Other Than "The Bible Tells Me So," Your Single Best Argument for Creationism

[Polymath257]

o Quantum fluctuations may be verified but its a pretty big jump from that to say that this created the universe as this has not been verified. Though it is said that quantum fluctuations have been discovered there are some who question the results as being interference so there needs to be more investigation. But still even if this is verified it still doesnt lead to the cause of the universe. The point is a quantum field with fluctuations of energy and the laws of quantum physics to make it all happen needs to be accounted for. They are something and it may be that this situation can only happen in our reality as we see it now and not in some pre- quantum and classical physical realm.

Once again, you assume that there is a cause for the universe. That is something I think is self-contradictory. Causality requires time and time is part of the universe. So causality outside of the universe is simply not a meaningful concept.

But I would point out that claiming a deity as a cause for the universe doesn't avoid the problem of ultimate causes. What caused the deity is dismissed as irrelevant. You claim the deity is uncaused. I claim the universe is uncaused. The difference is that we know the universe exists.

That paper was presented by two great scientists and one being Penrose who shared the wolf prize with Stephen Hawkins for their work on understanding the universe. They put a lot of reasoning and maths into their proposal so it is not all speculation or at least calculated spectualtion. But once again as you have said all ideas associated with the quantum world will have an element of speculation. The point is the ideas about consciousness being something behind our material world is proposed by many scientists in one way or another and is something that is being considered more and more.

No, the microtubule theory was from Penrose and Hammerhoff. Hawking had nothing to do with that one. He was involved in the singularity results. The biggest problem with the microtubule description is that quantum correlations are destroyed in high temperature systems (well above absolute zero) and in complex systems like the brain. That, and it doesn't give any answer to the question of consciousness.

I think it is more to do with the act of measuring one particle which then dictates the state of the other particle. But this is supporting the observer effect once again which seems to be more related to the act of a conscious being looking and measuring things and this supports consciousness as being associated with the physical world.

I completely disagree. Consciousness is something that happens in things like brains. The entanglement has nothing to do with whether humans are around.

But things like the beginning of the universe are associated with the quantum world which is supposed to have produced all the physics of the macro world. So basically, all the macro world stems from the quantum world which is really where things originate and can be truly understood going right back to thee beginning of the universe. There is a conflict in being able to unite the two worlds so either the physics are off for the macro world or there is something yet to be discovered which will unite things. That is why science is coming up with elaborate ideas like string theory and paraelle and hologram worlds which seem too farfetched and are impossible to verify directly.

That is a misunderstanding. String theory and such are NOT devoted to the question of how classical effects come from the quantum world. Instead, they are interested in how gravity and the quantum world interact. String theory and such go *deeper* and deal with *smaller* things than standard quantum theory, which means they are farther from the classical world.

The early inflation of the big bang defies the law that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light so this is explained by some by saying that relativity did not apply to the beginning of the big bang.

That is a misunderstanding of inflation. Nothing moves through space at faster than the speed of light, so relativity is not defied. In fact, the inflation stage is a product of relativity applied to a situation where there is a spinless boson.

So all the laws of physics breaks down as we move closer to the point of creating the universe and time as we know will not apply and our understanding of cause and effect will also not apply. So what we understand as being a cause may not apply and therefore something can still be caused by another act but it is just not measured in time. The very act of virtual particles are subject to time being very quick as they would not exist and yet this was before time as well.

Well, we have a pretty good understanding of what happens after about a millisecond into the current expansion phase. So any processes before that *have* to be fast.

But, once again, you *assume* there is a cause for the universe. Time is part of the universe: so time began when the universe began. There is no 'before the universe' (unless there is a multi-verse, in which case there is no before the multiverse).

Multiverses just push the problem of the creation of the universe back. I would have though that becuase each paraele world has its own set of physics then time would be different in each universe. But this is all spectualtion anyway.

Agreed. Anything dealing with quantum gravity is speculative at this point. A multiverse description is a natural consequence of our attempts to formulate a quantum theory of gravity, but at this point *none* of the proposals has been tested. So it is all speculative in the extreme.

But adding a deity into the mix doesn't help. it only opens up further questions that can only be answered by further speculation. Only in that case, there isn't even the theoretical hope of testing in the future.

Which may be never be the case and so people can go on speculating. That is why some scientists have said that they may have to lower the criteria for verification as they will never be able to verify these ideas.

In which case, the questions wil remain open until we can test them.

My point is not so much about directly proving the existence of a God or divine entity but to show that when it comes to the tough questions about how existence came into being that all the ideas that have been presented are speculative and based on ideas that hard to directly prove and therefore none are scientifically validated. The observations demand that even science use speculative ideas because as you have pointed out it is based in the quantum world. So, my point is why can’t ideas such as an intelligent agent that is behind some of the hard to explain things be one idea in among many ideas that are all speculative as the idea for a God or intelligent agent can be presented with just as much reasoning as most other ideas.

Yes, once again, *anything* dealing with quantum gravity is speculative at this point.

But adding in a deity doesn't resolve those issues: it compounds them.

 

[stevevw]

Once again, you assume that there is a cause for the universe. That is something I think is self-contradictory. Causality requires time and time is part of the universe. So causality outside of the universe is simply not a meaningful concept.

Then why do many scientists state that the cause of the big bang which was the cause of the universe was quantum fluctuations. My point was that just becuase quantum fluctuations may have been observed doesnt not mean this led to the big bang which requires a whole lot more explaining. In any case if there was quantum states before the big bang then this would still allow for cause, it would just mean that the cause has many possibilities and would be unpredictable.

But I would point out that claiming a deity as a cause for the universe doesn't avoid the problem of ultimate causes. What caused the deity is dismissed as irrelevant. You claim the deity is uncaused. I claim the universe is uncaused. The difference is that we know the universe exists.

But becuase the universe has matter which was not there before hand in that sense it had to come into being from a state where it was not in existence. That would point to the universe being caused. That is what most scientists say when they refer to the big bang being the beginning of the universe. God is a different thing all together as it is claimed he is eternal and is from something that in non material and therefore not subject to any laws of physics bei it classic or quantum including quantum fluctuations or virtual particles which are still part of quantum physics. That is why consciousness fits so well as some say this is also no material and cannot be subject to time, cause or any laws of physics.

No, the microtubule theory was from Penrose and Hammerhoff. Hawking had nothing to do with that one. He was involved in the singularity results. The biggest problem with the microtubule description is that quantum correlations are destroyed in high temperature systems (well above absolute zero) and in complex systems like the brain. That, and it doesn't give any answer to the question of consciousness.

I was referring to Penrose's connection with Hawking to point out that he wasnt some quack presenting some psudo science and didnt know what he was doing. Yes there may be some conflicts with his ideas but this is a well reasoned idea in other respects and the point is there are also conflicts with most of the ideas associated with explaing the beginning of the universe, the creation of reality and many other ideas associated with quantum world. His is just rying to link consciousness and quantum mechanics back to a physical source as consciousness is one of the areas science has had difficulty in explaining.

I completely disagree. Consciousness is something that happens in things like brains. The entanglement has nothing to do with whether humans are around.

That is a misunderstanding. String theory and such are NOT devoted to the question of how classical effects come from the quantum world. Instead, they are interested in how gravity and the quantum world interact. String theory and such go *deeper* and deal with *smaller* things than standard quantum theory, which means they are farther from the classical world.




That is a misunderstanding of inflation. Nothing moves through space at faster than the speed of light, so relativity is not defied. In fact, the inflation stage is a product of relativity applied to a situation where there is a spinless boson.



Well, we have a pretty good understanding of what happens after about a millisecond into the current expansion phase. So any processes before that *have* to be fast.

But, once again, you *assume* there is a cause for the universe. Time is part of the universe: so time began when the universe began. There is no 'before the universe' (unless there is a multi-verse, in which case there is no before the multiverse).



Agreed. Anything dealing with quantum gravity is speculative at this point. A multiverse description is a natural consequence of our attempts to formulate a quantum theory of gravity, but at this point *none* of the proposals has been tested. So it is all speculative in the extreme.

But adding a deity into the mix doesn't help. it only opens up further questions that can only be answered by further speculation. Only in that case, there isn't even the theoretical hope of testing in the future.



In which case, the questions wil remain open until we can test them.



Yes, once again, *anything* dealing with quantum gravity is speculative at this point.

But adding in a deity doesn't resolve those issues: it compounds them.[/QUOTE]

 

[Socratic Berean]

You're new here so let me clue you into how people work around here. No one is going to take the time to read outside works in order to understand a point or argument. Either make the point yourself or quote the relevant information---Just to note, quoting is always subject to fair use restrictions and attribution protocols.

.

Thank you for the guidance. Will do.

 

[Socratic Berean]

The puddle finds it incredibly improbable that the hole it is in matches its outlines so perfectly.

Pascal's Wager was silly in Pascal's time and it is even sillier now. The basic problem is that it assumes there to be only two options: a God exists or a God does not exist and that the existence of God requires one particular way of living life. Even in Pascal's time it was clear that there is more than one concept of God that could be believed in and more than one set of morality because of that. So, if you choose the Christian God and the Islamic God is correct, you still get infinite punishment. If there is a God that doesn't want to be followed, you get punished for following. Given the multiple alternatives, it is much better to not believe in any of them that to dangerously choose one over another.

And this also assumes that any God who wants to be followed cannot tell that you are simply hedging your bets. Why assume such a hedge would not be offensive and obvious to such a deity?

The Wager has proven to be a distraction from the focus of the real topic at hand (math, compounded improbability), so let's agree to set it aside for the purposes of this conversation. That said, can I suggest we take your comments here and open a new forum/thread that discusses the merits and problems with the Wager? You raise some interesting points, but also make some comments that repeat those of critics from even Pascal's day that miscast the argument and detract from the device as an interesting logical tool, and there is at least one logical fallacy in your comments. Also, rather than "silly," most characterize the device as revolutionary...even Wikipedia:

"Historically, Pascal's Wager was groundbreaking because it charted new territory in probability theory,[3] marked the first formal use of decision theory, and anticipated future philosophies such as existentialism, pragmatism and voluntarism.[4]"

But, then we get to the meat of *your* argument, that the universe as we see it is so improbable that it could only reasonably be from a creative intelligence. How does that follow? Isn't the exisence of a creative intelligence outside of the universe even more improbable than the universe as it exists? How did such an intelligence arise? What conditions for 'outside the universe' were such that such an intelligence could arise? And, if such an intelligence could arise, either by being uncaused or through some process, what is to say that ordinary life like ours in a universe like ours isn't likely to arise in the same way?

This is not my argument, but that of many non-theist scientists and mathematicians over the past five decades. In peer-reviewed journals and books, we continue today to see the emergence of research that calculates the astronomical odds for the existence absent any outside force of everything from the unique properties of light to earth's specific geothermal activity and magnetic field behavior to DNA interculation and beyond. Much of that research also points out how the slightest of changes or imbalances in many (if not any) of these factors would have precluded life as we know it and could also end life as we know it. When you compound these probabilities to get to everything we see around us today, the existence of a creative force seems at least a reasonable option in comparison.

You *assume* that life is a 'goal' for universes. I find it much morelikely that we are simply a by-product of the laws of nature as they are. And, as I see it, to ask a cause for the laws of nature is contradictory. Causes only exist when such laws already exist. Hence the laws themselves are uncaused.

I assume no such thing. The concept of a law existing absent a lawgiver is interesting.

 

[McBell]

The concept of a law existing absent a lawgiver is interesting.

I agree.
Please be so kind as to present an example of such a law.

 

[Socratic Berean]

I agree.
Please be so kind as to present an example of such a law.

I do not know of any verifiable examples or how one would go about empirically demonstrating such a thing, but Polymath's comment is interesting, nonetheless.

 

[Polymath257]

This is not my argument, but that of many non-theist scientists and mathematicians over the past five decades. In peer-reviewed journals and books, we continue today to see the emergence of research that calculates the astronomical odds for the existence absent any outside force of everything from the unique properties of light to earth's specific geothermal activity and magnetic field behavior to DNA interculation and beyond. Much of that research also points out how the slightest of changes or imbalances in many (if not any) of these factors would have precluded life as we know it and could also end life as we know it. When you compound these probabilities to get to everything we see around us today, the existence of a creative force seems at least a reasonable option in comparison.

No, it merely pushes the question back a stage. How did that creative force come into existence? What values for the constants allow for such? What laws are active in creating such creative forces? What is the precise nature of this creative force? Under what laws does this creative force work? Where do those laws come from? In what realm does this creative force work?

Until some of thesions can be answered in a way relevant to the formation of the physical laws we see, there is no real explanatory value in your proposal.

I assume no such thing. The concept of a law existing absent a lawgiver is interesting.

That's one of the big differences between descriptive laws (like laws of nature) and proscriptive laws (like laws for societies).

 

[Socratic Berean]

No, it merely pushes the question back a stage. How did that creative force come into existence? What values for the constants allow for such? What laws are active in creating such creative forces? What is the precise nature of this creative force? Under what laws does this creative force work? Where do those laws come from? In what realm does this creative force work?

These are wonderful questions for further exploration, but they do not make the mathmatical improbability of life as we know it simply go away. Secular scientists and mathmeticians are the ones concluding that, absent something at work (call it whatever you want), our physical world today would not have come into existence and could not continue along its current path.

Until some of thesions can be answered in a way relevant to the formation of the physical laws we see, there is no real explanatory value in your proposal.

Again, I did not formulate this proposal and it is nothing new. You are trying to dismiss a large body of research by non-theists in peer-reviewed journals and books over five decades.

That's one of the big differences between descriptive laws (like laws of nature) and proscriptive laws (like laws for societies).

Don't we need to account for the fact that a prescriptive law that is observed by an outsider and documented by said outsider as some obvious, but illunderstood rule, quickly becomes a descriptive law when he conveys his observation to other parties, unaware that the law was devised by anyone?

Suppose you have a presciptive law, vehiclular speed limit, for instance. An alien lands in a metropolitan area on earth and starts making observations of vehiclular patterns. It is unaware of the concept of man-made speed limits and does not communicate with anyone to learn about such; it just observes. Sooner or later, the alien documents that all vehicles on major arteries travel between 55 and 65 miles an hour, for the most part, and that vehicles on secondary roads travel between 35 and 50 miles an hour, give or take. It also observes that, on occassion, when vehicles travel faster than the norm, a unique event emerges involving a special type of vehicle (a squad car) and the temporary removal from the road of the stand out traveler. The alien concludes--through observation alone--that there must be some rules at play and, in his observational notebook, calls these "Traffic Laws." The alien has just described and named a pattern through observation--a descriptive law--not knowing that what he was observing was the result of something put into place by society--a prescriptive law.

Just because we are using observation to define patterns that suggest a law does not mean that there was nothing behind the rise of that law.

 

[Socratic Berean]

What are the possible ranges of those parameters? By what processes can they change? How do you know that, if they can change, they are not driven to their current values?

Wonderful questions. No idea. The five decades of published calculations of the improbability of life as we know it in peer-reviewed journals and books, conducted by secular scientists, still stands and, maybe, has some of the answers to your questions. (Sorry SKWIM, I cannot go back and summarize five decades of work that spans almost every scientific discipline).

Why do you assume that life is a goal?

I make no such assumption.

Do you realize that some of your parameters (like the distance from the Earth to the sun) are trivially going to be the case elsewhere in the universe?

I believe some planets have already been discovered that have one, maybe two, of the parameters (distance from their sun, for instance). One or two parameters alone does not allow for life as we know it, however. That is why the compounded probability and fine tuning arguments arose...you have to have all of the pieces, and they must be of a very specific nature, or it just doesn't work.

How do you compute the odds of abiogenesis? How do you compute the odds of the important compounds forming?

Good questions. I'm not a mathmatician, physicist, biologist, or any other "ist" or "ian" that has published this type of work. You'd have to go back and look at the research. Again, this stuff has been out there for a long time and is very cross disciplinary...you may see variation in how the numbers are run over time and across fields. Just don't know.

And finally, why would a low probability imply a creative force outside of the universe?

Rather than imply a creative force, most the work lays out an argument more along the lines of how the astronomically low probability makes belief in that school of thought no more reasonable than belief in a school of thought that embraces a creative force.

 

[Skwim]

So...the single argument that I put forward is simple math (probability, more precisely). When you look at the actual numbers tossed about in the current writings on "fine tuning," the 10 to the nth, where n is so many zeros it crosses your eyes, it is a very hard argument to dismiss without the employment of logical fallacies.

So, just what are all these factors that taken together amount to such an improbability? AND how were each of these factors calculated and assigned their particular impossibility? AND, who did all of this?

Aside from these questions I would also ask: Why these particular factors and not others? Why they were calculated in the manner they were and assigned the values they were? AND, what have other such calculations concluded?

My suspicion is that you don't know the answers to any of these questions, except the "who" question perhaps (I suspect Roger Penrose), yet you accept this conclusion as valid.

Let me pass along the following to think about.

A couple of months ago [in 2011], a “probability chart” produced by Harvard Law School blogger Ali Binazir went somewhat viral, encouraging people to contemplate this very question [the probability of one's own existence]. In the chart, Binazir calculates just how improbable it was that the right sperm from your father hooked up with the right egg produced by your mother – by his estimate, it’s about one chance in 400 quadrillion (that number seems only slightly more tame in scientific notation: 4 x 10^17). And that’s hardly the whole battle: To even get to that stage, all of your ancestors, going all the way back to the beginning of life on Earth, had to survive to reproductive age. Multiplying the string of probabilities together, he concludes that the odds of your existence are an astronomical one in 10^2,685.000. (As you can imagine, not everyone in the blogosphere was kind to Binazir; one asked if it was painful to pull those numbers out of you-know-where.)

Certainly, the more specific the outcome, more improbable it seems. If you consider some particular state of affairs, and then ask what the odds are, starting from today and going back even a short time (let alone the 3.8 billion years to when life first appeared on this planet), that particular state will seem extraordinarily unlikely. For example, imagine turning the clock back five years. From that perspective, what were the odds that, on this particular day, you would be sitting in this particular room, in this city, reading this particular sentence?

source

​

Ever hear of the Drake Equation?

"While working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, Dr. Frank Drake conceived a means to mathematically estimate the number of worlds that might harbor beings with technology sufficient to communicate across the vast gulfs of interstellar space. The Drake Equation, as it came to be known, was formulated in 1961 and is generally accepted by the scientific community.

N = R* fp ne fl fi fc L
​

where,

• N = The number of communicative civilizations
• R* = The rate of formation of suitable stars (stars such as our Sun)
• fp = The fraction of those stars with planets. (Current evidence indicates that planetary systems may be common for stars like the Sun.)
• ne = The number of Earth-like worlds per planetary system
• fl = The fraction of those Earth-like planets where life actually develops
• fi = The fraction of life sites where intelligence develops
• fc = The fraction of communicative planets (those on which electromagnetic communications technology develops)
• L = The "lifetime" of communicating civilizations

Frank Drake's own current solution to the Drake Equation estimates 10,000 communicative civilizations in the Milky Way."
source
​

The five decades of published calculations of the improbability of life as we know it in peer-reviewed journals and books, conducted by secular scientists, still stands.

Now I think you're blowing smoke.

.

 

[Polymath257]

Wonderful questions. No idea. The five decades of published calculations of the improbability of life as we know it in peer-reviewed journals and books, conducted by secular scientists, still stands and, maybe, has some of the answers to your questions. (Sorry SKWIM, I cannot go back and summarize five decades of work that spans almost every scientific discipline).

All the calculations do is show that we don't understand something. In particular, they are almost certainly based on false assumptions. Figuring out why they are false is a good direction for research, just like the unusually small value of the cosmological constant is a hint towards quantum gravity and a demonstration that we don't know something quite important in that realm.

I believe some planets have already been discovered that have one, maybe two, of the parameters (distance from their sun, for instance). One or two parameters alone does not allow for life as we know it, however. That is why the compounded probability and fine tuning arguments arose...you have to have all of the pieces, and they must be of a very specific nature, or it just doesn't work.

And what we have found is that, already, the calculations are wrong because even those two parameters would lead to too small of a probability to observe even what we have.

You seem tho think that life is difficult once we have a planet in the right region. I am betting tht it is quite common. At this point, we don't know who is correct, but we know the naive calculation is wrong as to probabilities.

The compounded probabiluities are calculated on the assumption that each stage is independent of all the others. That is clearly false even based on what we know: for example, the existence of water is not going to be independent of the position of the planet's orbit. The existence of comets with basic organic compounds is not independent of either of those. So a calculation based on independence is simply wrong.

Good questions. I'm not a mathmatician, physicist, biologist, or any other "ist" or "ian" that has published this type of work. You'd have to go back and look at the research. Again, this stuff has been out there for a long time and is very cross disciplinary...you may see variation in how the numbers are run over time and across fields. Just don't know.

Well, I *am* a mathematician (PhD) and am published in that area. I have gradate training in physics also (no PhD there, though). I have looked over many of the calculations and have found them wrong in basic ways: generally assuming independence of steps when that is easily seen to be wrong. Penrose's calculation based on entropy is more interesting, but still based on quantum gravity, which we *know* we don't have correct yet (the cosmological constant calculation alone shows that--it is 120 orders of magnitude off). So I see his result as showing more than we don't know what is going on rather than anything else.

Rather than imply a creative force, most the work lays out an argument more along the lines of how the astronomically low probability makes belief in that school of thought no more reasonable than belief in a school of thought that embraces a creative force.

Well, those calculations are typically naive ones in subjects we know very little about. If anything, they show what we do not know as yet. They are puzzles, not demonstrations that we need go outside of physics and nature, but rather that we have to understand them better.

 

[Socratic Berean]

So, just what are all these factors that taken together amount to such an improbability? AND how were each of these factors calculated and assigned their particular impossibility? AND, who did all of this?

Aside from these questions I would also ask: Why these particular factors and not others? Why they were calculated in the manner they were and assigned the values they were? AND, what have other such calculations concluded?

All great questions. The question that kicked off this discussion was about our "best" argument. After decades of reading and reflecting on the topic, I fell back on math. I cant' possibly go back and pull out every method for every calculation of every paper I've read and read about. I know you don't want to have to do any outside reading, but if you are really interested in the issue, it's a huge topic of discussion going back some years and across many disciplines; you will have to do some digging.

My suspicion is that you don't know the answers to any of these questions, except the "who" question perhaps (I suspect Roger Penrose), yet you accept this conclusion as valid.

Beyond Penroses work, you may want to look at Hoyle's various papers/books (he was an aethist, by the way). Try Dr. Harold Blum's book (something about an arrow and time and evolution...I don't know what his religious position is/was). Dr. Doug Axe is another who comes to mind (if I'm thinking of the right guy, he is a Christian, but his work is in secular scientific journals. This one I just quickly found with Google is a relevant one, if I recall correctly:

Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds. Journal of Molecular Biology (2004)

Let me pass along the following to think about.

A couple of months ago [in 2011], a “probability chart” produced by Harvard Law School blogger Ali Binazir went somewhat viral...​

​

Yes...if I remember correctly Binazir was building on another fellow's idea/work he heard at a Ted Talk. Don't recall the speaker. Interesting stuff. I think someone came along after Binazir and showed that the probability of any of us existing (being who we are, today, where we are) actually works out to zero. That was an interesting line of thought too; can't remember the guy's name.

Ever hear of the Drake Equation?

Yes, and Sara Seager's Equation, Frank and Sullivan's new number (1 in 10 to the 24th), the Kardashev scale (Sagan is missed), etc. All very entertaining topics of conversation and applications of probability.

 

[Socratic Berean]

The compounded probabiluities are calculated on the assumption that each stage is independent of all the others.... the existence of water is not going to be independent of the position of the planet's orbit...

Excellent point. Gives me something new to noodle. On your other points, well said. On the probabilities, I am very comfortable with a position of "in the end, we really just don't know for sure."

 

[Polymath257]

All great questions. The question that kicked off this discussion was about our "best" argument. After decades of reading and reflecting on the topic, I fell back on math. I cant' possibly go back and pull out every method for every calculation of every paper I've read and read about. I know you don't want to have to do any outside reading, but if you are really interested in the issue, it's a huge topic of discussion going back some years and across many disciplines; you will have to do some digging.

And I think the best the math does is show that we don't fully understand what is going on. It is NOT a good argument for the existence of a deity. Most arguments based on the math are either arguments from ignorance (god of the gaps) or are faulty in deep ways.

Beyond Penroses work, you may want to look at Hoyle's various papers/books (he was an aethist, by the way). Try Dr. Harold Blum's book (something about an arrow and time and evolution...I don't know what his religious position is/was). Dr. Doug Axe is another who comes to mind (if I'm thinking of the right guy, he is a Christian, but his work is in secular scientific journals. This one I just quickly found with Google is a relevant one, if I recall correctly:

an attempt at
What I have seen of Hoyle's argument is based on the assumption that various stages are independent of each other, which is simply known to be false. It also assumes only one particular sequence is possible for each protein and only one possible protein for each job in the cell. Those are also known to be false assumptions.

Harold Blum was primarily devoted to understanding how entropy and evolution interact. The following is an interesting review:
Time's Arrow and Evolution
"The title suggests an attempt at explanation of the mechanism of evolution on the basis of the second law of thermodynamics. No such explanation is presented"

This is often presented (falsely) in the creationist literature as showing a contradiction between evolution and the second law. As noted in the review, the fact that the Earth is not a closed system in the thermodynamic sense (lots of energy coming into the system) makes this problematic. In fact, the decrease in entropy from evolution is far, far outweighed by the increases from simple waste production by living things. Note also that Blum's book was written in 1951. Much has been learned since then (that DNA is the genetic material is after the publication of this book).

Doug Axe is a member of the Biologic Institute, an offshoot of the Discovery Institute, which doesn't exactly have the best reputation for intellectual honesty.
Biologic Institute - Wikipedia

Estimating the prevalence of protein sequences adopting functional enzyme folds. Journal of Molecular Biology (2004)

An analysis of this article:

Axe (2004) and the evolution of enzyme function

​

Yes, and Sara Seager's Equation, Frank and Sullivan's new number (1 in 10 to the 24th), the Kardashev scale (Sagan is missed), etc. All very entertaining topics of conversation and applications of probability.

All interesting. The Fermi paradox is the most interesting in my mind.

 

[Socratic Berean]

And I think the best the math does is show...

At this juncture, I will agree that we disagree, and will leave it at that. You are a clever fellow. I've enjoyed, and learned from, your arguments. I look forward to future discussions.

 

[Polymath257]

Excellent point. Gives me something new to noodle. On your other points, well said. On the probabilities, I am very comfortable with a position of "in the end, we really just don't know for sure."

I am also comfortable with that. premature conclusions are the enemy of knowledge.

 

[Polymath257]

At this juncture, I will agree that we disagree, and will leave it at that. You are a clever fellow. I've enjoyed, and learned from, your arguments. I look forward to future discussions.

Well, you are talking in my specialties: math and physics.

My basic point is that ALL calculations are based on assumptions. In the examples you give, those assumptions go *way* beyond what we actually know and have tested. In many of them, we actually know that the assumptions are false. So, at best, the result a puzzle to inform us about future investigations and at worst examples of what NOT to do.

Making a conclusion that there is a creative force that produces the universe (or even the Earth) goes way, way, way beyond what the evidence actually shows. It shows more about the hopes and biases of those making the argument than anything else.

I also look forward to future discussions.

 

[McBell]

I do not know of any verifiable examples or how one would go about empirically demonstrating such a thing, but Polymath's comment is interesting, nonetheless.

I am curious what prompted your comment "no law without a lawgiver".

 

[stevevw]

Once again, you assume that there is a cause for the universe. That is something I think is self-contradictory. Causality requires time and time is part of the universe. So causality outside of the universe is simply not a meaningful concept.

Then why do many scientists state that the cause of the big bang which was the cause of the universe was quantum fluctuations when time was yet to appear. Besides The the whole idea of a quantum vacuumn and fluctuations creating a big bang is spectuation anyway as no one can prove this or even come up with a good explanation for how this could happen. We dont even know what the conditions were and the idea of something beginning or being caused is still possible becuase we just dont know. We can only say that something cannot be cause in our present universe becuase this is the conditions we are subject to.

But I would point out that claiming a deity as a cause for the universe doesn't avoid the problem of ultimate causes. What caused the deity is dismissed as irrelevant. You claim the deity is uncaused. I claim the universe is uncaused. The difference is that we know the universe exists.

But knowing the universe exists tells us nothing about how it came about and any ideas about that is spectuation. Because the universe has matter which was not there before the big bang means that matter had to come into being from a state where it was not in existence. That would point to the universe or at least the material in it being created by something. That is what most scientists say when they refer to the big bang being the beginning of the universe. God is a different thing all together as it is claimed he is eternal and is from something that in non-material and therefore not subject to any laws of physics. That is why consciousness fits so well as some say this is also no material and cannot be subject to time, cause or any laws of physics. The fact is the laws of physics break down at the point of the big bang and there will always be a problem in explaining how it occured through scientific verification so something beyond science fits better with what is being found.

No, the microtubule theory was from Penrose and Hammerhoff. Hawking had nothing to do with that one. He was involved in the singularity results. The biggest problem with the microtubule description is that quantum correlations are destroyed in high temperature systems (well above absolute zero) and in complex systems like the brain. That, and it doesn't give any answer to the question of consciousness.

I was referring to Penrose's connection with Hawking to point out that he wasn’t some quack presenting some pseudo-science and didn’t know what he was doing. The original paper was presented 20 years ago but the paper I linked was an updated one addressing the issues to temperature. There have been new discoveries from other reserach which supports their idea.

Orch OR was harshly criticized from its inception, as the brain was considered too "warm, wet, and noisy" for seemingly delicate quantum processes. However, evidence has now shown warm quantum coherence in plant photosynthesis, bird brain navigation, our sense of smell, and brain microtubules. The recent discovery of warm temperature quantum vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by the research group led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, at the National Institute of Material Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan (and now at MIT), corroborates the pair's theory and suggests that EEG rhythms also derive from deeper level microtubule vibrations. In addition, work from the laboratory of Roderick G. Eckenhoff, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons.
Discovery of Quantum Vibrations in “Microtubules” Inside Brain Neurons Corroborates Controversial 20-Year-Old Theory of Consciousness

Besides even if there are problems with their idea that is what scientific inquirey is all about. Many of the ideas presented in science about the universe have been critised and challenged and they are being revised and adjusted when new information comes along. Some are scraped but that doesnt mean we just reject them alltogether. It seems any idea outside the normal consensus is scoffed at when it may be these ideas that lead to finding answers. The point is a lot of other research and other ideas are also about consciousness or other dimensions of reality and this is becuase that is what the observations are pointing to. Their work maybe an attempt to try and link a physical connection between consciousness, qunatum physics and the brain. Afterall if the consciousness is something that can exist beyond the material work or can influence the material world then there has to be some sort of physical connection to us and maybe quantum physics is one possibility with something like consciousness.

I completely disagree. Consciousness is something that happens in things like brains. The entanglement has nothing to do with whether humans are around.

There is a debate about consciousness and this has been an area that has been hard to science to fully explain and account for through purely biological or chemical processes. I was referring to the aspect of entanglemnet which shows that a particle does not take a position until it is measured and that will then give the other particle its position as well. But that is never know until it is measured. This is associated with the observer effect and it seems to me that this is associated more with a conscious observer. Some are saying that becuase of this it is a conscious mind can interact with the material world and determine the state of reality. There are tests which show there maybe some truth to this.

I will have to come back to the rest as I have been a bit busy with studies. Regards steve.

 

[stevevw]

That is a misunderstanding of inflation. Nothing moves through space at faster than the speed of light, so relativity is not defied. In fact, the inflation stage is a product of relativity applied to a situation where there is a spinless boson.

I was speaking about the moments after the big bang where it is said that the universe inflated faster than the speed of light.I thought this was a well known idea stemming from the quantum fluctuations.
When space expanded faster-than-light | EarthSky.org

Well, we have a pretty good understanding of what happens after about a millisecond into the current expansion phase. So any processes before that *have* to be fast.

That is what I was referring to

But, once again, you *assume* there is a cause for the universe. Time is part of the universe: so time began when the universe began. There is no 'before the universe' (unless there is a multi-verse, in which case there is no before the multiverse).

So going back to the beginning of our universe or of any multiverse where quantum fluctuations began the process where did the quantum field which holds the quantum fluctuations and the quantum physics that drive them come from considering they are something that requires some physics to operate.

Agreed. Anything dealing with quantum gravity is speculative at this point. A multiverse description is a natural consequence of our attempts to formulate a quantum theory of gravity, but at this point *none* of the proposals has been tested. So it is all speculative in the extreme.

Just like some of the other ideas proposed such as consciousness or intelligent agents behind what we see.

But adding a deity into the mix doesn't help. it only opens up further questions that can only be answered by further speculation. Only in that case, there isn't even the theoretical hope of testing in the future.

Not to different to some of the ideas presented like a multiverse.