Posted on 02/03/2006 10:23:55 PM PST by neverdem
For those who are studying aspects of the origin of life, the question no longer seems to be whether life could have originated by chemical processes involving non-biological components but, rather, what pathway might have been followed.
—National Academy of Sciences (1996)
It is 1828, a year that encompassed the death of Shaka, the Zulu king, the passage in the United States of the Tariff of Abominations, and the battle of Las Piedras in South America. It is, as well, the year in which the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler announced the synthesis of urea from cyanic acid and ammonia.
Discovered by H.M. Roulle in 1773, urea is the chief constituent of urine. Until 1828, chemists had assumed that urea could be produced only by a living organism. Wöhler provided the most convincing refutation imaginable of this thesis. His synthesis of urea was noteworthy, he observed with some understatement, because “it furnishes an example of the artificial production of an organic, indeed a so-called animal substance, from inorganic materials.”
Wöhler’s work initiated a revolution in chemistry; but it also initiated a revolution in thought. To the extent that living systems are chemical in their nature, it became possible to imagine that they might be chemical in their origin; and if chemical in their origin, then plainly physical in their nature, and hence a part of the universe that can be explained in terms of “the model for what science should be.”*
In a letter written to his friend, Sir Joseph Hooker, several decades after Wöhler’s announcement, Charles Darwin allowed himself to speculate. Invoking “a warm little pond” bubbling up in the dim inaccessible past, Darwin imagined that given “ammonia and phosphoric salts, light, heat, electricity, etc. present,” the spontaneous generation of a “protein compound” might follow, with this compound...
(Excerpt) Read more at commentarymagazine.com ...
I invite the lurker to look at the article Berlinski wrote, a supposed survey of the current status of abiogenesis research, and ask himself whether Behe should have known of this link (or at least the various article footnoted therein) or, if not this link (admittedly local in origin, at least the papers cited therein, specifically...
...
Berlinski should know this. He in effect claims not to. But what he conveniently does not know seriously undercuts his premise and he has no business writing the lead article of this thread without knowing the actual state of the evidence for a reducing atmosphere. How does that rate a big *sigh* over my pointing this out? Why is the bar set so low for the Holy Warriors of the un-Discovery Institute?
I'm a lurker. I read it. Two days later, sorry. :-)
Minor point, first of all - the Talk Origins link references "Thomas 2005" as if Dave Thomas did the chrondite outgassing research, which he did not. The appropriate link would have referenced the Fegley/Schaefer research. One link to an article about it can be found here .
The research is certainly intriguing. But the article (linked above) is also interesting in how the research is portrayed... correctly noting that Miller-Urey is controversial, Fegley making assumptions about the chronditic origin, makeup and layering of the early Earth, that a reducing atmosphere was calculated for most (but NOT all?) of the assumed meteoric mixes, that most geologists are wrong in their assumptions about early earth atmospherics (although, per Fegley, the predicted gases are only "slightly different"?!?).
The piece ends with an odd statement that such calculations haven't been done before because they're "very difficult" and Fegley had to use a "special code". Hmmm.
I'm sure it's out there somewhere, but I couldn't find a serious third-party analysis and critique of Fegley's work.
My point here is this - that you slyly question Berlinski's "omission" of this latest research in his piece... as if this handful of recent research has changed the entire face of the debate on the early Earth atmosphere, and Berlinski refuses to acknowledge it.
We all have our worldviews to preserve, so I understand the desire to latch onto favorable reports to slam the door shut on competing theory... yet in the big picture of this debate, this doesn't quite seem - at the moment - to rise to the occasion of egregious omission of earth-shattering (pardon the pun) data.
See also educator-reformer John Taylor Gatto's "A Metaphysical Commitment" were he speaks of some primal postulates of physics and Popper's approach. "[T]hese religious principles, as much metaphysics as physics, constitute the backbone of the most powerful research program in modern history" The similar wording suggests that Gatto has read Popper's comments. Gatto, like myself, interprets Popper's use of the term metaphysics as meaning religious princibles.
What is an Everest to a Darwinist is oft found to be a stack of four grains of sand to the rest of us.
Not so, the geochemists contended. The pre-biotic atmosphere was far more nearly neutral than reductive, with little or no methane and a good deal of carbon dioxide.He goes on a bit from there to quote a 1999 opinion that he likes, etc. However, I'd hit a show-stopper in the bolded statement above. Berlinski's idea of nothing is not my idea of nothing. What you have linked, while not the ultimate answer, is not nothing. And, if you read on in the thread, there are other lines of evidence for a reducing atmophere.Nothing in the intervening years has suggested that these sour geochemists were far wrong.
Here is some excerpted information regarding metaphysics that you yourself suggested in post 249 which counters your latest outburst. IOW, You counter yourself. Have at it:
Definition of Metaphysics (from the Webster's Unabridged)That is, "metaphysics" always has included the theological and metaphysical. Because of that some modern (or at least 20th Century) maestros of Science have attempted to exclude even the term "metaphysics" from Science. Check out Positivism.[The term was first used, is is believed, by Andronicus of Rhodes, the editor of Aristotle's works, as a name for that part of his writings which came after the Physics.] That division of philosophy which includes ontology, the science of being, and cosmology, or the science of the fundamental causes and processes in things; in a looser serse, all of the more abstruse philosophical diciplines, in a narrower sense, ontology alone.
The primary meaning of metaphysics is derived from those discussions by Aristotle, which he himself called the Fifst Philosophy, or Theology, and which deal with the nature of being, with cause or genisis, and with the existence of God. Later metaphysics was understood as the science of the supersensible. By Albertus Magnus it was called the 'transphysical science', and Aquinas considered it to be concerned with the cognition of God.
The Rennaisance ... in Germany, Cristian Wolff divided metaphysics into ontology, psychology, cosmology, and natural or rational theology.
And interestingly enough, even though many take Popper to be a founding guru of Positivism, I don't think Popper so considered himself so -- I mean just look at the quotes of his you posted. He is willing to say that a "metaphysical doctrine" such as Darwinism may be useful to Science.
Yet in that usage of his in that instance I think the clear meaning is that Darwinism is the exact same as religious dogma.
His term "general views of the structure of the world" and especially the term "general views of the problem situation in physical cosmology" are keys to the wiser that he means theology and the supernatural, but wishes the dogs to whom he throws bones not to bite him any more.
"That water is too deep for you."
Speak for yourself, you're in over your head.
"His term "general views of the structure of the world" and especially the term "general views of the problem situation in physical cosmology" are keys to the wiser that he means theology and the supernatural, but wishes the dogs to whom he throws bones not to bite him any more."
If he meant theology and the supernatural, he would have said it. Only a moron could get that meaning from what Popper clearly said. If you are right, than Popper believed that all of science is based on theology and the supernatural. This of course is nonsense.
Face it, you wanted to bludgeon evolution with Popper, then when it was pointed out to you that Popper specifically said that natural selection was both testable and non-tautological, you changed the subject and tried to make *metaphysical* mean exclusively *religious/spiritual* when it has NEVER been just that. You are not up to a rational debate so you willfully lie about what Popper plainly said. Pathetic.
You claim in last post: "Popper specifically said that natural selection was both testable and non-tautological"
Well let's all hear Popper speak, again. (From 244, which is from your link):
"However, Darwin's own most important contribution to the theory of evolution, his theory of natural selection, is difficult to test. There are some tests, even some experimental tests; and in some cases, such as the famous phenomenon known as 'industrial melanism', we can observe natural selection happening under our very eyes, as it were. Nevertheless, really severe tests of the theory of natural selection are hard to come by, much more so than tests of otherwise comparable theories in physics or chemistry."He's a man holding back his words, or so the more literate of us will observe. When he susggests that "really severe tests" are "hard to come by", the intellectually adept reader will most likely infer that Popper means the theory is not really testable.
And Poppper dances a jig with his words about "tautology" -- I can understand why it stumps a Darwinist. A quick jig can seem like chaos. Yet what the intellectaully superior reader will likely gather is that Popper is saying, "Gee, maybe this ain't quite exactly a completely cross-your-heart, cherry-on-top tautology, yet it is very very very very close to being one. You can't tell much of difference. Now please take the electrodes off my privates."
I generally don't attack creationists too much on these threads because I try to make allowances for their lack of scientific background.
But even for me, this statement is too much to let slide.
Whiskey...Tango...Foxtrot?
Cheers!
What he is (more likely) saying is that conclusive tests of the sort which would be both disposative and complete on smaller-scale issues are not there; this is not the same thing as saying it is impossible to test at all.
Surely you must be doing this just to yank people's chains at this point...
Cheers!
Are you attacking a creationist?
Now here's a warning -- in my book, there is a marginal note that says (although the proof was too long to write there in the margin) that those of Darwinist persuation have intellectual limits when it comes to those advanced forms of literary comprehension that include reading between the lines, of inferring context presented in more subtle or obscured patterns.
It is that limitation to the simple, hard abounded by the clear and obvious expression at the face of things that prevents them from seeing what is and was obvious. That they have confused what is the most barely, exceedingly barely possible with what is likely for the sake of denying supernatural design.
Popper sees the supernatural aspects that nature's magic presents, he expresses it in his verbal dance against the bullets the unwashed poncho-wearing Sciencistas drunk on Darwin's cervesa fire wildly at him.
He goes on a bit from there to quote a 1999 opinion that he likes, etc. However, I'd hit a show-stopper in the bolded statement above. Berlinski's idea of nothing is not my idea of nothing. What you have linked, while not the ultimate answer, is not nothing. And, if you read on in the thread, there are other lines of evidence for a reducing atmophere.
Fair enough - you see Berlinski use the word "nothing" and see it as claiming no contrary evidence. I see him use the phrase "far wrong" as admitting there are a few, but minor, challenges...
And, yeah, I had followed up on some of the other links... and the varied opinions surrounding them...
That's a little too shifty for me. And the challenges are far from minor. The pendulum is on the other side these days.
Popper recanted two years later:
"I mention this problem because I too belong among the culprits. Influenced by what these authorities say, I have in the past described the theory as "almost tautological", and I have tried to explain how the theory of natural selection could be untestable (as is a tautology) and yet of great scientific interest. My solution was that the doctrine of natural selection is a most successful metaphysical research programme. It raises detailed problems in many fields, and it tells us what we would expect of an acceptable solution of these problems."[emphasis added]I still believe that natural selection works this way as a research programme. Nevertheless, I have changed my mind about the testability and logical status of the theory of natural selection; and I am glad to have an opportunity to make a recantation. My recantation may, I hope, contribute a little to the understanding of the status of natural selection.
From "Natural Selection and the Emergence of Mind", Dialectica, vol. 32, no. 3-4, 1978, pp. 339-355
I think this will help illuminate who is being disingenous, if not mendacious.
Oh, he already read this. He just says that Popper really meant the opposite of what he actually said. There is of course nothing to support this claim, but when does a creationist ever feel the need to provide support for an outrageous claim? :)
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