> >
> > No, it isn't; it is a scientific conclusion based on empirical fact.
>
> I can see where this argument might be going: "Yes it is! No it isn't!!
> Yes, it is!!!! No it isn't!!!!!"
>
Part of the reason why the debate is degenerating in this fashion is because
of the different way that we each approach this debate. It seems to me that
you are treating this as a philosophical debate, whereas my approach is just
the opposite. At the risk of sounding like a bullying elitist authoritarian
hell-bent on forcing you to accept his point-of-view as the only true
reality, I am not defending my own personal philosophy, but I am trying to
explain what is generally considered to be biological fact. As such, for me,
the debate is not about who has the better philosophical argument, but about
whether you are willing to believe that what I am saying is true. Because
whether you recognize it or not, this debate is the biological equivolent of
arguing over whether the sky is blue. It's all well and fine to have a
powerful philosophical argument for why the sky is not blue and cannot be
blue, but such an argument is irrelevant to the scientific fact that the sky
is indeed blue.
In essence, however, you have already answered my question above: at the end
of your last post you stated, "If science really does demonstrate what you
say it does then you would be correct, but I doubt very much that it does."
In other words, you are not willing to accept that what I say is true. That
is fine with me, but I find your reasons disturbing from a scientific point
of view.
[snip]
One reason is that you place philosophical argument over evidence and fact;
that is, you appear to be arguing that philosophical argument is more
important than fact, such that if the facts contradict philosophy, philosophy
must take precidence. For example:
>
> Let's take your example of the world revolving around the sun.
> If I spent the time, I could write down two mathematical models. One
> which described the motion of the planets in terms of a fixed sun.
> Another which described the motion of the planets and the sun in terms of
> a fixed earth. Both models would match the scientific data equally well,
> because the models would be related to each other by an invertible
> mathematical transformation.
>
According to Newtonian mechanics, for one object to hold another object in
ordit around itself, the first object must have a gravitational field
powerful enough to overcome the second object's inertia. Since the strength
of a gravitational field is proportional to mass, this means that the first
object must have a mass equal to or greater than the second object. A fixed
sun model accounts for this fact easily, because the sun is accepted to have
a mass greater than all the rest of the material in the solar system combined.
How would a fixed earth model account for this fact? There are only two ways
it can. The first is to assume the existence of a force that can counter
gravity, so that the less massive earth could hold the sun and all the rest
of the material in the solar system in orbit around it despite their far
greater inertias and gravitational strengths. Where is the evidence for such
an "antigravity" force?
The second is to assume that the sun and all the planets have a combined mass
that is equal to or less than that of the earth. This presents problems for
the sun, because it would now be too small to derive its energy from nuclear
fusion, and even gravitational contraction would not have allowed it to exist
for more than a million years. So, unless you are prepared to argue that the
age of the sun is less than one million years, your geocentric model could
not be true, no matter how philosophically or mathematically well contrived
it might be, because it would contradict what we know to be true about the
sun.
There are also other, earth-related, phenomena that cannot be accounted for
by a geocentric model, phenomena that require that the earth be spinning on
its axis. My point, however, should be clear: no matter how philosophically
"perfect" a claim is, if it contradicts known facts it should be discarded.
The question before us therefore boils down to whether you accept the facts
as real.
>
> So from a scientific viewpoint, both models are equally valid. Why do we
> choose the "sun centric" model? Well for philosophical reasons. The
> mathematical description of this model is much simpler than the "earth
> centric" model. The "sun centric" model is *nicer* in this sense and we
> use occam's razor to choose it, occam's razor being a philosophical
> principle.
>
> Now occam's razor is often a good principle to invoke, but it shouldn't be
> confused with scientific necessity. If I had good enough philosophical
> reasons for wanting to accept the "earth centric" model, then I would be
> perfectly justified in doing so. If you wanted to dispute my view then
> you would have to do so on philosophical, not scientific grounds.
>
In point of fact, all I would need to do is exactly what I did above:
present evidence that a fixed earth model cannot account for, but which a
fixed sun model can. Yet your above paragragh indicates that you would
ignore such evidence in favor of your "philosophical reasons for wanting to
accept the 'earth centric' model"; in other words, in this case at least, you
seem to be suggesting that philosophy is more important, or at least more
convincing, than physical evidence. This is what I find disturbing. At one
time the question of whether the sun or the earth was at the center of the
solar system may have been purely or largely philosophical, but not any more.
Acceptance of the heliocentric model is based on physical evidence, not
Occam's razor or any other philosophical argument.
>
> Now it just happens to be the case that I do not have philosophical
> reasons for wanting the "earth centric" model, so I am quite happy to take
> the occam's razor choice of the "sun centric" model. However I do have
> philosophical reasons for considering organism death to be not identical
> to cellular death.
>
Exactly my point. Since you place philosophical argument over physical
evidence, I doubt there is any kind of evidence I could present that would
convince you of the truth. Yet, just as the heliocentric model, or the color
of the sky, is established by physical evidence and not philosophical
argument, so too is the equality of organism death with cell death
established by physical evidence and not philosophical argument. Your
"philosophical reasons" are irrelevant in the face of physical evidence. I'm
sorry, but that is simply the way it is.
>
> From what you are saying it would seem that you wish to redefine everyday
> understanding of animal/human death. You need to therefore either
> demonstrate where this understanding conflicts with science, or present
> philosophical reasons for rejecting this understanding.
>
It is not a matter of redefining "everyday understanding of animal/human
death", but of pointing out that "everyday understanding" is wrong and needs
to be replaced by scientific definition. And you already admit that this
scientific definition conflicts with "everyday understanding", so I don't
need to demonstrate it. All that remains is whether you are willing to
accept the physical evidence that establishes the superiority of the
scientific definition over "everyday understanding" or whether you prefer to
cling to philosophical arguments that contradict known scientific fact.
[snip]
Another reason I am disturbed is your suggestion that when "other realms"
make claims about physical reality, that science cannot be used to correct
those claims. For example:
>
> Well, it's not entirely clear to me what "from a biological point of view"
> really means. But I could possibly accept that for some purposes in
> biology, viewing "organism death" to be simply "massive cellular death"
> could be a useful perspective. But this does not permit you to
> automatically translate such a perspective to other realms, for example,
> theology. When making a theological statement like "there was no animal
> death before the fall", the biological perspective you propound might not
> be appropriate.
>
Except that theology is making a claim about biological reality. As such,
the criterion for determining whether the theological claim is true is
whether it agrees with or contradicts known biological fact or theory. If we
were discussing a purely theological concept, such as whether God performed a
miracle during the Fall to change biology to its present form, then I would
agree that biological fact or theory has no place in such a discussion. But
that is not what we are discussing. We are discussing a biological
phenomenon (apoptosis) that has theological implications (death before the
Fall); as such, biological fact or theory has a very strong contribution to
the discussion. Since biological fact and theory establish that organism
death and cellular death are one and the same, the question of whether there
can be organism death independent of cellular death is moot, regardless of
the theological implications.
>
> > Besides, "everyday understanding" is not the
> > criterion by which "logical consistency" is judged, since logic can and
> > often does contradict "everyday understanding". Take the following
> > syllogism for example: All elephants are pink; Nellie is an elephant;
> > therefore Nellie must be pink. According to "everyday understanding"
> > elephants are not pink, but in fact it is logically consistent to claim
that
> > Nellie must be pink since she is an elephant and according to the
> > syllogism all elephants are pink. So if "logical consistency" can
> > contradict "everyday understanding", then "everyday understanding"
> > is not a valid method by which to determine whether a scientific
> > conclusion is logically consistent.
>
> In your example, "everyday understanding" has nothing to say about the
> logical validity of the syllogism, and so you would be right not to judge
> "logical consistency" through "everyday understanding", but this is a
> different context from the one in which I was arguing.
>
You missed my point, which was that "everyday understanding" did indeed have
something to say about the "logical validity of the syllogism", namely that
since elephants are not pink, to claim that they are invalidates the logic of
the syllogism. In other words, "everyday understanding" is being used to
determine the validity of a logical argument. You recognize in this case
that using "everyday understanding" in this fashion is inappropriate. What
you do not seem to recognize is that using "everyday understanding" in a
similar fashion to determine the validity of scientific arguments is also
inappropriate.
>
> The point I was making was that it is logically inconsistent to, on the
> one hand claim that animal/human death is the same as cellular death, and
> at the same time make real use of the more extensive everyday notion of
> animal/human death. To be consistent with your position you should refuse
> to make use of everyday notions of death, except perhaps in the process
> of pointing out that these notions are invalid. I would be very
> surprised if you did this, for example I imagine if a good friend died
> young, you would be willing to talk of his hopes and dreams dying ---
> notions not associated with cellular death.
>
This description of "logical consistency" is also inappropriate. It is in
fact perfectly consistent to accept the biological fact that organism death
and cellular death are the same while simultaneously discussing philosophical
implications of human death. The reason is because these are separate
concepts. The idea of "hopes and dreams dying" is a subjective, emotional,
philosophical concept that has no counterpart in biology, but because it has
no counterpart it also doesn't invalidate the clear biological evidence that
organism death is the same as cellular death. Hopes and dreams die when the
organism dies, but the organism doesn't die until its cells die. The fact
that "hopes and dreams dying" is not associated with cellular death is
irrelevant to the scientific question of whether cellular death is the same
as organism death.
>
> > I am not denying that the nature of death has a valid philosophical
> > component to it, but what you need to understand is that death is at its
> > most basic a biological phenomenon.
>
> I'm glad you are willing to make at least this allowance. Would it be
> then fair to say that your position is really that "the concept of
> animal/human death _mostly_ consists of the concept of cellular death"?
>
No, because what we are discussing is whether there is a biological basis for
separating organism death from cellular death. In fact there is no such
basis. The philosophical components of death are not germaine to this
question.
>
> > As such, the nature of death will be best understood from a scientific
> > point of view, not a philosophical one.
>
> As such, the philosophical component of death should be taken into account
> when trying to understand the nature of death.
>
Not if the question is a strictly biological one, as is the question we are
discussing.
>
> > You should also remember that Glenn began this thread by describing a
> > specific biological mechanism that controls when and how cells die,
> > not by describing a general philosophical principle of what he
> > believed death to be. As such, this has been a scientific discussion
> > from the start. You are attempting to interject philosophical
> > arguments into a scientific discussion; this is inappropriate because
> > in science validity is determined by empirical evidence, and there is
> > no evidentiary support for the claim that organism life is different
> > from cellular life.
>
> Glenn began this thread by discussing biological mechanisms of cellular
> death, arguing first that cellular death is an integral part of life,
> necessitating its existence before the fall, and second that therefore the
> YECs are wrong to claim there was no death before the fall. The problem
> with this argument is that many YECs I imagine (and certainly me if I were
> arguing the YEC position) would see the statement "no death before the
> fall" as referring to animal/human death, not cellular death. Glenn
> himself recognized this in his initial email and argued, unsuccessfully I
> believe, against it.
>
This does not contradict what I said. Glenn discussed a known biological
mechanism to support his argument; he did not use philosophical arguments.
My point is that you are introducing philosophical arguments into what is
essentially a scientific argument: knowing that organism death is the same
as cellular death, and knowing that there is a biological mechanism of
ontological development that depends upon cellular death, if there was no
organism death before the Fall there could be no cellular death either, and
as a result there would have been no ontological development either.
>
> The point in dispute is a philosophical one, not a scientific one, and so
> you are wrong to say that this has been a scientific discussion from the
> start. Fundamentally it is a theological discussion ("Was there death
> before the fall?") and the tools of science and philosophy have been used
> to try and tackle the question. It is certainly not a case of me trying
> to "interject philosophical arguments into a scientific discussion".
> Philosophical questions were at stake right from the beginning. By all
> means invoke science where appropriate, but science shouldn't be used to
> answer questions that science doesn't address.
>
The problem is that you are wrong. This was a scientific discussion from the
start; that it had theological overtones does not invalidate this. You have
consistently ignored the science in favor of philosophical arguments,
apparently because you feel they are more important than physical evidence.
Yet the philosophical questions are largely irrelevant and serve only to
confuse what is otherwise a straightforward issue: is organism death
independent of cellular death.
>
> > This is irrelevant to the question of what constitutes organism death.
> > The fact that collections of cells display emergent properties that are
> > not possessed by individual cells does not invalidate the conclusion
> > that the collection of cells does not die until the cells themselves die.
>
> And your conclusion is quite different from the claim that "animal/human
> death is nothing more than cellular death". You are knocking down a straw
> man.
>
On the contrary, the conclusion that the collection of cells does not die
until the cells themselves die is another way of saying that aninal/human
death is nothing more than cellular death. Fundamentally speaking, humans
and animals are collections of cells; as such, the human/animal dies when its
cells die.
It seems to me that you are the one creating a strawman. The only "evidence"
you can provide that might establish a separation between cellular death and
organism death are subjective claims about "hope and dreams". These are
simply irrelevant to the simple biological question of whether organism death
is independent of cellular death.
>
> > > These emergent properties are _produced_ by interaction of the parts,
> > > but are conceptually _distinct_ from concepts of the parts (though
> > > there are obviously relationships between the concepts).
> > >
> >
> > Again, this is a philosophical distinction, not a scientific one. In
> > biology, emergent properties occur because the individual cells have
some
> > common property that, when magnified by cooperative interaction, is able
> > to produce affects that appear to be greater than the sum of the parts.
In
> > other words, the emergent properties exist because the parts possess
> > properties that are (to use your term) conceptually equivolent to the
> > emergent property.
>
> But the emergent property is usually not conceptually equivalent to a
> cellular property. For starters the emergent property is "emergent"
> whereas the cellular property won't be (or at least, not emergent in the
> same way) --- this is a conceptual difference. There may well be strong
> relationships between the two properties, but this is different to
> equivalence.
>
Again, you are making a philosophical distinction, not a biological one. In
biology the "emergent" property and the cellular property that creates the
"emergent" property ARE conceptually equivolent; if they were not, the latter
could not cause the former.
>
> > The heart as an organ acts as a pump because the individual cardiac
> > cells are able to contract on their own; muscles are able to move limbs
> > because each cell possesses the molecular machinery needed to perform
> > mechanical work; the liver as an organ is able to regulate and
> > participate in digestion because each of its cells are tiny chemical
> > factories; the brain as a whole can think because each cell possesses
> > the electrochemical capabilities that make thought possible. The
> > individual cells may not possess the properties exhibited by the whole
> > organ, but they must have properties that are conceptually equivolent,
> > otherwise the organ would not have its unique emergent properties.
>
> The concept of cardiac cell contraction is _related_ to the concept of
> heart pumping, but the concepts are _different_. It is not enough for a
> biology student to read about cardiac cell contraction if they want to
> understand the heart. No, they will also read about other concepts which
> are exhibited by the heart as a whole. The relatedness of concepts is
> different from equivalence.
>
Again, you are ignoring the simple biological fact that, without cells that
can contract, the heart cannot act as a pump, regardless of what other
"concepts" you may invoke. As such, biologically speaking, heart pumping and
cardiac cell contraction must be conceptually equivolent.
I realize that you are not used to thinking in this way, but your
philosophical conceptualization is inappropriate in this case, and until you
recognize that, there can be no progress in our discussion.
>
> > As I explained above, for an organism to have the emergent property you
> > wish to define as organism death, its parts must have a conceptually
> > equivolent property, in this case cellular death. The concepts cannot be
> > distinct, otherwise massive cellular death would have no affect on
organism
> > death.
>
> You are misunderstanding my usage of the word "distinct". I am not using
> it in the sense of "totally separate in every way". I am using it in the
> sense of "able to be distinguished from", that is, the concepts are not
> the same in all respects, there are differences. I would have hoped that
> my observation that the "concepts are related" made my usage of the word
> clear. Of course massive cellular death has an affect on organism death,
> as I have stated many times.
>
In point of fact, I did not misunderstand your use of the term "distinct"; I
am simply using it in the most appropriate fashion for this discussion. Your
basic argument is that there is a (philosophical) difference between organism
death and cellular death. I am trying to explain that in fact there is no
**biological** difference between organism death and cellular death, and that
your attempts to introduce inappropriate philosophical differences creates
contradictions with known fact, such as the implication that an organism
could suffer massive cellular without itself dying. You may not intend that
implication, but it is a logical exptrapolation from your argument. Even the
way you phrase it -- "massive cellular death has an affect on organism death"
-- is misleading and reinforces the implied conclusion. The simple
biological fact is that massive cellular death does not have merely an affect
on organism death, it is the direct cause of organism death.
>
> > Again, all the evidence we have demonstrates that life in general is
> > conceptually equivolent to the biological processes that produce it.
> > Otherwise, it would be possible to cease biological processes without
> > stopping life, or to stop life without stopping biological processes.
>
> Again, conceptual distinction is not the same thing as total conceptual
> independence. Just because life on this planet requires biological
> processes --- ie there are relationships between the concept of life and
> the concepts of biological processes --- doesn't mean they are
> conceptually equal.
>
In biology it does; in fact it must, otherwise biology makes no sense without
adding in some form of vitalistic philosophy. That is the point you keep
missing.
>
> > Since the concepts of organism life as we currently know them are
> > intimately tied to the physiochemical laws as we currently know them,
> > different physiochemical laws would produce a different kind of life
> > from what it is now. The questions would then be, what evidence is
> > there that life was different from what it is now at some time in the
past;
> > how different was it; what caused it to change into its present form; and
> > what evidence is there that such a change ever took place?
>
> It is not clear that _all_ different physiochemical laws would produce a
> different kind of life. It is certainly clear that _many_ different
> physiochemical laws would, but that doesn't negate the possibility that
> there exists a different set of laws which do give rise to the same kind
> of life.
>
This introduces the final reason why I find you rejection of biological fact
disturbing, namely that you miscomprehend what science is all about. For
example, as the conversation continued:
>
> > The evidence we have demonstrates that a different set of physiochemical
> > laws ("machine language") would produce a different kind of life
> > ("wordprocessor") from what we have now. What evidence do you have
> > that contradicts this?
>
> Do you really have this evidence? Do you know how many possible
> physiochemical laws there are? Do you know how many of them would
> definately produce a different kind of life?
>
You seem to indicate that, unless we understand everything about a
phenomenon, we cannot make any general claims about it. That is simply not
the case. The purpose of science is to establish general principles, then
test the limits of those principles. Since no one can know all the possible
limits of a principle at any given time, we must at some point decide we know
enough to be confident that the principle is true in general. The possible
existence of unknown limitations does not invalidate the principle, but it is
the responsibility of those who believe these limitations exist to "prove"
their existence; it is not the responsibility of those you accept the
principle as generally valid to "disprove" their existence.
>
> When I say "I imagine" such a set of physiochemical laws could exist, I am
> really saying that, I have yet to see evidence demonstrating that such a
> set couldn't exist, or even that such a set is unlikely to exist.
>
Take for example this current discussion. The evidence we have establishes
the general principle that different physiochemical laws will produce
different forms of life. The fact that we have not yet tested every possible
contingency does not invalidate the validity of this principle. Nor can you
claim that, therefore, a set of different physiochemical laws that could
create organism life "distinct" (as you mean the term) from cellular life
must, or even could, exist. If you truly believe that such a set did exist,
you must validate that belief with evidence, otherwise your belief is little
more than wishful thinking.. To simply sit back and demand that other people
must demonstrate that you are wrong is in turn refusing to follow the
scientific method.
In any event, until evidence is discovered to the contrary, you can believe
what you like, but what you believe is scientifically invalid.
>
> I will conceed that the clean abstraction levels on computers, are not
> nearly so clean in biology. It is easier to imagine a completely
> different set of physiochemical laws that gave rise to _similar_ notions
> of life, than it is to imagine one that gave rise to _identical_ notions
> of life, though I certainly don't rule out the latter.
>
Again, though, unless you have evidence to support your belief, it has no
scientific relevance.
>
> > Like what? Simply suggesting that "some more complicated series of
> > changes" might work is insufficient to support your case; you need to
> > propose what kind of changes might do the trick, and you need to cite
> > evidence that supports your claim that these changes could occur and
> > that they would produce the results you imagine they would. Right now
> > all you are doing is speculating blindly, but this does not invalidate
known
> > scientific fact, and known scientific fact demonstrates that any such
> > changes would either produce disasterous results or create a form of life
> > fundamentally different from what we know it to currently be like.
>
> If science really does demonstrate what you say it does then you would be
> correct, but I doubt very much that it does. I doubt that scientists have
> been able to conceive every possible physiochemistry, let alone examine
> all of their effects.
>
Again, they do not need to do that to validate a general principle. If you
truly believe this general principle is wrong, or at least inapplicable in a
specific case, **YOU** need to provide evidence of that. Everything else is
just blind speculation.
Since you are reluctant to accept known biological fact and theory as being
valid in this case, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. You may have
the last word if you wish. All I ask is that you consider the possibility
that biology just might be more valid in this case than your philosophical
speculations.
Kevin L. O'Brien