Posted by:
Henry Bemis
(
)
Date: March 27, 2017 06:43PM
Greetings to you as well.
"I think our main point of contention will be with this statement above. I often see the confidence displayed that the gaps are minute and the supporting evidence is so great, that there is no reasonable foundation to doubt it."
COMMENT: Well, "reason to doubt" is a bit different question. That is a psychological response to the scientific abiogenesis assumption. But, as I noted, we are talking about a scientific assumption that is reasonable, whether one doubts it or not. In fact, it seems much more reasonable than a theological assumption. True, the answers are still not there, but, again, the power of nature to generate complexity *is* there, which supports the claim that providing a more detailed and satisfactory natural explanation is not so intractable as to suggest looking elsewhere for the answer.
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"Well, I do. I'm certainly no expert, but I've read a lot on this topic, and I find the gaps are consistently much larger and spaced farther apart than proponents seem willing to admit. In my experience, it's the gaps that are great and the supporting evidence is minute."
COMMENT: I cannot comment unless you make a specific point about a specific gap, or gaps. Note also that theists unreasonable exploit these gaps just as scientists may at times minimize them. I think you have to step back a bit and ask yourself the general question: What does molecular biology tell us about the ability of nature to generate complexity? If you conclude, which I think you must, that very simple molecular systems organize themselves through autocatalytic processes to create autopoietic systems (essentially self-preserving molecular systems), then you are forced, I think, to give biology the benefit of the doubt with respect to abiogenesis. But, what have you read? As I suggested, read Kaufmann, who is a biologist, and whose book I noted is recent. You will find that he takes the abiogenesis problem quite seriously. Many other recent books also discuss this, for example, Terrance Deacon, Incomplete Nature, discusses such issues at length.
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"The actual mechanics involved in the formation of that first living, self-replicating cell are astronomical. But I frequently see heralded milestones along the way of a certain component that has been recreated in extensive laboratory testing as somehow substantial proof pointing to the whole. Sorry, I'm just not seeing it. And each of these milestones carries the irony of having been the product of intelligent intervention to create something that could not be observed naturally occurring. It's tough to use this sort of thing as an argument against external intervention in the process."
COMMENT: As complex as the cell surely is, it is still made up of molecular structures and functions that are basically known and understood. Moreover, the molecular components are not complicated. What *is* complicated is the organizational complexity; how everything fits together to accomplish the cell's various functions. But--and here is the rub--self-organized complexity can be seen as a property of biological systems outside of the abiogenesis debate. That fact is the basis for a reasonable abiogenesis assumption.
Also, your assessment strikes me as a bit outdated. First, as you say, no mechanism has even come close to being established to explain how life happened. So, I agree with you there. Part of the problem is viewing this issue from a narrow, classical lens of Newtonian mechanics; or from the failure of clearly inadequate experimental efforts. 20th century naturalism involves the possibility of both quantum influences and emergent properties, both of which imply possibilities beyond Newtonian mechanics.
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"The balancing act of the permeable membrane, precursor RNA leading to DNA, processing and creation of proteins, etc. etc. etc. is monumental. Add to this the intrinsic claim that valid data is collected, stored, transmitted, and duplicated by some entirely natural process with no goal or purpose, and the equation becomes even murkier. Our ability to isolate and imagine the origin for some of the elements in its creation is not the same as understanding or explaining how the whole came to be."
COMMENT: I don't disagree with this; Both "RNA World" approaches and protein first approaches are Newtonian approaches that have significant problems in principle; as you say, one of which is getting from point A to point B, and from point B to point C, etc. etc. through some mechanistic story. Notice, however, that we have and understand DNA and protein synthesis to a very high level; and we see how these processes, and others, combine and evolve in cellular structures and functions. And we see to a large degree how all of this is put together. The fact that we cannot explain how simple amino acids first combined into a functional protein within a cell, or the first functional DNA sequence became encapsulated within a cellular membrane, does not, in my view, undermine our reasonable expectation that it happened somehow within the context of what we understand about how biology works.
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