Religion disproving Evolution and proving Creation through Science?

[Les Sleeth]

Originally posted by FZ+

Any more specific details on what you consider as leading to life? How about RNA polymerisation? Amino acid synthesis? Formation of lipid globules? Gene triggering in cancer cells simulating the formation of multicellular life? I think we have covered much of the consitituent parts of "life".

Well, you ignored my argument separating chemistry and the type of organization found in life, and that is what I look at as what most distinquishes physical chemistry from life-driven chemistry. No one said various biological constituents can't be synthesized, what I say is that you cannot from ordinary chemistry get it to kick into progressively organizing gear.

However, I fear we've hijacked this thread, so I am going to start a new one for those who want to continue the discussion.

Originally posted by FZ+
It seems more logical to be true than not, given the disunity of mankind over issues not decided by sense.

From what you know. The problem is, you and AG both refuse to study those who successfully attained something through avenues other than the senses, and then blissfully uninformed of facts contrary to your opinions make statements like above. As I have said before, if you only educate yourself in those areas that support your belief, of course you will conveniently never find any evidence that pokes holes in your beliefs. And after all, isn't that exactly why people only study supporting evidence?

 

[FZ+]

What are we looking for then? Something useful? For an actual stable version of windows? If we believe in this process so much, why are we "looking" for anything?

Well, think of how evolution works. Evolution is a random process, (the randomness coming from fantastically chaotic yet self organised systems like the sun, which we assume not to be alive, right?) with a determinist process - that is so called natural selection. If there was no selectional pressures, there is no reason at all to adapt. So, to allow evolutionary computing to work, there has to be some sort of evolutionary pressure on it, usually defined functionally. So far this has been very successful, producing logic gates for example that are more efficient than those designed by a human. There has indeed been work on AI as well - look up NASA's project to evolve a game playing AI - came second place in this year's competition. People are also evolving programs to tackle the Turing challenge, the classic test of machine intelligence.

But the truth is, there is nothing special about "intelligence". A great number of creatures do just as well, under close to the same pressures with no intelligence at all. The most successful lifeforms are bacteria, not humans. Currently we are getting a lot of computerised bacteria.

And does not explain how the code in the Exons came to be.

RNA don't have exons. It is just a jumbled up sequence of chemicals. It can polymerise by picking up bits of other chemicals around it, and thus reproduce, and it has a form of heredity by altering the chemical balance of its environment and so influence future models. It has all the necessary conditions for evolution to take over. The information comes from pseudo-random processes around it. Look up chaos theory to see the capacity of non-linear systems to produce information.

Life modifies the biosphere to be more habitable to life.

But it doesn't! In the case of plants, life has annihilated almost all of the species on earth. In other cases, life is constantly depleting resources. It is the sun that modifies the biosphere to make it more habitable. Leave out that, and the sum of life's actions can be seen as destroying itself.

 

[FZ+]

what I say is that you cannot from ordinary chemistry get it to kick into progressively organizing gear.

But I don't get it. These are cases of chemistry progressively organising. In RNA polymerisation, a feedstock of jumbled chemicals organises itself by joining together, forming longer and more complicated chains, which leads to the random assorted data that can then evolve. Amino acid synthesis is based on subjecting basic chemicals to the sort of conditions we find on early earth, and seeing them naturally combine and organise to make the stuff that can then join together, as before, to make life. Lipid globules show the sort of formations we seen with cell membranes, once thought a big barrier to abiogenesis, form out of their own in conditions common to those in certain parts of early earth. Gene triggering shows that slight changes in chemical production that can be easily triggered by random luck causing a further stage of self-organisation - sticking together into multi-cellular lifeforms. In effect, ordinary chemistry, when driven by a constant source like the sun, is self-organising all the time to adapt to its surroundings.

From what you know.

I don't think you are following my argument. I am saying that if you can gain something worthwhile and true without senses, to make that meaningful there has to be some indication to separate untruth from truth, and so over time we will end up with an overwhelming majority in favour of the true non-sensed way. Yet me and another god (heh) are walking disproof of this. If as you say there isn't enough evidence to give the conclusion of abiogenesis, and that as stated before there has to be some value of truth that is identifiable by the mind, where could the untrue idea of abiogenesis have emerged?

From that, we seem to be forced to conclude that either our no-sense can not distinguish truth from fiction, which makes it all pointless as I can say that I am one of those "who successfully attained something through avenues other than the senses", while you say the same and we get nowhere. Or we are forced to conclude that no such non-sense has yet been discovered.

As I have said before, if you only educate yourself in those areas that support your belief, of course you will conveniently never find any evidence that pokes holes in your beliefs.

Obviously there are holes. A subject is supremely boring if there are no holes, and I wouldn't be talking about it if that was true. For example, a hole to mull over... The existence of self-organisation has been mathematically proved for any collection of oscillators who are globally connected. Empirically, this appears true of "chaotic oscillators" (like humans) in real geography, but how can we prove this, or is it just a special case? Well, we are working on that. We also have present several different hypotheses for cellular generation, and we are tackling them all one by one. There are plenty more holes.

Science is all about holes. Currently, we have an okay overall guess at how it all fits together - a good grasp of the pillar of the theory. But that pillar can still turn out to be an elephant.

 

[nautica]

Originally posted by russ_watters
I have nothing to add other than to say your post exactly reflects my position. And to note that I'm a Christian and a big fan of science and have no problem reconciling my scientific opinions with my religious beliefs.

Thank you, and yes, this was the point of my original post - looks like it kinda got out of hand.

Nautica

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by FZ+
Well, think of how evolution works. Evolution is a random process, (the randomness coming from fantastically chaotic yet self organised systems like the sun, which we assume not to be alive, right?) with a determinist process - that is so called natural selection. If there was no selectional pressures, there is no reason at all to adapt. So, to allow evolutionary computing to work, there has to be some sort of evolutionary pressure on it, usually defined functionally. So far this has been very successful, producing logic gates for example that are more efficient than those designed by a human. There has indeed been work on AI as well - look up NASA's project to evolve a game playing AI - came second place in this year's competition. People are also evolving programs to tackle the Turing challenge, the classic test of machine intelligence.

Yes, I understand all of that. I would be careful not to say that there is a "reason" to adapt or that organisms adapt to the environment. That language causes a lot of confusion with people who aren't familiar with how it works. The changes for adaption are random and the environment unconsciously selects what gets to stay.

But the truth is, there is nothing special about "intelligence". A great number of creatures do just as well, under close to the same pressures with no intelligence at all. The most successful lifeforms are bacteria, not humans. Currently we are getting a lot of computerised bacteria.

I don't think anyone is claiming that intelligence is "special". But it can probably be argued to be much more complex. So if we're talking about life originating from self organization then it's only natural that skeptics will point to the most complex processes to weigh the theory.

Also, I have to say that if intelligence is nothing special in the scheme of survival then why is it here?

And I'm not sure if it was you but I had a discussion in PF2 with someone claiming that bacteria was more "successful". As of now I completely disagree with this as an absolute statement because whether something is successful or not depends completely on the criteria one chooses to measure against. So what's the criteria? This person said it was population. Bacteria outnumber us. But it only makes sense that they out number us because of their size relative to their environment and availble resources. So how exactly is success defined?

The programs you mention are of interst to me. I knew that such AI programs existed but I had no idea that they programmed themselves with no help from a human programmer.

 

[FZ+]

Also, I have to say that if intelligence is nothing special in the scheme of survival then why is it here?

Because either it is a side-effect of something else (possibility that have been proposed include the idea that it is a natural consequence of large brain size ratio, with the real usefulness of the brain coming from enabling better reflexes etc), or it is advantageous to some situations. (Like in a certain insignificant species of walking ape. )

It might be worthwhile clarifying what I mean by not special. Not special doesn't mean that it does not have a survival value, it means that it is just one of many alternatives, and not some sort of goal life has to pass.

As of now I completely disagree with this as an absolute statement because whether something is successful or not depends completely on the criteria one chooses to measure against. So what's the criteria?

That's a good point. I should clarify. In practice, humans and bacteria are successful in their own ways, but if we consider just redundancy. Ie. suppose something bad happens. Then the few survivors are likely to be bacteria. In terms of the capacity of our computers, we can really only provide a restricted number of niches for our comp life to dwell. In such spaces, and with specific tasks, much more complicated organisms are not really favoured. Reductionism is usually more profitable.

In the competition I mentioned, the success is measured in terms of survival. I'll try to find a link...

 

[Fliption]

Originally posted by FZ+

In the competition I mentioned, the success is measured in terms of survival. I'll try to find a link...

Yes, survival. What if I said that an asteroid was headed for Earth and there was no doubt that all life would be destroyed on impact or soon after. Only man has the potential to, at some point in the future, save himself from this. Perhaps by destroying the asteroid or by interplanetary travel (ok it's the far future). Any species that survived would depend solely on man's success.

In the interplanetary travel scenario, you could argue that bacteria would leave with humans and there's nothing humans can do about it. In fact humans would need to take bacteria with them to survive. But in this case not only are the bacteria still dependent on human success but given the relationship between the two, it would be kind of like saying a brick is more successful then a brick house.

Overall, I think it is difficult to make general statements comparisons.