Abiogenesis and Probabilities

[DrNoGods]

I'm creating a new thread here to continue debate on a post made by EarthScience guy on another thread (Science and Religion > Artificial life: can it be created?, post 17). This post challenged probability calculations in an old Talkorigins article that I had linked in that thread:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/abioprob.html

Are the arguments (on creationist views) and probabilities presented reasonable in the Talkorigins article? If not, why not?

[brunumb]

Why should thise complex reaction ONLY happen in the presence of life and cease in the absence of life?

They don't happen in the presence of life. They are interconnected processes that maintain life. Remove any components or break the chain and the processes of life can no longer continue. Other processes, such as decay reactions, are able to take over. There is no magical ingredient called life that needs to be present.

[brunumb]

Either you know or you don't, can't be both. If you don't know how, you don't have the liberty to critisize any other position because you don't know your own position.

What other position am I criticising? I don't know precisely how or when abiogenesis occurred, but what I know of chemistry and the history of this planet allows me to conclude that it is possible and did indeed occur. What alternative would you suggest best explains the chemistry of life we observe?

[brunumb]

Biochemical processes are purposeful.

How and where do molecules get their purpose?

[brunumb]

Organic molecukes outside a living cell are not the same as organic molecukes inside a cell.

Of course they are. There are even machines that can be used to multiply trace amounts of DNA for use in forensic analysis. Organic molecules are based on the chemistry of carbon, with hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen being the other major component elements. If we struggle to make them without the assistance or organisms it's mainly because biological catalysts make things far easier than trying to find and use other types. It is not that there is a magical ingredient called life involved.

[brunumb]

Yes, the assumption is that everything is simple but a deep look uncovers complexity that can never be explained through natural means.

That's quite a sweeping statement. In the past I'm sure there were people who stated just as emphatically that humans would never be able to make machines that fly. What is complex to us now may be somewhat straightforward in the future. Our inability to understand something now should not be used as a criterion for unwarranted dismissal.

[brunumb]

Everything the virus does is meant to preserve its life.

Not exactly. The virus is governed by the chemistry that ensures that it replicates, not that the virus itself stays alive.

[JoeyKnothead]

Yes, the assumption is that everything is simple but a deep look uncovers complexity that can never be explained through natural means.

I'd reject the the "everything is simple" argument, as it exposes one to being unable to consider something in more unique, different, interesting, complex, or other ways.

That said, to propose that complexity can't be explained through natural means is a bit off. Sure, scientists ain't got em all the answers, but that shouldn't mean we oughta throw our hands up and declare, "Ain't ol' God there something."

[Noose001]

[Replying to benchwarmer in post #237]
Sorry but i can't engage on this.
Do you have anything else concerning abiogenesis?

[Noose001]

That's what a virus is. So you've concluded that viruses are not alive.

Nope. Viruses have some protective barrier to protect the nucleic acid from DYING.

Biochemists think it's the effects of polarized light in space. And L-forms are more UV tolerant.

Possible but still, let's assume the distribution in nature is 75% L configuration, why is life skewed toward L configuration ( more than 75%)? Is there some sorting in nature?

Again, we imagine the origin of life from a self replicating peptide, then we ask, was it a functional or structural molecule.

[Noose001]

It should be pointed out that a natural origin of life is not inconsistent with theism. This is particularly true for Christianity, since Genesis says life came from non-living material. Nor does this rule out God's role in creating life. Indeed, even anti-Darwinians like intelligent design advocates admit this much. From Nature's Destiny by Discovery Institute Fellow Michael Denton:

"t is important to emphasize at the outset that the argument presented here is entirely consistent with the basic naturalistic assumption of modern science–that the cosmos is a seamless unity which can be comprehended in its entirety by human reason and in which all phenomena, including life and evolution and the origin of man, are ultimately explicable in terms of natural processes. This is an assumption which is entirely opposed to that of the so-called “special creationist school.” According to special creationism, living organisms are not natural forms, whose origin and design were built into the laws of nature from the beginning, but rather contingent forms analogous in essence to human artifacts, the result of a series of supernatural acts, involving God’s direct intervention in the course of nature, each of which involved the suspension of natural law. Contrary to the creationist position, the whole argument presented here is critically dependent on the presumption of the unbroken continuity of the organic world–that is, on the reality of organic evolution and on the presumption that all living organisms on earth are natural forms in the profoundest sense of the word, no less natural than salt crystals, atoms, waterfalls, or galaxies.

In large measure, therefore, the teleological argument presented here and the special creationist worldview are mutually exclusive accounts of the world. In the last analysis, evidence for one is evidence against the other. Put simply, the more convincing is the evidence for believing that the world is prefabricated to the end of life, that the design is built into the laws of nature, the less credible becomes the special creationist worldview."

Nope. God creates through men. Materialism is an illusion.