The Irrational Atheist

WorldNetDaily ^ | 11/17/03 | Vox Day

[Tribune7]

No. But maybe we can agree you've a penchant for false dichotomies

If it didn't happen by happenstance how did it happen?

[Right Wing Professor]

If it didn't happen by happenstance how did it happen?

By evolution from a simpler and less efficient enzyme. Mutation, followed by natural selection.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

Or I could hold a debate about the truth of Islam with the Ayatollah Khamenei, the winner to be decided by an impartial jury of Iranian clerics.

Er, I suggest you look at the judging link. They are using the 70% rule, tiered and the list of judges is quite impressive.

[Tribune7]

If it didn't happen by happenstance how did it happen? . . . By evolution from a simpler and less efficient enzyme. Mutation, followed by natural selection.

OK, the amino acids form (happenstance)

In the conditions believed to exist in pre-biotic Earth (very unlikely happenstance)

In proximity (happenstance)

To create a enzyme (happenstance)

Which survives, multiplies and evolves into something that uses polymers of nucleotides to code for polymers of amino acids (miracle).

It is irrational to believe in miracles without believing in God. Why not just believe in God?

[Right Wing Professor]

I doubt that's what happened at all. Remember that cytochrome c is in effect just a mechanism for modifying the Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ redox couple. Proto-life probably originally used some rather non-specifically bound organic iron or surface bound iron to do redox chemistry.

Cytochrome c isn't an enzyme, BTW.

Which survives, multiplies and evolves into something that uses polymers of nucleotides to code for polymers of amino acids (miracle).

Humankind has historically considered that which they don't fully understand a miracle. As we learn more and more about nature, the space in which miracles can exist has been contracting alarmingly. If you're committed to looking for God in the gaps; doesn't it worry you that the gaps are narrowing?

[Right Wing Professor]

They have an impressive list of judges, true; but they do not guarantee the selection of judges will be random, and there are enough anti-evolutionists on there to make sure you can always block an award, particularly when you go through 5 separate screenings, with 4 judges at any stage being enough to block the award.

The prize is obviously a scam. Their very 'discussion' is not a balanced survey of the literature, but rather a account of Yockey's very conbtroversial ideas. As I've written already, Yockey's contention that the Shannon entropy of a sequence has nothing to do with thermodynamic entropy is simply wrong; it's a portion of the thermodynamic entropy.

Creationists have cleverly adopted the scam of setting up a debate or prize with supposedly fair ground rules, challenging evolutionists; it's when you get into the details you discover the scam. I myself accepted a challenge, right here on FR, to debate some creationist sports-medicine type, with the only proviso that the debate be for $1 rather than the $10,000 he wanted. He refused. What am I to conclude from that?

Abiogenesis research is at a very early, exploratory stage. Most of the research at the moment focusses on exploring possibilities for the most primitive biological processes. Expecting a well-developed theory for the evolution of RNA at the moment is premature.

[tpaine]

Humankind has historically considered that which they don't fully understand a miracle. As we learn more and more about nature, the space in which miracles can exist has been contracting alarmingly.

If you're committed to looking for God in the gaps; doesn't it worry you that the gaps are narrowing?
885 -RWP-

---

It's quite evident that the self styled 'Godly' types among us are getting more & more worried.
As they lose their ablity to control society by mystical edicts, they increasingly insist that it is their ~opponents~ who MUST be seen as illogical.

Catch 22. -- You're the crazy irrational athiest if you cannot see the world through the eyes of their god.

[PatrickHenry]

If you're committed to looking for God in the gaps; doesn't it worry you that the gaps are narrowing?

I posted a neat quote by Einstein on this topic in a thread titled Researchers Design And Build First Artificial Protein. It was at post 14.

[Tribune7]

I doubt that's what happened at all.

Maybe you are rational :-)

Cytochrome c isn't an enzyme,

You're the one who suggested the evolution of an enzyme, remember. That amino acids form then create cytochrome c along with an enzyme which bond isn't helping your case.

Humankind has historically considered that which they don't fully understand a miracle.

True

As we learn more and more about nature, the space in which miracles can exist has been contracting .

True and this is good.

If you're committed to looking for God in the gaps; doesn't it worry you that the gaps are narrowing?

I am certain beyond any doubt that God exists in the gaps and elsewhere. I personally think the gaps have enlarged or solidified, anyway, over the last generation, but that's not the point.

I'd believe in God even if the steady-state universe had never been debunked or fruit flys were successfully bred into bees. I've seen the light, had the Amazing Grace expericence etc. etc. It's real. Jesus did rise. As wonderful and good the laws of physics are, and the study of them, it is not all there is.

[Right Wing Professor]

You're the one who suggested the evolution of an enzyme, remember.

I screwed up. I like it when it happens early in the month; it means I can be infallible until 1/1/04 :-)

[tpaine]

And the response you got to Ensteins remark was a typical catch 22 on the order of:

"~You~ can't understand God because you're irrational."

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your views! I know I cannot convince you that they will be fair, so I won't try.

Abiogenesis research is at a very early, exploratory stage. Most of the research at the moment focusses on exploring possibilities for the most primitive biological processes. Expecting a well-developed theory for the evolution of RNA at the moment is premature.

I’m giving up on this as well.

I’ve tried for hundreds of posts to explain carefully and with many sources – that the issue is information, not chemistry. The focus of all these physicists and mathematicians and information theorists has been on the prescriptive information content of the DNA – the instructions. This is what separates life from non-life, so they want a plausible theory for how those instructions might have arisen from non-life.

I had hoped this line of inquiry would be important to the biologists and chemists on this forum, even though Pattee warned that such professionals would not be interested.

But to some of us, it is essential to determine how the original bootstrap of instructions arose, because if evolution is viewed as cellular automata (autonomous biological self-organizing complexity) - then it potentially resolves a host of enigmas which fuel the crevo debates: the lack of new phyla after the Cambrian explosion, the seemingly parallel evolution of such things as eyeness across phyla, the rise of functional complexity, the finite timeline of the geological record.

Thank you so much for the vigorous debate, RWP!

[Right Wing Professor]

I had hoped this line of inquiry would be important to the biologists and chemists on this forum, even though Pattee warned that such professionals would not be interested.

Any new technique has to prove itself. It proves itself by bringing new insight to a field, and making new predictions that could not be derived from existing methods. Information theory has, quite simply, not done this in biology or chemistry. When it proves itself useful, it will attract interest.

Couple that with the clear agenda of people like Yockey and Dembski, and the lack of respect for this branch of mathematics is heightened.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

Information theory has, quite simply, not done this in biology or chemistry. When it proves itself useful, it will attract interest.

Indeed. There is tremendous interest among physicists, mathematicians and information theorists - but when they successfully employ their methods (perhaps as in the locating and analyzing of protein-binding sequence motifs in nucleic acids) then I imagine the biologists and chemists will take notice of its importance.

Couple that with the clear agenda of people like Yockey and Dembski, and the lack of respect for this branch of mathematics is heightened.

As far as I know, Yockey is not part of the Intelligent Design movement though they have been known to quote his research. Here is Yockey’s reaction to such claims Chowder society:

Subject: My views on Intelligent Design
Dear Brian:

Thank you for your e-mail this morning. I am well thank you and I hope the same for you.

I have been aware for some time that creationists have cited my work to support their views. This may be because I have shown in my publications and in my book that materialist-reductionist scenarios of formation of life by chance, self-organization or epitaxy on clay particles can not form a genome in a prebiotic soup. There is no geological evidence that a primeval soup ever existed. I quote the Bible, especially Hebrews 11:1, when I think it appropriate but I also quote other literature as well.

[...]

Both Dawkins' Climbing Mount Improbable [W. W. Norton & Co. 1996] and Dembski's book distort the theory of probability.

There is nothing in my publications that indicates I support Intelligent Design.

Brian Harper adds:

Hubert also mentioned that he has a new paper coming out soon in which he includes some remarks about ID. I'll try to let people know when this is published.

My question now to ID'ers is whether they can justify their appeal to Hubert Yockey's work and, if they cannot, if such appeals will end? IMHO, this is very unfair to Hubert.

Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University

[js1138]

placemarker

[Michael_Michaelangelo]

Yockey:

"There is no geological evidence that a primeval soup ever existed."

What does he know? He's just not looking hard enough!

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOLOL! Thank you so much for the chuckle!

[Doctor Stochastic]

But what about Prime Warhol Soup?

[Tribune7]

I screwed up.

Good. That means I get a "one free screw-up" card. And I do need them on occasion. :-)

[Tribune7]

Do you realize how much one of those things would be worth today?