Life From Dirt?

[Aupmanyav]

Science can make guesses, hypotheses, but would not commit to something for which it does not have a Sigma 6 evidence.
"Processes that operate with "six sigma quality" over the short term are assumed to produce long-term defect levels "below 3.4 defects per million opportunities" (DPMO)." - Six Sigma - Wikipedia

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It's a question that science is looking into but with eyes that can only see evidence for how bodies might have evolved from atoms.

No. Science does not assume the outcomes. Science doesn't pretend to have the answers before asking the question. The scientific method is not the practice of trying to paint the bullseye around the arrow. That's what religion does. You have even acknowledged as much in your other post, where you LITERALLY said "I don't know how the universe originated; there are no discoveries on which I base my belief but I believe god dun it".

So you have assumed your conclusion already. Any discovery, hypothesis, theory, experiment, what-have-you that results in a different answer then the one you have pre-determined, will always be rejected by you by default.

This is literally a tenant of your religious belief. You don't know but you believe X anyway. You have decided X is accurate, without investigating, without asking the question, without properly exploring the question. You have predetermined your answer.

Science on the other hand, investigates the evidence and lets the evidence lead it to the answer.
It's not the fault of science that there is only evidence of natural processes and no evidence leading to any supernatural shenanigans.

Biology is complex carbon based chemistry, organic chemistry, and as I said, that is all about life that science can see and study,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, how bodies might have evolved from atoms.

Because it's the only evidence.
Not because science, unlike you, as predetermined its answers.

To step from chemistry into the origins of life and whether life is chemical based is to step into theology.

No. It's just following the evidence.

As I said, all science can say is how bodies might have evolved from atoms, not what life is.

No. All science can do - or is allowed to do-, is follow the evidence.

What I said is ""No, people claiming to have witnessed things and prophecies that seem to have come true is evidence but is not enough evidence for some and so they want more evidence before believing, or so they say.

I know what you said. I already responded to it.

It is evidence that real people in real history actually witnessed things. They not only believed those things, they saw them.
This is evidence for the supernatural, for God and for Jesus.

No. It is evidence that they believe they witnessed things and believe their interpretations of their experiences are accurate.
Again, this is the number one reason of how people get wrongfully convicted. Unreliable.

You reject people's "testimony" EVERY DAY when their testimony doesn't fit your predetermined conclusions.
You hold double standards when it comes to that.

You reject FAR MORE such "testimonies" then you accept.

Or do you believe in alien abductions, loch ness monsters, bigfoots, poltergeists, sasquatch, scientology's operating thetans, voodoo, atlantis reincarnations, reptilians from planet X, time travelers, etc etc etc etc etc???

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

So there was no time until something caused the time space continuum and nothing could cause the time space continuum until the time space continuum was existing.
Makes perfect sense to you I suppose.

Why the strawman?

I just literally told you that the big bang is necessarily a causeless event.
So why are you claiming that I'm saying it has a cause?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Sounds like a definition without a logical cause.

No idea what that is supposed to mean or how it is relevant.

Why can't the effect and the cause be spontaneous,,,,,,,, coincide with the cause?

Because that's not how causality works. Causes happen before effects. Effects happen after causes. Causality is a sequence of events, one happening AFTER the other.
And the word you're looking for is "simultaneous"... not "spontaneous".

The first cause is the big bang itself.

I have no issue with a causeless God who has existed/exists in timelessness and caused time to exist.

Right. So special pleading / double standards again.
If a causeless god can exist, then you believe that causeless things are possible.
So why would a causeless space-time continuum be any different?

I have an issue with something that came into existence (the universe) having no cause, or the BB having no cause.

Right. So your "evidence" against this is you not being able to conceive of it. This is what we call the argument of personal incredulity.

Do you think the BB has no cause or that the only explanation is that the BB had no cause? and if so is it because of your philosophy or is that a scientific answer?

It has nothing to do with philosophy and everything with the nature of causality.
It's a temporal phenomenon. You can't invoke temporal phenomenon in atemporal contexts.

Consider the analogy. How do you travel north of north?
This is what you demand to happen when you posit a "cause" for an event that brings time into existence.
You can't have a place north of north. Just like you can't have a time before time.

 

[Revoltingest]

If they aren't then they will have needed a cause.

Many things happen without my or anyone
else's knowing the cause or causes. This isn't
something I require to be known...just something
worth investigating scientifically.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

Is mathematical speculation called objective evidence?
And I say mathematical speculation because there are many mathematical models.

But I didn't say "mathematical speculation". I said "mathematical models underpinning scientific theories".

E = mc² is a mathematical model that underpins the theory of mass/energy conservation.

Einstein's field equations are mathematical models underpinning the theory of relativity.

These are not "speculation". They are models that describe real-life testable phenomenon of physics.

It sounds like "properly motivated" means ration justification as long as it does not include any rational beliefs in the supernatural.

First, I'm not aware of any rational beliefs in the supernatural, because for them to be rational they would require independently verifiable evidence.
Secondly, no. I already explained what it means.

So only science can lead to belief? We both know that is not true.

Seeing as science didn't lead you to your belief in your religion, it is obviously not true that only science can lead to belief.

You can hold rational beliefs on faith.

Give an example.

What we belief on faith can however drive our other beliefs and justifications.
A materialist for example, believes on faith and not because there is no evidence for the supernatural. An empiricist does similar thing and ignores human experience and witness in their beliefs (even if scientific tests are human experience).

I don't do -ist labels that comes with dogma.
I accept the evidence wherever it leads.

If tomorrow you can show me independently verifiable evidence of the supernatural, I'll happily accept the supernatural.

 

[Brian2]

Why the strawman?

I just literally told you that the big bang is necessarily a causeless event.
So why are you claiming that I'm saying it has a cause?

Sorry about that. The BB just happened and nothing caused it.
Why do you and presumably science say such a thing while at the same time wondering what might have caused the BB at a quantum level?

 

[Brian2]

No. Science does not assume the outcomes. Science doesn't pretend to have the answers before asking the question. The scientific method is not the practice of trying to paint the bullseye around the arrow. That's what religion does. You have even acknowledged as much in your other post, where you LITERALLY said "I don't know how the universe originated; there are no discoveries on which I base my belief but I believe god dun it".

So you have assumed your conclusion already. Any discovery, hypothesis, theory, experiment, what-have-you that results in a different answer then the one you have pre-determined, will always be rejected by you by default.

This is literally a tenant of your religious belief. You don't know but you believe X anyway. You have decided X is accurate, without investigating, without asking the question, without properly exploring the question. You have predetermined your answer.

Science on the other hand, investigates the evidence and lets the evidence lead it to the answer.
It's not the fault of science that there is only evidence of natural processes and no evidence leading to any supernatural shenanigans.

All I said it that science can only see the physical evidence and come up with an answer to how bodies might have evolved from atoms. Then what? Then it seems the presumption after that is that they have discovered how life evolved from atoms and that life is chemically based. But that would be a presumption, it would be based on naturalistic methodology and would be paining the bullseye around the arrow.
So is it science that will say "Look we know how life evolved naturally without the need for a God" or will that be skeptics and atheists putting words in the mouth of science for their own ends?
Yes I believe God created the universe and life and you believe it came about naturally. 2 beliefs that make us see things in different ways. I won't deny science if science actually does something but I would need to be convinced that is what science has done and not just assumed it had done something because of it's naturalistic methodology, when in fact it had not done it.
You otoh seem happy enough to say even now that life is chemically based, when science has not shown that.

Because it's the only evidence.
Not because science, unlike you, as predetermined its answers.

No, it is you who has predetermined the answer of science.
Science does not look at evidence that it cannot answer in science.
Some things aren't scientific questions and science cannot say yay or nay, but you are happy to say nay.

No. It's just following the evidence.

Science follows the evidence (or the evidence that it can follow) and you say what science has found even before science says so.

No. It is evidence that they believe they witnessed things and believe their interpretations of their experiences are accurate.
Again, this is the number one reason of how people get wrongfully convicted. Unreliable.

You reject people's "testimony" EVERY DAY when their testimony doesn't fit your predetermined conclusions.
You hold double standards when it comes to that.

You reject FAR MORE such "testimonies" then you accept.

Or do you believe in alien abductions, loch ness monsters, bigfoots, poltergeists, sasquatch, scientology's operating thetans, voodoo, atlantis reincarnations, reptilians from planet X, time travelers, etc etc etc etc etc???

You cannot really say that witness evidence is not evidence. It is however not something that science can answer.
You have answered for yourself when you say that people only thought they saw Jesus do miracles and die and then be alive after a few days and ascend into heaven.
And yes I answer the same way about many things.
Witnesses do give evidence, as in all those things that you put forward, (Loch Ness, Bigfoot, alien abductions etc) and we, the jury, each make up our mind about the validity of the evidence.
But it is evidence.

 

[Brian2]

No idea what that is supposed to mean or how it is relevant.

It means that the definition of causality as only happening in time is something that is made up and it is plain how that is relevant.

Because that's not how causality works. Causes happen before effects. Effects happen after causes. Causality is a sequence of events, one happening AFTER the other.
And the word you're looking for is "simultaneous"... not "spontaneous".

The first cause is the big bang itself.

As I said, that causality has to be in time only is made up to suite a conclusion. The conclusion for you being that the first cause is the BB and no other cause is needed. That idea certainly is not scientific, just a speculation which you are happy to call a fact.
Even the BB had a cause, one that is not known even though it is speculated on and there are many such speculations. And I for one do not think that just because something happens at a quantum level that it is not a cause and did not have a cause.
And I doubt that any of the mathematical speculations about the cause of the BB begins with absolutely nothing, so there is no first cause in any of them probably.

Right. So special pleading / double standards again.
If a causeless god can exist, then you believe that causeless things are possible.
So why would a causeless space-time continuum be any different?

Because it came into existence, it has not always been.
I may be naive to think that things that come into existence need a cause, or that they did not just appear from absolute nothing, or that they are not of a different nature to something that always was, or is. This last thing, the first cause, of course has special pleading, but only because it is special.

Right. So your "evidence" against this is you not being able to conceive of it. This is what we call the argument of personal incredulity.

Yes I have an issue with the BB having no cause, or starting from absolutely nothing and having no cause. I don't think I'm alone in that, I think many scientists would back me.
Starting from "nothing" which isn't actually "nothing" means a cause is needed for what is in that "nothing"
But it is not really a matter of not being able to conceive of it. That doesn't stop me from believing in a God existing in some sort of timeless state. You better come up with something else.

It has nothing to do with philosophy and everything with the nature of causality.
It's a temporal phenomenon. You can't invoke temporal phenomenon in atemporal contexts.

Consider the analogy. How do you travel north of north?
This is what you demand to happen when you posit a "cause" for an event that brings time into existence.
You can't have a place north of north. Just like you can't have a time before time.

We are temporal beings and have no experience of atemporality or what is possible in it. It is also not right to say that an effect has to happen after a cause when the 2 can happen together.
And I don't think there would be a problem in knowing which is the cause and which is the effect.................... especially if the effect tells us that it caused things to be.

 

[Brian2]

Many things happen without my or anyone
else's knowing the cause or causes. This isn't
something I require to be known...just something
worth investigating scientifically.

Definitely worth investigating.

 

[Subduction Zone]

All I said it that science can only see the physical evidence and come up with an answer to how bodies might have evolved from atoms. Then what? Then it seems the presumption after that is that they have discovered how life evolved from atoms and that life is chemically based. But that would be a presumption, it would be based on naturalistic methodology and would be paining the bullseye around the arrow.
So is it science that will say "Look we know how life evolved naturally without the need for a God" or will that be skeptics and atheists putting words in the mouth of science for their own ends?
Yes I believe God created the universe and life and you believe it came about naturally. 2 beliefs that make us see things in different ways. I won't deny science if science actually does something but I would need to be convinced that is what science has done and not just assumed it had done something because of it's naturalistic methodology, when in fact it had not done it.
You otoh seem happy enough to say even now that life is chemically based, when science has not shown that.



No, it is you who has predetermined the answer of science.
Science does not look at evidence that it cannot answer in science.
Some things aren't scientific questions and science cannot say yay or nay, but you are happy to say nay.




Science follows the evidence (or the evidence that it can follow) and you say what science has found even before science says so.



You cannot really say that witness evidence is not evidence. It is however not something that science can answer.
You have answered for yourself when you say that people only thought they saw Jesus do miracles and die and then be alive after a few days and ascend into heaven.
And yes I answer the same way about many things.
Witnesses do give evidence, as in all those things that you put forward, (Loch Ness, Bigfoot, alien abductions etc) and we, the jury, each make up our mind about the validity of the evidence.
But it is evidence.

You claim to have evidence. Yet you can never post any. That is not a good sign. Also you seem to have your own definition for evidence. Can you please explain what you think counts as evidence?

You may be conflating confirmation bias with evidence. Quite a few people do that.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Definitely worth investigating.

Is the claim to be a representative/messenger of a God worth investigating? Is virgin birth or resurrection worth investigating?
Do the claims have any evidence?

 

[Brian2]

But I didn't say "mathematical speculation". I said "mathematical models underpinning scientific theories".

E = mc² is a mathematical model that underpins the theory of mass/energy conservation.

Einstein's field equations are mathematical models underpinning the theory of relativity.

These are not "speculation". They are models that describe real-life testable phenomenon of physics.

It sounds like they are speculative models to try to describe testable phenomenon of physics.
So anyway when you said: So a properly motivated statement is a statement that has at least some objective evidence underpinning it, either directly or indirectly.
Would that include something like the resurrection of Jesus, which has witness accounts to what happened. That is some objective evidence.

First, I'm not aware of any rational beliefs in the supernatural, because for them to be rational they would require independently verifiable evidence.
Secondly, no. I already explained what it means.

So the resurrection has more than one witness in independent accounts verifying it and at the same time verifying each other. Is that what you mean?

Give an example.

It is rational to believe in a BB at the start of this universe, but it is a belief held on faith.

I don't do -ist labels that comes with dogma.
I accept the evidence wherever it leads.

If tomorrow you can show me independently verifiable evidence of the supernatural, I'll happily accept the supernatural.

Nothing that happened 2000 years ago I guess.

 

[Brian2]

Is the claim to be a representative/messenger of a God worth investigating? Is virgin birth or ressurection worth investigating?

Whether people have heard from God or a supernatural source could be investigated in what they claimed was said and the truth of what was said that could be seen in history.
I don't know how to investigate a virgin birth or resurrection. I suppose once it has been decided that God has been speaking to the Jews over the years then part of an investigation might be to check out what had been said to the Jews over the years to see if a resurrection or virgin birth is prophesied and then to check out the reports of a virgin birth and resurrection to see if they seem true.
It is not straight forward and requires at least a willingness to believe things that are not proven 100%.

 

[Brian2]

You claim to have evidence. Yet you can never post any. That is not a good sign. Also you seem to have your own definition for evidence. Can you please explain what you think counts as evidence?

You may be conflating confirmation bias with evidence. Quite a few people do that.

I have been talking about witness evidence, is that what you meant?

 

[exchemist]

All I said it that science can only see the physical evidence and come up with an answer to how bodies might have evolved from atoms. Then what? Then it seems the presumption after that is that they have discovered how life evolved from atoms and that life is chemically based. But that would be a presumption, it would be based on naturalistic methodology and would be paining the bullseye around the arrow.
So is it science that will say "Look we know how life evolved naturally without the need for a God" or will that be skeptics and atheists putting words in the mouth of science for their own ends?
Yes I believe God created the universe and life and you believe it came about naturally. 2 beliefs that make us see things in different ways. I won't deny science if science actually does something but I would need to be convinced that is what science has done and not just assumed it had done something because of it's naturalistic methodology, when in fact it had not done it.
You otoh seem happy enough to say even now that life is chemically based, when science has not shown that.



No, it is you who has predetermined the answer of science.
Science does not look at evidence that it cannot answer in science.
Some things aren't scientific questions and science cannot say yay or nay, but you are happy to say nay.




Science follows the evidence (or the evidence that it can follow) and you say what science has found even before science says so.



You cannot really say that witness evidence is not evidence. It is however not something that science can answer.
You have answered for yourself when you say that people only thought they saw Jesus do miracles and die and then be alive after a few days and ascend into heaven.
And yes I answer the same way about many things.
Witnesses do give evidence, as in all those things that you put forward, (Loch Ness, Bigfoot, alien abductions etc) and we, the jury, each make up our mind about the validity of the evidence.ve
But it is evidence.

It's misrepresentation to claim science is is "painting the bullseye around the arrow". Science has nothing to say about whether or not there may be a creator. If science succeeds in completing a theory for how life arose from inorganic chemistry, all that does is (further) dismiss the naïve creationist notion of magic "poofing" as a mechanism. In the same way, the Big Bang theory does not preclude there being a creator either: all it does is dismiss the notion that the Genesis account can be taken literally - whch almost no educated Christian does in any case.

Yes, the scientific method involves methodological naturalism. That hardly needs justifying, in view of its dramatic success in explaining so many features of the natural world since the Renaissance. It is absurd to say that when that principle is applied to the study of the origin of life, it is somehow offside, or assuming a result. Does anyone argue it is assuming a result when a natural explanation is sought for lightning in thunderclouds? Of course not. That would be considered quite mad. What's the difference with the origin of life, then?

 

[Brian2]

It's misrepresentation to claim science is is "painting the bullseye around the arrow". Science has nothing to say about whether or not there may be a creator. If science succeeds in completing a theory for how life arose from inorganic chemistry, all that does is (further) dismiss the naïve creationist notion of magic "poofing" as a mechanism. In the same way, the Big Bang theory does not preclude there being a creator either: all it does is dismiss the notion that the Genesis account can be taken literally - whch almost no educated Christian does in any case.

Yes, the scientific method involves methodological naturalism. That hardly needs justifying, in view of its dramatic success in explaining so many features of the natural world since the Renaissance. It is absurd to say that when that principle is applied to the study of the origin of life, it is somehow offside, or assuming a result. Does anyone argue it is assuming a result when a natural explanation is sought for lightning in thunderclouds? Of course not. That would be considered quite mad. What's the difference with the origin of life, then?

I don't really think that all credit should be given to naturalistic methodology for what we humans have discovered through science.
I also can see that naturalistic methodology can be a trap when we get to the things that God actually said in the Bible that He did, if God did them through ways other than nature, and naturalistic methodology demands only a naturalistic answer.
I suppose different Christians like to draw a line in the sand in different places (unless they become overwhelmed by the science and give up on faith) and I suppose God could have done most things through natural processes.
But Christians draw the line for reasons and I suppose sometimes it is skeptics using science to say "see God is not needed" when it does not actually show that at all.
Christians do believe in a God who can poof the universe into existence and put life into dead matter and so that is not a naive notion.
I suppose there is a middle ground somewhere but at the end of the day I guess believers and skeptics will always disagree no matter where a Christian might draw the line.
About the arrow and bulls eye. Science does find only physical evidence for life and so maybe has a right to claim that life is chemical based, but imo if and when that happens, it does not show that life is chemical based. It might be a wrong analogy, as I was using the same one that @TagliatelliMonster was using about religion and what it does, but still using that analogy, bulls eye could be seen as a naturalistic answer and the arrow could be seen as the only evidence that science can see, the natural evidence. In that respect the naturalistic answer is sort of seen as being part of the answer from the start imo. even if science does not consciously start off with an answer that it is looking for the evidence for.
But of course at the moment it is just the skeptics and atheists who claim science has shown that life is chemical based probably, and that is because they have jumped ahead a few steps and image science is already showing that.

 

[blü 2]

Maybe life sprang from dirt 3.5 billion years ago though abiogenesis but I’m beginning to seriously doubt it. The God theory is sounding more and more plausible.

What method, what technique, do you think God employed to bring biology to the earth?

 

[exchemist]

I don't really think that all credit should be given to naturalistic methodology for what we humans have discovered through science.
I also can see that naturalistic methodology can be a trap when we get to the things that God actually said in the Bible that He did, if God did them through ways other than nature, and naturalistic methodology demands only a naturalistic answer.
I suppose different Christians like to draw a line in the sand in different places (unless they become overwhelmed by the science and give up on faith) and I suppose God could have done most things through natural processes.
But Christians draw the line for reasons and I suppose sometimes it is skeptics using science to say "see God is not needed" when it does not actually show that at all.
Christians do believe in a God who can poof the universe into existence and put life into dead matter and so that is not a naive notion.
I suppose there is a middle ground somewhere but at the end of the day I guess believers and skeptics will always disagree no matter where a Christian might draw the line.
About the arrow and bulls eye. Science does find only physical evidence for life and so maybe has a right to claim that life is chemical based, but imo if and when that happens, it does not show that life is chemical based. It might be a wrong analogy, as I was using the same one that @TagliatelliMonster was using about religion and what it does, but still using that analogy, bulls eye could be seen as a naturalistic answer and the arrow could be seen as the only evidence that science can see, the natural evidence. In that respect the naturalistic answer is sort of seen as being part of the answer from the start imo. even if science does not consciously start off with an answer that it is looking for the evidence for.
But of course at the moment it is just the skeptics and atheists who claim science has shown that life is chemical based probably, and that is because they have jumped ahead a few steps and image science is already showing that.

Well life obviously is chemically based, there is no question about that.

No educated Christian that I know feels the need to draw a line in the sand and say "beyond this, I refuse to apply science". That would be intellectual dishonesty.

But you have not answered my question about why you think the study of the origin of life life should be treated differently from lightning in a thundercloud. I suspect that if I can understand that, it may help me understand your point of view.

So, what's so special, to you, about the origin of life?

 

[Subduction Zone]

I have been talking about witness evidence, is that what you meant?

There is no witness evidence for the events that we are discussing. So how could witness evidence make any difference?