OK, now I think we’re on the same page! Doncha love talking at cross purposes…

Yeah, to be honest I never got a sense that we were disagreeing at all really, just sort of writing out very detailed clarifications of our position.

For what it’s worth, I think that you’re absolutely right, and where historical questions about God or miracles are concerned, that’s a limitation of science that should be honestly acknowledged.

Any scientist that tries to claim that science can disprove god is either deluded or a liar. Science, however, can disprove specific claims when they are defined well enough to be tested. Whilst in some cases this can be a bit of a blow for religion, most of the vital dogmas of religion are faith based so no amount of evidence could ever sway the believer.

Science is at its best when observing regular, measurable, “natural” causes and effects. These are, if all goes well, explainable in terms of “theories”, parts of which can sometimes be stated mathematically as “laws” – and it’s this framework that, among a great many other things, allows me to put a molecule into a computer program and get a vaguely sensible answer back – unless I’ve screwed up. (I’m a computational chemist by trade, and that’s not trying to make this blog comment an authoritative pronouncement; I’m young and still have lots to learn.) I don’t think that looking “scientifically” for a natural origin of life is wrong. There are possible questions about whether it’s the best use of resources, but that’s quite a separate issue. What I object to is when people say, “Science has proven that life must have arisen naturally!” No, in fact, science has (so far) proven no such thing, though we can evidently make amino acids and nucleotides; but if there is a natural way for life to arise, science may one day discover it (or them, as the case may be); and if there is no natural way, science will forever remain ignorant. Here, it seems that we agreed all along.

Yeah, it sort of annoys me too whenever someone claims that science has “proven” this or that. Sometimes they mean it in a very general, informal sense that is essentially correct such as science has ‘proven’ that the earth orbits the sun – even though the terminology is incorrect, as science can’t ever prove anything, the meaning behind it is correct enough as there is so much evidence in favour of the earth orbiting the sun it is as good as proven.

As to the question of resources; firstly, a ‘naturalistic’ approach is the only viable approach at this point in time, so it would be silly to investigate any other avenue (I mean, even if god did do it we’d have no way of figuring this out so it’s basically a dead end). But if you meant it’s a waste as in we probably won’t find the answers so we should just stop then I’d disagree. Science isn’t always about finding positive answers, or reaching a solution – the negative results are just as important to science. As stated, in numerous forms, by Edison: “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Every time we try to create life and fail, that is not wasted time and money, that is knowledge. You will very, very rarely find a failed result in science that is worthless – except maybe the in alternative health efficacy studies…

I think it’s possible that the day will come when there will be a fair bit of evidence in favour of abiogenesis and believers will be put in a position where they have to choose whether the possible gap available for the intervention of god is large enough to keep faith in, or whether in fact a literal interpretation of creation is mistaken given the opposing evidence. I’m pretty sure that most believers will accept that the grounds for trusting in a literal interpretation of the bible is shaky in this instance and will adapt to fit the science. That’s just my opinion though.

(I’m a computational chemist by trade, and that’s not trying to make this blog comment an authoritative pronouncement; I’m young and still have lots to learn.)

You seem like a decent guy so I didn’t assume you were using it as an appeal to authority, I was beginning to suspect you had a science background though so it’s good to know. Sorry if I was explaining anything above that you’ve already sat through a million lectures on already..

Science doesn’t assume a naturalistic perspective and then try to find answers that fit it, science looks at the data and so far can only draw naturalistic conclusions. Science is limited only by the observable or measurable…

OK, now I think we’re on the same page! Doncha love talking at cross purposes…

For what it’s worth, I think that you’re absolutely right, and where historical questions about God or miracles are concerned, that’s a limitation of science that should be honestly acknowledged. Science is at its best when observing regular, measurable, “natural” causes and effects. These are, if all goes well, explainable in terms of “theories”, parts of which can sometimes be stated mathematically as “laws” – and it’s this framework that, among a great many other things, allows me to put a molecule into a computer program and get a vaguely sensible answer back – unless I’ve screwed up. (I’m a computational chemist by trade, and that’s not trying to make this blog comment an authoritative pronouncement; I’m young and still have lots to learn.) I don’t think that looking “scientifically” for a natural origin of life is wrong. There are possible questions about whether it’s the best use of resources, but that’s quite a separate issue. What I object to is when people say, “Science has proven that life must have arisen naturally!” No, in fact, science has (so far) proven no such thing, though we can evidently make amino acids and nucleotides; but if there is a natural way for life to arise, science may one day discover it (or them, as the case may be); and if there is no natural way, science will forever remain ignorant. Here, it seems that we agreed all along.

However, as I mentioned, there’s the historical question of getting from “could happen in principle” to “did happen way back when”; thus the creation of life in the lab would not be the death knell of creationism (whether of the Young-Earth or Old-Earth flavour). But it would completely neuter the origin-of-life problem as an apologetic argument.

Of course. This is science, not “Absolute Truth”(TM). It gives us the viable interpretations of reality, it can’t give us certainty because of its very nature. It can, however, give us the most reasonable and probable scenarios that occur in reality. The advantage of trusting belief and faith over evidence is that no matter how certain science is of an answer, it can always be overridden by searching within the degrees of error for an alternative answer that suits your prior convictions. (This of course occurs in all people who trust their gut instead of evidence, and sometimes scientists succumb to this too – but they are most often hit by the brick wall of peer review).

If it’s the default position, I don’t think that’s the case for any reason related to legitimate philosophy of science; I think it more reflects the wide assent given to the naturalistic paradigm. I also think I missed where you explained why it must be the default. Perhaps you’re appealing to Occam’s Razor (”entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary”), but in practice that’s balanced against relative probabilities – the basis, so I understand, of forensics. I maintain, too, that disproving abiogenesis as a historical matter is impossible, philosophically speaking – you can’t prove a negative.

I think you have it the wrong way around. Science doesn’t assume a naturalistic perspective and then try to find answers that fit it, science looks at the data and so far can only draw naturalistic conclusions. Science is limited only by the observable or measurable – if something can be seen or its effects can be measured in some way then science can study it. This means that any philosophical paradigm can be incorporated by science except for the ones that reject reality such as solipsism (but even that could be argued to be consistent with science, assuming the reality you create is still logical).

It’s true that Occam’s Razor is a relative process in that it needs two alternative positions to compare with each other to be invoked. Even though it is only a guideline in science (meaning that just because something violates it doesn’t mean it is automatically wrong) it is an invaluable principle for forming scientific theories. To disregard it on the basis of personal preference for a particular theory would be a grave mistake on the part of scientists. (Most people interpret it as “the simplest answer is always best” so it was refreshing to see you had a better grasp of it than the general public).

Another way you might be looking at this is through the criterion of falsifiability (cf. Karl Popper). But on that criterion, abiogenesis as a hypothesis is not readily falsifiable. As I understand falsifiability, its hallmark is that we could do an experiment which positively says “this is not true”, or the more subtle “this has exceptions”. I can’t think of a single experiment which would pop up, as it were, a sign saying “Abiogenesis is not realistic”, and I’d be interested to hear if you can. As far as I can see, at best (measured against the falsifiability criterion), an experiment can say “This particular route to life is not viable”.

You’re right in that abiogenesis is a field of study so is not applicable to falsifiability in the same way that “evolutionary biology” or “psychology” isn’t applicable to falsifiability, but all the theories contained within the field have to be falsifiable, otherwise they are useless. A theory that looks at life coming from non-life has to be devised in a way that it can be disproved or falsified – that’s why it has to be very rigorous and strictly defined. For instance, they can’t say “perhaps some chemicals combined together will make life” because when they put some chemicals together and don’t make life they always have an escape clause; “Oh, I didn’t mean those SPECIFIC chemicals..”.

…“Then a miracle occurs”. The other scientist remarks, “I think you need to be more explicit here in Step Two.”) I agree that invoking miraculous causation is not scientific. But you start heading away from science and towards philosophy about this point.

Indeed, it’s a very clever cartoon given its simplicity. That, in a nutshell, is the falsifiability rule. By not defining what the miracle is exactly, the scientist can never be wrong. Whenever his results don’t match his theory then he can always make a story up to explain away the discrepancies.

Actually, I wouldn’t want creationist scientists of any stripe doing OOL research, for the simple reason that we (I’m an OEC, I suppose, but not dogmatic about it) would have varying amounts of emotional and philosophical investment in seeing our attempts to create life fail. And I just don’t trust human beings far enough to think that investment could be kept completely out of such scientists’ approach to their work. I’d say the same thing about a believer in abiogenesis who set about trying to scientifically prove a Divine origin of life (or disprove a natural one, which I think essentially amounts to the same thing) – and for precisely the same sorts of reasons.

Yes, any dogmatic thinking is always a problem in science – whether it comes from creationists or a fringe scientist – but that’s the beauty of the peer review process. I know a lot of non-scientists hear the term “peer review” and assume it’s just a fancy way of saying that scientists pat each other on the back and engage in group think but anyone who has actually gone through the process can testify that that conception is far from the truth. The best analogy I can think of is that its like wrapping all your work up in meat, sticking it in shark infested waters and watching it get ripped to pieces. Then when you lift it out of the water you can use whatever is left to try to create a new theory only to feed it to the sharks over and over again. Even if the peer reviewers agree with your conclusions, any statement that is not backed up by a number of independent lines of evidence will immediately be thrown out with no questions asked.

From the point of view of apologetics, I actually question the value of basing one’s case for God on things like the unexplained appearance of biological life. I would argue we do have evidence for God, though not of the “scientific” sort. But I won’t threadjack that way; I suspect we’ll have other opportunities if we feel like discussing that question.

Yes, the “you don’t know how it happened, therefore god” never seemed like the best position to take, in my opinion.

-Mike.

Well, not quite. I think if it required that scenario to occur and it worked, then that would be excellent evidence in favour of abiogenesis. All they need to show is that life can form by itself, whether it requires a hugely improbable scenario or not is irrelevant as long as they can show it can happen. And if you look at the time frame for which life could occur – imagine how many improbable events must have occurred within that time.

To an extent, I agree with you. Given that all our experiments are no more than harnessing physical laws, anything which we can do could in principle be done without us. Certainly a successful creation of life in the lab would be seen as the final proof by anyone who already believes in abiogenesis, and even among those who are unsure it would count as more or less persuasive evidence. However, as I mentioned, there’s the historical question of getting from “could happen in principle” to “did happen way back when”; thus the creation of life in the lab would not be the death knell of creationism (whether of the Young-Earth or Old-Earth flavour). But it would completely neuter the origin-of-life problem as an apologetic argument.

This is the wrong way of looking at things. Abiogenesis researchers (and scientists in general) don’t believe in a natural origin, or assume that it must be the case – it is unarguably the default position. The aim of their science is to disprove the natural origin scenario so abiogenesis research would actually be a perfect avenue for people who don’t believe in a natural origin – as long as they knew their chemistry of course. The reason why assuming an unknown chemical reaction is not the same as assuming an all powerful deity is because we know that chemical reactions happen, whereas we don’t currently have evidence for the existence of a deity.

If it’s the default position, I don’t think that’s the case for any reason related to legitimate philosophy of science; I think it more reflects the wide assent given to the naturalistic paradigm. I also think I missed where you explained why it must be the default. Perhaps you’re appealing to Occam’s Razor (“entities must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary”), but in practice that’s balanced against relative probabilities – the basis, so I understand, of forensics. I maintain, too, that disproving abiogenesis as a historical matter is impossible, philosophically speaking – you can’t prove a negative.

Another way you might be looking at this is through the criterion of falsifiability (cf. Karl Popper). But on that criterion, abiogenesis as a hypothesis is not readily falsifiable. As I understand falsifiability, its hallmark is that we could do an experiment which positively says “this is not true”, or the more subtle “this has exceptions”. I can’t think of a single experiment which would pop up, as it were, a sign saying “Abiogenesis is not realistic”, and I’d be interested to hear if you can. As far as I can see, at best (measured against the falsifiability criterion), an experiment can say “This particular route to life is not viable”.

Having said that, I value methodological naturalism as an operating principle. (It reminds me of the old cartoon – Far Side, maybe – which has a couple of scientists, one who writes a lot of maths on the chalkboard, and one step is conveniently marked “Then a miracle occurs”. The other scientist remarks, “I think you need to be more explicit here in Step Two.”) I agree that invoking miraculous causation is not scientific. But you start heading away from science and towards philosophy about this point.

Actually, I wouldn’t want creationist scientists of any stripe doing OOL research, for the simple reason that we (I’m an OEC, I suppose, but not dogmatic about it) would have varying amounts of emotional and philosophical investment in seeing our attempts to create life fail. And I just don’t trust human beings far enough to think that investment could be kept completely out of such scientists’ approach to their work. I’d say the same thing about a believer in abiogenesis who set about trying to scientifically prove a Divine origin of life (or disprove a natural one, which I think essentially amounts to the same thing) – and for precisely the same sorts of reasons.

From the point of view of apologetics, I actually question the value of basing one’s case for God on things like the unexplained appearance of biological life. I would argue we do have evidence for God, though not of the “scientific” sort. But I won’t threadjack that way; I suspect we’ll have other opportunities if we feel like discussing that question.

I apologise for the delay in responding. Time zones are annoying on occasion.

That’s no problem, I post at odd hours anyway so even if we were in the same time zone I’d probably mess it up by increasing the delay times..

Provided the conditions are those that we could reasonably expect to prevail on the early Earth. For example, if the only way we could bring life about was to fill an Olympic swimming pool with 1 molar gadolinium as catalyst (yes, that is a real element), I think there would be valid questions about the applicability of that experiment to any “accidental” scenario (though I could also envisage immediate speculation about asteroid impacts and so forth).

Well, not quite. I think if it required that scenario to occur and it worked, then that would be excellent evidence in favour of abiogenesis. All they need to show is that life can form by itself, whether it requires a hugely improbable scenario or not is irrelevant as long as they can show it can happen. And if you look at the time frame for which life could occur – imagine how many improbable events must have occurred within that time.

Where I must differ with you is in the assumption that life must have arisen naturally. This is, indeed, the starting point for OOL research, for it would be a contradiction to be an OOL researcher who doesn’t believe in a natural origin of life. But as a general assumption, it puts the burden of proof in the wrong place; it is always possible to postulate an as-yet-unknown chemical reaction to get from non-life to life, much as it’s possible to postulate a Deity who played the same role. It’s irresponsible to expect the wider scientific community, let alone the general public, to accept abiogenesis on the basis of a combination of questionable philosophy and hopeful statements by OOL researchers (who, after all, have to say they’re on the verge of an important discovery if they’re to keep the grant money flowing in *wry grin*).

This is the wrong way of looking at things. Abiogenesis researchers (and scientists in general) don’t believe in a natural origin, or assume that it must be the case – it is unarguably the default position. The aim of their science is to disprove the natural origin scenario so abiogenesis research would actually be a perfect avenue for people who don’t believe in a natural origin – as long as they knew their chemistry of course. The reason why assuming an unknown chemical reaction is not the same as assuming an all powerful deity is because we know that chemical reactions happen, whereas we don’t currently have evidence for the existence of a deity.

As for the claims of abiogenesis ‘breakthroughs’, I understand that they always seem somewhat anticlimactic as a member of the public when they say things like “We’ve now discovered that we need 2mgs of this solution instead of 1mg to form the precursor to a possible base form of the thing that eventually could give rise to life!” – but findings in science usually have more impact than just on the specific instance they are applied to. Most of the time, like the research mentioned above, it’s like a shockwave that travels through the scientific community and it changes how they view the problem. So instead of being a solution in itself, most of the time scientific advances are simply a shift in the paradigmatic view.

A related point here is the role of assuming natural causes within science. I agree that, for the general rules of the world (e.g., the sun rising in the East), it’s appropriate to assume a natural cause, and this applies in the biological sciences (e.g., the reproduction of bacteria or the regular migration of birds). It’s harder to justify that assumption philosophically when you start looking at one-off historical events, such as (as far as we know) the origin of life. The point I’m making is that if science is to require the assumption of a natural cause for every event, there are some things which science is incapable of fairly investigating, and the question of natural or Divine origin of life is one of them.

I’ve outlined why a natural origin has to be the default assumption above but you’re right about the one time event comment. But that’s not what science does – it doesn’t prove anything, that’s not what it is designed to do. It simply provides us with enough evidence to be able to understand reality. This, of course, means that even if we can create life from non-life, creationists will still be able to sit back and say “Well sure, but you don’t know that’s how it happened originally”. Which, whilst being somewhat valid, is a bit foolish as it would require denying gravity, aerodynamics etc as well, as they are all formed on the same principles.

(Also, it’s possible that life formed a number of times on early earth but a number of meteorites would have sterilised any growth before the timeframe I presented in my earlier post).

I accept what you were saying about the conflation of abiogenesis and evolution. I think it’s a case of an unfortunately imprecise use of language which is done by some players on both sides. I’ll express a hope that we can avoid that here, and leave it at that. *smiles*

That would be great if we could avoid that confusion : )

I apologise for the delay in responding. Time zones are annoying on occasion.

In some ways I agree with you – it’s obviously a valid starting point for OOL researchers to see whether they can come up with life (or some form of proto-life) at all. And I agree that an ability to produce life in a test-tube would be a strong supporting argument for the same having happened “naturally” in the remote past.

Provided the conditions are those that we could reasonably expect to prevail on the early Earth. For example, if the only way we could bring life about was to fill an Olympic swimming pool with 1 molar gadolinium as catalyst (yes, that is a real element), I think there would be valid questions about the applicability of that experiment to any “accidental” scenario (though I could also envisage immediate speculation about asteroid impacts and so forth).

Where I must differ with you is in the assumption that life must have arisen naturally. This is, indeed, the starting point for OOL research, for it would be a contradiction to be an OOL researcher who doesn’t believe in a natural origin of life. But as a general assumption, it puts the burden of proof in the wrong place; it is always possible to postulate an as-yet-unknown chemical reaction to get from non-life to life, much as it’s possible to postulate a Deity who played the same role. It’s irresponsible to expect the wider scientific community, let alone the general public, to accept abiogenesis on the basis of a combination of questionable philosophy and hopeful statements by OOL researchers (who, after all, have to say they’re on the verge of an important discovery if they’re to keep the grant money flowing in *wry grin*).

A related point here is the role of assuming natural causes within science. I agree that, for the general rules of the world (e.g., the sun rising in the East), it’s appropriate to assume a natural cause, and this applies in the biological sciences (e.g., the reproduction of bacteria or the regular migration of birds). It’s harder to justify that assumption philosophically when you start looking at one-off historical events, such as (as far as we know) the origin of life. The point I’m making is that if science is to require the assumption of a natural cause for every event, there are some things which science is incapable of fairly investigating, and the question of natural or Divine origin of life is one of them.

I accept what you were saying about the conflation of abiogenesis and evolution. I think it’s a case of an unfortunately imprecise use of language which is done by some players on both sides. I’ll express a hope that we can avoid that here, and leave it at that. *smiles*

I think you underestimate the amount of knowledge that is known about the conditions of the early earth. First off there is not “3.5 billion years and a whole planet with a million different combinations of conditions and chemicals.” There is a very limited time window for life to arise, with one boundary being the cooling of the planet itself that would allow life to occur, and the other boundary being the time given for the earliest evidence for life. That window is measured in tens of thousands of years – not billions or millions – a mere breath in terms of evolutionary history. As far as the million different varieties of conditions goes (I know you are being hyperbolic), it seems unlikely that a large number of different conditions could present themselves in an ocean or pond or other fluid solution somewhere else.

That’s a good point, I hadn’t considered that. I think your estimate is a bit narrow though with the earliest known life appearing around 3.5BYA whereas conditions were suitable for life to develop from around 4.2BYA onwards which would give a 700,000,000 year timeframe – but, quite rightly, this is much narrower than the one I suggested originally.

I’d imagine that there are many, many different possible locations with differing levels of chemicals present on the earth. Obviously underground thermal vents contain different gases and differing temperatures which would produce different reactions, and then there’s chemical interactions on land with differing conditions at sea level compared to high altitudes. There are a vast quantity of different combinations.

Where I think your understanding goes wrong is in the scientific method employed by origin of life researchers. First a model is proposed, and that will include things like ‘undirected abiogenesis’ and the conditions of the early earth in which that abiogenesis occurred. Then they look to find evidence to support that model. The model can be adjusted when new discovery’s and work is done.

Not any abiogenesis research that I know of would follow that method… that would be very, very poor practice. Surely any scientist following that method would have their research thrown out by peer review.

Firstly they’d look at the facts and the data – simply these are that life must have developed at some point (since we have life now) and this must have occurred within that time frame. Then they consider what chemicals might be present at that time. Then a model is proposed to try to incorporate all the facts whilst being developed in such a way that it is as falsifiable, testable and parsimonious as possible and then they test the predictions made by their model to try to disprove it. If a finding does disprove their current model then that model either has to be thrown out or any working part can be salvaged to form part of a new model.

You say calling the experiments done thus far as giving evidence for intelligent agency as a necessary part of the process a “cheap shot,” but you never actually say if the shot hits or fails to hit the mark. Do you think it doesn’t?

Well whether it does or doesn’t is irrelevant, which is why the comments are a cheap shot. That is, the current research into abiogenesis is just trying to create life from non-life. They aren’t trying to disprove god and they’re not trying to show that life can form without an intelligent agency. If they can show that a collection of chemicals put together in the same place can react with each other and form life or a precursor to life then that puts abiogenesis firmly at the top of the list as the most viable explanation for life on earth.

That said though, claiming that observing the reactions of a number of chemicals is an example of an intelligent agent manipulating the results makes about as much sense as the suggestion that setting up an evolutionary algorithm is an example of an intelligent agent manipulating the results.

If scientists were to set up the perfectly replicated conditions of early earth and created life, the first thing creationists will say is that intelligent agency was involved by putting the situation together.

I see you’re conflating two separate issues: the fine-tuning of the initial conditions for life to occur and abiogenesis (which is life itself occurring from non-living matter). If Christians do what you think they’ll do or not, that does not speak to the question of whether undirected abiogenesis can or can’t happen.

Of course, I was simply expanding on my criticism of the “intelligent agency” comment. We can agree that collecting the necessary chemicals and putting them all together in a confined space then adding an adequate catalyst can never be considered an example of intelligent agency affecting the results as this is a recreation of the natural events, however, I think the “intelligent agency” claim will become a fallback for creationists. If life from non-life is demonstrated in a lab then the reply will be that it’s not an example of ‘undirected abiogenesis’ and that the scientists were playing the role of god. Which, in other words, means that creationists have set themselves up in a slippery situation where they can’t lose really – either abiogenesis is shown to be impossible and they’re happy, or abiogenesis is demonstrated and they claim foul-play, essentially.

Although this was not addressed to me it bears correcting;

. . .a natural origin is the default position as it doesn’t require any unnecessary assumptions. . .

This does make an assumption. It assumes science must presuppose a methodological naturalism. It assumes that supernatural intelligent agency was not involved. It assumes a ‘natural origin’ (which I take to mean undirected abiogenesis) is the more plausible explanation, which itself assumes a philosophical world-view not immune to the need for justification by rational argument.

It makes assumptions, obviously, but it makes no unnecessary assumptions. Let’s suppose that the only two possibilities were that 1) a bunch of naturally occurring chemicals, when found in the same location with the correct catalyst, will form a self-replicating chemical, or 2) a god-like being created all of life.

For 1) to be true we require chemicals, a catalyst such as heat, and that a possible combination of the two can produce a self-replicating entity. Obviously the assumptions of the presence of chemicals and a catalyst are a given (I don’t think anyone would argue against that?) so the only assumption made is that a combination of them can produce a self-replicating entity. And that assumption isn’t a far stretch since the field of chemistry has seen a number of interesting reactions in chemicals.

For 2) to be true we require chemicals, a catalyst, a possible combination resulting in a self-replicating entity, and an all powerful, all knowing god that interacts with the observable universe. It makes the same assumptions as 1) but with the addition of the god part.

Until 1) is disproved (that is, showing life from non-life is not possible by itself) then the assumption of god is unnecessary and extraneous. And if 1 is disproved then science would need to create a falsifiable definition of god then find evidence for his existence and the mechanism he would use to create life. So that’s why 1) is the default position – it doesn’t require proving the existence of a supernatural entity first.

-Mike.

I think you underestimate the amount of knowledge that is known about the conditions of the early earth. First off there is not “3.5 billion years and a whole planet with a million different combinations of conditions and chemicals.” There is a very limited time window for life to arise, with one boundary being the cooling of the planet itself that would allow life to occur, and the other boundary being the time given for the earliest evidence for life. That window is measured in tens of thousands of years – not billions or millions – a mere breath in terms of evolutionary history. As far as the million different varieties of conditions goes (I know you are being hyperbolic), it seems unlikely that a large number of different conditions could present themselves in an ocean or pond or other fluid solution somewhere else.

Where I think your understanding goes wrong is in the scientific method employed by origin of life researchers. First a model is proposed, and that will include things like ‘undirected abiogenesis’ and the conditions of the early earth in which that abiogenesis occurred. Then they look to find evidence to support that model. The model can be adjusted when new discovery’s and work is done.

You say calling the experiments done thus far as giving evidence for intelligent agency as a necessary part of the process a “cheap shot,” but you never actually say if the shot hits or fails to hit the mark. Do you think it doesn’t?

If scientists were to set up the perfectly replicated conditions of early earth and created life, the first thing creationists will say is that intelligent agency was involved by putting the situation together.

I see you’re conflating two separate issues: the fine-tuning of the initial conditions for life to occur and abiogenesis (which is life itself occurring from non-living matter). If Christians do what you think they’ll do or not, that does not speak to the question of whether undirected abiogenesis can or can’t happen.

Although this was not addressed to me it bears correcting;

. . .a natural origin is the default position as it doesn’t require any unnecessary assumptions. . .

This does make an assumption. It assumes science must presuppose a methodological naturalism. It assumes that supernatural intelligent agency was not involved. It assumes a ‘natural origin’ (which I take to mean undirected abiogenesis) is the more plausible explanation, which itself assumes a philosophical world-view not immune to the need for justification by rational argument.

But it seems like Fuz’s chief complaint – which matches Robert Shapiro’s observation based on this post – is that the conditions used are unlikely to have been operative on the early Earth, and in fact require an intelligent agent to create an artificial environment. In sum, “this could happen, but not by itself”.

You say that if we accept Fuz’s view, scientists should “not be allowed to recreate the conditions in which life most likely formed”. In fact, he says the exact opposite – that in his judgment, the conditions used were definitely not those in which life most likely formed; and that’s where the problem of intelligent agency comes in.

The problem is that it’s very difficult to actually discover the conditions of earth 3 billion years ago at every possible location, because the conditions of a deep underwater thermal would obviously possess different conditions than on top of a mountain. The point of speculating what the possible early earth conditions were like is not to demonstrate that life could develop without god, but as a useful starting point for what ingredients are necessary for life. So if they can put some chemicals together and form life then that would be enough to suggest abiogenesis is the most viable explanation for life on earth. Once that is done, scientists will then debate the levels at which each chemical would have been present and then try to conclude where abouts on earth this life probably developed.

Now, one could work backwards and say, “these conditions are conducive to the emergence of terrestrial life, therefore at some time they must have prevailed somewhere on Earth”. But that’s assuming a naturalistic origin of terrestrial life, which to my mind has yet to be proved. I should have thought the onus is on the origin-of-life researcher to show that at some time the conditions were right (or had a good chance of being so).

The naturalistic origin of life does not have to be proved as this isn’t how science works – a natural origin is the default position as it doesn’t require any unnecessary assumptions and then science attempts to disprove this position. This is what the field of abiogenesis is – if natural origins were true then we should be able to form life by collecting the right chemicals and putting them together, if this is not possible then the natural origins position is falsified and science will look for another answer.

Regarding your closing point about separating evolution and abiogenesis – if you’ll pardon me, I think it’s you doing the conflating here, or at least not fully understanding how the term is being used. (I’m trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, and hoping you’re not just launching a nitpicking attack on “ignorant or dishonest creationists”.) What Fuz is talking about is “naturalistic evolution”, a paradigm which requires, as well as the evolution of all extant life from one or a few common ancestors who lived back in the day, the undirected emergence of life to begin with – otherwise it wouldn’t be naturalistic any more! But to use the full term gets clumsy, so people commonly reduce it to “evolution”. No particular claims were made about biological evolution, and creationists are smart enough not to claim that to refute abiogenesis is to also refute Darwinian evolution. At least, I’ve never heard it done.

It was an honest question and not a secret attempt to demonstrate the ignorance of creationists or whatever, so thanks for attempting to clarify. So basically he was referring to the informal use of the word ‘evolution’ like when we say the evolution of ideas, or businesses and not actual biological evolution? This seems to conflict with his use of the “evolution/creation controversy” statement though, doesn’t it?

To me it just seems like he thinks that scientists use evolution as the process by which abiogenesis would occur, which would be nonsensical of course.

(I just had a quick read about naturalistic evolution because I’ve never heard of it before and it looks like it tries to link evolution to cosmology and the big bang as well as abiogenesis… I can see why some people would mistakenly think that evolution is related to abiogenesis for some reason, but I can’t fathom how evolution would be related to the big bang – life wasn’t even around then, how could it evolve as space and time is expanding all around it? I’m even more confused now…)

Hi Stuart,

RTB takes a sceptical position on undirected macro-evolution, so for them the ‘evolutionary perspective’ includes an origin of life scenario where there is no intelligent agency involved. So there’s your answer. You want to separate out abiogenesis from the whole evolutionary schema and RTB understands one to be married to the other insofar as both are seen as undirected event – without the intervention of an intelligent agent.

Okay, so they’re both undirected but that’s about where the comparison ends. The validity of one has no impact on the other as they’re both completely independent events. It just seems to be an elementary confusion where people seem to think that to accept evolution means that you have to accept that life started naturally when that’s not the case at all.

By the way – no one here is yelling.

it was just a figure of speech.

Re the “cheap shot” – as to the first point, I really don’t think that is the case, but what you suggest could happen I suppose. Second point – no one is suggesting you need a lab the size of a planet or that there is unavoidably intelligent agency involved in all these experiments. Fuzz said said obviously, you need someone to set up the initial conditions, introduce the chemicals, etc. but there is line you cannot cross if your experiment is going to legitimately support undirected abiogenesis.

My point about the planet sized lab was that scientists have to choose which conditions on earth they want to try to recreate – that is, the conditions are not equal on all points of the earth. So whereas scientists have been working on it for 50 odd years or so, using a small selection of possible early earth condition, the earth itself had 3.5 billion years and a whole planet with a million different combinations of conditions and chemicals.

“The line you cannot cross” is just a scapegoat I think. If scientists were to set up the perfectly replicated conditions of early earth and created life, the first thing creationists will say is that intelligent agency was involved by putting the situation together. So “the line you cannot cross” is effectively demonstrating that life can come about naturally. It’s like when engineers create technology using a completely undirected evolutionary algorithm – creationists see this and claim that it shows that intelligent agency is needed to do it all which is just an unfortunate misunderstanding of the science behind it.

-Mike.

Lol. :) I guess it will always be possible to nay-say abiogenesis, in the same way it is the fossil record: “it makes great leaps from one form to the next”.
We’re always joining the dots aren’t we – it just comes down to what we consider to be sensible.