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To: unlearner
It is the best I could come up with to reference a supposed self organizing mechanism (or group of mechanisms) within nature. My comparison is the self organization of periodic elements. Any better description you come up with is welcome.

The chemical elements did not "self-organize" themselves on the periodic table. An abstract description of a thing is not an example of that thing self-organizing. This is a self-serving corrupt definition, and I think you should drop it.

What must be demonstrated is that the process, at some point contains only lifeless matter, and, at some point, produces life. A distinction must be made between what is alive and what is not. If you cannot pinpoint the precise moment of the transition, it does not matter. But the transition must exist. And it must be evident.

Or you'll take your ball and go home? How will your proposed lab experiment produce this effectively infinite stretch of continuous gradual change from lifeless to lifeful? I think it does matter. Your proposed experiment, as I have suggested before, can only demonstrate something about the instantaneous !poof! version of abiogenesis--for the obvious reason that IS a !poof! experiment. It can't significantly address what science actually does think is the way life formed--the only leverage we have for digging into that question, is the historical evidence buried in DNA, and in the stars, and in the rocks. None of which as much of a chance of being subject to affordable laboratory recreation any time soon.

"Is a citrus cycle an example of non-living matter?"

Now, what do you think?

I think you belong in the 14th century, in a monastery, constructing air-tight proofs of the existence of God, from the sheer force of your capacity to propound definitions. There's no reason I shouldn't consider a citrus cycle caught in closed system, such as a free floating bubble, a possible example of early life. I'm not all that far, morphologically, from describing an earthworm. The exact definition of "life" is not a touchstone of scientific inquiry, even though it is for your desperate attempts to make an imagined rigorously accurate laboratory creation of "life" somehow significantly relevant to the likelihood of natural abiogensis.

3,286 posted on 02/02/2006 8:35:10 AM PST by donh
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To: donh
"The chemical elements did not 'self-organize' themselves on the periodic table. An abstract description of a thing is not an example of that thing self-organizing. This is a self-serving corrupt definition, and I think you should drop it."

Do you prefer self assemble? I am unsure what you are objecting to. I understand that the periodic table is merely a model for how elements are grouped. Am I wrong to assume that matter that is not in the form of plasma, will naturally gravitate, group itself, assemble, or however better you can describe it, into periodic elements? This is due to the nature of matter's chemical and physical properties. It flows naturally from electromagnetic, weak and strong forces, apparently.

"How will your proposed lab experiment produce this effectively infinite stretch of continuous gradual change from lifeless to lifeful?"

It only needs to simulate the final stage of this infinite process. Unless you are claiming the transitional structures cannot be created more quickly in a controlled environment. But how do you know they can't? You should at least be able to simulate their properties in a computer (or other) model. There should be a reason why they cannot exist any other way but an infinitely long process. If life came to exist through an infinitely long, unguided process, you would have as much challenge of proving it as proving God exists via the scientific method.

"It can't significantly address what science actually does think is the way life formed"

So now you are claiming abiogenesis is what science thinks? Verification and falsification are not necessary prerequisites to think this. It is not just assumed, the conclusion has already been reached? On what basis is this conclusion science?

"the only leverage we have for digging into that question, is the historical evidence buried in DNA, and in the stars, and in the rocks."

Only? So physical laws are irrelevant? You already implied that causality is not allowed to get in the way of abiogenesis. (Of course if it is troubling for ID then it must be valid. /s) Now you are saying lab tests are irrelevant. I assume because physical laws are irrelevant. I mean if understanding the correlation of physical laws to the formation of life is too costly, then those laws must be unimportant. Never mind that we spend millions testing claims of super string theory when they are not even falsifiable.

"There's no reason I shouldn't consider a citrus cycle caught in closed system, such as a free floating bubble, a possible example of early life."

If you want to use this description as a possible precursor to life, fine. But calling it an early form is ridiculous. You need to define life a lot more than I do. I don't think any reasonable person would allow a simple process to encompass the definition. Otherwise, we already have living computer programs and machines.
3,294 posted on 02/03/2006 12:11:30 PM PST by unlearner (You will never come to know that which you do not know until you first know that you do not know it.)
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