On the Origins of Life

Commentary ^ | February 2006 | David Berlinski

[bvw]

It seems to me that Popper admitted "testability" to only the obviousness of micro-evolution -- that is, adaptations within a species, and such. I read the Popper quotes to state clearly that natural selection such as would create a really variant species is either non-testable or beyond being able to be tested. By "beyond being able to be tested" I mean like theories of cosmology and physics such as model pre-big bang events, or parallel universes, or non-constant time.

And why isn't "natural selection" tautological according to Popper in the later "recant"? Becuase, as best I read it -- peer pressure! Not logic or science, just peer pressure.

Very human. No wait, "peer pressure" is built into the very fabric of the Universe. Fish have schools, clouds of space gas have gravity and attractive columbic charges, bosons have strong forces, etc. All peer pressure. Being stuck in it is "very naturalistic".

[RunningWolf]

I think I understood you as I followed it. I think your opponent/s did(or not) also.

Peer pressure, a major component of that is called science now days.

Interesting, the most prolific against you (at present) apparently has gone into the minds of(and speaks for) Popper, Darwin, Hitler Stalin and many more. I guess much in the same way Elenor Roosevelt appeared before Hilary in here dreams /sarc>

Wolf

[grey_whiskers]

Long, rambling, confused post, trying to keep track of several different interwoven conversations...I'm sorry if it is confusing but due to the way this thread has developed, I can't help it. You have been given good-faith notice :-)

g_w: Marketers, lawyers, heck, all kinds of people rely on similar word usage when trying to advocate a controversial or partisan point of view.

VR:My point. Berlinski is not doing what her purports to do, writing a "where things are in abiogenesis summary." It is irrelevant that ad agencies also do this, except to note that the Discovery Institute is far more of an ad agency than a "think tank" and Berlinski is a huckster for ID, not a commentator in science history.

My bad. You are quoting from my post 284...

I cut-n'-pasted^TM from your 278.

In your 278, you were responding to apologist's post 277.

When I wrote my reply to you, I didn't look to see what you were replying to...what I *thought* I was commenting on was not your reply to apologist (277), but your post 264 replying to apologist about the quote "Nothing in the intervening years..."...
So as it turns out, we were commenting on opposite ends of the same sentence, and (I think) each quoting it from a different prior post.

Confusing, eh?

So now, to get to my reply to your 298, VR: As I was careful to point out, in post 284, that scientists aren't supposed to BS or do PR. You know, as part of professional practice...

The question then is, did Berlinski *present* his article at the top of this thread as serious scientific work, as propaganda, as popularization, as "well, here's a survey paper of what *I* know", or what?

The further the piece is from purporting to be a peer-review work, the more leeway for BS; but even then only up to a point. If you go too far in license, you run the risk of running headlong into wackmobile interpretations, as I pointed out to bvw in 283.

Footnote: Now as far as the ORIGINAL point of contention between you and apologist about Berlinski's use of the phrase "far wrong" (the other end of the sentence than the one I was looking at, BTW)...

Apologist thinks that the phrase "far wrong" implies minor challenges.

You take this as "shifty" (your post 278).

That depends.

If Berlinski *thought* he had made a good-faith study of studies in support of a reducing atmosphere, and remained unconvinced, that is not shifty.

If Berlinski did sloppy research (only looked up "straw man" type studies, that tends toward shifty.

If Berlinski was deliberately conflating "not convincing to ME" with "insignificant differences", or if he implied "minor challenges" but everyone else and their dog disagreed with him, that is shifty...

I agree it *could* smell bad, but I don't know Berlinski's stuff well enough to *insist* that it must have been due to bad faith. Fair 'nuff?

Cheers!

[VadeRetro]

From memory and not claimed to be exhaustive, YEC talking points on the Miller-Urey experiment:

• It didn't create life.
• It assumed too much hydrogen and a reducing atmoshpere.
• It used electricty, but real lightning is too hot.
• It demonstrated intelligent design.

Berlinski is writing the D.I. version of the same stuff. That is to say it is the same stuff with better editing and dressed up with more citations.

For other examples of this phenomenon, see just about anything by Johnson, Wells, or Meyer. The skipping of inconvenient points is a hallmark of the genre and always will be.

[grey_whiskers]

From memory and not claimed to be exhaustive, YEC talking points on the Miller-Urey experiment:

* It didn't create life.
* It assumed too much hydrogen and a reducing atmoshpere.
* It used electricty, but real lightning is too hot.
* It demonstrated intelligent design.

Interesting you should call those "YEC talking points". As far as I know not even admittedly atheistic evos such as Dawkins ever suggested that Urey and Miller created life. :-)

About the reducing atmosphere, RWP (no YEC'er himself) said earlier on this thread that laypeople could get confused about the current state of detailed chemistry of abiogenesis. I do NOT specifically recall whether he was referring to the reducing atmosphere, so your mileage may vary...

Regarding the lightning, I literally have no idea either way.

Regarding intelligent design, I don't know if it demonstrates intelligent design. For that matter, I don't even know whether Urey-Miller duplicated what was then thought to be the best estimate of conditions on Earth back then (concentrations of reactants; "substrate" or "matrix" within which the reactions occurred; racemic mixture of products or not...)

So if these are YEC talking points, they're going right past me :-)

Berlinski is writing the D.I. version of the same stuff. That is to say it is the same stuff with better editing and dressed up with more citations.

Well, at least he's learned to do *some* reading of the literature. :-)

For other examples of this phenomenon, see just about anything by Johnson, Wells, or Meyer. The skipping of inconvenient points is a hallmark of the genre and always will be.

I've never heard of Johnson, Wells, or Meyer. I read something by Gish once in high school, and a debate in Omni or Scientific American or some such between Gish and Asimov in high school or college or some such time in the dark ages.

I just want to make sure I am not misunderstanding you.

You are claiming that Berlinski is one of a number of creationists who is talking through his hat at best, and typically argues in bad faith.

You base this (if I read between the lines correctly) on prior experience with either his writings or with the Discovery Institute and/or the I.D. movement...not to mention certain semi-trolls, half-orcs, and hobgoblins (to loosely paraphrase Tolkien) on Free Republic crevo threads.

Therefore, whenever he writes something, you tend to look at it with a jaundiced eye.

Is that more or less accurate without being perjorative or putting anything in a false light?

Cheers!

[apologist]

On the other hand, when I read over, for example, the description of Fegley's research on this particular topic, it seems to be based more on a fair number of historical assumptions run through a mathematical blender, and less on physical, measureable data.

That's why I mentioned the other links on the thread. Can you only keep one thing in your head at the time?

That's why I mentioned I read thru the other links on the thread.

Nor did I say that NONE of the research addressed physical data. I was discussing Fegley's.

I'm not quite sure WHO here really IS the single-minded one. ;-)

[TheBrotherhood]

God did it all 1-2-3.

Hi, RunningWolf.

[VadeRetro]

As far as I know not even admittedly atheistic evos such as Dawkins ever suggested that Urey and Miller created life. :-)

Exactly.

About the reducing atmosphere, RWP (no YEC'er himself) said earlier on this thread that laypeople could get confused about the current state of detailed chemistry of abiogenesis. I do NOT specifically recall whether he was referring to the reducing atmosphere, so your mileage may vary...

I'm sure High School kids writing essays make a mess of it all the time. What is the problem with the concept that, whatever his actual lack of expertise, Berlinski is writing a magazine article in his role of "leading light of ID" and, consequently, his presumed if not real credentials? We are to believe he has looked into this.

And in fact he has looked into it with his usual blinders and seen only what he wants to see. I've been reading creationist and ID crap for seven years and it's a melange of selective quotation, strawman logic, and outright lies. I'm sorry if I figured out a long time ago that it's not just an innocent mistake. It really isn't that hard to see. Since you supposedly never heard of the Discovery Institute until a thread or two ago, you're hardly in a position to tell people they're drawing conclusions upon inadequate data.

I just want to make sure I am not misunderstanding you.

Understand this. I'm not even going to read the next 15 paragraphs of filibustering blah-blah you post to me.

[VadeRetro]

That's why I mentioned I read thru the other links on the thread.

It's not enough to protest that you can read. You need to perform at that level.

[Navydog]

"I don't claim that they do or don't exist. But if you're going to take science to task for not dealing with them, you'd better be able to show that there's really something that needs to be dealt with."

For one thing, according to science, energy cannot be destroyed or created. Surely you can't deny that life in the body is energy. That energy had to come from somewhere since it cannot be spontaneously created.

[bvw]

It is irrelevant that ad agencies also do this, except to note that the Discovery Institute is far more of an ad agency than a "think tank" and Berlinski is a huckster for ID, not a commentator in science history.

One of the career paths in Big Science is hucksterism -- marketing -- PR driven advertising. Ask US Rep Rush Holt (D-NJ) who, iirc, filled that role for the Plasma Physics Lab, Tokamaks and particle accelerators are Big Science.

And of course, there is even more of it in the pharmas! Maybe we should call the drug and biological business Middle Science.

[grey_whiskers]

It really isn't that hard to see. Since you supposedly never heard of the Discovery Institute until a thread or two ago, you're hardly in a position to tell people they're drawing conclusions upon inadequate data.

Arthur C. Clarke said "Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity." I have found it to work remarkably well.

If you have more experience that me in dealing with creationists who argue in bad faith, then you are not jumping the gun in holding it against them.

But I don't want to begin by accusing people I don't even know of lying; I will come to my conclusions over time as I gain more experience with them.

Cheers!

[grey_whiskers]

I'm sorry, the italics in your post 311 did not come from me, but from VadeRetro, who is busy taking me to task for not savaging Berlinski more quickly. :-)

Cheers!

[LK44-40]

Your double posting of your "catalog of stupid scietific errors" (#53 and #54) reminded me of a comment you about another Freeper in your article at TalkReason.org:

[He] was so excited at his own wit (or maybe his ability to type an entire sentence, period and all), he posted the same thing twice

talkreason ;-)

[Right Wing Professor]

Yes, but you never said if you liked my article.

[LK44-40]

Oh, it was okay considering that I was one of your villains. When one puts up a real badboy post, one has to expect a bit of static.

(btw...you may be stunned to learn that I have no religious faith either. But, as you like to jam your thumb into the eye of the "unscientific," I like to jam my thumb into the eye of political correctness and of academics (referring to the KU prof, not to you) who arrogantly wish to "rock the world" of yahoo students rather than treating them with some respect.)

[Right Wing Professor]

Well, that's sporting of you.

[LK44-40]

Well, I am a sport, thanks -- not the type to cite a double post error as evidence that someone is an idiot.

But you seem a little annoyed so I won't trouble you further. Nighters, professor.

[Right Wing Professor]

Well, I am a sport, thanks -- not the type to cite a double post error as evidence that someone is an idiot.

Or the type to get a joke, evidently.