On Sun, 17 Mar 1996 00:08:41 -0500 you wrote:
>SJ>I find it interesting that scientific research into a naturalistic
>origin of life has been unsuccessful for 83 years...when does
>dogged persistence become obsessive folly?...103 years? :-)
>BH>Hmm... Inquiries into the supernaturalistic origins of life,
>how long have they been going on and with what success? :-).
>SJ>What "inquiries"? The "supernaturalistic origins of life" is a
>revealed truth of the Bible (Jn 5:26).
>BH>Sorry, I thought for some reason that we were talking about
>scientific evidence.
>SJ:We were - "scientific research into a naturalistic origin of
>life has been unsuccessful for 83 years". There has been no
>scientific research into a supernaturalistic origin of life AFAIK.
BH>Why?
Brian, whether you realise it or not, you are evading the point! :-)
Naturalism has a monopoly of the scientific resources of the State at
its disposal and denies that there even "a supernaturalistic
origins of life" can be a subject for "scientific research".
I repeat my question, "when does dogged persistence become obsessive
folly?". Is taxpayers money to be squandered forever in trying to
prove that life originated spontaneously from non-living chemicals?
>SJ> But if the naturalistic program to find a plausible undirected
>materialistic spontaneous generation scenario for the origin of life
>consistently fails, does this not leave a supernaturalistic
>ntelligent Designer origin the only alternative?
BH>No, this is the argument from the false alternative.
Why is this "false"? There can only be two alternatives: 1.
naturalistic and 2. supernaturalistic. This is proved by your own
counter-attack to my point:
SJ>I find it interesting that scientific research into a
naturalistic origin of life has been unsuccessful for 83 years
BH>"...Inquiries into the supernaturalistic origins of life,
how long have they been going on and with what success?
If the naturalistic alternative fails, then that leaves only the
naturalistic alternative.
>BH>Are we in agreement that the supernaturalistic origins of life
>cannot be verified by scientific methods?
>SJ>No. It may be that "the supernaturalistic origins of life" *can
>be* "verified by scientific methods". But it is just ruled out of
>court apriori by materialist-naturalistic science.
BH>Or perhaps it is because there are no scientific methods for
>detecting the supernatural?
This remains to be seen. It has never seriously been tried. Science
just rules it out apriori. Bill Dembski ( Moreland J.P. ed., "The
Creation Hypothesis", Inter Varsity Press: Downers Grove Ill., 1994,
p122ff) gives a thought experiment concerning an "Incredible Talking
Pulsar" which shows how the a "supernatural" source could be detected.
>SJ>My point was that "scientific research into a naturalistic origin
>of life has been unsuccessful for 83 years" and "when does dogged
>persistence become obsessive folly?" Johnson writes:
BH>And my point is that you seem to want to play with a stacked deck,
>Miller and his cohorts suffering from the extreme disadvantage
>that their ideas can be tested. If they fail you want to claim
>this as your success. But it isn't. Their failure is their failure,
>that's all. If you want ID to be successful you need to come up
>with a model and then put it to the test.
Disagree. These are just the rules that naturalists make, which
theists need not play. There is no "stacked deck". Naturalists are
entitled to the first go at trying to prove there was a naturalistic
origin of life. If they succeed then they win. But if they fail,
then such failure is automatic support for theism.
Jesus regularly appealed to the fact that His works exhausted a
naturalistic explanation and therefore were of supernatural origin:
"Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does. But if I
do it, even though you do not believe me, believe the
miracles, that you may know and understand that the Father is
in me, and I in the Father." (Jn 10:37-38)
"Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the
Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the
miracles themselves." (Jn 14:11)
On naturalism's rules, Jesus could never prove His supernatural
origin.
BH>In the end notes of RitB, Johnson quotes Arthur Shapiro as
>follows:
>
> I can see Science in the year 2000 running a major feature
> article on the spread of theistic science as a parallel
> scientific culture. I can see interviews with the leading
> figures in history and philosophy of science about how and
> why this happened. For the moment, the authors of _The Creation
> Hypothesis_ are realisticaUy defensive. They know their way
> of looking at the world will not he generally accepted and
> that they will be restricted for a while to their own journals.
> They also know that they will he under intense pressure to
> demonstrate respectability by weeding out crackpots, kooks
> and purveyors of young-earth snake oil. If they are successful,
> the day will come when the editorial board of Science will
> convene in emergency session to decide what to do about a
> paper which is of the highest quality and utterly unexceptionable,
> of great and broad interest, and which proceeds from the prior
> assumption of intelligent design. For a preview of that crisis,
> you should read this hook. Of course, if you are smug enough
> to think "theistic science" is an oxymoron, you won't.
> -- Arthur Shapiro in _Creation/Evolution_, quoted by P.
> Johnson, _Reason in the Balance_, p. 239.
>
>This is a truly amazing prediction !! :-). For this to happen it
>will necessary to quit the argument from the false alternative,
>stop all this talk of cover-ups and conspiracies and get to work
>on that "paper which is of the highest quality and utterly
>unexceptionable, of great and broad interest, and which proceeds
>from the prior assumption of intelligent design".
Here we go again! :-) I said nothing about "cover-ups and
conspiracies", and I don't believe it is a " false alternative".
Shapiro automatically assumes that "theistic science" is the
alternatiive to "naturalistic science". And you don't seem to notice
Shapiro's caveat:
"Of course, if you are smug enough to think "theistic science"
is an oxymoron, you won't."
The point is that "theistic science" will *never* get an article in
Nature until naturalists change their philosphy that nature is all
there is.
>SJ>Once it is admitted that the "origin of life" did not happen by
>"chance", then there is no justification for believe that it was
>"evolution" that "began after the origin of life". It could just as
>easily have been progressive creation, ie. an Intelligent Designer
>guiding and controlling an "evolutionary" process in furtherance of a
>purpose.
>BH>Sorry, I don't understand this line of reasoning at all.
The point is that if the origin of life did not happen by chance, then
it must have happened by intelligent design:
"The more statistically improbable a thing is, the less can we
believe that it just happened by blind chance. Superficially
the obvious alternative to chance is an intelligent Designer."
(Dawkins R., "The Necessity of Darwinism, New Scientist, 15
April 1982, p130)
If the origin of life was by intelligent design, then it is at least
possible that the same Intelligent Designer guided and controlled the
devlopment of that same life by an "evolutionary" process in
furtherance of a purpose. Further, that guidance and control may have
included direct, supernatural intervention at strategic points, as
well as more subtle working through natural laws.
>SJ>If the intervantion of an Intelligent Designer was necessary for
>the origin of life, such intervention cannot be ruled out in the
>development of that same life.
BH>The realization that the origin of life did not occur by chance
>does not in any way suggest that the intervention of an Intelligent
>Designer was necessary. Would we agree that the orbit of the earth
>about the sun is not determined by chance? Does this require the
>intervention of an Intelligent Designer?
The "orbit of the earth" is not a unique, historical event, life the
origin of life was. You are confusing *origins* with *operations*! :-)
>SJ>That's OK, but let's not lose the main point here. Why has not
>Loeb been given his rightful priority? Why is the Miller-Urey
>experiment still hailed in school textbooks as the beginning of OOL
>research? If this goes on much longer, then it is hard to avoid the
>charge of a "cover up" to avoid providing support for creationism, as
>Gould acknowledges does happen:
BH> "Lie down before you hurt yourself"
> -- Timone to Poombah, <The Lion King> :-)
>
>Really, Steve, I find your response to this Loeb business most
>surprising and very disturbing.
Why? I thought science made a big thing about being self-correcting?
Would you not expect that if science is self-correcting, then in the
not to distant future Loeb will be given priority? If Loeb is *never*
given priority and the textbooks *forever* keep falsely claiming that
Miller was the first to synthesise amino acids from gases, then what
would you call it?
BH>First of all, who performed the
>first prebiotic experiment and when it was performed has absolutely
>nothing to do with "support for creationism".
Disagree. If the first prebiotic experiment was performed in 1913,
not 1953, it means that science has been trying for 83 years to
synthesis life from non-living chemicals, but to date has failed. I
count that as "support for creationism", even if you dont. :-)
BH>Secondly, you say "If this goes on much longer ..." when it hasn't
>even gone on at all yet.
Sorry. I have re-read your post. It says that Yockey published his
paper on the Internet in February 1996:
-----------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Priority of Walther Loeb on "Miller" Spark Discharge
Experiment
(Chemical Evolution)
From: hpyockey@aol.com (HPYockey)
Date: 19 Feb 1996
-----------------------------------------------------------
For some reason I thought it was a couple of years ago. I will
await the self-correction that will give Loeb rightful priority.
Nevertheless, I find it difficult to believe that Yockey was the first
person to notice Loeb's mistranslation, considering there are many
eminent German OOL researchers who surely must have read Loeb's
report.
BH>Finally, and most importantly, you are much too quick in concluding
>a cover up. This is a very serious charge and needs to be rigorously
>substantiated. I for one fail even to find a motive for a cover up.
As I said previously, I made *no* "charge" of "a cover up." I repeat:
-----------------------------------------------------------
>SJ>I was quite careful in what I said. I said "IF THIS IS IGNORED,
>AND LOEB NOT GIVEN HIS RIGHTFUL PRIORITY", then it would seem to
>indicate that here we have a case of paradigm blindness at best and
>fraudulent cover up at worst?".
-----------------------------------------------------------
>BH>Perhaps there was a misunderstanding. I think this is a recent
>discovery on Yockey's part. I found no mention of it in his two
>recent articles in <BioEssays> and <J Theor Biol.> On p. 231 of
>his book he writes:
>
>[..]
>
>Note CO instead of CO2, so Yockey was apparently unaware of
>the mis-translation at the time his book was written.
SJ>OK. But it was known in October 1994, so why did Orgel write:
[...]
BH>Why do you think Orgel should know about this?
See above. I had been labouring under a misunderstanding, that
Yockey's discovery was before "October 1994". Sorry.
[continued]
God bless.
Steve
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