when I say you are a coward and a liar, I am not “attacking” you. I am merely pointing out that you are a coward and a liar. The purpose of pointing that out is to exhort you to better behavior. It is not working, but I will continue to exhort you. Do better. I think everyone who participates in this forum has the right to participate when and if they choose. As I have admitted, my question to Upright BiPed might not have been what he wanted to discuss. He chose to pursue a different topic. I chose to decline that invitation. End of. Why are you trying to make this some kind of antagonistic conflict when it isn't? I'm not pointing fingers and accusing anyone of anything. I wanted to know what Upright BiPed thought about one narrow topic and that's it. I won't ask that question again because I don't want to press Upright BiPed on a topic that he may not want to discuss. I do that out of respect to him and his time. I am NOT trying to trip him up or make him look foolish.JVL_{May 3, 2020
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JVL
If you look back on the thread . . .
Yes, Upright Biped tracked the thread and outlined all the times you tried to change the subject, obfuscate and dissemble. See comment 131.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Another cowardly lie.
I figured if I wanted to understand what ID proponents think . . .
By stamping your feet and refusing to engage with their ideas? Another cowardly lie.
I really thought You’d be glad to be asked about what your views really are.
Then why did you try to change the subject and refuse to engage UB on the point he was making? Another cowardly lie. JVL, when I say you are a coward and a liar, I am not "attacking" you. I am merely pointing out that you are a coward and a liar. The purpose of pointing that out is to exhort you to better behavior. It is not working, but I will continue to exhort you. Do better.Barry Arrington_{May 3, 2020
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Upright BiPed: You literally attempted to invent something (out of the clear blue) that you would then use to reposition your hasty retreat as something else entirely. And it was not just pure invention on your part, but was almost a kind of favor you were doing for me; a noble thing where you would bend a dispassionate knee and kindly apologize for whatever phrase you might have used that confused me and caused me to misunderstand the true substance of your contributions to the conversation. You take everything I say as a slight or attack. I really am trying to be respectful of your time. So, yes, I asked you a question about models and then realised, after you replied, that I couldn't imagine presenting anything that you wouldn't have already seen and had an answer for. So I chose to withdraw so as not to waste your time rehashing something you had probably already gone over many times. I thought I was being respectful but you took it as being offensive. You desperately want (as can be seen in your posts above) to reposition another complete failure on your part (frankly the same failure as before) as an example of me avoiding your oh-so-important question. After you “grant me the existence of a multi-cellular life form” (lol) in comment #106, you then feverishly try to paint of picture of me tucking my tail and running from your penetrating inquiry in comment #109, repeated in comment #110, and repeated again in comment #115, then repeated again in comment #116, then again in comment #119, and then yet again in comment #122. You were in a full-court press to sell this little charade, and all you really needed of your audience was for them to not ask if any of it made any sense whatsoever. Look, I asked you a question, you chose not to answer it directly. I'm fine with that. I'm not shaming you; I'm just explaining the situation. But what if someone went back and looked to see what your question to me actually was? What would they find? Would they find that your question to me had any bearing whatsoever on the question that I had posed to Ed (the very question you were responding to)? No, they would not. Your question is completely irrelevant to the question I had posed to Ed. And that's a perfectly good reason not to answer the question!! If I got it wrong then I apologise and withdraw! it is the whole point of the question. Design is already on the table. Design is already on the table in a way that you simply cannot respond to without first assuming your conclusions. And even granting your assumptions, you have a) literally nothing concrete in the way of a mechanism or pathway to explain what has been observed and therefore must be explained, and b) you must adopt an entirely unscientific position and completely ignore the successful predictions, confirmations, and critical physical descriptions recorded in the scientific literature that unambiguously support the design inference. In other words, to defend your materialism you have to first ignore science. You know this, and I know this. I don't see how this precludes the question I actually posed to you. But, since it seems to have cause a huge amount of offence I withdraw it completely. You are here to attack and aggravate against the physical evidence of design in biology and you want to do it without having to deal with the heart of the design inference, where you are summarily defeated by both documentation and history all at once. All your attempts, before and here again now on this thread, to cajole and reposition those defeats cannot hide that fact. I am here trying to understand what you think and not wanting to just guess and then attack you for something that isn't the case. Well, JVL, the evidence suggests that it was implemented by arranging one set of objects to serve as a set of rate-independent symbol vehicles, and a second set of objects to serve as a set interpretive constraints. The constraints would physically establish the symbol vehicles as a medium and would coordinate the spatial orientation required to distinguish one referent from another in a common medium. In order to function, these objects would all have to be organized within a dissipative process that would cause the system (using the dynamical laws of physics) to read the medium and construct its products from available resources. This dissipative process would need to have its constituents described in the sequence of the medium, along with the descriptions of the constraints themselves. And as von Neumann had shown, it could begin to function when the individual sequences of the symbols describing the constraints were simultaneously coordinated with the all sequences describing the various constituents carrying out the dissipative process. So you don’t have to wonder any longer what I think about that. And you can now have the last word. You can use it to conjure up a fantastic new reason to avoid the evidence and to reposition this comment in some self-serving way. That’s all you’ve done so far. Okay! So when did that happen do you think? Again I'm just trying to figure out how you see things as they played out in time. I don't know why you take such offence. `i'm just trying to understand your view more clearly.JVL_{May 3, 2020
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Barry Arrington: You have no idea how to respond to Upright Biped’s challenge. Instead of doing the honest and courageous thing and admitting that, you dissemble, obfuscate and try to change the subject. If you look back on the thread you will see that I asked Upright BiPed a question st comment 84. I think. The he (?) countered with a different question. I wanted to stick with my question so tried to bring things back around. No, the really astounding thing is that you come into these pages and bare your dishonesty and cowardice to the entire world. It is puzzling why anyone would want to do that. I'm not sure what you're getting at. I figured if I wanted to understand what ID proponents think I should go to an ID website and ask questions. Surely that's better that making something up and attacking you for something you didn't actually say or believe? I really thought You'd be glad to be asked about what your views really are. I guess you're so used to being attacked that you find it hard to get back to being generous and forthcoming. Anyway, I'm not sure this comment will get through as I'm pretty sure I penned something similar earlier today and it never appeared. I don't know why; I've tried to be respectful.JVL_{May 3, 2020
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KF, if life arose through natural processes, currently the leading theory, then language, however likely, is a consequence of natural processes. But we will leave that aside for the moment. As far as we know, and there is some disagreement on this, humans are the only life on earth that has developed language. This in spite of many species having some level of intelligence. Given this, the only inference you can make is that alphanumeric languages (including DNA) are the result of human intelligence. But nobody is suggesting this because of its absurdity.Ed George_{May 3, 2020
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EG, we are not talking about empty statistical correlation but about the inherent nature of language and its causal requisites, which BTW is much of what UB has been discussing. That you tried that sort of fallacious appeal speaks further volumes. KFkairosfocus_{May 3, 2020
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Barry, and I thought I was the only one who noticed the asymmetry in the BS that flows around here. :)Ed George_{May 3, 2020
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Upright Biped (untangling BS is certainly more time-consuming than spouting it). There is a formal name for this: "BAP," which stands for the BS asymmetry principle..Barry Arrington_{May 3, 2020
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KF
EG, you need to face the signature of design: alphanumeric algorithmic code in DNA, implying not only FSCO/I but language. KF
Making an inference to a single example (human language) is statistically invalid.Ed George_{May 3, 2020
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. Checking back in, I see nothing new. JVL, if you will recall, in our last exchange you had posted an observation that science was conducted by “finding models that match reality”, and in turn I suggested we compare each other’s model of the “physical conditions surrounding autonomous open-ended self-replication” (I.e. living things). You then asked me a question:
JVL: Tell me what your model is.
I immediately answered your question:
UB: I argue for the model successfully predicted by Von Neumann (confirmed by Crick, Brenner, Hoagland, Zamecnik, Nirenberg, et al) and documented in the literature by Pattee, Barbieri, and others. It simultaneously requires a symbol system (i.e. a system of discontinuous association), a language structure (i.e. the onset of spatial orientation to enable multiple referents), a set of non-integrable constraints, and semantic closure in order to begin to function (i.e. persist over time). I am prepared to walk through the details of each of these requirements. What model do you conclude best “matches reality” and what details of that model will you be arguing support your conclusion?
You then responded by telling me you argued for the ”standard unguided evolutionary model” which you already know merely assumes the physical conditions in question, and thus, you would be completely unable to defend your position. So (in the very first comment you posted after I answered your question) you asked me if we could just drop it:
JVL: I’m happy to let it drop if you are.
You are happy to “drop it” IF I AM. ...good grief man. But then a most interesting thing happened. You attempted to wrap up this exchange between us – a glaring failure on your part to present and defend your model -- with a pure positioning statement that literally came out of thin air:
JVL: I meant no insult or slight. It just seemed to me that pursuing our discussion would end up being more frustrating than productive. If I phrased that in a way you find objectionable then I apologise. But I do not want to waste your time so I figured it would be better if I just bowed out.
Insult? Slight? You literally attempted to invent something (out of the clear blue) that you would then use to reposition your hasty retreat as something else entirely. And it was not just pure invention on your part, but was almost a kind of favor you were doing for me; a noble thing where you would bend a dispassionate knee and kindly apologize for whatever phrase you might have used that confused me and caused me to misunderstand the true substance of your contributions to the conversation. (face palm) I took note of this little tendency of yours because it was the second time you had tried that kind of (dishonest) thing with me -- and here again today, you are trying to do it a third time. You desperately want (as can be seen in your posts above) to reposition another complete failure on your part (frankly the same failure as before) as an example of me avoiding your oh-so-important question. After you “grant me the existence of a multi-cellular life form” (lol) in comment #106, you then feverishly try to paint of picture of me tucking my tail and running from your penetrating inquiry in comment #109, repeated in comment #110, and repeated again in comment #115, then repeated again in comment #116, then again in comment #119, and then yet again in comment #122. You were in a full-court press to sell this little charade, and all you really needed of your audience was for them to not ask if any of it made any sense whatsoever. But what if someone went back and looked to see what your question to me actually was? What would they find? Would they find that your question to me had any bearing whatsoever on the question that I had posed to Ed (the very question you were responding to)? No, they would not. Your question is completely irrelevant to the question I had posed to Ed. But there is a larger issue here, and it is the very thing you try so hard to avoid: Does my question to Ed have any bearing whatsoever on the question you asked of me? The answer is obvious; it is the whole point of the question. Design is already on the table. Design is already on the table in a way that you simply cannot respond to without first assuming your conclusions. And even granting your assumptions, you have a) literally nothing concrete in the way of a mechanism or pathway to explain what has been observed and therefore must be explained, and b) you must adopt an entirely unscientific position and completely ignore the successful predictions, confirmations, and critical physical descriptions recorded in the scientific literature that unambiguously support the design inference. In other words, to defend your materialism you have to first ignore science. You know this, and I know this. This is the whole reason you want to “grant me” multicellular life and rattle on about it meaninglessly for paragraphs on end. (note: no one with one ounce of sense in their head buys into your schtick about being a curious materialist just trying to “understand” what others think, give it a rest for crying out loud). You are here to attack and aggravate against the physical evidence of design in biology and you want to do it without having to deal with the heart of the design inference, where you are summarily defeated by both documentation and history all at once. All your attempts, before and here again now on this thread, to cajole and reposition those defeats cannot hide that fact. At this point, I have certainly wasted enough time on you JVL (untangling BS is certainly more time-consuming than spouting it). But instead of just leaving it like that, let me address a question you say you have. You say you want to know how the design was implemented. Well, JVL, the evidence suggests that it was implemented by arranging one set of objects to serve as a set of rate-independent symbol vehicles, and a second set of objects to serve as a set interpretive constraints. The constraints would physically establish the symbol vehicles as a medium and would coordinate the spatial orientation required to distinguish one referent from another in a common medium. In order to function, these objects would all have to be organized within a dissipative process that would cause the system (using the dynamical laws of physics) to read the medium and construct its products from available resources. This dissipative process would need to have its constituents described in the sequence of the medium, along with the descriptions of the constraints themselves. And as von Neumann had shown, it could begin to function when the individual sequences of the symbols describing the constraints were simultaneously coordinated with the all sequences describing the various constituents carrying out the dissipative process. So you don’t have to wonder any longer what I think about that. And you can now have the last word. You can use it to conjure up a fantastic new reason to avoid the evidence and to reposition this comment in some self-serving way. That’s all you’ve done so far.Upright BiPed_{May 3, 2020
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EG, you need to face the signature of design: alphanumeric algorithmic code in DNA, implying not only FSCO/I but language. KFkairosfocus_{May 3, 2020
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Ed George:
Neither you nor I know how life originated. I suspect it was through natural causes and you think it was designed.
You have nothing to base your suspicion on, though. You can't even get biologically relevant replicators without having to have them designed. And even then Spiegelman's Monster rules the day. Then there is the fact that nature is incapable of producing codes because nature doesn't have the tools to do so. So forget about going from biologically relevant replicators to the coded systems of biological life. You don't have any rational reason to suspect it, the OoL, was through natural causes.ET_{May 2, 2020
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JVL:
Why is it not possible for one genome to transmogrify into another GIVEN that there are viable life forms along the path?
How is that a GIVEN? Why don't evos use targeted mutagenesis and selection to get fish to transmogrify into something other than fish? As I said- genomes control and influence development. You keep forgetting that part. Also genes influence traits. But a human isn't just a sum of traits.
IF you don’t think the genome determines form then what does determine form?
That is the BIG, unanswered question.
And how do you get new forms if the genome does not determine it?
Figure out that other question. Look, "the Island of Dr. Moreau" wasn't a scientific evolutionary documentary. Evo-devo's best are working on the problem, though. They've been silent for a while. And before going silent they hadn't solved it.ET_{May 2, 2020
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EG, we can safely assume you know the game, animal, vegetable or mineral. A string of choice nodes [reducible to binary] is one way that information is recognised. Where, it is obvious that DNA and proteins are informational. The significance of loss of function mutations shows the reality of islands of funcyion in configuration spaces for such entities, and in turn that makes any blind search procedure maximally implausible on sol system or observed cosmos gamuts once we pass 500 - 1,000 bits. Which is not a lot compared to requisites of life. So your distractive attempt further suports the design inference. Where it also points to the problem of accounting for novel body plans on such blind search. But then, Newton's rules that warn against unbridled speculation have long since been banished. KFkairosfocus_{May 2, 2020
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Sev @ 56, >...would suggest that the reason that you and your fellows partake so copiously of the “opium of the people” is that you cannot contemplate the bleak prospect of a Godless reality where atheists can. And having been an agnostic for a time, it is _incredibly_ bleak over there. Worst part of my life in fact. Oh, and TV/media/internet is today's opiate of the people. It distracts people from the pain of meaninglessness that they have elected to live within. People spend way too much time entertaining themselves, instead of facing life and dealing constructively with it. Very sad. >I would also ask of believers, if you genuinely believe that there is an afterlife spent in a state of infinite bliss in heaven with your God and all who have gone before, why are you wasting your time here in this “vale of tears”? Why not move on? Because we have more than one imperative that we live by. I have heard this argument before: "Why don't you all just commit suicide and get to heaven right now?" But this assumes that we have exactly one priority to our existence: getting to heaven by any means possible as fast as possible. Actually our existence is a lot more complex than that, and we are not expected to hurry the process up, but to do good here, bring others into the fellowship, etc.EDTA_{May 2, 2020
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.
With regard to current life, yes, specifications (ie, DNA or RNA) are required.
Correct, and materialists cannot explain [any life, "current" notwithstanding] that specification without recourse to discontinuous association and irreducible complexity.Upright BiPed_{May 2, 2020
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UB
As an educated man, you don’t think living things can exist without be specified.
That wasn’t your claim. Your claim was that “a living thing must be specified among alternatives in order to exist”. That is where I was confused. With regard to current life, yes, specifications (ie, DNA or RNA) are required. Neither you nor I know how life originated. I suspect it was through natural causes and you think it was designed.Ed George_{May 2, 2020
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JVL "Like I’ve said: . . ." Yes, it is like you said. You have no idea how to respond to Upright Biped's challenge. Instead of doing the honest and courageous thing and admitting that, you dissemble, obfuscate and try to change the subject. That makes you a dishonest, and that makes you a coward. The amazing thing is not that you are a dishonest coward. There are plenty of those in the world. No, the really astounding thing is that you come into these pages and bare your dishonesty and cowardice to the entire world. It is puzzling why anyone would want to do that.Barry Arrington_{May 2, 2020
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Upright BiPed: Like I've said: I'm okay that you don't want to answer my question and I will try hard to remember that so I don't bother you with the same question again in the future because I don't want to waste your time.JVL_{May 2, 2020
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. ED, Rope-a-Dope requires someone to take the bait. As an educated man, you don't think living things can exist without being specified. I didn't take the bait. EDIT: Oh, and you can't explain that specification without recourse to discontinuous association and irreducible complexity.Upright BiPed_{May 2, 2020
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<UB: A living thing must be specified among alternatives in order to exist. It’s impossible for materialists to explain the ability to specify a thing among alternatives without discontinuous association and irreducible complexity. JVL: Let’s say we start with a multi-cellular life <JVL: I want to address the issue of the diversification of life once a viable <UB: Then you should be able to state that you are unable to explain the specification required for life to become viable without discontinuous association and irreducible complexity. Right? JVL: That isn’t the question I want to deal with. <b<JVL: Why do you keep avoiding my question?
ClassicUpright BiPed_{May 2, 2020
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