A simple case for intelligent design

[tas8831]

Well what would be relevant for you?

DNA sequences.

The Titin protein.

Something actually relevant to the whole "INTELLIGENT DESIGN" (*wink wink - they really mean created by Jesus) movement.

Not just analogies.

Not descriptions of HOW it would work.

Actually using it on an unknown, and using relevant parameters and not strawmen (e.g., 'coming together all at once').

Have you never wondered why Dembski stopped even trying to use it once he was taken apart on his flagellum folly?

The Flagellum Unspun

"I have no doubt that to the casual reader, a quick glance over the pages of numbers and symbols in Dembski's books is impressive, if not downright intimidating. Nonetheless, the way in which he calculates the probability of an evolutionary origin for the flagellum shows how little biology actually stands behind those numbers. His computation calculates only the probability of spontaneous, random assembly for each of the proteins of the flagellum. Having come up with a probability value on the order of 10 -1170, he assures us that he has shown the flagellum to be unevolvable. This conclusion, of course, fits comfortably with his view is that "The Darwinian mechanism is powerless to produce irreducibly complex systems..." (Dembski 2002a, 289).

However complex Dembski's analysis, the scientific problem with his calculations is almost too easy to spot. By treating the flagellum as a "discrete combinatorial object" he has shown only that it is unlikely that the parts flagellum could assemble spontaneously. Unfortunately for his argument, no scientist has ever proposed that the flagellum or any other complex object evolved that way. Dembski, therefore, has constructed a classic "straw man" and blown it away with an irrelevant calculation."​

and there is much more...

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

My claim that life (say the first living thing) had the attribute of SC is based on 4 premises

Replying as I read. I'm absolutely positive that at least several of those premises are going to be bare assertions.

1 you need many (say a few hundred) amino acids (+ some other stuff)

Boom! First one in, and already we encounter the first bare assertion.

You don't know this. You assume this. You can't demonstrate it and you can't support it.

Ignorance level 1.

2 there are many different combinations allowed by the laws of nature, in which amino acids can exist.

And they are very common. We even find them in space rocks.

3 these amino acids have to be organized in a very specific order in order to reproduce, (only 1 or few combinations would result in life)

Boom! Bare statement once again. You don't know this. You can't demonstrate it. You can't support it.
Just because life as we know it is arranged the way it is arranged doesn't, by any means, mean it is the "only" way.

Ignorance level 2.

4 there is no natural law that would “force” amono acids to organize in a convenient order.

Boom! You don't know this. You can't support it. You can't demonstrate it.

Ignorance level 3.


So, 3 out of 4 premises are unsupported.

And ONCE AGAIN it comes down to exactly that which I have been saying....: pure argument from ignorance.

One of the "criteria" of SC is that there can't be a bias in nature to do these things.
Here's something for you to think about....

70 years ago, before Miller's experiment, amino acids would have also been branded SC, as there was no known mechanism by which they form naturally.

So now, you say there is no "known" natural law to organize amino acids. So you assume that it is impossible. That's what your premise does, after all... You need to assume it is impossible to brand it SC, because if it is possible, then it is disqualified as SC.



Always the same story............

No positive evidence. Instead, just the pointing out of ignorance.

Whant an specific example?

In order to have life you need a long chain of left handed aminoacids (obviously you need much more than that, but let’s keep it simple) given that the ratio of left and right handed aminoacids tends to be 50/50 the vast majority of possible combinations would include at least some right handed aminoacid. And based on what we know to date, there is not a mechanism that would favor a pattern of just “left handed aminoacids” based on what we know nature favors a 50% 50% ratio.

So the claim that left handed aminoacids chains have the attribute of SC is based on these 3 assumptions

1 there are many possible ways in which amino acids can form chains

2 of all the possible combinations, only a small minority would result in just left handed aminoacids

3 there is no bias in the natural laws that favors a chain of just left handed aminoacids.

All this, is again only about our ignorance concerning the origins of life.
There is no positive evidence FOR design here.

Note that at no point I need to know the potential origins of life, I don’t need to know who created life a priori, and all these premises are perfectly testable, falsifiable and open to any new discoveries,

These premises are not testable, as the only thing they say is "we don't know how nature can do this".
It is only testable by discovering how nature CAN do this.

That's not testability. That's just using an argument of the gaps. ie: appealing to ignorance.

Just like with the dna example by @tas8831

And if you have any objection please clarify to me exactly what is it what you are objecting

1 that long left handed amino acids chains are not SC,

2 That they cant be created naturally despite being SC

3 you have life with any other ratio of right and left handed aminoacis?

My objection is that you appeal to ignorance.
You don't present positive evidence FOR your case.
Instead, you only point to scientific ignorance.

Ignorance about how amino acids can organize, ignorance concerning if life can be based on another organization of amino acids, ignorance about the entire thing.

 

[tas8831]

Your strawman simply indicates your unwillingness to an effort in trying to understand the filter.

My strawman?

"However complex Dembski's analysis, the scientific problem with his calculations is almost too easy to spot. By treating the flagellum as a "discrete combinatorial object" he has shown only that it is unlikely that the parts flagellum could assemble spontaneously. Unfortunately for his argument, no scientist has ever proposed that the flagellum or any other complex object evolved that way. Dembski, therefore, has constructed a classic "straw man" and blown it away with an irrelevant calculation."

I think you are projecting, maybe?

The intend of the filter is not to determine if a gene has a function,

And yet you have to know if it does to apply the filter.
If DNA is "intelligently designed" as so many creationist blindly declare, then shouldn't DNA, as such, be applicable to the filter?

and the sand thing is that I have told you this multiple times and you still make the silly argument over and over again.

What "sand thing"?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

But how do you know that these things where carved by intelligent designres?

Because that's what carving is....

Why not simply saying that there were created by a natural mechanism or by chance?

Because the evidence matches the process of artificial carving / manufacturing.
Because we understand the process of carving and what it results in.

I would suggest that these carvings have the attribute of SC, but perhaps you have a better method of detecting design

I already told you. The method I use here is matching the evidence to known processes.
The evidence (the traces of carving) is positive evidence for the process known as carving.

I have no need for your silly SC. Your SC doesn't work. Positive evidence within a given framework (the process of carving and what it results in) DOES work.

 

[tas8831]

Consider the example that I always use with radiometric dating, obviously you don’t have no know the age of the rock before dating the sample, but there are a few things that you have to know, like the half live of the element, the amounts of parent and daughter elements, if there was nay contamination etc.

Consider what I wrote to you when you tried the same spiel on me -

Half-life is a PROPERTY OF the element.

SC is a property the artifact is IMBUED WITH by an outside source.

Half-life is a NATURAL characteristic.

SC is a MAN-MADE attribute.

Your analogy sucks.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Consider what I wrote to you when you tried the same spiel on me -

Half-life is a PROPERTY OF the element.

SC is a property the artifact is IMBUED WITH by an outside source.

Half-life is a NATURAL characteristic.

SC is a MAN-MADE attribute.

Your analogy sucks.

Not only that...

The half-life of elements is actually what defines the criteria of the testing method itself.
It has nothing to do with the sample being tested. Not directly anyway.

If you don't know the half-life of an element, then you can't even do the test. Then there is no test. It's the knowledge of half-lifes that enables the test, that makes it possible to do the test.


In other words, the half life of an element is not information about the object to be tested.
Whereas in his ridiculous analogy, the "new information" IS information about the object.

And that new information, of all things, is information concerning its origins - which is exactly what his supposed test is supposed to be able to determine........

It's false analogy after false analogy, negative evidence after negative evidence, and appeal to ignorance / awe after apeal to ignorance / awe.

And NEVER is there any shred of positive evidence for his case. Ever.

 

[tas8831]

My claim that life (say the first living thing) had the attribute of SC is based on 4 premises

Wait, wait wait wait.....

We've gone from you claiming that you need to know whether or not a sequence of DNA is a gene or not before applying the filter, to tossing out pure speculation and dreamed up scenarios regarding things you cannot possibly have ANY knowledge of AT ALL?????

Can you people be consistent in your arguments for ONCE?

For the rest of this reply, I will basically be reiterating what Tag already wrote, but it is for reiteration/reinforcement purposes, because these claims are whack.

*in this context I define life as any organic thing that can reproduce

1 you need many (say a few hundred) amino acids (+ some other stuff)

How do you know? Sources please.

2 there are many different combinations allowed by the laws of nature, in which amino acids can exist.

Great insight...

3 these amino acids have to be organized in a very specific order in order to reproduce, (only 1 or few combinations would result in life)

How was this determined and by whom?
That life we know of TODAY has specific needs does not dictate that the first living things had the exact same needs, so what is the evidence that this was always the case for the first living things?

4 there is no natural law that would “force” amono acids to organize in a convenient order.

How do you know?
You seem to be hinting at the 'all at once' thing - nobody has posited that a 'complete' living thing was the first living thing.

Whant an specific example?

YES.

In order to have life you need a long chain of left handed aminoacids (obviously you need much more than that, but let’s keep it simple) given that the ratio of left and right handed aminoacids tends to be 50/50 the vast majority of possible combinations would include at least some right handed aminoacid. And based on what we know to date, there is not a mechanism that would favor a pattern of just “left handed aminoacids” based on what we know nature favors a 50% 50% ratio.

Except for:

Chiral selection on inorganic crystalline surfaces

Abstract
From synthetic drugs to biodegradable plastics to the origin of life, the chiral selection of molecules presents both daunting challenges and significant opportunities in materials science. Among the most promising, yet little explored, avenues for chiral molecular discrimination is adsorption on chiral crystalline surfaces — periodic environments that can select, concentrate and possibly even organize molecules into polymers and other macromolecular structures. Here we review experimental and theoretical approaches to chiral selection on inorganic crystalline surfaces — research that is poised to open this new frontier in understanding and exploiting surface-molecule interactions.​

Mineral Surfaces, Geochemical Complexities, and the Origins of Life

Abstract
Crystalline surfaces of common rock-forming minerals are likely to have played several important roles in life’s geochemical origins. Transition metal sulfides and oxides promote a variety of organic reactions, including nitrogen reduction, hydroformylation, amination, and Fischer-Tropsch-type synthesis. Fine-grained clay minerals and hydroxides facilitate lipid self-organization and condensation polymerization reactions, notably of RNA monomers. Surfaces of common rock-forming oxides, silicates, and carbonates select and concentrate specific amino acids, sugars, and other molecular species, while potentially enhancing their thermal stabilities. Chiral surfaces of these minerals also have been shown to separate left- and right-handed molecules. Thus, mineral surfaces may have contributed centrally to the linked prebiotic problems of containment and organization by promoting the transition from a dilute prebiotic “soup” to highly ordered local domains of key biomolecules.​

If the first living things 'evolved' at mineral surfaces such as those mentioned, then it stands to reason that a particular chirality would be favored.

So the claim that left handed aminoacids chains have the attribute of SC is based on these 3 assumptions

1 there are many possible ways in which amino acids can form chains

2 of all the possible combinations, only a small minority would result in just left handed aminoacids

WRONG
You left out context. If the medium in/on which these reactions are occurring favor the presence of one chirality over another, then why wouldn't those reactions employ one chirality over another?

3 there is no bias in the natural laws that favors a chain of just left handed aminoacids.

See above.

This argument seems to be akin to the arguments of yore in which creationists insisted and just knew that amino acids and nucleobases and such could ONLY arise via biotic synthesis.

Then they were found in meteorites.
And produced abiotically.
And produced in varied and many abiotic conditions.

At some point in the near future, creationists will have retreated to an even more 'reductionist' type of argument. Maybe arguing that carbon atoms cannot arise on earth naturally or something.

Note that at no point I need to know the potential origins of life,

It would have helped if you and your sources updated your archives now and then. Maybe then you wouldn't keep making out-of-date proclamations with such confidence.

You know, it took me about 30 seconds to find those articles above. You should keep this in mind the next time you set out to make a 'scientific' argument based on something you've read in a creationist book.

I don’t need to know who created life a priori,

I must have missed wherein you established that life HAD BEEN created.

and all these premises are perfectly testable, falsifiable and open to any new discoveries,

So...
Where were they tested?
I have been seeing similar assertions from creationists for decades. Never once have I seen a creationist since 2010 write:

"Hold on guys - this Hazen guy is finding that mineral clay surfaces adsorb organic molecules with chiral preferences... so maybe our whole 'CHIRALITY!!!' argument isn't as sound as we thought... Maybe tone it down?"

No no - all I see are the same proud assertions about:

"How does evolution explain THIS chirality stuff, huh? HUH??? God is amazing!!!"

And if you have any objection please clarify to me exactly what is it what you are objecting

1 that long left handed amino acids chains are not SC,

If you receive a royal flush in a poker hand, is that SC? What if you remove most of the cards from the deck that are not of a particular suit?

2 That they cant be created naturally despite being SC

Waiting for the tests on that - where are they?

3 you have life with any other ratio of right and left handed aminoacis?

This is from 2012 - does it count as a test?

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Unusual nonterrestrialL-proteinogenic amino acid excesses in the TagishLake meteorite

Abstract–The distribution and isotopic and enantiomeric compositions of amino acids found in three distinct fragments of the Tagish Lake C2-type carbonaceous chondrite were investigated via liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection and time-of-flight mass spectrometry and gas chromatography isotope ratio mass spectrometry. Large l-enantiomeric excesses (lee43–59%) of the a-hydrogen aspartic and glutamic amino acids were measured in Tagish Lake, whereas alanine, anothera-hydrogen protein amino acid, wasfound to be nearly racemic (dl) using both techniques. Carbon isotope measurements of d- and l-aspartic acid and d- and l-alanine in Tagish Lake fall well outside of the terrestrial range and indicate that the measured aspartic acid enantioenrichment is indigenous to the meteorite. Alternate explanations for the l-excesses of aspartic acid such as interference from other compounds present in the sample, analytical biases, or terrestrial amino acid contamination were investigated and rejected. These results can be explained by differences in the solid–solution phase behavior of aspartic acid, which can form conglomerate enantiopure solids during crystallization, and alanine, which can only form racemic crystals. Amplification of a small initial l-enantiomer excess during aqueous alteration on the meteorite parent body could have led to the large l-enrichments observed for aspartic acid and other conglomerate amino acids in Tagish Lake. The detection of nonterrestrial l-proteinogenic amino acid excesses in the Tagish Lake meteorite provides support for the hypothesis that significant enantiomeric enrichments for some amino acids could form by abiotic processes prior to the emergence of life.​

I look forward to your presentation of creationist/IDcreationist scientific papers discovering or testing hypotheses of Creation or 'Intelligent Non-human Design", or "Deity Design".

But I suspect there will never be such things published, even in creationist journals.


PREDICTION - if Leroy replies, he will quote one sentence and go off on a tangent, ignoring the citations and debunking.

 

[leroy]

Replying as I read. I'm absolutely positive that at least several of those premises are going to be bare assertions.




Boom! First one in, and already we encounter the first bare assertion.

You don't know this. You assume this. You can't demonstrate it and you can't support it.

Ignorance level 1.



And they are very common. We even find them in space rocks.



Boom! Bare statement once again. You don't know this. You can't demonstrate it. You can't support it.
Just because life as we know it is arranged the way it is arranged doesn't, by any means, mean it is the "only" way.

Ignorance level 2.



Boom! You don't know this. You can't support it. You can't demonstrate it.

Ignorance level 3.


So, 3 out of 4 premises are unsupported.

And ONCE AGAIN it comes down to exactly that which I have been saying....: pure argument from ignorance.

One of the "criteria" of SC is that there can't be a bias in nature to do these things.
Here's something for you to think about....

70 years ago, before Miller's experiment, amino acids would have also been branded SC, as there was no known mechanism by which they form naturally.

So now, you say there is no "known" natural law to organize amino acids. So you assume that it is impossible. That's what your premise does, after all... You need to assume it is impossible to brand it SC, because if it is possible, then it is disqualified as SC.



Always the same story............

No positive evidence. Instead, just the pointing out of ignorance.



All this, is again only about our ignorance concerning the origins of life.
There is no positive evidence FOR design here.



These premises are not testable, as the only thing they say is "we don't know how nature can do this".
It is only testable by discovering how nature CAN do this.

That's not testability. That's just using an argument of the gaps. ie: appealing to ignorance.

Just like with the dna example by @tas8831



My objection is that you appeal to ignorance.
You don't present positive evidence FOR your case.
Instead, you only point to scientific ignorance.

Ignorance about how amino acids can organize, ignorance concerning if life can be based on another organization of amino acids, ignorance about the entire thing.

Ok so if I support and show that my assertions are more likely to be true tan wrong would you accept that the first living thing had the attribute of SC? Would you accept design as a viable and likely hypothesis?

 

[leroy]

Yes, because you already know in advance that text in a certain language is not of natural origin.



Exactly. You already know all this a priori. You don't need some silly "filter".

That is a different objection, the point that I made was that I was capable of identifying and justifying SC in your text despite the fact that I don’t have any prior knowledge or information of you writing the text,

The motives that I gave to justify that the text is SC, where independent to whether if I have some prior information on origins of the text or not.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Ok so if I support and show that my assertions are more likely to be true tan wrong would you accept that the first living thing had the attribute of SC? Would you accept design as a viable and likely hypothesis?

1. demonstrating your premises is most certainly step one. But I'm not holding my breath. In fact, @tas8831 just posted in the post above yours several scientific papers that actually debunk one of your premises. So good luck with that.

2. if you want me to accept a hypothesis as "likely", you are going to have to do a bit better then just assert it. Instead, you'll have to
- present your argument as an actual hypothesis. Thus, it has to make testable predictions, needs ot be falsifiable,... And your "test" can't be pointing at failures of (in your eyes) rivalling ideas. No, it must actually result in positive evidence FOR your hypothesis. Not negative evidence of another.
- secondly, for me to consider your hypothesis as "likely" you're going to have to present evidence that at least some of these predictions can be confirmed and match the evidence of reality.

So far, you have done neither.

In fact, we haven't even gotten to the stage where you can present your SC nonsense in an at least internally consistant way without it having to resort to a priori knowledge or arguments from ignorance (= negative evidence).

So before I could actually consider your case as "likely", you have quite a big pile of work ahead of you.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

That is a different objection,

It isn't. It is the exact same objection: it is based on a priori knowledge of its origins.

the point that I made was that I was capable of identifying and justifying SC in your text despite the fact that I don’t have any prior knowledge or information of you writing the text,

That is just false.
As I said, you know what language is. You know what english is. So finding an english text, automatically results in the conclusion that it has a "designer" and that it wasn't produced by some natural process.

It's a ridiculous example

The motives that I gave to justify that the text is SC, where independent to whether if I have some prior information on origins of the text or not.

That is simply not the case. How could it ever be independend of a priori knowledge when you actually have a priori knowledge?

This is just absurd.
Like I said: you already know that language has non-natural origins. (as in: not produced by natural phenomenon, but by a human brain instead).

To illustrate your test, you'ld have to apply it to something that isn't known to be designed.
I can make up any test to detect design and then "illustrate" it on things known to be designed, conclude they were designed and then claim the test works.

I don't get how you don't see how ridiculously absurd that is.

 

[tas8831]

I don't get how you don't see how ridiculously absurd that is.

I do.

 

[leroy]

Sure you do. Suppose I give you a rock face. How many combinations can produce that *exact* rock face? Only one. So does that mean all rock faces are equally created? No.

So, the question becomes what combinations do you consider to be equivalent for purposes of counting. And *that*, without pre-defined criteria, is ill-defined.

So, if we have a rock face that looks vaguely like a person's face, you want to include ALL possible rock faces, but if it looks like a specific person's face, you want to include only those that look like that specific person. Why? And in the first case, why not include only those that look like that specific rock face?

The point is that your criterion for choosing 'which combinations' is vague and ill-defined.

You don’t have to consider all the possible combinations that would produce that specific face (which would be just 1 combination) you would have to compute all the possible combinations that would produce something with an equivalent level of detail, that would represent something that “exists” independently of the rock. The face of George Washington exists independently of the rock, Barney exists independently of the rock, the artistic representation of a Dragon in a child´s book exists independently of the rock. An ambiguous face with less detail, would be less specified that a detailed and clear face, because there are more possible combinations that would produce an ambiguous representation of something than real than combinations representing a detailed and unambiguous object.

One doesn’t say that Mt Rushmore is specified because it has the specific faces of specific presidents, one claims specificity because the carvings represent something real that exists independently of the rock.

Other examples of specificity would be function, meaning, symmetry,mathematical ratios, etc

In the case of the lock, our knowledge of the possible combinations of the lock itself allow us to compute the number of combinations. But even there, do you include all possible types of lock? Why or why not? Why not just include those combinations that look like what we see? Which would be precisely one in all cases, giving a probability of 1.

.
You make conclusions based on the best data that we have available, the most obvious conclusions, based on what we know about locks, is that any lock with 3 digit combinations has 1000 possible combinations where only 1 can open the lock. If new information is provided and we note that say 500 different combinations would open the lock then the thief (chance) hypothesis because plausible and likely.

But that is precisely what you are NOT including when you deal with the origin of life. You can't include it because nobody knows the relevant physical mechanisms.

But we do know something about amino acids, how they interact, how they react, how do they organize, etc. based on what we do know with the best available information, we can make make some conclusions, for example based on what we know we can determine whether if a chain of say 200 left handed amino acids has the attribute of SC.

In the context of the origin of life, we are not dealing with completely unknown stuff, there are many things that we do know, and we have tools that would allow us to make the best possible conclusions.

No, we have well-defined methods of measuring the amounts of the isotopes, how to llook for contamination, how to determine half-lives, etc. For your situation, we have no well-defined methods for determining equivalent combinations, no no well-defined methods for doing the necessary counting.

And we do have well defined methods that can tell us how amino acids react, arrange, what they do etc.

If you say “but maybe there are unknown natural laws bla bla bla” then the same can be said about radiometric dating, “maybe there are unknown natural laws that cause contaminating, or different decay rates” causing invalid dates.

No, but you do need to know relevant physical mechanisms and which combinations are likely to appear naturally. And, in the case of life, we simply don't know those.

Yes, we know, we can know, test and verify etc. for example that a chain of just LH aminoacids is less likely than a chain of both LH and RH aminoacids, this is something that we can know, we can test, we can verify, and is subject to falsification.

For some reason you are equating “not knowing everything” with “not knowing anything”



------------------

Where is your peer reviewed article, that proves that eyes, brains flagella, etc. can evolve by the mechanism is random variation and natural selection?

 

[leroy]

1. demonstrating your premises is most certainly step one. But I'm not holding my breath. In fact, @tas8831 just posted in the post above yours several scientific papers that actually debunk one of your premises. So good luck with that.

2. if you want me to accept a hypothesis as "likely", you are going to have to do a bit better then just assert it. Instead, you'll have to
- present your argument as an actual hypothesis. Thus, it has to make testable predictions, needs ot be falsifiable,... And your "test" can't be pointing at failures of (in your eyes) rivalling ideas. No, it must actually result in positive evidence FOR your hypothesis. Not negative evidence of another.
- secondly, for me to consider your hypothesis as "likely" you're going to have to present evidence that at least some of these predictions can be confirmed and match the evidence of reality.

So far, you have done neither.

In fact, we haven't even gotten to the stage where you can present your SC nonsense in an at least internally consistant way without it having to resort to a priori knowledge or arguments from ignorance (= negative evidence).

So before I could actually consider your case as "likely", you have quite a big pile of work ahead of you.

Why can’t you answer with a simple yes or no?

If I show that my assertions are likely to be true, would you consider design as a viable explanation? Yes or no?

 

[Polymath257]

You don’t have to consider all the possible combinations that would produce that specific face (which would be just 1 combination) you would have to compute all the possible combinations that would produce something with an equivalent level of detail, that would represent something that “exists” independently of the rock. The face of George Washington exists independently of the rock, Barney exists independently of the rock, the artistic representation of a Dragon in a child´s book exists independently of the rock. An ambiguous face with less detail, would be less specified that a detailed and clear face, because there are more possible combinations that would produce an ambiguous representation of something than real than combinations representing a detailed and unambiguous object.

I'm not going to say this is sufficient. Far from it. But OK.

When discussing the origin of life, what, precisely, exists 'independently of the chemical system' that you use to determine the number of combinations?

But we do know something about amino acids, how they interact, how they react, how do they organize, etc. based on what we do know with the best available information, we can make make some conclusions, for example based on what we know we can determine whether if a chain of say 200 left handed amino acids has the attribute of SC.

OK, I'm going to flat-out deny that we know how amino acids react in a sufficient number of environments to determine the number of combinations in the environment of the early Earth, even if you limit yourself to combinations that 'have function'. There just too many different ways to 'have function' that no such count of combinations, let alone combinations in the relevant environment, there would be.

In the context of the origin of life, we are not dealing with completely unknown stuff, there are many things that we do know, and we have tools that would allow us to make the best possible conclusions.

I disagree. By our study of abiogenesis, we are *beginning* to have the ability to do a very limited assessment of some beginning stages of how life formed. Nothing much more than that is possible at this time.

And we do have well defined methods that can tell us how amino acids react, arrange, what they do etc.

If you say “but maybe there are unknown natural laws bla bla bla” then the same can be said about radiometric dating, “maybe there are unknown natural laws that cause contaminating, or different decay rates” causing invalid dates.

Not similar at all. For example, we know that radioactivity is a nuclear reaction and we know the energies and types of things that affect such reactions.

We *don't* know how amino acids and other relevant chemicals react in the types of environments relevant to the formation of life. In fact, the Urey-Miller experiment can be regarded as an early attempt to learn how some basic reactions could happen and what their rates and results would be.

And a great deal of abiogenesis research today is precisely trying to figure out what the relevant reactions are, what sorts of environments encourage them, etc.

In other words, the people doing the necessary legwork to be able to do the calculations you want are precisely those working on abiogenesis.

Yes, we know, we can know, test and verify etc. for example that a chain of just LH aminoacids is less likely than a chain of both LH and RH aminoacids, this is something that we can know, we can test, we can verify, and is subject to falsification.

And how does that change if there are various types of clays in the environment? We do not know. How does that change if there are other chiral molecules around? We do not know. How does that change in any number of relevant environments? We do not know.

So, no, we don't know how to compute the relevant numbers of combinations. And the people attempting to collect the data relevant to such are those studying abiogenesis.

For some reason you are equating “not knowing everything” with “not knowing anything”

Where is your peer reviewed article, that proves that eyes, brains flagella, etc. can evolve by the mechanism is random variation and natural selection?

The papers describing the stages whereby those things did, in fact evolve.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Why can’t you answer with a simple yes or no?

Because it required elaboration. I was actually doing you a favor by giving a proper explanation.

If I show that my assertions are likely to be true, would you consider design as a viable explanation? Yes or no?

If you insist on formulating it in such simpleton words, the answer is "no".

I explained in the post you are replying to what it WOULD require for me to consider "design" as likely.

 

[leroy]

LEROY Said

1 you need many (say a few hundred) amino acids (+ some other stuff)

@tas8831 replied

How do you know? Sources please

Proteins are made out of amino acids, even the smallest protein has 50+ amino acids, you can't have less otherwise you won't have stabable molecules, and they won't have the hability to fold properly.

Not to mention that a self replicating molecule would likely be a complex protein with houndrets of amino acids +other stuff like

If you disagree and want to afirm that the first self replicating molecule was simple (with few amino acids) please accept your burden and provide your testable evidence,

I won't love forward to the next point until you ether
1 grant this premise.
Or
2 until you falsify it.

Just to be clear, you are suppose ether accept or falsify the claim that the first replicating molecule probably (more likely than not) had many amino acids (say more than 100) +other stuff like sugars, lipids etc.

 

[Polymath257]

LEROY Said
@tas8831 replied


Proteins are made out of amino acids, even the smallest protein has 50+ amino acids, you can't have less otherwise you won't have stabable molecules, and they won't have the hability to fold properly.

Simply false. There are a large number of 'small proteins' that are biologically active. Some are toxins, some cross membranes, some carry metals, etc. The folding for such is helped by the membrane or metal, for example.

Not to mention that a self replicating molecule would likely be a complex protein with houndrets of amino acids +other stuff like

The first self-replicator is unlikely to have been a protein. It is much more likely to have been an RNA strand. And we already know self-replicating RNA strande don't have to be that complicated.

If you disagree and want to afirm that the first self replicating molecule was simple (with few amino acids) please accept your burden and provide your testable evidence,

No. I want to claim that the first self-replictor was more likely to be RNA and we know of self-replicating RNA strands (in contrast to protein strands).

I won't love forward to the next point until you ether
1 grant this premise.
Or
2 until you falsify it.

Just to be clear, you are suppose ether accept or falsify the claim that the first replicating molecule probably (more likely than not) had many amino acids (say more than 100) +other stuff like sugars, lipids etc.

See above. I doubt the first self-replicator was made from amino acids at all (although it may have had some--the evidence points to a RNA strand, though). And the number of bases for a self-replicating RNA strand is certainly smaller than 120 (because we know of self-replicating RNA strands of that size). Furthermore, because there are only 4 bases and 20 amino acids, a 120 base RNA strand corresponds in information to about 55 amino acids in a protein.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Proteins are made out of amino acids, even the smallest protein has 50+ amino acids, you can't have less otherwise you won't have stabable molecules, and they won't have the hability to fold properly.

Not to mention that a self replicating molecule would likely be a complex protein with houndrets of amino acids +other stuff like

If you disagree and want to afirm that the first self replicating molecule was simple (with few amino acids) please accept your burden and provide your testable evidence,

I'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say that what @tas8831 is actually challenging, is your claim that first life had to be this complex. How do you know this? How have you determined that it is *impossible*, for life to be simpler then the simplest life we have found here in earth today, which is the result of at least 3.8 billion years of evolution?

@tas8831 isn't claiming that life CAN be simpler.
He's just asking you to support your claim that it CAN'T

I won't love forward to the next point until you ether
1 grant this premise.
Or
2 until you falsify it.

How about 3. support your premise?

Claims aren't granted by default until proven otherwise.
Demonstrate your premise that life can't be simpler. And be warned... if your "demonstration" consists of pointing out that we don't know how much simple it can be , then you are making a huge argument from ignorance to then state that therefor it can't...

Just to be clear, you are suppose ether accept or falsify the claim that the first replicating molecule probably (more likely than not) had many amino acids (say more than 100) +other stuff like sugars, lipids etc.

No. You are supposed to support your claim instead.


This is one of the most blatant attempts at avoiding the burden of proof, I have ever seen.

 

[Polymath257]

If you disagree and want to afirm that the first self replicating molecule was simple (with few amino acids) please accept your burden and provide your testable evidence,

I won't love forward to the next point until you ether
1 grant this premise.
Or
2 until you falsify it.

Just to be clear, you are suppose ether accept or falsify the claim that the first replicating molecule probably (more likely than not) had many amino acids (say more than 100) +other stuff like sugars, lipids etc.

Um, you made the claim that the earliest life had to be made from amino acids and complicated. It is YOUR burden of proof to establish this claim, especially since the current evidence points the other way.

I've noticed you seldom actually back up your claims, but ask that other refute them. maybe you need to learn a bit more about burden of proof?

For example, where are the peer reviewed studies showing your method for detecting SC works? It isn't *our* job to show it fails, but *your* job to show it works.