DARWIN's DOUBT - The End of Darwinistic Materialism

[Cioran]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Common sense tells you that something cannot come from nothing. Inferior beings presuppose a greater supernatural force, being. Evolutionists really do not believe in a cause. They believe that the effect is married to the cause.

Something comes from nothing all the time, even as we speak. See: quantum mechanics.

That said, life did not come from "nothing."

[The Atheist]

Finally, evolution is not a chance process.

If you mean that the universe is strictly deterministic and that no random events really happen, then the statement can be correct. I remain unconvinced that that is the case.

If "chance" means, as most people would think, that unexpected events like climate change, meteor strikes, solar radiation storms and viral infections are random events, then it doesn't work, because all of those have had an effect on evolution.

[Cioran]

If you mean that the universe is strictly deterministic and that no random events really happen, then the statement can be correct. I remain unconvinced that that is the case.

If "chance" means, as most people would think, that unexpected events like climate change, meteor strikes, solar radiation storms and viral infections are random events, then it doesn't work, because all of those have had an effect on evolution.

No, it's not that. It hasn't got anything to do with determinism.

Evolution is popularly mischaracterized as a chance process by its detractors, who demand to know how we can get the wonderful complexity of life by "chance alone."

The confusion arises in this "random mutation" bit. The "random" part is misleading. All "random" means in this context is that some mutation x is uncorrelated to the environment. As a matter of fact, this is precisely what we would expect from an undesigned process. A designed process, or at least a well-designed one, would minmize or if possible eliminate coying errors (which is what mutations are) or else would try to ensure that they were, in fact, correlated to the environment. Then, for instance, organisms encountering an enviornment getting steadiy colder might, in response, produce mutations that lead to nice fur coats. But that's not what happens. The mutations aren't correlated to the environment, and it is purely fortutious that some number of mutations happen to be beneficial. So there is that "chance" element (again, not what we would expect of a designed system).

But the process as a whole is not "by chance" because mutations are filtered through the sieve of natural selection. The environment "selects for" (not deliberately, of course) those mutations that just happen to give organisms a slight advantage, and over time those will spread throught the population. Thus the process as a whole is not a chance process.

[The Atheist]

Then, for instance, organisms encountering an enviornment getting steadiy colder might, in response, produce mutations that lead to nice fur coats. But that's not what happens. The mutations aren't correlated to the environment, and it is purely fortutious that some number of mutations happen to be beneficial. So there is that "chance" element (again, not what we would expect of a designed system).

But the process as a whole is not "by chance" because mutations are filtered through the sieve of natural selection. The environment "selects for" (not deliberately, of course) those mutations that just happen to give organisms a slight advantage, and over time those will spread throught the population. Thus the process as a whole is not a chance process.

I think you're playing semantics, and will ultimately end up confusing people.

You have the process right, but you need to ditch the word "chance". How about "random mutations, of which some are successful"?

[Nick Capozzoli]

I don't think it's glossed over at all - the answer is always an honest "we don't know".

There's no shame in not knowing, but it isn't a good reason to call for a creator.

Thanks for the response. I can see that we disagree about the need to call for a Creator to explain the very critical point of
abiogenesis but we both agree that the origin of life itself is, so far, a mystery. And I think that we agree that once life
appeared, the theory of evolution by natural selection provides a plausible explanation for the evolution, from so
simple a beginning, to life forms as we know them.

Just because we haven't come up with a plausible physical mechanism for abiogenesis doesn't mean that such
a mechanism doesn't exist. It does however suggest that the origin of life from non-life, if we assume it arose by
natural processes, is extremely unlikely. I mean "extremely unlikely" in a thermodynamic sense, which is to say
in the sense that it would be extremely unlikely for an 8 oz glass of water at room temperature to suddenly turn to
ice. Is it possible? Yes, and you can even calculate the probability that it will occur. Absent any plausible
physical mechanism for life to appear from non-living matter, I'd say that we'd have to view life's appearance as
close to unlikely as the possibility of a glass of room-temperature water turning to ice...

While such a possibility is not zero, it is quite improbable, even when we consider the whole Universe. What it means
is that it is possible that life originated on earth (by pure chance) and nowhere else in the Universe.

[WyattGwyon]

Absent any plausible
physical mechanism for life to appear from non-living matter, I'd say that we'd have to view life's appearance as
close to unlikely as the possibility of a glass of room-temperature water turning to ice...

While such a possibility is not zero, it is quite improbable, even when we consider the whole Universe. What it means
is that it is possible that life originated on earth (by pure chance) and nowhere else in the Universe.

You have no basis for deciding how likely or unlikely it is for life to have appeared from non-living matter. For all you know, given the conditions of the early earth, it might have been absolutely inevitable. It is possible that life is abundant throughout the universe. No one knows. Your speculation on these matters is empty blather.

[Ecurb]

You have no basis for deciding how likely or unlikely it is for life to have appeared from non-living matter. For all you know, given the conditions of the early earth, it might have been absolutely inevitable. It is possible that life is abundant throughout the universe. No one knows. Your speculation on these matters is empty blather.

The "think of the odds against it" argument is used to discuss the improbablility any number of events. Two brothers die in separate plane crashes on the same day -- "Think of the odds". Of course, once an event has happened, the odds of it occuring are 1:1 -- 100%. From the point of view of examining only the Earth from a recent vantage point (say, 1000 years ago), what are the odds of any single event that happens happening? Zillions to one. However, out of the zillions of possibilities, we can clearly predict that ONE of them will occur -- we just don't know which one. From our current vantage point, we DO know which one has occured -- the only reason we are wondering about the two brothers dying in separate plane wrecks (or about life beginning on earth, from whatever cause) is that the odds of those things occuring were 100% -- in other words, they did occur.

Any event that happens was once ALMOST infinitely unlikely.

[WyattGwyon]

The "think of the odds against it" argument is used to discuss the improbablility any number of events. Two brothers die in separate plane crashes on the same day -- "Think of the odds". Of course, once an event has happened, the odds of it occuring are 1:1 -- 100%. From the point of view of examining only the Earth from a recent vantage point (say, 1000 years ago), what are the odds of any single event that happens happening? Zillions to one. However, out of the zillions of possibilities, we can clearly predict that ONE of them will occur -- we just don't know which one. From our current vantage point, we DO know which one has occured -- the only reason we are wondering about the two brothers dying in separate plane wrecks (or about life beginning on earth, from whatever cause) is that the odds of those things occuring were 100% -- in other words, they did occur.

Any event that happens was once ALMOST infinitely unlikely.

Your conclusion does not follow from anything you stated above.

In any case, we are not talking about an event, as in some specific set of molecules in one particular pool of primordial ooze making a transition to self-replication or whatever. We are talking about the chances that it will occur once in several billion such pools over the period of a billion years. It is possible that such an event might be inevitable. So statistically speaking, this problem isn't like two specific brothers dying in separate plane crashes, it is like the chances that in the whole history of human civilization, two brothers will die in similar circumstances — that is to say, more or less inevitable.

[MorpheusSandman]

Very well said, Wyatt. All of the theistic arguments that rely on probability only serve to show what an abysmal grasp most humans have on probability to begin with. EG, a lot of such arguments get specific into arguing the probability against humans being here--ie, against humans being "merely" the outcome of billions of years of evolution. First, this betrays a completely anthropomorphic bias (the entire idea that everything exists only so it can lead to us--is there any claim more self-centered than that?), but, secondly, you can pretty much do this with any singled-out event: the chance you'd walk outside and see any specific cloud formation, or the chance that everything that happens in a Vegas casino on any given night would've happened exactly has it did. The problem is that some perhaps incalculably low event HAD to have occurred, and the notion that because any one happened it had to have a reason/designer/creator whatever is just nonsense.

[Ecurb]

Your conclusion does not follow from anything you stated above.

In any case, we are not talking about an event, as in some specific set of molecules in one particular pool of primordial ooze making a transition to self-replication or whatever. We are talking about the chances that it will occur once in several billion such pools over the period of a billion years. It is possible that such an event might be inevitable. So statistically speaking, this problem isn't like two specific brothers dying in separate plane crashes, it is like the chances that in the whole history of human civilization, two brothers will die in similar circumstances — that is to say, more or less inevitable.

My conclusion follows perfectly from what I said. In addition, I was agreeing with your position, and arguing against Nick. In fact, you are merely restating my position in the above post. Morpheus is also restating my position (I'm not sure if I wrote unclearly, or my readers failed to read carefully).

[MorpheusSandman]

Ecurb, fwiw, I was not following this conversation closely, and I was only echoing Wyatt's statement by giving a few more examples; I wasn't intending to address/rebut anything you had said.

[Nick Capozzoli]

You have no basis for deciding how likely or unlikely it is for life to have appeared from non-living matter. For all you know, given the conditions of the early earth, it might have been absolutely inevitable. It is possible that life is abundant throughout the universe. No one knows. Your speculation on these matters is empty blather.

I disagree. It is certainly possible to calculate the probability of molecular reactions given enough information about the reactants and their environmental conditions. We know a lot about how atoms and molecules behave. What we need to know about the formation of living matter from non-living matter (abiogenesis) is how this occurred. Once a living entity i.e. some assembly of matter able to reproduce itself and interact as such with its environment) appeared, then natural selection provides a very satisfactory explanation of the subsequent evolution of all life forms.

So far as I know no one has been able to come up with a compellingly probable mechanism for abiogenesis (and certainly not one that would make it "absolutely inevitable").

Of course we need to know the early conditions on Earth when abiogenesis occurred. Scientists have a pretty good general idea of these conditions and have even conducted experiments to create organic molecules under those conditions (going back to the 1950's). They have managed to synthesize simple organic compounds, including amino acids,. No one so far has been able to synthesize even the simplest life form. Or even to come up with a convincing physiochemical explanation for how it would be likely to occur... That doesn't mean it is (or was) impossible. Based on the fact that we still haven't come up with a compelling mechanism for abiogenesis does suggest that it was a rather improbable event.

Speculating on such things is not "blather." There are plenty of scientifically sophisticated folk who think the original appearance of life is worth serious discussion. Darwin himself certainly was troubled by the lack of a suitable scientific explanation. Darwin and Wallace came up with a brilliant theory to explain how living things evolve. This theory is almost certainly the correct explanation of the evolution of life, not only on Earth, but anywhere else life exists in the Universe. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it can even explain the evolution of non-living but otherwise "life-like" things like computer programs...

I've tried to be clear in my posts on this thread, but I guess from your response that I didn't succeed.

[Ecurb]

There are dozens of distinct theories about how abiogenesis might have happened. No doubt each of them is improbable (although less improbable if we add them all together) . However, that is a misunderstanding of probability. IF you roll two dice, and "box cars" come up, it would be silly to say "these must be loaded dice, because two 6s are unlikely." Yes, box cars are unlikely (1/36), but that doesn't mean the dice must be loaded.

WE know that the origins of life (however improbable in a world in which no life exists) did occur, somehow or other. It would be a false dichotomy to say, "because abiogenesis is improbable, there must be a creator." That's similar to saying, "Because box cars are improbable, the dice must be loaded." Why is the creator any more "probable" than abiogenesis? Is there any evidence of other "creations"?

In addition, the notion of a conscious, volitional "creator" is anthropomorphic. Why is conscious volition the only thing that can explain an otherwise extremely improbable occurence? Couldn't life have originated through some other, non-consicious, non-volitional, but unique set of circumstances?

[cafolini]

There are dozens of distinct theories about how abiogenesis might have happened. No doubt each of them is improbable (although less improbable if we add them all together) . However, that is a misunderstanding of probability. IF you roll two dice, and "box cars" come up, it would be silly to say "these must be loaded dice, because two 6s are unlikely." Yes, box cars are unlikely (1/36), but that doesn't mean the dice must be loaded.

WE know that the origins of life (however improbable in a world in which no life exists) did occur, somehow or other. It would be a false dichotomy to say, "because abiogenesis is improbable, there must be a creator." That's similar to saying, "Because box cars are improbable, the dice must be loaded." Why is the creator any more "probable" than abiogenesis? Is there any evidence of other "creations"?

In addition, the notion of a conscious, volitional "creator" is anthropomorphic. Why is conscious volition the only thing that can explain an otherwise extremely improbable occurence? Couldn't life have originated through some other, non-consicious, non-volitional, but unique set of circumstances?

As I have said many times, it's a mystery. And you are correct: clues are not dues.

[WyattGwyon]

My conclusion follows perfectly from what I said. In addition, I was agreeing with your position, and arguing against Nick. In fact, you are merely restating my position in the above post. Morpheus is also restating my position (I'm not sure if I wrote unclearly, or my readers failed to read carefully).

Sorry Ecurb — It was my mistake. It seems obvious now!