Dear EZscience,
This is great stuff (I read the whole article), and thank you for getting us back on topic.
I have posted on this subject before; and would like to make a few comments on this article, since, as you stated, it is ‘on topic’.
Please, also note that I am only going to make a couple of comment on a few aspects of this article. This is because I tend to have long postings and have been asked to shorten my responses.
Mr. Nicholas Wade writes in his New York Times article ‘’Chemist Shows How RNA Can Be the Starting Point for Life’:
It will also mean that for the first time a plausible explanation exists for how an information-carrying biological molecule could have emerged through natural processes from chemicals on the primitive earth.
First: Notice the wording here
a plausible explanation could have emerged.
My father loves to debate the ‘
possible’ versus the ‘
impossible’ with me. Granted, statistically speaking there is not a 100% certainty that any number of variable did not line up just the right way at just the right time. However, there is a point where your chances are so remote that a better explanation is necessary. Would you not agree?
If I handed you a set of dice, told you that it was ‘
possible’ for you to roll snake eyes thirteen times in a row and then wanted you to make bets with other people; how many of those people do you think would win the bet?; and how often do you think you would win?
Would you bet, big money, that you could roll snake eyes thirteen times in a row?
So, I guess my question would have to be: ‘Exactly how ‘
possible’ is ‘
possible’’
Second: Mr. Nicholas Wade claims that now a ‘
possible’
explanation exists for how an information-carrying biological molecule could have emerged through natural processes from chemicals on the primitive earth.
Lets just say, for the sake of argument, that these
biological molecule did
emerged through natural processes; They still need the
information to
carry
Information is the key to the origin of life because no matter whether you’re talking about RNA, DNA, or some prequel you still have to account for the information these
information-carrying biological molecule’s are carrying.
The storage and transmission of Information is the domain of Intelligence.
You may, with enough badgering, get me to believe that a thumb drive ‘evolved’, under just the right conditions, by itself {without an intelligent designer}, however, the idea that the software and/or files on that thumb drive are a product of random chance (naturalistic evolutionary processes) is just that much further beyond the pale.
One last thing: Even if you convinced me that the thumb drive was the product of evolution, does that mean it, in fact, is true {a fact}?
In other words, should we base our ideas of what is real {factual} on our limited understanding and feelings or should we base our limited understanding and feelings (of how things are and should be) on the facts we know to be true?
So; if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and sounds like a duck; you’re going to have to give me some
pretty convincing evidence before you can convince me that it’s not a duck. ;-}
Emphases added in quoted remarks.
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