Posted on 05/25/2005 3:41:22 AM PDT by billorites
Panspermia: A hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds landing on Earth and propagating.
We are debating whether there's any reason to deviate from that or if we can move onward to "collective consciousness" as our next definition.
PS. And the faulty grammar of that "cosmic ancestry" definition is in the original source..
Moreover, whether or not panspermia is conflated with cosmic ancestry, your definition is quite faulty. Neither panspermia in general nor its cosmic ancestry version in particular stipulate that the seeding or the emergence is engineered.
..speaking of faulty grammar.. *sigh*
Faulty grammar leads to as many disasters as Fawlty Towers.
I apologize; this thread is becoming too large for me to keep track of. As far as addressing your post, you give 3 falsifications for the idea of ID. b) and c) I won't consider, at least with regard to the process of mutation and natural selection. I won't mention b) since if we agree that a process of mutation and natural selection occurs, then there must have been an inception to that process, and c) since that involves the definition of intelligence. I am willing to stipulate that all the given properties are properties of intelligence. However, I have a problem with a), namely that it gives a general idea of how to falsify ID, but is vague.
What qualifies as evidence for or against the presence of an algorithm? To better illustrate the problem I have, I'll postulate a simpler question. Given a table with 20 sequentially numbered coins lying on it, it is possible to write down a sequence of heads and tails showing on these coins. Given a particular heads/tails sequence, how would you determine whether that sequence resulted from intelligent design or from just randomly dropping them on the table? (Assume that the coins are randomly dispersed on the table, and not for example aligned in a straight line or some other regular arrangement) Even if the sequence is something like HTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHT, which would give every appearance of being formed via an algorithm, it is not possible without observing the formation of the sequence, to rule out the possibility that the coins just happened to land in this sequence by being randomly dropped on the table. You might argue that it is highly unlikely that this particular sequence would arise just by chance, namely that only in 1 out of 2^20 times would you expect it to form by being randomly dropped. The problem with this argument is that it applies equally well to a more random-seeming sequence such as HTTHHHTHTTTHTHHHTTHT. The probability of that sequence occurring randomly is exactly the same as the probability of the "less random" sequence given earlier forming the same way. In fact, can you tell from my post whether I intentionally and consciously designed the above "more random" sequence or if I derived it by actually tossing a coin 20 times?
"Primitive" extraterrestrial life
An alternative to Earthly abiogenesis is the hypothesis that primitive life may have originally formed extraterrestrially (note that exogenesis is related to, but is not the same as the notion of panspermia). Organic compounds are relatively common in space, especially in the outer solar system where volatiles are not evaporated by solar heating. Comets are encrusted by outer layers of dark material, thought to be a tar-like substance composed of complex organic material formed from simple carbon compounds after reactions initiated mostly by irradiation by ultraviolet light. It is supposed that a rain of cometary material on the early Earth could have brought significant quantities of complex organic molecules, and that it is possible that primitive life itself may have formed in space was brought to the surface along with it. A related hypothesis holds that life may have formed first on early Mars, and been transported to Earth when crustal material was blasted off of Mars by asteroid and comet impacts to later fall to Earth's surface. Both of these hypotheses are even more difficult to find evidence for, and may have to wait for samples to be taken from comets and Mars for study.
Panspermia is a hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the Universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds landing on Earth and propagating. The idea has its origins in the writings of Anaxagoras, but was first proposed in its modern form by Hermann von Helmholtz in 1879. Panspermia can be said to be either interstellar (between star systems) or interplanetary (between planets in the same solar system). There is as yet no compelling evidence to support or contradict it, although the consensus view holds that panspermia - especially in its interstellar form - is unlikely given the challenges of survival and transport in space....
Exogenesis is a related, but less radical, hypothesis that simply proposes life originated elsewhere in the universe and was transferred to Earth, with no prediction about how widespread life is. The term "panspermia" is more well-known, however, and tends to be used in reference to what would properly be called exogenesis, too...
Directed Panspermia
A second prominent proponent of panspermia is Nobel prize winner Francis Crick, who along with Leslie Orgel proposed the theory of directed panspermia in 1973. This suggests that the seeds of life may have been purposely spread by an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Crick argues that small grains containing DNA, or the building blocks of life, fired randomly in all directions is the best, most cost effective strategy for seeding life on a compatible planet at some time in the future. The strategy might have been pursued by a civilization facing catastrophic annihilation, or hoping to terraform planets for later colonization.
Other proponents of panspermia believe that life never evolved from inorganic molecules, but that it has existed as long as all other forms of matter. This is an extension of panspermia called cosmic ancestry.
Like evolution, artificial intelligence, determinism and intelligent design - panspermia is advocated in various degrees. To capture the full range from soft to hard, while keeping the definition separate from exogenesis - we will have to address directed panspermia and cosmic ancestry. Your definition from the first line only speaks to the earlier, soft definition of panspermia and is therefore indistinguishable from exobiology.
Here they are again:
Panspermia/Cosmic Ancestry: A hypothesis that given features of actuality are explained by engineered emergence from cosmic origins, rather than by an unengineered process such as natural selection.
For the record, though, the hypothesis at post 1984 which includes falsification methods is my own and not that of the fellows at Discovery.org. Therefore, defeating me will not make them go away. LOL!
With regard to your string, the only useful determination one could make is to determine the Kolmogorov complexity of it - briefly the least computational algorithm which would result in the string.
Random strings themselves (like Chaitin's Omega) are only pseudo-random. That point was raised by Wolfram to Chaitin wrt Omega, i.e. in the materialist view everything is the effect of a cause and therefore not random, but pseudo-random. Chaitin accepted that criticism.
If such an algorithm is required for the inception of a thing, then as the hypothesis goes, it is intelligently designed.
Obviously, if the thing itself at inception is such an algorithm, then it is intelligently designed.
Kolmogorov is the most widely accepted method of measuring complexity - but it does not speak to intelligence.
I think you are confusing panspermia with exogenesis.
No, I am not, but you are certainly confusing panspermia with certain subsets of panspermia ("directed panspermia" and "cosmic ancestry"). If you recall, this entire subthread began due to your confusion about panspermia. The whole point of this part of our exercise is to demonstrate that to the extent where you either recognize it or I deem that you are hopelessly incapable of recognition.
You are objecting to Francis Crick, too.
Wrong again. Francis Crick advocates a particular subset of panspermia - known as "directed panspermia" - where the seeds of life may've been purposely spread by an extraterrestrial civilization. This is clearly explained in the Wikipedia link that I provided over a thousand posts ago, and I had perhaps incorrectly assumed that you would've read that since you clearly did not understand what you were talking about. Seeing as you give the appearance of not having read it, I would highly recommend that you do so before continuing..
Like evolution, artificial intelligence, determinism and intelligent design - panspermia is advocated in various degrees. To capture the full range from soft to hard, while keeping the definition separate from exogenesis - we will have to address directed panspermia and cosmic ancestry.
You did not specify a degree or version of panspermia when you posted the remarks that initiated this entire digression. If you now want to state something along the following lines...
'Yes, I realize now that the panspermia hypothesis is not an intelligent design hypothesis, but that the seeding of earth with life of extraterrestrial origin that is hypothesized by panspermia might be attributed to an intelligent cause, and thereby qualify as 'intelligent design' in a manner no different than natural selection, which can just the same be attributed to an intelligent cause. Therefore, panspermia is no more or less an 'intelligent design' hypothesis than is natural design.'
...then we will be done with our consideration of panspermia altogether. As for 'directed panspermia' and 'cosmic ancestry' they are clearly addressed within the following definition:
Panspermia: A hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the Universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds landing on Earth and propagating.
That definition speaks to any form of panspermia, just as the definition of "intelligent design" that we've settled upon speaks to any form of intelligent design (of which panspermia alone fails to qualify - thanks for noticing).
'Yes, I realize now that the panspermia hypothesis is not an intelligent design hypothesis, but that the seeding of earth with life of extraterrestrial origin that is hypothesized by panspermia might be attributed to an intelligent cause, and thereby qualify as 'intelligent design' in a manner no different than natural selection, which can just the same be attributed to an intelligent cause. Therefore, panspermia is no more or less an 'intelligent design' hypothesis than is natural selection.'
There, that should approximate the inevitable conclusion. Feel free to work on the wording.....
PS. And for clarity, natural selection attributed to an intelligent cause is most commonly done so in the form of "theistic evolution"..
No, it is molecular forces within the lattice that are determinative. Replace the water with methane at the same pressure, temperature and concentration and you won't get methane snow crystals. The water molecules arrange themselves, all they need is the right environment.
Again, you are ignoring the point that exogenesis is related to, but not the same thing as panspermia. We need to make the distinction once and for all.
The theory of panspermia predates the theory of exogenesis (19th century at least) - and is based on the cosmic origin of life (biotic material) whereas exobiology originated in 1958 and allows for cosmic origin of prebiotic material as well.
Essentially, exobiology is the primitive version of cosmic origins as excerpted on on post 2347 above.
Both wikipedia and Physics Daily note that they are related but not the same thing. The articles focus on the difference with regard to the spreading of life. The spreading of life is predicted by the panspermia hypothesis but not the exobiogenesis hypothesis.
A little more on the historical perspective:
Sputnik filled Lederberg with both excitement and apprehension: excitement about the potential of unmanned spacecraft as research tools; apprehension about man's likely impact on other planets. Upon his return to the University of Wisconsin in December 1957, he immersed himself in the literature on astronomy and rocketry in order to address his main concern: that other planets which might harbor life could be contaminated by microorganisms carried from earth via spacecraft, and that, conversely, earth could fall victim to an unknown pathogen brought back from another planet, a pathogen to which earth's inhabitants had no immunity (a scenario depicted in Michael Crichton's 1969 science fiction novel, The Andromeda Strain).
In letters to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), to which he was elected the same year, Lederberg expressed his fear of such a "cosmic catastrophe" produced by interstellar contamination. His call for a strict protocol of sterilization, decontamination, and quarantine of both outgoing und returning spacecraft persuaded NAS president Detlev Bronk and his subsequent successor, Frederick Seitz (by coincidence, the two respectively preceded Lederberg as presidents of Rockefeller University), to put the issue before the Academy's council, which released an official statement of concern in February 1958.
In spring 1958, the Academy established the Space Science Board at the request of the U.S. National Committee for the International Geophysical Year. Lederberg was one of its founding members, and served on the board until it was dissolved in 1974. The board's mission was to assess the scientific aspects of space exploration, of interplanetary probes, manned spaceflight, and space stations, and to propose directions for science experiments and the search for life in space. It urged that "great care" be taken in sterilizing spacecraft before launch, and recommended a "stringent" quarantine for samples returned from other planets until it could be determined that they were harmless. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) adopted both recommendations prior to its first flight to the moon in 1969.
Lederberg's urgent warnings about interstellar contamination, and his call for the scientific study of life beyond earth's atmosphere--for which he coined the term exobiology--tapped into popular fascination with the dawning of the space age, and brought him international media attention. "I was the only biologist at the time who seemed to take the idea of extraterrestrial exploration seriously," Lederberg remembered. "People were saying it would be a hundred years before we even got to the moon." He, however, "was convinced that once the first satellite was up the timetable would be very short, and [his] fear was that the space program would be pushed ahead for military and political reasons without regard for the scientific implications." He collaborated with the well-known astronomer Carl Sagan in establishing exobiology as a scientific discipline, and educated the public on the biological implications of space exploration in his weekly "Science and Man" columns in the Washington Post during the 1960s.
EXOBIOLOGY: An Interview with Stanley L. Miller
Doesn't the Panspermia theory look at the question of ultimate origins of life in a slightly different way?
That's a different controversy. There are different versions of the theory. One idea is that there was no origin of life, that life, like the universe, has always existed and got to the Earth through space. That idea doesn't seem very reasonable since we know that the universe has not always existed, so life has to happen some time after the big bang 10 or 20 billion years ago.
It may be that life came to Earth from another planet. That may or may not be true, but still doesn't answer the question of where life started. You only transfer the problem to the other solar system. Proponents say conditions may have been more favorable on the other planet, but if so, they should tell us what those conditions were. Along these lines, there is a consensus that life would have had a hard time making it here from another solar system, because of the destructive effects of cosmic rays over long periods of time.
Our choices are to see them as different but related as described by the excerpts above, or one a subset of the other. Each determination has a different implication vis-à-vis the intelligent design hypothesis.
I do not see where Lederberg's exobiology was constructed on the nearly century old panspermia hypothesis. Nevertheless, if you believe the one derived from the other, we could separate them as branches:
Panspermia > Directed Panspermia/Cosmic Ancestry: A hypothesis that given features of actuality are explained by engineered emergence from cosmic origins, rather than by an unengineered process such as natural selection.
Collective consciousness is Eastern metaphysics and very popular among a number of scientists outside the United States. Again, this is not far afield of research in swarm intelligence, the behavior of ants, bees and the ilk.
God, of course, is the most logical candidate for designer among most Western civilizations whether Judeo/Christian, Islamic or myriad other religions.
Indeed, my wording was sloppy. Here from source: Crystal Faceting
But then one must ask how molecular forces, which operate at the molecular scale to produce the crystal lattice, can control the shape of a snow crystal some ten million times larger. The answer to this has to do with how crystals form facets.
Facets appear on many growing crystals because some surfaces grow much more slowly than others. If we imagine beginning with a small round ice crystal, then mostly we would find that the surface was quite rough on a molecular scale, with lots of dangling chemical bonds. Water molecules from the air can readily attach to these rough surfaces, which thus grow relatively quickly. The facet planes are special, however, in that they tend to be smoother on a molecular scale, with fewer dangling bonds. Water molecules cannot so easily attach to these smooth surfaces, and hence the facet surfaces advance more slowly. After all the rough surfaces have grown out, what remains are the slow-moving facet surfaces. The picture at right shows the idea for a crystal with four-fold symmetry (which is easier to draw)...
Systems that adapt based on the consequenses of their actions invite "Why" questions, even if they are fully determinisistic. Human behavior adapts to its consequenses, even if the adaptation is subtle and elusive. Populations also adapt to the consequenses of changes in the genomes of their individual members.
The distinction between exogenesis and panspermia is as follows, from your very own post #2347:
Exogenesis is a related, but less radical, hypothesis that simply proposes life originated elsewhere in the universe and was transferred to Earth, with no prediction about how widespread life is.
The definition I've posted makes a prediction that life is widespread, consistent with panspermia. The distinction has been made, by you and by me, once and for all.
Your original statement in post #1144 is false. It is false in precisely the way that I expressed in post #1167, as follows:
Panspermia is not an "Intelligent Design" theory and you should not misrepresent it as such. Click the link if you feel the need to educate yourself.
But, we can persist at this if you want. Your rhetorical twisting and turning entertains me.
Intelligent Design: A hypothesis that given features of actuality are explained by an intelligent cause, rather than by an undirected process such as natural selection.
Now the question at hand is: What is Panspermia? In other words, what makes a hypothesis a Panspermia hypothesis. We have the following on the table, borrowed from Wikipedia.
Panspermia: A hypothesis that the seeds of life are prevalent throughout the Universe, and furthermore that life on Earth began by such seeds landing on Earth and propagating.
What you have provided as alternatives are:
(a) the same definition meaninglessly subtitled exogenesis (any version of panspermia is a subset of exogenesis; exogenesis is not a subset of panspermia).
(b) an incorrect definition of an invalid synthesis of "directed panspermia" and "cosmic ancestry" - that defines neither "panspermia" nor "directed panspermia" nor "cosmic ancestry"..
So, both alternatives are rejected. The definition above covers both "directed panspermia" and "cosmic ancestry" just fine. Your second definition excludes hypotheses that are classified as "panspermia" (and even excludes certain hypotheses that are classified as "directed panspermia" or as "cosmic ancestry"). The "exogenesis" caveat is meaningless.
So, unless you can identify why the above definition of "panspermia" is inadequate, then we can proceed to the definition of "cosmic consciousness".. If you cannot identify why the above definition is inadequate but nonetheless reject it, then we cannot proceed, and our inquiry ends here.
Let's break it down then!
2. I say that panspermia.org's cosmic ancestry hypothesis is an intelligent design hypothesis, the way we have defined it. Do you disagree?
3. I say that exogenesis is not an intelligent design hypotheses, as we have defined it. Do you disagree?
The statement doesn't invert to mean panspermia = alien seeding. To the contrary, I have left panspermia open all along to include cosmic ancestry.
And, all along, I have recognized but separated exobiology from panspermia. My original statement:
Well, that and a small issue of religious orthodoxy. But that is a minor point, let's get to your real one.
Copernicus' idea was not "simple" where direct sense and reason is concerned.
With the unstated implication, I take it, that I should be willing similary to accept ID. I will tell you why I don't - as I understand it, ID makes no predictions and consequently can have no evidence. It cannot because it does not take the form of a scientific theory, a mathematical theory and a physical interpretation of that theory.
Perhaps you'll ask me, what about Dembski? Yes, he employs math, but he has no prescribed interpretation - he changes the meaning of the symbols at need to fool people. What rules he has he violates willy nilly. For example, he makes much of the need for independence in specification (ala specified complexity) but then routinely uses post hoc specifications.
As further evidence of intelligent design I would like to point out the capacity for human language to make use of the same word yet apply it with different meanings and still communicate an idea.
What counts as evidence for a theory to me is this - a fact is evidence for a theory if it is a consequence of the theory and its negation is not. It is not enought to simply be compatible with the theory, it must be implied by the theory. Show the the argument from ID that human language must be able to make use of the same word yet apply it with different meanings and still communicate an idea. You won't be able to do it because ID doesn't have the proper form.
Incidentally, that is why reports of similar genetic material between man and monkey need not be interpreted as if the former is necessarily derived from the latter in history.
What do you make of shared pseudogenes? You may find this an interesting read.
If by "convincing" you mean "conclusive," "provable," "unfalsifiable," and the like, then I would not expect as much.
No, I mean convincing in a scientific sense. First off it means it must be evidence for a theory as I've discussed above. Then, you get to next step.
No, but science often makes use of analogy to express its ideas.
To explain them, not to express them. It is an important distinction. IOW, an analogy is neither an axiom nor a deduction.
If someone were to say "God is made in man's image" I would probably ask what makes them believe as much.
I think they would explain it by analogizing to the other gods that people have invented. I'm sure you don't believe that the Roman or Greek gods were real but rather that they were invented, and embellished, over time by their creators. These gods had many characteristics in common with their creators - IOW created in their image.
One last thing. I hope you don't think I'm trying to convince you that evolution or any scientific theory is True. IMO there is no such thing as a True scientific theory in the sense that it is a knowably true account of reality. All there are are better and worse descriptions. To give an example, Newton's theory of gravity in false, but it is still a scientific theory and a very good one for a wide range of our experience.
What I would try to do is convince you that evolution is a scientific theory, and a very good one.
And, BTW, I'm enjoying this conversation. I hope you are too.
PPS, Did you see Dr.S's post about Aristachus? It was something I hadn't known and puts the Copernican theory is a different context, at least for me - not nearly as new and surprising as I'd thought and therefore not nearly as radical as you had thought.
Why is it then that you don't consider snow flakes self organized?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.