Life depends on matter, energy, and information

[Sparhafoc]

Have you got anything in your rhetorical arsenal aside from quote-mining and Gish Gallops?

Paradoxes in the origin of life. 2015 Jan 22 Benner SA1.
http://sci-hub.tw/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25608919

Steve Benner is the founder and president of the Westheimer Corporation, a private research organization, and a prior Harvard University professor. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on abiogenesis. This is his evaluation of what he has observed:

We are now 60 years into the modern era of prebiotic chemistry. That era has produced tens of thousands of papers attempting to define processes by which “molecules that look like biology” might arise from “molecules that do not look like biology” …. For the most part, these papers report “success” in the sense that those papers define the term…. And yet, the problem remains unsolved.

You could've just typed 'no'.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Why do you not permit the evidence to lead where it does, namely design? I can only guess, emotional reasons. Science leads to God.

Laughably inept.

How does the evidence lead to an immaterial, invisible, time-less entity which exists outside the universe?

Pull the other one Otangelo, it's got bells on it.

 

[rationalist]

Laughably inept.

How does the evidence lead to an immaterial, invisible, time-less entity which exists outside the universe?

Pull the other one Otangelo, it's got bells on it.

Ah. The argument from incredulity.
Is the universe contingent, or necessary?

 

[*SD*]

Stop trolling otangelo, I think it's quite clear you're on thin ice.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Ah. The argument from incredulity.
Is the universe contingent, or necessary?

Argument from incredulity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Argument from incredulity, also known as argument from personal incredulity or appeal to common sense,[1] is a fallacy in informal logic. It asserts that a proposition must be false because it contradicts one's personal expectations or beliefs, or is difficult to imagine.

Arguments from incredulity can take the form:

1. I cannot imagine how F could be true; therefore F must be false.
2. I cannot imagine how F could be false; therefore F must be true.[2]

What I wrote is:

How does the evidence lead to an immaterial, invisible, time-less entity which exists outside the universe?

That's clearly a question directed to you for you to provide a substantive answer. There is no component therein which remotely suggests I am forwarding any argument, let alone an argument from incredulity.


And yes, I've ignored your attempted distraction rehashing a cosmological argument. That's what happens when you refuse to engage in honest discourse. Wave your hands around and list as many fallacy labels as you like, but if you refuse to answer a question directed to you, then I am hardly about to start jumping hoops for you. Much like the Gish Gallop rhetorical tactic you keep employing, it seems your primary interest is to get other people to run around answering your questions, but not to offer anything substantive yourself. This is most commonly employed by people who pretend they know what they're talking about, but subconsciously are aware they'll show themselves up if they ever actually try to actually explain what it is they purport to be discussing.

 

[rationalist]

Argument from incredulity - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What I wrote is:



That's clearly a question directed to you for you to provide a substantive answer. There is no component therein which remotely suggests I am forwarding any argument, let alone an argument from incredulity.


And yes, I've ignored your attempted distraction rehashing a cosmological argument. That's what happens when you refuse to engage in honest discourse. Wave your hands around and list as many fallacy labels as you like, but if you refuse to answer a question directed to you, then I am hardly about to start jumping hoops for you. Much like the Gish Gallop rhetorical tactic you keep employing, it seems your primary interest is to get other people to run around answering your questions, but not to offer anything substantive yourself. This is most commonly employed by people who pretend they know what they're talking about, but subconsciously are aware they'll show themselves up if they ever actually try to actually explain what it is they purport to be discussing.

Well, that's actually a very easy question to answer. We are moving goal posts. But whatever.


1. Either the universe is eternal, or it began from nothing by nothing, or it was created by a creator.
2. The universe is not past eternal.
3. The present moment cannot be reached by adding individual events together from eternity.
4. The second law of thermodynamics refutes the hypothesis of an eternal universe.
5. The universe cannot start from nothing.
6. Viirtual particles do not come from nothing. They depend on a quantum vacuum, a state with the lowest possible energy.
7. Where did THAT energy come from ?
8. The universe had a beginning, therefore a cause
9. That cause must be timeless, spaceless, and personal. We call it God.

Aquinas showed us that the attributes of a true God are logically deduced. Properties of the first cause:

1. Supernatural in nature, (As it exists outside and beyond of the natural physical universe),
2. Uncaused, beginningless, and eternal (self-existent, as it exists without a cause, outside of time and space, besides the fact that infinite regress of causes is impossible. ),
3. Omnipresent & all-knowing (It created space and is not limited by it),
4. Changeless ( Change depends on physical being )
5. Timeless ( Without physical events, there can be no time, and time began with the Big Bang )
6. Immaterial (Because He transcends space and created matter),
7. Spaceless ( Since it created space)
8. Personal (The impersonal can’t create personality, and only a personal, free agent can cause a change from a changeless state )
9. Enormously Powerful ( Since it brought the entire universe, space-time and matter into existence )
10. Necessary (As everything else depends on it),
11. Absolutely independent and self-existent ( It does not depend on a higher causal agency to exist otherwise there would be infinite regress which is impossible )
12. Infinite and singular (As you cannot have two infinities),
13. Diverse yet has unity (As all multiplicity implies a prior singularity),
14. Intelligent (Supremely, to create everything, in special language, complexity, factories and machines),
15. Purposeful (As it deliberately created everything with goals in mind),

An agent endowed with free will can have a determination in a timeless dimension to operate causally at a (first) moment of time and thereby to produce a temporally first effect

1. God is supernatural in nature Acts 17:24-25
2. God is uncaused, beginningless, and eternal 1 Timothy 1:17
3. God is omnipresent & all-knowing Psalm 139:7-12; Jeremiah 23:24
4. God is unchanging Malachi 3:6
5. God is immaterial (spirit) John 4:24
6. God is personal John 4:24, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Isaiah 25:1, Isaiah 63:7, Psalm 78:1, 1 Chronicles 16:8, Micah 4:12, Job 29:4, 2 Corinthians 13:14
7. God is enormously Powerful Genesis 17:1
8. God is timeless Revelation 1:8
9. God is necessary Genesis 1:1
10. God is omniscient ( All-knowing ) Psalm 147:4-5
11. God is absolutely independent and self-existent Isaiah 46:9
12. God is One, yet He exists in three persons Matthew 3:16-17
13. God is extraordinarily intelligent Jeremiah 32:17
14. God is all-understanding Psalm 147:5
15. God is purposeful

 

[Sparhafoc]

1. Either the universe is eternal, or it began from nothing by nothing, or it was created by a creator.

False premise.

Also, what you've written doesn't even remotely attempt to respond to my question.

How does the evidence lead to an immaterial, invisible, time-less entity which exists outside the universe?

Not: How can you construct an argument (actually, a series of assertions) to declare the existence of an immaterial, invisible, time-less entity which exists outside the universe?

 

[Sparhafoc]

Why do you not permit the evidence to lead where it does, namely design?

This is the original contention I challenged.

I am supposed to 'permit the evidence to lead' - so I've asked how evidence can lead to something definitionally non-evident, and what have I received?

Distraction and non-sequiturs.

Now you're attempting to argue for your proposition, whereas you've claimed that the evidence points to your conclusion.

If you are unwilling or unable to respond to my question, then we can instead go straight to the purported evidence. Present that evidence.

Are we now going to have another distraction equivocating what 'evidence' means?

 

[rationalist]

This is the original contention I challenged.

I am supposed to 'permit the evidence to lead' - so I've asked how evidence can lead to something definitionally non-evident, and what have I received?

Distraction and non-sequiturs.

Now you're attempting to argue for your proposition, whereas you've claimed that the evidence points to your conclusion.

If you are unwilling or unable to respond to my question, then we can instead go straight to the purported evidence. Present that evidence.

Are we now going to have another distraction equivocating what 'evidence' means?

If the evidence leads to design or not, is ENTIRELY irrelevant to the point i am making.

Claim: The distinction of operational science vs historical science was made up by creationists, but does not exist in science.
Reply: Methodological naturalism is the framework upon which operational science performs empirical tests and attempts to elucidate and explain how natural things work and operate. Historical science asks a different question, namely how things occurred in the past. Historical science draws its data from records of past events, as opposed to "experimental" or "operational" science. It uses the knowledge that is already currently known to tell the story of what happened in the past. While it is justified to limit possible explanations related to operational science to methodological naturalism, since things operate in nature without supernatural intervention, in regards of origins, there is no justification to limit the possible explanations only to natural ones. While random, unguided natural events is a possible explanation of origins, so is intelligent design, or

Either the physical universe and all in it emerged by a lucky accident, spontaneously through self-organization by unguided natural events in an orderly manner without external direction, purely physicodynamic processes and reactions, or through the direct intervention and creative force of an intelligent agency, a powerful creator. Excluding a priori, one possible explanation leads undoubtedly to bad inferences and bad science.

When we see a bicycle, and never saw one before: the question: How does it work, and what is its function? will give us entirely different answers, then: What made the bicycle and how was it made?

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Historical_and_operational_science
"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology, and archaeology. "Historical science" covers the Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution, and nebular hypothesis

"Operational science" is a term for any science that "deals with testing and verifying ideas.

Historical science, experimental science, and the scientific method
Historical research is sometimes said to be inferior to experimental research. Using examples from diverse historical disciplines, this paper demonstrates that such claims are misguided.
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/81ca/78baf41581a70ddf0af3115ea8255aace4fb.pdf

RICHARD LEWONTIN
January 9, 1997
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.

 

[rationalist]

False premise.

Also, what you've written doesn't even remotely attempt to respond to my question.



Not: How can you construct an argument (actually, a series of assertions) to declare the existence of an immaterial, invisible, time-less entity which exists outside the universe?

Well, be my guest, and give another option, besides the three.

 

[ldmitruk]

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Historical_and_operational_science
"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology, and archaeology. "Historical science" covers the Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution, and nebular hypothesis

"Operational science" is a term for any science that "deals with testing and verifying ideas.

You missed the important bit:

"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology and archaeology. Creationists often misuse the term by applying it to any science that "interpret evidence from the past and includes the models of evolution and special creation".[1] "Historical science" covers those sciences which creationists have complaints about, such the Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution and nebular hypothesis,

and which they see as the opposite of operational or experimental science.

"Operational science" (not to be confused with Operations research

) is a term coined by creationists for any science that "deals with testing and verifying ideas in the present and leads to the production of useful products like computers, cars, and satellites."[2]. (Compare the safer topics of applied science[3] - or, indeed, technology.[4])

The fabled scientific consensus does not regard the term "Operational science" or the creationist understanding of "Historical science" as valid scientific terminology, and these heresies primarily appear in arguments presented by creationists about whether ideas such as Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution and nebular hypothesis

are really scientific. As Bill Nye pointed out when debating Ken Ham, even Ken Ham admits that the distinction is entirely a creationist invention, and no scientist not on the Answers in Genesis (AiG) payroll agrees with him about it.

 

[rationalist]

The fabled scientific consensus does not regard the term "Operational science" or the creationist understanding of "Historical science" as valid scientific terminology,

That's false.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Historical_and_operational_science
"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology, and archaeology. "Historical science" covers the Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution, and nebular hypothesis

"Operational science" is a term for any science that "deals with testing and verifying ideas.

International Committee of Historical Sciences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_Historical_Sciences
The International Committee of Historical Sciences / Comité international des Sciences historiques (ICHS / CISH) is the international association of historical scholarship. It was established as a non-governmental organization in Geneva on May 14, 1926.[1] It is composed of national committees and international affiliated organizations devoted to research and to scholarly publication in all areas of historical study. There are currently 51 national committees and 30 international associations members of the CISH.

http://simplyphilosophy.org/methodological-naturalism-science-and-history/
The first difference is that historical study is a matter of probability. Any and all historical theories are supported by evidence that is not deductive in nature. We might consider them to be inferences to the best explanation, or Bayesian probabilities but they cannot be deductions. historical theories are not based on experiments, – repeatable or otherwise – nor are historical theories subject to empirical verification. The evidence for a historical theory may be empirical, but the theory itself is not. These differences mean that one cannot simply treat science and history as similar disciplines.

Stephen Meyer, Darwin's Doubt pg.162:
Studies in the philosophy of science show that successful explanations in historical sciences such as evolutionary biology need to provide “causally adequate” explanations—that is, explanations that cite a cause or mechanism capable of producing the effect in question. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin repeatedly attempted to show that his theory satisfied this criterion, which was then called the vera causa (or “true cause”) criterion. In the third chapter of the Origin, for example, he sought to demonstrate the causal adequacy of natural selection by drawing analogies between it and the power of animal breeding and by extrapolating from observed instances of small-scale evolutionary change over short periods of time.

“Methodological naturalism destroys the truth-seeking purpose of science, dooming it as a game with an arbitrarily restricted set of possible outcomes.” Dr. Paul Nelson

 

[ldmitruk]

That's false.
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Historical_and_operational_science
"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology, and archaeology. "Historical science" covers the Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution, and nebular hypothesis

"Operational science" is a term for any science that "deals with testing and verifying ideas.

You're quote mining Rational Wiki, the full citation as I posted above is:

"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology and archaeology. Creationists often misuse the term by applying it to any science that "interpret evidence from the past and includes the models of evolution and special creation"."Historical science" covers those sciences which creationists have complaints about, such the Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution and nebular hypothesis, and which they see as the opposite of operational or experimental science.

"Operational science" (not to be confused with Operations research) is a term coined by creationists for any science that "deals with testing and verifying ideas in the present and leads to the production of useful products like computers, cars, and satellites." (Compare the safer topics of applied science - or, indeed, technology.)

The fabled scientific consensus does not regard the term "Operational science" or the creationist understanding of "Historical science" as valid scientific terminology, and these heresies primarily appear in arguments presented by creationists about whether ideas such as Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution and nebular hypothesis are really scientific. As Bill Nye pointed out when debating Ken Ham, even Ken Ham admits that the distinction is entirely a creationist invention, and no scientist not on the Answers in Genesis (AiG) payroll agrees with him about it.

 

[ldmitruk]

That's false.
<snip>

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Committee_of_Historical_Sciences
The International Committee of Historical Sciences / Comité international des Sciences historiques (ICHS / CISH) is the international association of historical scholarship. It was established as a non-governmental organization in Geneva on May 14, 1926.[1] It is composed of national committees and international affiliated organizations devoted to research and to scholarly publication in all areas of historical study. There are currently 51 national committees and 30 international associations members of the CISH.

Upon checking out the ICHS/CISH website it turns out The International Committee of Historical Sciences is about the study of history as a science. Check out the proceedings from one of the symposiums they hosted, there is nothing in it that even resembles so called "historical science".

 

[rationalist]

You're quote mining Rational Wiki, the full citation as I posted above is:

Historical science - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

• Any science that draws its data from records of past events, as opposed to "experimental" or "operational" science

I don't even know why this is in dispute. Historical sciences ask how things came to be. Operational science, how things work. Where is the problem?

 

[We are Borg]

The fabled scientific consensus does not regard the term "Operational science" or the creationist understanding of "Historical science" as valid scientific terminology, and these heresies primarily appear in arguments presented by creationists about whether ideas such as Big Bang, geologic timeline, abiogenesis, evolution and nebular hypothesis Wikipedia are really scientific. As Bill Nye pointed out when debating Ken Ham, even Ken Ham admits that the distinction is entirely a creationist invention, and no scientist not on the Answers in Genesis (AiG) payroll agrees with him about it.

Historical and operational science

"Historical science" is a term used to describe sciences in which data is provided primarily from past events and for which there is usually no direct experimental data, such as cosmology, astronomy, astrophysics, geology, paleontology, archaeology, and the sub-field of geology known as...

rationalwiki.org

Because you are trying to misrepresent science.

 

[HereticSin]

Life depends on the structural complex arrangement using

- matter
- energy
- information


Prove that.
Bet you can't.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Historical science - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

• Any science that draws its data from records of past events, as opposed to "experimental" or "operational" science

I don't even know why this is in dispute. Historical sciences ask how things came to be. Operational science, how things work. Where is the problem?

A manufactured distinction that doesn't stand up to even a moment's rational scrutiny.

According to your definition ALL science is 'historical' because ALL science draws its data from records of past events.

However, of course, ALL science is amenable to experimentation NOW, so of course, according to your inane regurgitation of propaganda, ALL science is also operational.

What a wet fart that amounts to.

 

[Sparhafoc]

If the evidence leads to design or not, is ENTIRELY irrelevant to the point i am making.

Entirely the point you WANT to make, but when given the spotlight to produce some substance, you started with the gymnastics.

I've challenged this twice, and you've immediately launched into extended non-sequiturs.

The evidence factually does not lead to design. Quite the contrary - biological systems exhibit no suggestion whatsoever of design, and evidence shows how slow, halting, and unplanned the evolution of species and morphology actually is.

Design is a working assumption that produces a bias in the information you seek. You're engaged in methodological question-begging.

I know very well how to actually test designedness - it's actually part of my field, and there are objective criteria that you or anyone else could learn and could test against objects of known provenance. We call these 'metrics'.

So no more fucking about with all these absurd obfuscations because I am not in the slightest bit distracted. Cite the metrics of biological designedness and we will test them right here together on this forum, and I will show you how I.D. is terminally absent substance and credibility.

 

[Sparhafoc]

Because you are trying to misrepresent science.

Because that's all that Creationism actually is.: anti-science religious fundamentalism.

And it's absurd beyond absurd. Even if some scientific finding is shown wrong, that doesn't mean 'God did it' suddenly becomes the truth. 'God did it' is a failed contention regardless.