patrick.net

B.A.C.A.H. says

Yep. Natural selection. A natural process studied to death by scientists (ahem, I was one of those before retiring), enabled by the mathematics and physics behind the four fundamental forces that enable a life-hosting universe.

Where did the information in the first DNA - excuse me, RNA (since DNA is now admitted to be too complex for first life, also Junk DNA, a long standing counter-argument of Neo-Spontaneous Generationists has been disproven - at least 80% does indeed have a purpose) - come from?

This is the first life form. No predecessor to mutate from or copy from. And it has to be of immediate utility in survival and reproduction - not something a cell is wasting energy on maintaining that has no immediate use.

Another one would be how did the first life emerge without a cell wall?

When you make it so a lipid globule would just so happen to enclose those base amino acids and ribose sugars - precise in number and of the precise kind - all diluted in the big premordial stew, and stay together despite the salt water wearing it down... the odds go way down. How did the lipid globule psuedo cell wall expel waste but admit nutrients and repair itself without instruction?

Otherwise, a bit of wave motion would quickly pull apart that chance proximity of all those different molecules. And the moon was much closer back 4B years ago...

Patrick says

I've also heard it put this way, though just in terms of biology:

It's not biologists - who study life - we should be asking about neo-spontaneous generation. Rather, synthetic chemists.

They work with living and non-living molecules, proteins, and enzymes all day long actually trying to get them to do certain things.

Patrick says

Onvacation says

We can understand our creator as much as a computer virus can understand the software engineer that created it. It's beyond our comprehension.

I've also heard it put this way, though just in terms of biology:

"If the human brain were simple enough for us to understand, we would be too simple to understand it."

Sounds like the human brain must be something very special. Perhaps like an iPhone omega, the final design in the series.

Dog Breeds are a great example of Intelligent Designers meddling with life! And teosinte to corn, tiny equines to Clydesdales, etc.

Our question is... did life generate from non life and why/how.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Dog Breeds are a great example of Intelligent Designers meddling with life! And teosinte to corn, tiny equines to Clydesdales, etc.

It's just an evolutionary pressure. I wouldn't say it's intelligence. Any evolutionary pressure can drastically change the appearance and characteristics of a creature in just a hundred years. It's said that 15% of the population of Rome had vestigial tails. I don't know if that's true, but today, it happens, but it's much more rare.

richwicks says

It's just an evolutionary pressure. I wouldn't say it's intelligence. Any evolutionary pressure can drastically change the appearance and characteristics of a creature in just a hundred years. It's said that 15% of the population of Rome had vestigial tails. I don't know if that's true, but today, it happens, but it's much more rare.

It's evolutionary pressure through directed, intelligent meddling; the American Kennel Club (and others) have standards, and dog breeders select traits to selectively breed.

No change in oxygen level or change in foliage cover did that - that would be environmental pressures.

(Of course, none of this has jack shit to do with OOL)

Patrick says

I wrote a bit about this:

Over evolutionary time, we can see an animal group grow fangs and claws and
split to live off the flesh of its cousins. Hawks eat other birds. Lions eat
other mammals. Given enough time and strict endogamy, human ethnic groups would
do the same.

Isn't there a protein in the brain that fucks you up though if you eat one (a human one)? Prion?

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Isn't there a protein in the brain that fucks you up though if you eat one (a human one)? Prion?

Yes, that's Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease also thought to be the same as Mad Cow Disease, or Chronic Wasting Disease in deer. I think the prion needs to get beyond the blood/brain barrier though to actually infect (and eventually kill) the organism.

Cows were forced to become cannibals (it's just protein anyhow!) in England - so it cropped up there. Among human populations there were tribes that ritually ate human remains after their elders died.

There's evolutionary pressure NOT to be cannibalistic apparently - at least among some species.

richwicks says

Organisms in an environment will, over time, fill every niche in that environment over successive generations. We've seen the evidence of happening. Every niche that existed in Europe has a counterpart in Australia.

Like they have a common designer, who built the system to adapt to the preordained physical conditions that were to happen after the land was divided (Pangea broken up), the flood occurred, and the earth’s climate changed dramatically from pre flood times where there was no rain and the earth was protected from UV radiation by a protective canopy (perhaps thick layer of water/water vapor), and has since gone through many changes as well where ice ages, and other forces turned forests into deserts or tundras, swamps into grasslands and many other such dramatic “natural “ phenomena. You see when you have unlimited knowledge and are not constrained by time, everything you do is deliberate and with purpose.
richwicks says

This is a Samoyed in 1910:

Yes, you posted photos of two fluffy white dogs with a common ancestor. I could post two photos, Hilary and Barak have a common ancestor too. Their respective people groups diverged from a common original lineage, passed through genetic bottlenecks and adapted to different climates. But they are both still humans just as your two dogs are still dogs. I see clear evidence that the more species change over time, the more they stay the same. Barak could presumably breed with a fertile Clinton, and your dog could breed with another dog. This would yield another dog, and another human. Barak’s descendants will be human and the dogs decendents will always be a specialized wolf like organism.

But that brings me back to one of your biggest assumptions. You want to believe that if a biological entity is given enough time (the mythological power of time) and a reasonably hospitable environment (The mythological power of Mother Earth) it will through natural selection adapt to create increased biodiversity (more species specialized to fill a niche). But even if these assumptions hold, it implies that you would have to be an essentially eternal and omniscient entity to even observe the origin of species. And how much more power would it take to actually conceive matter, energy, and life.

richwicks says

I hate analogies. They never explain the situation, they obfuscate it.

I’m sorry for you. Analogies are a basic form of human communication. But it is a convenient way to ignore the fact that humans can’t measure time before human existence. Heck, we often have trouble measuring time since humans first came on the scene. That’s because, “ For a process to be considered a good natural clock, it must contain the following: a known initial condition, an irreversible process, a uniform rate, and a final condition.” that means that unless we can observe the original condition, and that the process is irreversible, and the rate is uniform, we are left with massive assumptions regarding those parameters. Radiometric dating as based on assumptions chief among them being that unless you created the thing or know everything about it, you can not be sure of its original condition. You’re free to make assumptions but at least be honest with yourself that you are creating your own mythology if your world view is based on those assumptions.

On the other hand if you assume the Bible to be true, you will find access to an entirely new world view, with no need for any other assumptions.

PeopleUnited says

Like they have a common designer, who built the system to adapt to the preordained physical conditions that were to happen after the land was divided (Pangea broken up), the flood occurred, and the earth’s climate changed dramatically from pre flood times where there was no rain and the earth was protected from UV radiation by a protective canopy (perhaps thick layer of water/water vapor), and has since gone through many changes as well where ice ages, and other forces turned forests into deserts or tundras, swamps into grasslands and many other such dramatic “natural “ phenomena. You see when you have unlimited knowledge and are not constrained by time, everything you do is deliberate and with purpose.

Look, I consider it a responsibility to respond to people who have taken the time to write back to me, but we are at an impasse here.

I don't, and never will be able to believe, in the story of Noah's ark for one. That is myth to me. I know the story goes back to Gilgamesh. Religion evolves in a way as well. A Christian of today would NOT recognize a Christian from 1,000 AD as being similar. Christianity used to incorporate reincarnation as well. A true religion couldn't change.

And the other blatant problem is what created God in your viewpoint? If God can come into existence through some inconceivable way, why is it such a leap to think life can?

To me, religion is nothing but a proto-science of a sort - an attempt to explain the world. The VAST majority of ideas born out of science have been show to be wrong. Science is littered with far FAR more mistakes than successes. That's what so damned great about science. It's clumsy, but it's the free market of ideas that are tested, and when they fail the marketplace, they are removed - failed ideas might come up again, and they'll be removed again. It's very random.

PeopleUnited says

Yes, you posted photos of two fluffy white dogs with a common ancestor. I could post two photos, Hilary and Barak have a common ancestor too. Their respective people groups diverged from a common original lineage, passed through genetic bottlenecks and adapted to different climates. But they are both still humans just as your two dogs are still dogs.

Do you doubt that a horse, zebra, and donkey have common ancestors? They can all interbred, but all their offspring are sterile.

A horse has 64 (sometimes 66) chromosomes
A donkey has 62 chromosomes
A zebra has 46 (sometimes 44 and even 32) chromosomes

I spent a few minutes trying to think "well, what species probably have a common ancestor that CAN'T interbreed to make a sterile offspring?" - well, the only species I can think of, are apes - and I'm not certain about that. There's some speculation that human beings HAVE interbred with apes but it's not confirmed and any intentional attempt to do that, that's monstrous.

Sheep and Goats can sometimes interbred as well.

If humans didn't re-converge about 300 years ago, and we stayed isolated for, I don't know "a very long time", it's quite possible the different races couldn't interbreed when eventually they found one another again. Look at the conflict we had after only being separated for maybe a few 100,000 years? War, we were so different. It's no wonder the Europeans looked at the Africans as subhuman - Europeans had cities, societies, technology and the Africans - they didn't even have two story homes, nor cities, or even exploration boats.

PeopleUnited says

richwicks says

I hate analogies. They never explain the situation, they obfuscate it.

I’m sorry for you. Analogies are a basic form of human communication.

Analogies are useful only to introduce a concept that you'd otherwise be at a loss to understand. As soon as you get past the analogy, you MUST discard it, because it's only similar in one, maybe two ways. There's nothing complicated about evolution. There are no vastly deep concepts in it. It's the easiest scientific theory that exists in my opinion. When I read The Origin of the Species, I entirely understood Darwin's thinking.

PeopleUnited says

Radiometric dating as based on assumptions chief among them being that unless you created the thing or know everything about it, you can not be sure of its original condition.

OK, REALLY BRIEFLY (because I don't want to look it up again) - the way we measure the age of a rock formed from lava, is that it starts out containing a radioactive element that degrades into two others. The isotopes that it degrades into are often radioactive themselves and we know the proportion of the isotopes of each element in general. From the proportions of the original radioactive element, and the compounds they degrade into, we can calculate about how old that rock is. Especially useful is if one of the degraded elements is a GAS - that's trapped in the rock until it's heated.

The assumption here of course, is that radioactive decay today is as fast (or as slow) as it was a million years ago. This is not a crazy assumption because if the world really began 5000 years ago, everything would have been super radioactive.

It's more complicated than that, and I used to know this really well, but it's a bitch to explain and it never helps to explain it, so I've largely forgotten it. Geology never interested me, and I hate chemistry.

PeopleUnited says

On the other hand if you assume the Bible to be true, you will find access to an entirely new world view, with no need for any other assumptions.

Here's where my 30 year old self would go nuts on you, but I'm 50 now.

The Bible has changed quite a bit in the last 2000 years. It's an EXTREMELY well researched book.

At 30, I'll be talking about the Council of Nicaea, the similarities that the Jewish religion has to the Babylonian religions, how there's strong evidence that Yahweh is actually a perversion of the Babylonian God of War that the Jewish religion didn't start until around 800 or 700 BC - I'd be appealing to known research about what is probably incorrect about the current mythology. I might even bring up the parallels of Hercules and Jesus.

I naively viewed things that were "incorrect" as "bad" - however the religion certainly shows its usefulness, and it certainly seems to be beneficial to many people and I do not doubt it is for you. I would have spent days, maybe even weeks, picking away at your faith - but how does this help you, me, or society? It's just destructive. I'm an engineer, I like build things, and there's no reason to tear down things that work.

I'll give you an analogy now: IPV4 (the basic library for most internet communication) is a MESS of software. It's CRAP. It's confusing, it's filled with secrets, basically ONE code base works, it's the BSD code base, it's FILLED with bugs, but everybody uses it, and it works with itself pretty well. People who try to re-implement it to the "standard" find they have problems. The point isn't that it doesn't conform to a standard, the point is it works. And in time, it will be replaced with superior algorithms for communication. I am kind of working on one now, but it will probably go nowhere (here's a hint - TCP/IP shouldn't exist, it should be UDP exclusively, and all protocols should be on top of that.)

Here's my point: I don't what to fuck up what works for a HUGE segment of people even though I think "this is wrong" and who gives a damned what I think? This works! It doesn't matter if you're wrong, or even I'm wrong. We're probably both wrong. This works well for you, is it moral for me to undermine a tool you find very useful, simply because I don't believe its basis is correct? At 30, I'd say yes, at 50 - absolutely not.

I have spent DECADES thinking about "life". You've settled on a religion, and I'm perfectly comfortable sitting in the area of "I don't know, but maybe this, or that, or something else". I'm entirely comfortable with uncertainty. You will never be able to change me to certainty, and it's a wasted effort for you. Don't waste your time on this trying to "save me".

If you want to convert somebody to your religion, I'm like 100-1000x times more difficult to convert than almost anybody else you run into. You should consider me "lost" and irretrievable. If by conversion you are actually saving people, it's immoral to waste your resources on me. I'd die to save a 100 people, willingly.

Well, unless those 100 people were not exclusively banking executives, top US military brass, "journalists", intelligence officers, and politicians.

richwicks says

I don't, and never will be able to believe, in the story of Noah's ark for one. That is myth to me. I know the story goes back to Gilgamesh.

Even though not literally true, it may well be based on a real flood of "biblical" proportions.

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news165.htm

And maybe someone survived it in a big boat with a lot of animals.

Hurray for a "Classic" style internet thread.

Patrick says

richwicks says

I don't, and never will be able to believe, in the story of Noah's ark for one. That is myth to me. I know the story goes back to Gilgamesh.

Even though not literally true, it may well be based on a real flood of "biblical" proportions.

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news165.htm

And maybe someone survived it in a big boat with a lot of animals.

There's Graham Hancock's hypotheses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjh50g2Inpo

He's fun to listen to, like if you ever watched "In Search Of" hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I don't mind speculation, even crazy speculation, as long as SOME effort is made toward accuracy. SURE - he might be totally wrong, but I suspect orthodoxy is often wrong as well.

I am very much against dogmatism. There's no sin or evil in being incorrect. You have to go down avenues where you're wrong, to find out you're wrong.

But I do object to such garbage like "Mermaids: The Body Found". This shit showed up on the Discovery Channel ENTIRELY discrediting them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mermaids:_The_Body_Found

It's fine to make speculation, even wild speculation - but this that was a pernicious lie. Knowingly leading people down false avenues - only assholes do that. Lying to people, feeding them bullshit - that's stuff that should be left to the CIA and other intelligence agencies. They're fucking assholes too.

richwicks says

He's fun to listen to, like if you ever watched "In Search Of" hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I don't mind speculation, even crazy speculation, as long as SOME effort is made toward accuracy.

The zeitgeist that show came out in was when UFO mania was barely off its peak, and Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? was still considered "real/true" by many. It was refreshing the way Nimoy brought the methods of science to the screen.

richwicks says

I naively viewed things that were "incorrect" as "bad" - however the religion certainly shows its usefulness, and it certainly seems to be beneficial to many people and I do not doubt it is for you. I would have spent days, maybe even weeks, picking away at your faith - but how does this help you, me, or society? It's just destructive. I'm an engineer, I like build things, and there's no reason to tear down things that work.

I'm much the same way. Was rather stridently atheistic at 30, now in my mid 50s I understand much better the depth and breadth of change a lifelong faithful person would have to suffer through on an unwilling path from religious to scientist-like. Carl Sagan's book and its movie adaption CONTACT! was the thing which really helped file the sharp edges off my youthful edgy atheism. It put a scientist and preacher together as a love interest, and put the scientist in the position of a Messiah, who must convince the world of a radical new truth that only they witnessed firsthand, with nothing but the audience's faith in their word as proof.

It's OK for people to believe in god, if that is what makes their worldview feel complete. It becomes NOT okay when these beliefs come to bear on policy decisions like outlawing abortion in an entire state, or believing the Second Coming will happen in modern Israel, and favoring that country in diplomatic and economic ways while hoping for/willingness to provoke "End Times" in the form of war to expedite His return.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

When you make it so a lipid globule would just so happen to enclose those base amino acids and ribose sugars - precise in number and of the precise kind - all diluted in the big premordial stew, and stay together despite the salt water wearing it down... the odds go way down. How did the lipid globule psuedo cell wall expel waste but admit nutrients and repair itself without instruction?

Check out the way bacterial biofilms form and organize "circulatory systems" for nutrients and waste, with no central nervous system. It's emergent complex behavior from simple systems. "Cellular automata" simulations are one way we explore the nuts and bolts of the phenomenon.

Look at the contents of cells; the organelles are considered to have been independent elements that formed local symbiotic relationships. After untold numbers of false starts that broke apart before becoming more complex and massively parallel in space and time iterations of these processes, it's entirely plausible that eventually a new local maximum of a single-cell organism was reached.

The principle of evolution scales up and down. Going back to the "leap" from abiotic chemicals to "life." While it's statistically vanishingly small odds, given enough time, space, and iterations, it's entirely plausible that somewhere, sometime, Goldilocks conditions of the right building blocks, reagents, catalysts, and a globule that could contain and protect them might come together. When it comes to physical evidence of events billions of years ago, there's almost no chance of ever finding "it." It is a type of "faith" that I believe this scenario represents what actually happened. It's categorically different from religious faith in that I'm ready and eager to abandon that which is proven incorrect and replace it with a "better" hypothesis, theory, or explanation. It's also based on a preponderance of evidence all carefully assembled, curated, and edited to remove contradictions and inconsistencies that are indicators of falsehood or incorrect understanding.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

And the moon was much closer back 4B years ago...

True, but radioactive elements were far less decayed back then too, so the radiation background was vastly higher for a much different mutation rate than modern humans take for granted. The moon's lower orbit means a bigger swizzle stick for mixing up the primordial stew.

NuttBoxer says

As a believer in Christ I've had a number of times in my life where I've experienced God in a very direct and personal way.

And herein lies one fundamental difference between religious faith and science. At this age, I don't deny and diminish your SUBJECTIVE life experiences and history that led you to believe what and how you do. But... the understanding and worldview you've reached is entirely that: SUBJECTIVE. It exists in your own mind. To transfer that subjective understanding form your mind to one like mine, you'd need to bring OBJECTIVE things we can both see, examine, and thus be able to agree upon the fact and nature of their existence to the persuasion effort.

Religious faith can go forever on faith alone. Science demands that those things we necessarily take on faith now get relentlessly pursued for objective confirmation, or even revision and rejection as the facts determine.

PeopleUnited says

On the other hand if you assume the Bible to be true, you will find access to an entirely new world view, with no need for any other assumptions.

I consider the Bible an important and interesting piece of human literature, culture, and history. It is deliberately written as stories and allegories and metaphors, such that connections to "real life scenarios" can easily be made, SUBJECTIVELY in the mind of the reader. Though I don't place it in the same "class" as horoscopes, these I consider categorically similar in that they can be SUBJECTIVELY identified with by a majority of readers with a low threshold for suspension of rational disbelief.

Fitting an allegorical tale to a real life situation is a form of deductive logic which can manipulate falsehoods as readily as truths. Science is a form of inductive logic, which brings all of one's knowledge to bear on a problem rather than proceeding in safe baby steps from specific point to point. Inductive logic can produce new truths, deductive logic cannot.

Automan Empire says

I consider the Bible an important and interesting piece of human literature, culture, and history. It is deliberately written as stories and allegories and metaphors, such that connections to "real life scenarios" can easily be made, SUBJECTIVELY in the mind of the reader. Though I don't place it in the same "class" as horoscopes, these I consider categorically similar in that they can be SUBJECTIVELY identified with by a majority of readers with a low threshold for suspension of rational disbelief.

Many of the stories work on multiple levels: Adam and Eve can be about why men are in charge, or about entering into adolescence with "knowledge" from the "paradise" of childhood where things are taken care of for you, etc.

Babel can be about human arrogance, centralization, etc.

Automan Empire says

Fitting an allegorical tale to a real life situation is a form of deductive logic which can manipulate falsehoods as readily as truths. Science is a form of inductive logic, which brings all of one's knowledge to bear on a problem rather than proceeding in safe baby steps from specific point to point. Inductive logic can produce new truths, deductive logic cannot.

Abductive Logic plays a role in science, too, in helping the discover which explanation is the most probable and which most resembles prior explanations and situations that are highly probable.

Patrick says

Even though not literally true, it may well be based on a real flood of "biblical" proportions.

http://www.trussel.com/prehist/news165.htm

And maybe someone survived it in a big boat with a lot of animals.

What if the Noah story came from a real flood, and a farmer/herder that sought refuge, on a large wooden causeway structure over a bog? Perhaps he went there with his animals when the Biblical flood hit.
Taking him and the animals on a large raft ride.

Automan Empire says

It's OK for people to believe in god, if that is what makes their worldview feel complete. It becomes NOT okay when these beliefs come to bear on policy decisions like outlawing abortion in an entire state, or believing the Second Coming will happen in modern Israel, and favoring that country in diplomatic and economic ways while hoping for/willingness to provoke "End Times" in the form of war to expedite His return.

It's also a miracle, as propounded by the Bible that it would happen. It's highly unlikely to have happened by itself...

And yes, it conforms to similar stories in the Bible about wickedness, redemption after disaster/chastisement, and forgiveness back into Good Graces.

While some would say it wasn't so unlikely BECAUSE it was predicted and people worked to make it happen as part of their narrative, on the other hand there are also people who don't want it to happen because it confirms the Bible or an interpretation of the Bible they don't like and it needs to go away to help THEIR metanarrative.

Automan Empire says

Check out the way bacterial biofilms form and organize "circulatory systems" for nutrients and waste, with no central nervous system. It's emergent complex behavior from simple systems. "Cellular automata" simulations are one way we explore the nuts and bolts of the phenomenon.

This is still working with organized cell-based life, not with amino acids diluted in a massive salty ocean.

Automan Empire says

The principle of evolution scales up and down. Going back to the "leap" from abiotic chemicals to "life." While it's statistically vanishingly small odds, given enough time, space, and iterations, it's entirely plausible that somewhere, sometime, Goldilocks conditions of the right building blocks, reagents, catalysts, and a globule that could contain and protect them might come together.

What kept the outside out and the inside in from the premordial soup to begin with? Admitting nutrients and expelling waste? Where did the first instructions come from? Base Aminos from non-living chemistry?

As Hoyle noted, if there's some law that promotes life, it should be relatively easy, with human intervention creating absolutely ideal conditions, to observe at least some of these steps arising from this law beginning within weeks in a controlled experiment where you don't have to wait for chance. I believe there's been tens of thousands of OOL experiments so far in the past half century at least.

Not only was M-U using the wrong Early Earth environment, making it extremely reducing, but 97% of the product was a tarry muck, which would have covered the oceans or even converted the early oceans: Never seen in the geological record.

First life is now about 4BYA, instead of 2-3BYA as originally thought back in Miller-Urey's day. It may get pushed back even further as every decade or two as has happened. Even if it doesn't, we've now only got a few hundred million years for everything to start taking off.

Automan Empire says

richwicks says

He's fun to listen to, like if you ever watched "In Search Of" hosted by Leonard Nimoy. I don't mind speculation, even crazy speculation, as long as SOME effort is made toward accuracy.

The zeitgeist that show came out in was when UFO mania was barely off its peak, and Erich Von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods? was still considered "real/true" by many. It was refreshing the way Nimoy brought the methods of science to the screen.

It used to come on after the Simpsons back in college. My friend and I ritually got stoned to watch the Simpsons (early 1990's) and the Simpsons was both brilliant and hilarious back then. We'd cool off with In Search Of still a bit high, and then rewatch the Simpsons from video tape to see what we missed. In Search Of was enjoyable in that altered state.

Simpsons back then had very cutting and biting political humor in it and it was easy to miss it.

Automan Empire says

I'm much the same way. Was rather stridently atheistic at 30, now in my mid 50s I understand much better the depth and breadth of change a lifelong faithful person would have to suffer through on an unwilling path from religious to scientist-like.

It would be horrible if I was moving into atheism from whatever religion at this age. At 20, there's the progression of doubt, the agnosticism, then what I considered the grim reality of atheism but I also seem to be coming out of that. I don't think I could return to an organized religion, but I'm stridently atheist at this point.

I didn't really care for Contact. It was OK. It's one of those that "it was all dream.. mayBEEE?" Aliens waste a bunch of the Earth's resources just to fuck with humanity for a little bit. What twats! All the Aliens did was announce to ONE PERSON "here we are!" and then leave with no proof, and a bunch of doubts (was it a hoax?) - it was a little aggravating to me.

Automan Empire says

It's OK for people to believe in god, if that is what makes their worldview feel complete. It becomes NOT okay when these beliefs come to bear on policy decisions like outlawing abortion in an entire state, or believing the Second Coming will happen in modern Israel, and favoring that country in diplomatic and economic ways while hoping for/willingness to provoke "End Times" in the form of war to expedite His return.

I am doubtful that anybody in power truly believes in their professed religion. At most, they have a vague notion there's something greater than them, but I'm doubtful they think that nuclear war brings back Jesus and even if they did believe that, that they would bring it about.

Abortion is an issue that vexes me. There's already MALE contraceptives that are 100% effective, AND reversible.

https://www.parsemus.org/humanhealth/vasalgel/

But it's an uphill battle making the pill obsolete. To get sterilized, it's an outpatient procedure, and costs less than $5 - although a bit more to get a competent nurse or doctor to inject it into your vas deferens.

Reverse procedure is just as simple.

It's been in testing forever, and will remain there forever. I considered having my vet do the procedure for the fosters I was getting to become part of the test group (it's being tested in animals), but my rescue group I'm certain would be like "WTF?".

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

This is still working with organized cell-based life, not with amino acids diluted in a massive salty ocean.

That's why I proceeded to "the principle of evolution scales up and down."

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

What kept the outside in from the premordial soup to begin with?

This is where my "knowledge" becomes necessarily vague as a constellation of possibilities, rather than a single process I've decided is "the one true one." In some warmer puddle in a divot on the edge of a lake, the temperature, ingredients, and energy inputs were just right to polymerize a small sheetlike membrane abiotically, and some other glob of molecules catalyzed it into cross-linking into a kind of pouch around itself..? It's really reaching, I readily acknowledge.

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

First life is now about 4BYA, instead of 2-3BYA as originally thought back in Miller-Urey's day

Well, the M-U experiment, ITSELF evolved over time to more accurately model the early atmosphere as our understanding of it improved as evidence was gathered and interpreted. As the model improved, the results got worse, then better. Since the M-U experiment isn't a full scale model of the early earth, and it runs on a vastly shorter time scale, it's disingenuous to infer that it could NEVER prove life from primordial soup, or that the fact it hasn't yet disproves its utility.

Automan Empire says

Well, the M-U experiment, ITSELF evolved over time to more accurately model the early atmosphere as our understanding of it improved as evidence was gathered and interpreted. As the model improved, the results got worse, then better. Since the M-U experiment isn't a full scale model of the early earth, and it runs on a vastly shorter time scale, it's disingenuous to infer that it could NEVER prove life from primordial soup, or that the fact it hasn't yet disproves its utility.

Again, the whole absence of evidence != evidence of absence but is a precondition for an incorrect theory.

One could also say that Lead to Gold transmutists conducted 1000s of experiments and refused to let go of the idea.

These experiments are even less impressive when you discover that the scientists, using better techniques than MU had, can identify and separate the amino acids before they are rapidly destroyed due to the same environment that created them: "Unjustified Experiment Interference"

Here's some things I think would benefit the claims of Abiogenesis:

Discovery of proteins/polymers/enzymes from a space object/non-Earth terrain that was not obviously contaminated by Earth life (ie not in Antarctica)
Creation of proteins/polymers in an uninterrupted MU-style experiment.
Or the appearance of a cell-wall precursor of some kind (or any kind of functional barrier/body) in such an experiment.
Discovery on non-cellular life in the geological record (and to be fair, the chances of this happening are damned small).
Discovery of life that uses RNA not DNA (RNA World)

MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

Creation of proteins/polymers in an uninterrupted MU-style experiment.

I agree this is the type of proof we're waiting for, but again, the M-U experiment is a tiny, stripped down, short term simulation, waiting to duplicate results that happened on a planet-wide, multimillion-year scale. Unlike transmuting lead to gold via a defined experimental process over a fixed reaction time where a single transmuted atom would constitute proof of concept, the M-U experiment awaits CHANCE interactions between the atoms within, which is necessarily an UNDEFINED process.

Automan Empire says

I consider the Bible an important and interesting piece of human literature

I have some fundamentalist inlaws who have instructed me that it's blasphemy to refer to the bible as literature. They're also Trump supporters.

No kidding.

Heh heh

richwicks says

I am very much against dogmatism.

But atheism is dogma.

Such a shame to have the noble "dog" in dogma.

Atheism is dogma, = bad science. Ironic as some athesists dogmatically shout down the concept of intelligent design.

Bd6r says

If what we have around is real, then I have just one issue with evolution: I can't explain how was first life created, even though I am familiar with so-called "prebiotic chemistry" and chemistry of DNA and RNA rather well. After first living bacteria everything is very easy to explain. But it is impossible to explain how very unstable molecules such as (initially) RNA and then DNA were formed and started self-replicating. They rapidly fall apart in lab if you synthesize them and leave them in elements...

I think our struggle to comprehend "well, who created God" or "the chicken or the egg" stems from our primitive understanding of space and time. We think one-dimensionally or linearly about time, but methinks it's much more complicated than that.

porkchopexpress says

I think our struggle to comprehend "well, who created God" or "the chicken or the egg" stems from our primitive understanding of space and time. We think one-dimensionally or linearly about time,

If you consider the egg (the embryo itself actually) metaphorically as a primitive "single cell" life form, then the egg preceded the chicken... by about a BILLION YEARS.

This is less ridiculous when you look at stages of embryonic growth. It's like watching a movie of evolution from single cells to chickens or humans. Check out and compare the early stages of chicken and human embryos while you're at it.

B.A.C.A.H. says

it's blasphemy to refer to the bible as literature.

I wonder what they'd think of an atheist-for-life who nonetheless has favorite bible verses?

B.A.C.A.H. says

richwicks says

I am very much against dogmatism.

But atheism is dogma.

It CAN be but doesn't have to be. A communist society may DOGMATICALLY enforce atheism. Nobody has a right to do that. Your beliefs regardless of whether they are or are not rational or true - they are YOUR beliefs. I can challenge them, but it's wrong to force.

You've probably seen me argue there is no "left or right, only up and down" with regard to politics. Well, it's sort of like that with spiritual (?) belief. Maybe atheists are hard left, and evangelical are hard right, at the top though - they don't care. They just want a conflict. The top takes advantage of both "sides". People like Richard Dawkins and Madalyn Murray O'Hair are the pied pipers of the atheists and people like Peter Popoff, Jim Bakker, Billy Graham, and Benny Hinn toot for the religious - but ultimately, they are just exploiting them.

The left/right is a false dichotomy - atheism and a particular religion is CERTAINLY a false dichotomy, but maybe it's more general? Maybe atheism versus religious belief is a false dichotomy?

B.A.C.A.H. says

Such a shame to have the noble "dog" in dogma.

I do not think I do, if I do, I'm unaware of it.

I WAS dogmatically atheist for 20 years I'd say? But I cannot deny I FEEL there is something there. Now whether this is a delusion or not is immaterial. I cannot deny the usefulness, perhaps the necessity, for religion to maintain a society. Everybody seems to have the sense that there's something else, so actively denying it (which I did!) is probably detrimental to me. Even if it is entirely false, and evolution and abiogenesis IS the origin of life and all species, it seems to have an evolutionary basis and have utility for me to have some sense of a higher power.

In other words, even if there is no god, it's probably detrimental for people to actively deny it because there damned well seems to be an innate sense of it. Many people feel this way. Ever heard of an atheist talk about the "god shaped hole in their heart"? That's what they are talking about. I don't know if ALL atheists feel this, but I know MANY do. Nobody in a group of atheists is confused when you talk about your "god shaped hole".

B.A.C.A.H. says

Atheism is dogma, = bad science. Ironic as some athesists dogmatically shout down the concept of intelligent design.

Science really has no dogma. Do you know in science you NEVER prove anything to be correct? All you're doing is proving what ISN'T correct, and what's left over, well, these are very highly likely possibilities that have happened 100% of the time during observation (except that one time I'm pretty certain I made an error in measurement.)

Intelligent design - that's FINE to teach your kids if you want, but it's not useful in that it is NOT a science. A science has a model, and the model can make predictions, and being able to make predictions is useful. Because of evolutionary theory - we have evolutionary algorithms. You might hate them, but they are pretty damned impressive. Even if evolution is wrong and it didn't happen, and we were all created 30 years ago with false memories of our earlier childhood, evolutionary theory is useful today.

Religion is dogma. "YOU MUST BELIEVE X! TO NOT BELIEVE X MAKES YOU A HERETIC!!!"

We're seeing "scientism" today. "Global warming is real! It's going to kill us all! You stole my childhood!" That's not science either and it IS dogma. But it's not science.

I used to believe in global warming, but I was frustrated that all the predictions it made were totally wrong. The predictions used to legitimately frighten me and make me feel awful for the world and the children of the future. It's a burden to believe we're destroying the planet and wiping out species because we're just too fucking selfish. It makes you feel bad all the time, it makes you hate other people that are more wasteful than you, more selfish - that's the REAL purpose of "global warming". It's to place people at a competitive disadvantage.

Global warming - it's just a psy-op.

richwicks says

Do you know in science you NEVER prove anything to be correct? All you're doing is proving what ISN'T correct,

Correct. Nor can dogmatic atheists prove there's no intelligent design. They just take it on "faith" that intelligent design is an impossibility, and can be obnoxious expressing that view. Bad science.

Just about every (un-scientific) dogmatic atheist I've run into, has some baggage from attending K-12 in Catholic Schools, having that dogma rammed down their throats. The non-Catholic / non-Christian kids whose parents bought them into those schools don't have the baggage, presumably because their parents told them to politely play along.

B.A.C.A.H. says

richwicks says

Do you know in science you NEVER prove anything to be correct? All you're doing is proving what ISN'T correct,

Correct. Nor can dogmatic atheists prove there's no intelligent design. They just take it on "faith" that intelligent design is an impossibility, and can be obnoxious expressing that view. Bad science.

You can't prove the entire universe didn't suddenly spring into existence 5 minutes ago. You can't prove that Santa Claus doesn't exist, perhaps he's hanging out on Neptune and kids just aren't good anymore. You can't prove that Christianity is the true religion, or that Greek Mythology wasn't the true religion - maybe Roman actually collapsed because they abandoned their gods?

In science you don't start out with an assumption something is correct, you start out with a bunch of observations that you are FAIRLY certain are correct (and you might be testing them later to find out if they were) and then building from that to draw a conclusion.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Just about every (un-scientific) dogmatic atheist I've run into, has some baggage from attending K-12 in Catholic Schools, having that dogma rammed down their throats. The non-Catholic / non-Christian kids whose parents bought them into those schools don't have the baggage, presumably because their parents told them to politely play along.

Well I went to public school and became dogmatically atheist for a period of time simply because I felt I had been deceived for a good portion of my life, and I had a lot of evidence I was, and I still conclude I was.

I didn't have a particularly bad experience with religion, but the hypocrisy of it was just so infuriating. The televangelists were scum, there was a scandal with one of our preachers (it's a town secret, and even I don't know the story - so let that sleeping dog lay), there were tons of politicians that droned on about morality and god and so on, only to be found out to be fucking their long time boyfriend, or fucking, I don't know - the white house intern. I didn't see any moral framework to it, I viewed the VAST majority of people who expressed their belief in religion not only to be hypocrites, but ABJECT hypocrites. Religion was just a shield, and the more bible beating they were, the worse they were.

I had the same disgust with politicians - their abject hypocrisy. Hope and Change was more fucking wars and bombing, for example, and bailing out a bunch of goddamned criminals on Wallstreet that just ripped off the entire fucking nation. You don't know how cynical I was. It wasn't pleasant to experience that viewpoint but it was then, I truly grew up. Truly began to understand what the world actually was.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Atheism is dogma, = bad science. Ironic as some athesists dogmatically shout down the concept of intelligent design.

B.A.C.A.H. says

Correct. Nor can dogmatic atheists prove there's no intelligent design. They just take it on "faith" that intelligent design is an impossibility, and can be obnoxious expressing that view. Bad science.

The information science argument for intelligent design is fairly strong:

All data we know of is organized and specific. None of it emerged from self-organizing natural processes without intelligence.

DNA resembles data.

Sometimes natural signals are mistaken for data, like Pulsars first were.

If we see organized, specific data, based on abductive reasoning (see Karl Popper), we should assume intelligence, not natural processes, based on prior experience and observation, since there is no precedence for otherwise.

Note: this is not the same as data mutating as it is being copied or exposed to environmental pressure; but the origin point of the data itself.

By the way, somebody did the Monkey to William Shakespeare Writings experiment with 5 monkeys.

Here is the first draft:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090318143423/http://www.vivaria.net/experiments/notes/publication/NOTES_EN.pdf

Note this experiment already assumes the existence of English language, specific English characters, and the existence of typewriters all arising naturally in order for the typing process to begin.

richwicks says

Well I went to public school and became dogmatically atheist for a period of time simply because I felt I had been deceived for a good portion of my life, and I had a lot of evidence I was, and I still conclude I was.

I didn't have a particularly bad experience with religion, but the hypocrisy of it was just so infuriating.

Sounds like the baggage of the atheists I know whose rejection of Catholic education dogma turned them against religion. Confused inside their minds between religion (a human societal institution) and being open minded to the possibility creative design. So much baggage they cannot separate the two concepts inside their minds.

Just FYI - if you check my earliest posts on this site, you'll see I was a firm Atheist.

B.A.C.A.H. says

richwicks says

Well I went to public school and became dogmatically atheist for a period of time simply because I felt I had been deceived for a good portion of my life, and I had a lot of evidence I was, and I still conclude I was.

I didn't have a particularly bad experience with religion, but the hypocrisy of it was just so infuriating.

Sounds like the baggage of the atheists I know whose rejection of Catholic education dogma turned them against religion. Confused inside their minds between religion (a human societal institution) and being open minded to the possibility creative design. So much baggage they cannot separate the two concepts inside their minds.

You misunderstand.

I became an atheist because I thought it was a logical conclusion. If something can't be shown to exist through a test, why assume it exists? I can verify an atom exists. I can verify an electron exists. I can arrange these tests myself.

I became a strident atheist because I grew to hate the religion because I saw it as a cover for abject immorality. The pope is probably a pedophile - for example. But, if you want to be a good Catholic, make certain you donate some money so that they can do good works and other bullshit. The Catholic Church is DISGUSTINGLY rich. I hate the leaders of the religion, and maybe still do. Some of the adherents as well but 15 years ago, I'd have considered you a "sucker" and would have treated you with disdain.

I though the immorality and evil of the leaders reflected badly on the adherents. I've reconsidered that position.

richwicks says

Ever heard of an atheist talk about the "god shaped hole in their heart"? That's what they are talking about. I don't know if ALL atheists feel this

That's actually the first time I've ever heard this, and for me the answer is a decisive, "No, I don't have that." One of my earliest memories, with 22 months the upper bound by year, was my paternal grandmother's funeral which was literally the ONE time I set foot in a church till relatives started getting married 6+ years later. There had been explanations and questions earlier the gist of which was, we're going into God's house so you need to keep quiet. I was bored and fidgeting, with my gaze returning repeatedly to a small but bright stained glass window near the ceiling, the only colorful thing in a spartan room full of dour grownups all dressed in black. During a lull I piped up and pointed to the window and asked, "Is God up THERE, Mommy?"

In my 20s I certainly TRIED to explore the foundations of religion. I asked a girl out and she said sure let's go to a bible study together. She didn't even show up but I went to all 4 of what turned out to be new/curious church orientation/induction type meetings. It was interesting, but I was blunt about the parlor trick of "Hold the person's hand next to you and let God tell you what's on their mind." While the room erupted with cries of "OMG IT WORKS!" I just deadpanned to my neighbor that I didn't "hear" a thing. He acted kind of ashamed... that I didn't believe and avoided me thereafter. By the last day I was staring at the drum kit on the stage behind the podium, imagining a comedic rimshot at some of the more outlandish things the leader was saying. Of my own accord I read the bible, about many religions, dabbled in the works of Castenada (overblown IMO) and Shulgin, tried to unify shamanism, ethnobotany, messiahs and heretics; tried various psychedelics and experienced firsthand the subjective sense of a godlike omniscience in the universe, and confronted my own mortality and the meaning and permanence "firsthand" multiple times as I "died" during certain particularly bad trips.

The closest I've gotten is a subjective sense that there's SOMETHING "MORE" to the universe than what humans can routinely sense, experience, and comprehend or imagine. I don't find knowing "how do rainbows fucking work?" diminishes their beauty or my awe and wonder at seeing an especially nice one, but observe some people find this very distressing. It's like they WANT there to be a man behind that curtain pulling levers and controlling the universe, and they WANT to pay no attention to him and resent those who call for it. "Spoiling the magic" is frequently said to scientists and naturalists by supernaturalists. One of the few things I CAN say about the "something more" of the universe: If there EXIST beings so superior they are the literal progenitors of life on Earth, the religions of the planet have literally everything SO wrong that I'm embarrassed on behalf of the entire PLANET at the thought of these beings ever finding out what the religious thought up and how deeply they believe their constructs.



MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

By the way, somebody did the Monkey to William Shakespeare Writings experiment with 5 monkeys.
Note this experiment already assumes the existence of English language, specific English characters, and the existence of typewriters all arising naturally in order for the typing process to begin.

Those conditions make it kind of a poor metaphor. I think a better one is giving monkeys a bunch of lego sets, which like molecules can and easily do bond together in certain specific ways but not others, each according to their very nature. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect they'd assemble a perfect Taj Mahal, Millennium Falcon, or whatever is on the various boxes included down to the last color correct brick no matter HOW long they spent with the bricks, or that they'd even make them into abstract yet familiar to them things like representations of trees and other monkeys. I bet they WOULD relatively quickly develop things like boxes, bowls, spoons, back scratchers, and grooming pincers, and rapidly evolve them in a form follows function manner to species much like humans would set out to build given the same task and bricks. Long before they built anything complex out of them, they would start using them as trade tender for food and grooming or sexual access.

richwicks says

I used to believe in global warming, but I was frustrated that all the predictions it made were totally wrong.

Predictive value is a HUGE signal of the veracity of any data or claim. As for AGW, I consider the concept sound and evidence of effects visible. I agree the predictions of its proponents have been exasperatingly poor. I attribute this more to overselling than evidence of a sinister secret world government plot, and am personally inclined to attribute it to incompetence over malice particularly among overly enthusiastic lay proponents.


MisdemeanorRebellionNoCoupForYou says

If we see organized, specific data, based on abductive reasoning (see Karl Popper), we should assume intelligence, not natural processes, based on prior experience and observation, since there is no precedence for otherwise.

This is an interesting angle that I will remember and add to my ruminations and further inquiries into the topic. As for the underlying mathematics and statistics needed for a deep firsthand analysis, those are unabashedly out of my depth.