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Author Topic:   Stanley Miller debunked?
Highlander
Inactive Member


Message 16 of 34 (232783)
08-12-2005 6:32 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by AdminAsgara
08-12-2005 5:31 PM


Re: Welcome
Thank you for the welcome and the advice, I'll follow it from here out.

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Highlander
Inactive Member


Message 17 of 34 (232785)
08-12-2005 6:33 PM
Reply to: Message 13 by Jazzns
08-12-2005 6:02 PM


quote:
Not at all! It just means that out inability to reproduce the theorized abiogenesis of life does not constitute evidence that it did not occur.
But it is also not evidence that it DID occur!
It seems then to me that one must believe it occurred or disbelieve it, hence a matter of faith.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 18 of 34 (232786)
08-12-2005 6:38 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Highlander
08-12-2005 6:33 PM


Yep(with some reservations about wording in the last line), and that is why I criticized Dembski in your link in another thread. All parties seem to have some interest in the Determinate Point of origin or origins. That is why Gould's material probablism avoids this stumbling block. I think he did so at the loss of further seperating out vertebrate morphology by attempting to "historicize" it.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 19 of 34 (232789)
08-12-2005 6:46 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Highlander
08-12-2005 6:31 PM


Re: premature conclucsions
That a given cybernetic abstraction is MORE abstract than the subjetive form-making distinctions collected in nature and abstracted in the concept "phenotype". I dont think this is ordered correctly but that is the evidence in lack of information about the small scale directions of changes.

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 Message 15 by Highlander, posted 08-12-2005 6:31 PM Highlander has replied

Replies to this message:
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Matt P
Member (Idle past 4775 days)
Posts: 106
From: Tampa FL
Joined: 03-18-2005


Message 20 of 34 (232796)
08-12-2005 7:20 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Highlander
08-12-2005 6:31 PM


Re: premature conclucsions
quote:
Doesn't that put it par with design theory?
Just a quick matter of terminology- intelligent design is not a "scientific theory" by any stretch of the imagination. It has no guiding principles, little predictive ability, and could potentially stifle academic research by appeals to ignorance rather than expand it. For this last point, if one needs only to say "God did it," then what need would there be for future research?
quote:
So what is the evidence life arose spontaneously and without direction?
Be careful of the phrase "without direction." There is plenty of direction in nature in the form of gravity (towards big masses), electricity (the basis of crystal structure), and other natural processes. Without direction is better phrased as "without direct supernatural influence."
The origins of life community as a whole is looking for several answers to how life arose. We have a decent grasp on what the early prebiotic chemistry of the Earth was like, we have a good grasp on what early replicating and catalytic molecules were around, and we have a decent grasp on the molecular phylogenies on the earliest organisms and fossil record of this life. However, we are missing several key points- how the replicator/catalyst arose from prebiotic chemicals, and how life came from the replicator/catalyst. Each of these are very active research areas in the Origin of Life field.
One must also be careful not to equate debate with ignorance. The questions asked by origin of life researchers are there to attempt to answer larger questions. It does not take a leap of faith to see that 1) the organic compounds that make up RNA were abundant on the early Earth through the Miller-Urey process and/or meteorites and/or hydrothermal syntheses, and 2) that RNA acts as both a catalyst and replicating molecule, and 3) that some of the simplest parasitic organisms- viruses- replicate through means of RNA replication and catalysis. These points, along with others, show that it's not really a leap of faith (as is the case with intelligent design) to accept a natural origin of life, this question is merely one of the big questions of biology that has not been answered yet. There are a lot of strong clues that seem to be leading us to an answer, but we haven't peiced them together yet. It's similar to many portions of science where we have strong evidence, but not incontrovertible proof, for a given hypothesis. For instance, most evidence seems to imply that the moon was ejected from the Earth through a huge collisional cataclysm 4.4 billion years ago. However, another plausible explanation is that a body with the exact isotopic characteristics of the Earth was captured by the Earth. This body would have had to have been travelling extremely slow, and have a different chemistry than the bulk Earth, but it could have happened. True, we can never know for sure, but it's not "faith" to believe that evidence points towards one answer with some gaps in the evidence.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 21 of 34 (232799)
08-12-2005 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 14 by Highlander
08-12-2005 6:28 PM


quote:
I agree, but isn't the conlcusion life must have arisen via naturalist (random and undirected) means speculation based on inference?
I'm not sure what you mean by "speculation by inference", but no one says that life must have arisen via naturalist means -- it is a hypothesis, and that hypothesis can be tested. Namely by proposing reasonable scenarios where life can arise by naturalistic means, and testing those aspects of these scenarios that can be tested. As long as progress continues to be made in our understanding of how life can arise by means of naturalistic processes, then the hypothesis remains a good one.
Edited to turn on signature.
This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 13-Aug-2005 12:38 AM

"The cradle of every science is surrounded by dead theologians as that of Hercules was with strangled serpents" -- T. H. Huxley

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 22 of 34 (232808)
08-12-2005 8:35 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Matt P
08-12-2005 7:20 PM


Re: premature conclucsions
I dont see why
quote:
Be careful of the phrase "without direction." There is plenty of direction in nature in the form of gravity (towards big masses), electricity (the basis of crystal structure), and other natural processes.
is "better" phrased with
Without direction is better phrased as "without direct supernatural influence."
as autocatalysis and replication need not but could be the same thing. I think it is unhealthy biologically to try to THINK about abstract regulations without the population size already monoplyticized beyond some general statement about plasticity( or distributed regeneration etc) but I would never assume that any or all rates are thought available to the thought process enabled regardless.
The following can be without direction in highlander sense I would survive.
quote:
The traditional view, expressed in most biology textbooks, is that life originated once, and has ever since been evolving in the well-known neo-Darwinian manner. Sometimes the origin of life is envisioned as accidental synthesis of a gene in the organic soup, with subsequent mutation and the rapid establishment of genetically isolated lines of descent, each with a unique system of evolved adapatations. This view wa perhaps admissible when the gene was thought of as a protein. The extreme specialization of the DNA molecule, however, forces us to regard the nuclear gene as a later development. The early establishment of seperate phlogenies is also most unlikely. The independent evolution of identical adpatations must happen very seldom. On this view the (nearly) universal occurrence of fundamental biochemical machinery, such as DNA, ATP, and various enzyme systems, rasises a dillemma. Either they were brought to perfection immediately by the original species of organism, or they were independently evolved in all seperate phlyetic lines. Neither view is acceptable to serious students of biopoesis (origin and early development of life). Effective mechanisms of heredity, and of the structural and immunological mechanisms on which the maintence of individuality depends, must have required a long period of evolution. Before these mechanisms appeared there could have been no genetically isolated evolutionary lines nor even physically definable indviduals. As Ehrensvard (1962) expressed it, "Life is older than organisms." For a long time life was neither monophyletic nor polyphletic, it was non-phlyetic.
Adaptation and Natural Selection A Critique of Some Current Evolutionary Thought by George C. Williams p. 135 Princeton New Jersey Princeton Univerity Press 1966
Point(continued coincident ignorance) paraphyly is directionless. It does not contain access to Newton's term "directum". I think it really does.

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Highlander
Inactive Member


Message 23 of 34 (232863)
08-13-2005 12:40 AM
Reply to: Message 19 by Brad McFall
08-12-2005 6:46 PM


Re: premature conclucsions
quote:
That a given cybernetic abstraction is MORE abstract than the subjetive form-making distinctions collected in nature and abstracted in the concept "phenotype". I dont think this is ordered correctly but that is the evidence in lack of information about the small scale directions of changes.
I'm not sure what you're saying. This is in response to my question that a lack of evidence that life didn't arise spontaneously is someone evidence that it did?
This message has been edited by Highlander, 08-13-2005 02:17 AM

Darwin, a free thinker who dared make far-reaching conclusions based on observations, would have been dismayed to see the petrified doctrine his brainchild has become. Must we admit that all organisms are nothing but watery Turing machines evolved merely by a sequence of accidents favored by nature? Or do we have the intellectual freedom to rethink this fundamental issue? - Eshel Ben Jacob

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 Message 19 by Brad McFall, posted 08-12-2005 6:46 PM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 24 by Brad McFall, posted 08-13-2005 7:55 AM Highlander has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 24 of 34 (232935)
08-13-2005 7:55 AM
Reply to: Message 23 by Highlander
08-13-2005 12:40 AM


Re: premature conclucsions
Yes. Although I dont agree really that there are two "sides" to c/e I recognize the thought patterns that can lead to writing different responses in some topics. I know very little geology for instance so I can not get into much in those cases. The "gene" can be likened to a cybernetic "abstraction" that is regulated through population genetics but this biological imagination ( I am willing to assert can also be an intuition) ever more detailed since molecular biology grew sets itself within the range of somatic shapes. One can try (sic!) to contemplate the chance random stochastic non-phlytic life that is not the organism, in so many directions; and especially as information technology has garnered economic allegience that the writing of ones' thoughts on this often extripate the simple systematists subjective domain of classification categories. I feel that Wolfram's "new science" is case in point where the function that is in nature that relates this domain and range being both one to one and onto is often writ out of existence by nature of our visual alphabet rather than what would have been the case if our phonic invariances were constraining the cuts and pastes that furthermore permit post-modern writers the instrumental freedom to violate what I consider a basic biological sufficency (to not write thoughts that end up with texts that do not refer to actual groups of living thiings (viruses would be living mind you). This ends up with writings that look more like science fiction than science but certainly not religious. So I try to maintain some rigor when crossing to biological areas of polyphyly BECAUSE we dont know the lines that lead where out lineage is. Speculation about alien life without evidence only causes the single or multiple origins of life to be rubed in the writ without the right to but by dint of lingos to do so. The real issue is the coded content of DNA vs protein at present. I think there is another level of analyticity here. Others simply dont understand what I am writing.
So the "evidence" that chance randomness existed in however long or short the period was before a baramin was pluralized in any thought is merely that cynetics might provide an intellectual environment and technical community to communicate information tranfer IN LIFE no matter what the phenotype is dissected as but given that there IS a difference of genotype and phenoptype. Many students use this kind of thought process but I know how difficult it is to use and try to express myself otherwise.
I had wanted to support you most basic contention that early life is without direction but I did not want to see other posters insisting that just because there was *some* deterministic cross over point functionally, IN SOME SENSE, that this meant %anything^ could be written as a response provided the "tone" was scientific "". It can not in all honesty.
This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 08-13-2005 08:08 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 23 by Highlander, posted 08-13-2005 12:40 AM Highlander has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Highlander, posted 08-13-2005 5:24 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
Highlander
Inactive Member


Message 25 of 34 (233031)
08-13-2005 5:24 PM
Reply to: Message 24 by Brad McFall
08-13-2005 7:55 AM


Re: premature conclucsions
Brad, I think I understand what you're writing, but I'm not sure I understand why you are writing it in the way that you do.
What you seem to be saying is yes, it is a matter of belief, but that you hesitate to call it 'faith' because of the religious implications.
I can only say if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck...

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 26 of 34 (233063)
08-13-2005 8:01 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Highlander
08-13-2005 5:24 PM


Re: mature conclusions
It would be belief or faith rather than an application of a catalytic cycle of prior replications IF the following blaming of Christianity in the non-plyetism WERE true.(from Williams op cit p266)
quote:
Uncritical analogy with self-conscious human organization is probably not the whole explanation for the humanization of groups of organisms. There may also be a desire, unconscious in many and expressed by few, to find not only an order in Nature but a moral order. In human behavior a sacrifice of self-interest and devotion to a suprapersonal cause is considered praisworthy. If some other organisms also showed concern for group welfare and were not entirely self-seeking, these organisms, and Nature in general would be more ethically acceptable. In most theological systems it is necessary that the creator be benevolent...but this is hardly a basis for making decisions in biology.
I think not. I think it is not. I think some posters dont parse the obligatory group this fine. It is basically fine with me what you said. I just tried to qualify it with what does count. It is not circular as you suggested but broadening where value does and did matter. Evolutionists who object simply do because either they have this older criticism misapplied to current understanding or else they are NOT defending man's interest in the asthetic point of view contained. It would be a difficult thing to discuss this in terms of what it is like to be a bat but an evo might. This however is about the life that IS NOT an organism(but is a "group") (thus reference to humans is out of place as well) Soooo, if it is only because of reference to the Christian Environment causing biology to go backwards I would agree with you and disagree with all other sayers else there is a more particular point being brought out in the power of the people participating in this thread obligatoryily. There is a facultative teleology that connects with a physical teleology that teleonmy of natural as opposed to artifical selection CAN NOT SORT. The origins of life might contain such value and IS evaluated but not if the determinstic point is truely stohastic. I doubt it is. Others might disagree. 911 showed the plurivocal of this 66 published system of religousness was not as broad as the science fiction that otherwise results from current science failing to grasp the synthetic a priori already present in thought. One can decide without judging in this subject in this thread, thus other aspects of Matt P's post still stand.

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Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 27 of 34 (233160)
08-14-2005 12:47 PM


What's the answer?
Have we determined yet whether Stanley Miller has been debunked?

  
happy_atheist
Member (Idle past 4914 days)
Posts: 326
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 28 of 34 (255591)
10-30-2005 6:01 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by compmage
08-04-2005 11:34 AM


I know this topic has been inactive for quite some time, but I just wanted to make a comment on the following point in the OP.
Half of the amino acids he produced were right-handed and just one right-handed amino acid would destroy the possibility of any life being "produced.
This point probably sounds very impressive to lay-people who don't fully understand the point, but it is simply wrong. I have no idea exactly what was produced in the Urey-Miller experiment, but I assume a 50-50 split between left and right handed anisomers is about right. This in no way makes the formation of life impossible.
For those who don't know, handedness of a molecule is known as chirality. As a demonstration of this, place your right hand over your left hand. You'll notice that both hands are compositionally identicle, but fundamentally different structurally. One is the mirror image of the other. The same thing is true of certain molecules.
Now it's true that DNA requires homochirality. If you took a DNA strand of left handed anisomers and replaced one of the units with a right handed amino acid the strain would snap the strand. But it certainly is not true that long chains of homochiral molecules can't form from an even mix of anisomers.
For example the electroweak interaction is not symetirical, it favours left handed amino acids over right handed amino acids when it comes to forming chains. The effect is tiny, but investigations into possible natural ways to amplify this are being studied. This could account for the homochirality found in DNA.
Also, there is no reason that I know of why life requires one particular anisomer over another. (I may be wrong on that, so if there IS a reason could someone point it out?). I vaguely remember reading that primitive forms of life have been found with the opposite chirality to us, but unfortunately I don't know where I read this. Can anyone shed any light on it? Hopefully it's not just a figment of my imagination.
Anyway, the point of this is that it is possible for purely stochastic bifurcation processes to go from an even mixture of single anisomers to longer chains of homochiral molecules. The particular handedness that occurs is random, not predetermined, but since there are only two possibilites that leaves a 50-50 probability that life would have the homochirality that we observe today.
Obviously I can't point to any particular method that could lead from a mixture of anisomers to homochiral chains like DNA and say that "this is the way it happened", but to imply that that it COULDN'T happen is simply ignoring the research that is ongoing and is like sticking your head in the sand.

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Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5033 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 29 of 34 (255595)
10-30-2005 8:15 AM
Reply to: Message 28 by happy_atheist
10-30-2005 6:01 AM


51 OR 49?
OP was
quote:
I am desparately looking for the evolusionist response to the following creationist statement:
"If you think Stanley Miller did it maybe you should ask him if he still believes it. His experiment produced 85 % tar and 13 % carboxilyc acid both of which are poisonous to life. The 2 % amino acids that he produced he "filtered" (which is "cheating" and not viable for real life.) out. 20 Amino Acids are needed for life and Dr. Miller fell well short of that. Half of the amino acids he produced were right-handed and just one right-handed amino acid would destroy the possibility of any life being "produced." Miller was in the crowd at a debate in San Diego several years ago when Dr. Duane Gish was debunking Miller's abiogenesis experiment. Miller was asked if he would like to respond to Dr. Gish's comments and he said "no." He then went on to state that he realizes the serious problems with his experiment(s). "
If this is true, the experiment only goes to show how unlikely it is for even the most basic organic matter to form, which is still a VERY long why off from real life. Surely, there must be an awnser to this?
You substantially said,
quote:
Anyway, the point of this is that it is possible for purely stochastic bifurcation processes to go from an even mixture of single anisomers to longer chains of homochiral molecules. The particular handedness that occurs is random, not predetermined, but since there are only two possibilites that leaves a 50-50 probability that life would have the homochirality that we observe today.
Are there really only two possibilities here? What if proteins add different "weight" to the symmetrical distribution of form in a GALTON POLYGON
Evolution by Jumps: Francis Galton and William Bateson and the Mechanism of Evolutionary Change | Genetics | Oxford Academic
tipped during biological change by the 50-50 perversion of DNA?
The only reason Kant introduces final causes determinately is to show how effective causes might preceed in thought thought of final purposes. Adults are arguing WHERE Kant said, "specially the supreme condition under which a final purpose (i.e. the determining ground of a supreme understanding for the production of beings of the world) can be allowed)"p294 Critique of Judgement(bold added) yet in a regulative either reflectively or determintively of this thought process he asked, if it was not such that tape worms were "set-offs" to human vitality.
In a reflection printed in the Translator's Introduction to the Conflict of the Faculties Kant skected in this vitalism.
quote:
The conformity to law of an organic being by which it maintains itself in the same form while continuously sloughing off and restoring its parts to health. As far as the whole of organic nature as such is concerned, this conformity to law of an organic being and alteration of the vital force imply that the creature, after it has produced offspring like itself, mingles as an individual with unorganized matter and only the species endures. Growing old and death. This is not a disease, but consummation of the vital force.
Now with Crick and Provine etc we tend not to doubt as we might be a critic at Kant for today and that which is routinely done here in EVC speak etc, but look, if the 49/51 question as REPRESENTED in the OP IS the offset of Kant is as MOVED FROM his use of analogon of life RATHER than analogon of art, a set in the death margin kinematically no matter the full dynamics might simply give death by tapeworms NOT to a Mathusian effective cause no matter how ecosystems might be engineered, but to causality ONLY with respect to man(by using economic equations finally while dissecting plant growth etc) that is unrecorded in biology because germs and bacteria (viruses etc) are seen as diseases rather than simply tippings of the Galton polygon.
This is the form of the argument. Restricting the discussion BACK to DNA when both DNA and proteins are involved fails to notice that Croizat's method provides if not a priority itself, the motivation to think like physicist's did parabolas on the place of unusally symmetrical shapes in endemic places little habitable but using artifical selection to rationalize natural selection makes an error Kant had already corrected by a taste for an analogy NOT to art he solved "dialectically".
I assume you are STILL a "happy" atheist.
This message has been edited by Brad McFall, 10-30-2005 08:25 AM

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by happy_atheist, posted 10-30-2005 6:01 AM happy_atheist has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by happy_atheist, posted 10-30-2005 9:46 AM Brad McFall has replied

  
happy_atheist
Member (Idle past 4914 days)
Posts: 326
Joined: 08-21-2004


Message 30 of 34 (255608)
10-30-2005 9:46 AM
Reply to: Message 29 by Brad McFall
10-30-2005 8:15 AM


Re: 51 OR 49?
Are there really only two possibilities here? What if proteins add different "weight" to the symmetrical distribution of form in a GALTON POLYGON
Evolution by Jumps: Francis Galton and William Bateson and the Mechanism of Evolutionary Change | Genetics | Oxford Academic
tipped during biological change by the 50-50 perversion of DNA?
Well I was talking about the homochirality of DNA, so assuming some process caused a racemic mixture to become homochiral, and assuming that there are two anisomers present, then there are two endpoints that it can reach. Is there an endpoint that i'm missing? Or is it the discussion of endpoints that you were questioning?
I assume you are STILL a "happy" atheist.
Definately, thank you for asking

This message is a reply to:
 Message 29 by Brad McFall, posted 10-30-2005 8:15 AM Brad McFall has replied

Replies to this message:
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