34 Comments

Brian
July 18th, 2011 | 10:32 am

“Most people who comment on the cosmological argument demonstrably do not know what they are talking about. This includes all the prominent New Atheist writers.”

Um, duh. Based on their writings Dawkins, Hitchens, et al. have never had a conversation with an actual religious person, Christian or otherwise. What would make anyone suspect that they’ve actually put any serious effort into trying to educate themselves on a quite esoteric philosophical subject?

Ray Ingles
July 18th, 2011 | 12:07 pm

To quote Anthony Gottleib:

For example, when Terry Eagleton, a British critic who has been a professor of English at Oxford, lambasted Dawkins’s “The God Delusion” in the London Review of Books, he wrote that “card-carrying rationalists” like Dawkins “invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince.” That is unfair, because millions of the faithful around the world believe things that would make a first-year theology student wince. A large survey in 2001 found that more than half of American Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Presbyterians believed that Jesus sinned—thus rejecting a central dogma of their own churches.

Addressing the common versions that the majority of believers actually relate and respond to is entirely legitimate.

I’ve also noted that a lot of the “New Atheists” do in fact address a lot of common theological objections, they just don’t use traditional theological or philosophical terms. Dawkins addresses things like ontological simplicity (e.g. on page 149 of my copy, where he discusses Swinburne), or eternity (implicitly) in the section on multiverses.

That’s not to say that there aren’t more-or-less sophisticated versions of the cosmological argument. But those aren’t the ones that most people in the pews worry about.

harry
July 18th, 2011 | 1:45 pm

Edward Feser wrote:

Tyler Burge opines that “materialism is not established, or even clearly supported, by science” and that its hold over his peers is analogous to that of a “political or religious ideology” (“Mind-Body Causation and Explanatory Practice,” in John Heil and Alfred Mele, eds., Mental Causation, p. 117)

John Searle tells us that “materialism is the religion of our time,” that “like more traditional religions, it is accepted without question and… provides the framework within which other questions can be posed, addressed, and answered,” and that “materialists are convinced, with a quasi-religious faith, that their view must be right” (Mind: A Brief Introduction, p. 48)

It seems to me that if the generalization of the application of the second law of thermodynamics is valid in terms of the determination of the likelihood of life on Earth having come about mindlessly and accidentally, then the existence of the supernatural cannot be reasonably denied.

It is commonly argued that the spectacular increase in order which has occurred on Earth does not violate the second law of thermodynamics because the Earth is an open system, and anything can happen in an open system as long as the entropy increases outside the system compensate the entropy decreases inside the system. However, if we define “X-entropy” to be the entropy associated with any diffusing component X (for example, X might be heat), and, since entropy measures disorder, “X-order” to be the negative of X-entropy, a closer look at the equations for entropy change shows that they not only say that the X-order cannot increase in a closed system, but that they also say that in an open system the X-order cannot increase faster than it is imported through the boundary. Thus the equations for entropy change do not support the illogical “compensation” idea; instead, they illustrate the tautology that “if an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is closed, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely improbable”. Thus, unless we are willing to argue that the influx of solar energy into the Earth makes the appearance of spaceships, computers and the Internet not extremely improbable, we have to conclude that the second law has in fact been violated here.
– Granville Sewell ( http://www.math.utep.edu/Faculty/sewell/AML_3497.pdf )

If the natural Universe itself is a closed system, which it must be if it is all there is, then entropy cannot decrease significantly within it. The exception to this is life on Earth, which demonstrates a spectacular increase in order within the Universe. This is particularly demonstrated by the human brain, which currently appears to be the most ordered and functionally complex phenomenon in the Universe, the nanotechnology of which is light years beyond the complexity of any technology created by Man. Yet if the Universe is a closed system there is no natural explanation for this dramatic exception. The only explanation is a supernatural violation of the second law.

If one then concludes that the natural Universe must somehow be an open system since the increase in order exhibited by life on Earth is inexplicable otherwise, then such spectacular increases in order must have been imported into it from outside the system. By definition anything outside the “system” that is the natural Universe is supernatural.

So, either way, if this application of the second law is appropriate, the inclusion of the supernatural is required in the explanation for life on Earth. Is there a reason for its generalization not being considered valid other than that indicated in Feser’s citations?

Mary
July 18th, 2011 | 1:50 pm

Is asking why there are still apes around after humans evolved unfair because millions of believers in evolution around the world believe things that would make a first-year biology student wince?

Ray Ingles
July 18th, 2011 | 2:02 pm

Harry –


…since entropy measures disorder…

That’s the problem right there. “Entropy” is – in some ways – analogous to disorder, but it is not identical with disorder. Indeed, it’s definitely not identical with all the connotations of ‘disorder’ as used in colloquial English.

Insofar as the second law of thermodynamics applies to evolution, the calculations here should be interesting: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/11/entropy_and_evolution.php

“To spell it out, there’s about a trillion times more entropy flux available than is required for evolution. The degree by which earth’s entropy is reduced by the action of evolutionary processes is miniscule relative to the amount that the entropy of the cosmic microwave background is increased.”

David Nickol
July 18th, 2011 | 2:05 pm

I do think it is reasonable, if a “New Atheist,” or anyone else, purports to criticize an argument, that he or she should have a clear knowledge of the argument and make a clear argument against it. I do not, however, think the “New Atheists,” or anyone else, should be expected to know and refute all arguments ever made about God and his existence. We tend to admire “simple faith” that is not shaken by catastrophe or intellectual arguments. I don’t see any reason why “simple unbelief” should be any more negatively regarded than “simple faith.” If I am going to deny the validity of the cosmological argument, I better know my stuff. However, if I am going to say I am not interested in alleged rational proofs for the existence of God, I don’t feel obliged to grapple with the cosmological argument and make a compelling case that it is unconvincing.

harry
July 18th, 2011 | 2:22 pm

Hi, David Nickol,

OK. So explain to me why “the influx of solar energy into the Earth makes the appearance of spaceships, computers and the Internet not extremely improbable.” ;o)

harry
July 18th, 2011 | 2:29 pm

Closer to the topic at hand than was my previous post, I thought Feser was extremely interesting and informative.

Thanks, Mr. Carter, for bringing his blog to our attention.

harry
July 18th, 2011 | 2:39 pm

oops. I meant that request for an explanation to got to Ray Ingles, not David Nickols.

Dave "Dblade" Dutcher
July 18th, 2011 | 3:22 pm

David:

When it’s used to attack simple faith is the problem. Once you try and convince someone else, there’s a higher standard. This is the same for witnessing to others as a Christian.

However, I think Mr. Feser should focus more on disseminating correct arguments in layman-friendly terms. Ray has a point; they can’t argue against something that isn’t out there.

Fred
July 18th, 2011 | 3:33 pm

@Ray 12:07

I’ve heard that argument before (from my own brother no less). But it doesn’t wash. What if I argued, Some simpletons believe the silly idea that Darwin said humans evolved from monkeys. Isn’t Darwinism silly? You would, rightfully, say “B.S. That’s not what Darwin said at all. The fact that some people believe silly things about Darwin doesn’t make him silly.” Why is that argument available to unbelievers but not believers?

Ye Olde Statistician
July 18th, 2011 | 4:56 pm

@David
An atheist, new, old, or middle-aged, is perfectly free to not believe in God. (Although they tend to disbelieve in free will, too.)

They only need to know the argument thoroughly if they are claiming to rebut it, or claiming that it makes not sense, or that is it silly, and things like that.

IOW, were they content to say, “When I was nine years old, I just *knew* there was no God,” no one would ask if they knew the distinction between per se and per accidens.

But if they say, “The Cosmological Argument does not hold water,” then they really ought to not argue from ignorance.

David Nickol
July 18th, 2011 | 5:26 pm

But if they say, “The Cosmological Argument does not hold water,” then they really ought to not argue from ignorance.

Ye Olde Statistician,

I agree, but I do feel it would be legitimate to note that there is no general agreement that the “proofs” for the existence of God actually prove God’s existence. It seems to me that people study the proofs for the existence of God to decide for themselves whether they find them convincing. If an argument were really a proof—in the way that mathematical proofs are proofs—one couldn’t understand it without accepting it. If I were either a “New Atheist” or someone trying to argue against them, I would direct my energies elsewhere.

Thomas Aquinas
July 18th, 2011 | 6:51 pm

Ray writes: “Addressing the common versions that the majority of believers actually relate and respond to is entirely legitimate.”

Unfortunately, Ray, the New Atheists portray their tomes as definitive critiques of theism and Christianity in particular. If they had, let’s say, called their works something like this–”The God Delusion (as believed by simple folks)”–then you’d have a point. But when Dawkins trots his “critique” of Aquinas’ five ways, it is embarrassing.

You clearly do not give the same break to simpleton creationists who get evolutionary biology wrong. So, in the name of equity, you should either give the same deference to creationists or extend the whip to punish the straw-man making atheists. But you simply cannot have it both ways.

Ray Ingles
July 18th, 2011 | 11:21 pm

Fred –


Why is that argument available to unbelievers but not believers?

Part of the reason is that evolution is a whole lot simpler to grasp than (advanced forms of) the Cosmological Argument.

As Fesser himself states: “I’m not going to present and defend any version of the cosmological argument here… it needs to be done at length rather than in the context of a blog post. The reason is that, while the basic structure of the main versions of the argument is fairly simple, the background metaphysics necessary to a proper understanding of the key terms and inferences is not.”

Whereas the basic concepts of evolution (reproduction with occasional errors, differential survival) are simple enough to go over in a blog post. The way they are combined to generate the insight Darwin and others have had is counterintuitive, but not beyond the grasp of any high-schooler or above.

Now, if one wants to get into details like the controversy over group selection, you might need some lengthy study in population genetics. But to get the basic gist of evolution, you don’t need a lengthy introduction to the terminology and application of Aristotelian metaphysics.

Ray Ingles
July 18th, 2011 | 11:30 pm

Harry –


So explain to me why “the influx of solar energy into the Earth makes the appearance of spaceships, computers and the Internet not extremely improbable.”

Those things are improbable. You got me.

Oh, wait, no you don’t. It’s not like we haven’t gone over this before. Heck, twice.

Specific results can be improbable even when general results aren’t. Even given the existence of a particular four people, two men and two women, the odds of them coming together in pairs and producing a particular man and woman, and then the odds of those two coming together and producing you, are extremely small.

On the other hand, the odds that they’d produce somebody are pretty darn good.

The odds that spaceships, computers, and the Internet would exist in their current forms given just the primordial Earth and sunlight are vanishingly small. Abiogenesis isn’t a solved problem – it’s possible that life arising on Earth was exceedingly unlikely.

But once life appeared, second law calculations are no barrier to evolution eventually producing a tool-using species.

Even then, it’s not totally clear that life arising was all that improbable. I’ve discussed that with you before, too.

Clarifying the cosmological argument | Cranach: The Blog of Veith
July 19th, 2011 | 6:01 am

[...] HT:  Joe Carter [...]

Tuesday Highlights | Pseudo-Polymath
July 19th, 2011 | 9:23 am

[...] The cosmological argument for God (HT: Mr Carter). [...]

harry
July 19th, 2011 | 11:27 am

Hi, Ray,

Thanks for those links. I enjoyed going back over those old discussions.

You have avoided addressing Sewell’s point that “… the equations for entropy change do not support the illogical ‘compensation’ idea; instead, they illustrate the tautology that ‘if an increase in order is extremely improbable when a system is closed, it is still extremely improbable when the system is open, unless something is entering which makes it not extremely improbable’”.

You wrote:

Specific results can be improbable even when general results aren’t. Even given the existence of a particular four people, two men and two women, the odds of them coming together in pairs and producing a particular man and woman, and then the odds of those two coming together and producing you, are extremely small.

On the other hand, the odds that they’d produce somebody are pretty darn good.

If a coin were flipped a thousand times, whatever sequence of heads and tails that took place would be extremely improbable in that it would be very unlikely that we could get that same sequence again. Some improbable sequence had to occur. The odds of our getting some sequence or another was more than “pretty darn good.” It was inevitable. Even so, it is still unreasonable to conclude that no factor other than mindless chance and the laws of physics were involved if a “true” coin is flipped a thousand times and we get heads a thousand times in a row. It would be reasonable to conclude that the coin tosses had somehow been intelligently “doctored.” It is far more unreasonable to conclude that life came about mindlessly and accidentally than it is to conclude that getting heads each time in a thousand sequential coin tosses was just luck.

You wrote:

Abiogenesis isn’t a solved problem – it’s possible that life arising on Earth was exceedingly unlikely.

It’s just possible that it was exceedingly unlikely? It was in fact exceedingly unlikely (to the point of virtual impossibility) for life to have come about mindlessly and accidentally. The odds of getting our coin flipping to result in heads a thousand times in a row (a relatively simple project compared to coming up with life mindlessly and accidentally) are one in 10715086071862673209484250490600018105614048117055336074437503883703510511249361224931983788156958581275946729175531468251871452856923140435984577574698574803934567774824230985421074605062371141877954182153046474983581941267398767559165543946077062914571196477686542167660
429831652624386837205668069376. (Yeah, I could have just typed 2^1000, but that doesn’t have the same visual effect. ;o)

Life is vastly more complex than the configuration of 1000 elements with two possible, equally likely states, each element being in the correct state, and it is vastly more unlikely that it came about mindlessly and accidentally without any intelligent “doctoring” of the situation.

Life coming about accidentally would be working against the inexorability of the second law at each small, incremental step of the way. Things fall apart, not self-assemble. If a tornado accidentally assembled something that might pass for a crude dwelling, the next one doesn’t add central heat and air – it destroys what was there. This tendency to increased entropy is there whether each step is large or very small. The second law inexorably moves matter towards a more probable state. The most probable state of matter is definitely not highly ordered functional complexity. Aside from the spectacular exception that is life, the entire observable Universe attests to this fact.

Even if the very improbable happens, that is, units of lifeless replication somehow get going naturally, the odds are that the improbable environment that allows for that will be quickly destroyed instead of lasting long enough for “natural selection” of slight modifications taking place during the replication process to incrementally assemble anything approaching the complexity of life. P.T. Mora, a senior research biologist at the National Institutes of Health, seemed to realize this when he wrote an article published in Nature in 1963 (cited in Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell):

To invoke statistical concepts, probability and complexity to account for the origin and the continuance of life is not felicitous or sufficient. As the complexity of a molecular aggregate increases, and indeed very complex arrangements and interrelationships of molecules are necessary for the simplest living unit, the probability of its existence under the disruptive and random influence of physico-chemical forces decreases; the probability that it will continue to function in a certain way, for example, to absorb and repair, will be even lower; and the probability that it will reproduce, still lower. Statistical considerations, probability, complexity, etc., followed to their logical implications suggest that the origin and continuance of life is not controlled by such principles. An admission of this is the use of a period of practically infinite time to obtain the derived result. Using such logic, however, we can prove anything … When in statistical processes, the probability is so low that for practical purposes infinite time must elapse for the occurrence of an event, statistical explanation is not helpful.

The intervention of an intelligent agent is the only reasonable explanation we currently have. If the probability is so low that for all practical purposes infinite time must elapse for the occurrence of that first reproducing life form to take place then it is virtually impossible for it to have happened mindlessly and accidentally in the limited time available.

Or, as Stephen Meyer puts it:

Recall that the probability of producing a single 150-amino-acid functional protein by chance stands at about 1 in 10^164. Thus, for each functional sequence of 150 amino acids, there are at least 10^164 other possible nonfunctional sequences of the same length. Therefore, to have a good (i.e., better than 50-50) chance of producing a single functional protein of this length by chance, a random process would have to generate (or sample) more than one-half of the 10^164 nonfunctional sequences corresponding to each functional sequence of that length. Unfortunately, that number vastly exceeds the most optimistic estimate of the probabilistic resources of the entire universe – that is, the number of events that could have occurred since the beginning of its existence.

An old man at a gas station was asked for directions. He intently considered the matter for a long minute as he silently scratched his chin. He then announced that “You can’t get there from here.” I can understand why that old man’s opinion was not accepted, yet it seems to this old man that you just can’t naturally and mindlessly get to the highly ordered functional complexity of life on Earth from lifeless matter in the limited time available. Even if the math did support it, which it certainly doesn’t, you still have the second law inexorably working against it, always undoing any slight progress that is made in that direction. It is simply unreasonable to conclude that what is mathematically virtually impossible in the first place, not only happened anyway but did so in spite of the opposition of an inexorable force working against it.

It is far more likely that the arrival of life on Earth involved the supernatural. That is not a God-of-the-gaps argument. That is a conclusion drawn from seeing clearly the absurdity of a naturalism-of-the-gaps assumption that it had to have happened mindlessly. See Feser’s citations I mentioned earlier.

Ye Olde Statistician
July 19th, 2011 | 2:56 pm

When something is so exceedingly unlikely, the simplest explanation is that it really did happen by sheer chance. That is why Aquinas did not argue from improbability, but from the common course of nature; that is, from the existence of natural laws. He wrote: “We marvel at something when, seeing an effect, we do not know the cause. And since one and the same cause is at times known to certain people and not to others, it happens that some marvel and some do not.” (Contra gentiles)

God told the earth to bring forth the living kinds, and Augustine said that this must be understood causally: that the earth (i.e., nature) received the power to do so. When Aquinas mentioned in passing the possible emergence of new species, he supposed that it would be due to “powers that the elements received in the beginning.” That is, to natural causes.

There being no law without a lawmaker, he regarded the existence of natural laws (in his “fifth way” argument) as evidence for God, not apparent exceptions at which we marvel but some may one day not. Thus, to the extent that Darwin’s theory is a scientific law of nature rather than a tautology, it would be evidence for God’s existence.

harry
July 19th, 2011 | 11:08 pm

Hello, Ye Olde Statistician,

I am fan of yours. I always enjoy your posts.

I am inclined to agree with you, but with a few qualifications and additional thoughts.

… For what can be known about God is perfectly plain to them since God himself has made it plain. Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and deity – however invisible – have been there for the mind to see in the things he has made. …
– Romans 1:19-20

Yes, naturally stupid are all men who have not known God and who, from the good things that are seen, have not been able to discover Him-who-is, or, by studying the works, have failed to recognize the Artificer. If, charmed by their beauty, they have taken things for gods, let them know how much the Lord of these excels them, since the very Author of beauty has created them. And if they have been impressed by their power and energy, let them deduce from these how much mightier is he that has formed them, since through the grandeur and beauty of the creatures we may, by analogy, contemplate their Author.

– Wisdom 13:1,3-5

I believe that. I think those capable of objectivity know intuitively that the natural Universe is not all there is. The ability to perceive that has been intentionally built into us. God’s creation does indeed display His everlasting power an deity, and, however invisible they may be, they are still there for the mind to contemplate in the things He has made.

You wrote:

When something is so exceedingly unlikely, the simplest explanation is that it really did happen by sheer chance.

Chance from our perspective only. Chance and randomness are concepts that were necessary for finite minds to construct. The can be no such things for One Who is omniscient. No event or series of events, however improbable they may appear to us, or however insignificant, right down to the motions and interactions of every last sub-atomic particle, are surprising or unexpected events for God. What appears to us to be “exceedingly unlikely” was completely expected and inevitable from God’s perspective. (Inevitable except for those things brought about by our genuinely free will.)

As you pointed out:

That is why Aquinas did not argue from improbability, but from the common course of nature; that is, from the existence of natural laws.

If life was an entirely natural occurrence, its coming about being a (very well hidden!) possibility inherent in the nature of things at the very beginning, then the eventual arrival of life in the natural Universe speaks volumes about the omnipotence and omniscience of the One who authored the Universe such that life was a possibility. (A “possibility” from our perspective – an inevitability from God’s perspective. He wasn’t surprised by it, if it happened He intended it.) In this sense I would agree with you that an evolutionary theory could be become “evidence for God’s existence,” but that will still be based upon an understanding that the Universe coming about at all, and its being capable of bringing forth life, didn’t happen mindlessly and accidentally. So, arguing from the common course of nature is fine, but for the existence of nature itself, one must still argue from improbability, or rather, from the impossibility of the natural Universe having anything but a supernatural origin, and the impossibility of its having the potential to bring about life being the result of a mindless accident.

The central issue to me is that, regardless of whether life was the result of natural processes that took place over billions of years, or whether it was the result of periodic supernatural interventions after the Universe began, it should be evident to objective minds that it was not and couldn’t have been the result of mindless accidents – supernatural involvement was required, however it came about.

I like to think life is actually the result of periodic supernatural interventions for a couple of reasons. First, the Scriptures describe creation as having happened in stages. Secondly, because the evidence tends to support that. I am thinking of the sudden appearance of life forms without any predecessors as is indicated by the fossil record of the Cambrian explosion. Again, I don’t really care that much about how God brought about life. What matters to me is that it should be evident that He did it and that it wouldn’t have happened otherwise. In my first post above I made the case for the reasonableness of the proposition that the involvement of the supernatural is a necessary factor in life having coming about.

Ye Olde Statistician
July 20th, 2011 | 11:06 am

“Chance from our perspective only. Chance and randomness are concepts that were necessary for finite minds to construct.”

Aye, and some people contend that chance somehow “falsifies” causation. They confuse “caused” with “determined,” and “chance” with “unpredictable” and therefore suppose it to be “uncaused.” But chance is the intersection of two [or more] causal world-lines, and there is no reason to even suppose a causal relation in place of concatenation. To do so is divination and belief in magic and omens. I have always liked the example of the man brained by a falling hammer.

1. The man walks to lunch, and because of that is passing a certain building at a particular time. Everything in his walk is caused – by his own decisions or by the natural laws regulating, say, the timer of the stoplights.

2. The hammer falls because: the geometry of its position on the rooftop caused it to be nudged by the workman’s foot as he rose to get his own lunch. It slid down the roof in accordance with the laws of inclined planes, coefficients of friction, etc. It free-fell when it reached the edge because of gravity. It achieved a level of kinetic energy in accordance with the physical laws governing mass, velocity, and gravity.

3. The man died *because* he was brained by the hammer.

That it was unlikely, unpredictable, and undetermined had nothing to do with it being “uncaused.”
+ + +
“I like to think life is actually the result of periodic supernatural interventions…”

God looked on all that he had created and saw that it was good. At the very least, “good” means that everything in nature “works.”

The supernatural interventions are not magic tricks and not periodic, but are continuous maintenance of all things – including the laws of nature – in existence. Miracles are reserved for important matters, like bread and wine. I’m not going to tell God he cannot work a miracle by using a natural law, or even a previously unsuspected loophole in what we currently believe that natural law to be. The miracle doesn’t lie in the “magic trick” anyway.

harry
July 20th, 2011 | 12:27 pm

Hello, Ye Olde Statistician,

A quick thought.

You wrote:

The supernatural interventions are not magic tricks and not periodic, but are continuous maintenance of all things – including the laws of nature – in existence.

I say “periodic” because it appears to us as an intervention after the Universe began. God exists outside of time. What looks to us like an intervention after the beginning is not so for God, for Whom both past and future are immediately present. His “continuous maintenance of all things” is a maintenance of the past, present and future equally. He arranges for some of His continuous maintenance to be “in the past” from our perspective, and to me, to appear to be periodic supernatural intervention.

And I certainly agree that the essence of the miraculous does not lie in what may appear to be a “magic trick.”

Ray Ingles
July 20th, 2011 | 5:58 pm

Harry –


Even so, it is still unreasonable to conclude that no factor other than mindless chance and the laws of physics were involved if a “true” coin is flipped a thousand times and we get heads a thousand times in a row. It would be reasonable to conclude that the coin tosses had somehow been intelligently “doctored.”

Well, actually, the first possibility to look at is that the coin is not actually “true”.

But you know, I’m actually glad you brought up this example! I made the explicit point before that ‘entropy’ doesn’t mean ‘disorder’ in thermodynamics. And it sure doesn’t mean that in information theory!

In information theory, the ‘all heads’ coin toss series has low entropy – which means low information content. Whereas a more ‘random’ series has very high information content. If intelligent intervention is involved in your example, it’s actually lowering the amount of information generated!

That’s part of the reason why you have to be really really really careful when you try to do any “generalization of the application of the second law of thermodynamics”. It just doesn’t mean “things get more disorganized” in any kind of ‘design’ sense. It means ‘things get more disorganized’ in the sense of ‘energy to do work becomes progressively less available’ – and only that.

It’s why snowflakes (lower entropy) can form from water vapor (higher entropy) – because the heat can be radiated to the lower-entropy environment of space.

I’ve addressed P.T. Mora’s claim on October 5th, 2010 | 11:08 am, with “Current models of abiogenesis take the approach that some very simple self-replicating system got going (e.g. auto-catalyzing RNA, Cairns-Smith’s clay crystals, etc.) which then, via some form of mutation plus natural selection, grew increasingly complex.” – so Mora’s ‘simplest living unit’ may well be a lot simpler than he supposed.

Or October 9th, 2010 | 11:14 pm, where I note we keep finding things that make the origin of life less unlikely. “Like how as water freezes, it concentrates chemicals and produces long chains of amino acids. And as it thaws, it allows those chemicals to mix again. And if frozen again, new mixes occur…”

And I note something about Stephen Meyer’s words: “Thus, for each functional sequence of 150 amino acids, there are at least 10^164 other possible nonfunctional sequences of the same length…”

How exactly does he know every other sequence is ‘nonfunctional’? Research today on how ‘sparse’ the functional space of proteins might be doesn’t support that – many sequences can support the same function, at varying levels of effectiveness. Especially when the fact that variations can be co-opted to perform different, novel functions is taken into account, this model is hopelessly inadequate.

harry
July 21st, 2011 | 3:22 am

Hi, Ray,

You wrote:

How exactly does he know every other sequence is ‘nonfunctional’? Research today on how ‘sparse’ the functional space of proteins might be doesn’t support that – many sequences can support the same function, at varying levels of effectiveness. Especially when the fact that variations can be co-opted to perform different, novel functions is taken into account, this model is hopelessly inadequate.

Come on, Ray, give me a break. Think about what Meyer is saying. Read it again. Let’s say he is way off and the use of only half of the number of events that could have occurred since the Universe began would be enough to come up with a single 150-amino-acid functional protein. Does that solve the problem? It is not like life is only a single protein. The complexity of life is light years beyond that and we have already used up half of our probabilistic resources coming up with a single protein. It should be easy to see that the situation is far, far worse for the nature-is-all-there-is crowd than Meyer indicated.

harry
July 21st, 2011 | 12:13 pm

Hi, Ray,

As for the generalization of the application of the second law of thermodynamics, its essence is that matter tends to end up in its most probable state, and if it isn’t there it tends towards that state whenever the restraints to it being there are removed. It is painfully obvious that the most probable state of matter is not highly ordered functional complexity. Aside from the spectacular exception to this which is life, the entire observable Universe testifies to this fact.

There are, for all practical purposes, an infinite number of arrangements of matter that are not life. Coming up with life, as we discussed before, is like getting heads a thousand times in a row when flipping a coin – only much more spectacular not only because it is vastly more unlikely, but also because it would be in spite of the second law continually working against that happening. As unlikely as our getting heads a thousand times in a row turned out to be, that was still without a force inexorably working against that happening.

Ray Ingles
July 21st, 2011 | 1:41 pm

harry –


Let’s say he is way off and the use of only half of the number of events that could have occurred since the Universe began would be enough to come up with a single 150-amino-acid functional protein.

Ah, but wait a second – are you going to claim that 150-amino-acid proteins (essentially) never have any function? That they are (almost universally) completely inert molecules that in no way interact with their environment?

‘Cause we keep finding more and more reasons to think that there were plenty of long-chain-molecules around – not just proteins, but RNA molecules and more. And, again, we’ve found that autocatalytic chemical cycles are indeed possible – even with just RNA, no proteins needed.

And, of course, evolution doesn’t start from scratch each time. Once reproduction of some kind gets started, it proceeds by tweaks from there. If there’s a molecule that does even a half-ass job at some function, then occasional mutations can nudge it to a more optimized form.

Not only that, but we see how gene duplication indicates that a molecule that performs one function well can evolve and diverge to perform some other function well, so long as the starting point has any utility at all at that new function.

It’s a key mistake that often gets made – humans break things down into discrete components that perform a single function. It’s so much easier to think about. But part of the reason life is “light years beyond that” is because evolution doesn’t have to operate with the constraint of single-function components. Practically everything in a living organism serves more than one purpose. There aren’t a whole lot of proteins that have just one function. Molecules and structures get co-opted all the time to perform other jobs.

So the question isn’t “How unlikely is one specific 150-amino-acid protein?” The question is, “Given untold quintillions of proteins of varying lengths… how likely is it that none of them will be in any way functional?”

If you’ll give me half the life of the universe to get that pool of macromolecules… the more we look, the more it looks like that’s all we need.

harry
July 21st, 2011 | 5:30 pm

Hi, Ray,

You wrote:

Ah, but wait a second – are you going to claim that 150-amino-acid proteins (essentially) never have any function? That they are (almost universally) completely inert molecules that in no way interact with their environment?

OK, let’s say that the required supernatural miracle actually happens and we come up with a 150-amino-acid protein that would actually have some kind of functionality given an appropriate context. Let’s say (again miraculously) that our protein does indeed find itself in an appropriate context. Then let’s say (again miraculously) that its functionality is not destructive or neutral, but is actually beneficial in terms of keeping the replication of our lifeless, replicating unit going, the emergence of which was miraculous. The environment that allows that replication to continue, of course, is another ongoing miracle. What are we to conclude from all this supernatural activity? What I have been saying all along: You can’t get life without the involvement of the supernatural.

harry
July 22nd, 2011 | 4:56 pm

Hi, Ray,

It seems to me that there is now, for the most part, a consensus that the natural Universe had a beginning. It should be obvious that this requires it to have had a supernatural origin, since there was nothing natural around to bring it about before the natural Universe began. One could say a ‘singularity’ had been there from all eternity, but why would it suddenly go “BANG!” after an eternity? Whatever laws that had kept it from doing so for an eternity were suddenly not applicable? That would be like gravity suddenly not working anymore, only far more unlikely as gravity has only been doing its thing for a finite amount of time and our singularity would have been there for an eternity. It seems to me to be far more likely that our singularity was brought forth specifically to go “BANG!” by a preexisting, supernatural reality – and supernatural it would, of course, have to be since it precedes nature. Except, I suppose, for people who actually worry that gravity might stop working, it seems like most reasonable people would, and indeed have, gone with the preexisting supernatural reality rather than the eternally existing singularity that suddenly and inexplicably popped. In other words, most people believe in God.

Regardless of that question, there was in fact a “BANG!” and matter was brought forth and did and continues to do exactly what we would expect, which is of course, to always end up in its most probable state under the current circumstances. What else would it do? At this point what we should expect are the most probable events and phenomena coming about according to the laws that had been built into nature. This turned out to be a lot of dust and debris from the “BANG!”, some of it coalescing into things like stars and rocky, barren planets and some other interesting things, but none of it coalesced into things like television sets or space ships. Why didn’t that happen? There were no transistor radios. Not even circuit boards that might have been functional if they, by chance, got plugged into the right object. There was not even a crude vacuum tube to be found anywhere. No computers – not even an abacus. What was the problem? Or should we expect that there are yet to be discovered things like that in the Universe that were not intelligently designed? I don’t think so and I don’t think you think so. Let me know if I am wrong about that.

The question is then, why is that not a reasonable expectation? And if it is not, then how can it be reasonable to expect that the extremely improbable, if not virtually impossible, vastly more functionally complex technology found in life is simply a mindless accident? It seems far more likely it was the intended result of the same supernatural reality behind the Big Bang.

I know. Replication, like duct tape, takes care of nearly everything, right? If a prebiotic environment that allows for units of replication naturally came about , and allows for slight modifications in that replication that occasionally enhance the likelihood of continued replication, then there are no limits to the amount of functional complexity that can be achieved, right? Wrong. The more intricate functionality becomes the easier it is for it to break. The more complex the functionality of those units of replication becomes, the more those units demand of their environment to sustain their functional complexity and the ability to replicate that functionality. So if the replication is bringing about increased functional complexity, what is continually enhancing the environment such that it continues to support the ever more intricate requirements of our replicating units? Was the prebiotic environment always ready to support life? We know otherwise. Replication may have been mindlessly increasing functional complexity in that prebiotic world (although I doubt that, at least not mindlessly), but what mindless process was continually enhancing the ability of the environment to support that increasing intricacy? It seems unlikely that anything was. On the contrary, because a prebiotic environment coming up with and allowing for self replicating units of matter to continue replicating would be an aberration – matter ordered other than in its most probable state – the only process working on that environment would have been the second law destroying it.

Coming up with life seems to be a hopelessly impossible project, unless of course, our preexisting supernatural reality intended on that happening and either made arrangements for that that were quite mysteriously built into the Universe from the beginning, or, being playful, supernaturally intervened every now and then simply because He enjoyed doing that.

Ray Ingles
July 24th, 2011 | 11:12 pm

Harry –


Coming up with life, as we discussed before, is like getting heads a thousand times in a row when flipping a coin

What if you only need, say, five in a row to start with? And then when a head comes up, now and again, it attaches itself to the sequence?

That’s the thing, and we’ve been over it. Things “like television sets… space ships… transistor radios… circuit boards… crude vacuum tube[s]… computers” don’t reproduce with occasional errors.

Functionality can develop in that case. It can ‘rachet up’ in stages. And if it’s possible that a reproducing system can be simple enough to get started by chance – and autocatalytic systems sure look more and more like they are – then it doesn’t need intelligent intervention to get started.

Ray Ingles
July 25th, 2011 | 8:23 am

Harry –


It seems to me that there is now, for the most part, a consensus that the natural Universe had a beginning.

No, actually, we’ve only managed to ‘reverse engineer’ what happened as far back as a few femtoseconds after the Big Bang. Before that point, our models break down.

What that means is that we don’t – yet – have a handle on what happened before that point. We don’t know that there was a singularity, or a brane collision, or what.

We used to wonder where mountains came from. Then continents. Then we worked out how the solar system formed from a nebula. Then we worked out how galaxies form. We keep pushing further back. It’s not at all clear that the Big Bang is the ‘final frontier’.

One could say a ‘singularity’ had been there from all eternity, but why would it suddenly go “BANG!” after an eternity? Whatever laws that had kept it from doing so for an eternity were suddenly not applicable?

Well, actually… so far as we can tell that’s more or less what happens with radioactive decay. Uranium has a half-life of about four an a half billion years. A uranium atom can just sit around, nothing happening, for many billions of years… and then suddenly, for no particular reason, fission. Things are weird at the quantum level.

Modeling anything the size of the early universe must take quantum effects into account. So while I don’t particularly think it’s likely that an eternal singularity just spontaneously blew up… that’s not a good argument against it.

Ray Ingles
July 25th, 2011 | 8:50 am

Harry –


The more intricate functionality becomes the easier it is for it to break.

Not necessarily. That’s a good rule of thumb but it’s not universally true. As a simple example, a triple-redundant system is inarguably more complex than a system without redundancy, but is nevertheless more reliable.

The more complex the functionality of those units of replication becomes, the more those units demand of their environment to sustain their functional complexity and the ability to replicate that functionality.

Vitamin C.

Many types of simians retain the ability to synthesize ascorbic acid (vitamin C) but humans are in the other group that does not. We have to get it from our diet, or we get scurvy.

But so long as we eat a varied diet, we get enough. It’s no big deal unless you go on a restricted diet for a few months (hence the incidence of scurvy on ship voyages).

Now, this argues against your point – because synthesizing vitamin C was important at one point, but became less so. Eventually, it wasn’t needed at all – there was so much vitamin C around that a mutation that ‘knocked out’ the gene for synthesizing it became neutral, not affecting survival much either way. It could have been retained, had it remained necessary.

…what is continually enhancing the environment such that it continues to support the ever more intricate requirements of our replicating units?

The other replicating units, of course. Google up the ‘oxygen catastrophe’. Indeed, the kind of life that lived several billion years ago couldn’t survive the Earth now… and vice versa. We require an entirely different environment now – an oxygenated atmosphere being only one obvious example – because of the feedback loop of life altering its own surroundings.

harry
July 25th, 2011 | 1:49 pm

Hi, Ray,

I thoroughly enjoy discussing these matters with you. I have to give you credit for being doggedly persistent in defending your views.

I don’t know when I will get back to this discussion. I hope it will be before too long. Check this thread every now and then — don’t give up on me. ;o)

Thanks

Ray Ingles
July 27th, 2011 | 8:03 am

Harry, I’ll check in. I hope YOS does, too, ’cause I’d like to address something he said a while back:


There being no law without a lawmaker…

Bertrand Russel had some wise words on that topic: “…the whole idea that natural laws imply a lawgiver is due to a confusion between natural and human laws. Human laws are behests commanding you to behave a certain way, in which you may choose to behave, or you may choose not to behave; but natural laws are a description of how things do in fact behave…” (Emphasis added.)

“Natural laws” represent our best current understanding, that’s all.

I mean, why do electrons have a particular mass or charge? Because we call objects with those particular properties ‘electrons’! We don’t find electrons with the same mass and a positive charge – we find positrons. If we find an object with a larger mass and an inverted charge, we haven’t found a particularly wicked and unruly electron – we’ve found a proton.

I don’t see any “value add” with the notion that electrons have to be actively maintained by God to hold their particular values… though apparently Richard Swinburne seems to think so, for one.

The problem is, each time we’ve been able to press down into underlying causes, it’s turned up like water. “Of course water freezes like that – given how electron valences behave, and those dipole moments, how could it not?” Not because of a ‘law’ – a “behest”, in Russell’s terms – but because of the nature of things at the underlying level. Even electrons have those properties, apparently, because of quantum mechanics, not a tiny tablet with “Thou shalt not have a spin other than 1/2″ written on it.