Life is Intelligently Designed

I. Preface My opponent' opening round has somewhat caught me off guard. Remember the purpose of the debate here, which is the question of whether or not life is intelligently designed. I feel that Pro has somewhat shot himself in the foot by immediately advocating for some metaphysical entity, as I will demonstrate. II. Arguing for Intelligent Design Virtually every Intelligent Design (ID) argument I have seen, and my opponent's opening round is no exception, argues that there is a dichotomy between naturalistic and personal (intelligent) causation. This is a perfectly valid way of arguing, but it is virtually impossible for ID proponents to demonstrate the required premises in order to fulfil the conclusion that life is lost likely intelligently designed. There are two explicit, but fundamentally two very different formulations of such, first there is a deductive route: P1) Life is either arose purely naturally, or designed intelligently P2) Not purely naturally C) Life was designed intelligently And then there is the inductive route: P1) Life is either arose purely naturally, or designed intelligently P2) Probably not purely naturally C) Life was probably designed intelligently Both are perfectly valid. The first formulation gives the answer with certainty, which means if both premises are true, then the conclusion (that life was designed intelligently) will necessarily follow. That's fine. Moreover I have absolutely no problem with the first premise, my main contest is going to be with the second premise, that like did not, or could not arise naturally. In order for the first argument to work, Pro needs to demonstrate that life has precisely 0% intrinsic probability of occurring naturally in the absence of a probability of it occurring intelligently. The reason being is even if the intrinsic probability is extremely low (for it to arise naturally), the conclusion doesn't follow if the intrinsic probability for ID is even lower, or zero. Therefore, in this debate, I intend to demonstrate that life indeed can occur naturally, and in fact is driven to occur naturally, and that the probability of such is much higher than the intrinsic probability of it occurring via. ID. III. Intrinsic vs Epistemic Probability of ID There is a clear distinction between the intrinsic and epistemological possibility of something occurring. An Epistemological possibility is essentially the saying "for all I know X might be possible", it is a position of ignorance which says nothing about the physical (I.e. Intrinsic) probability of something occurring, only that it's possibility has not been established either way. In the case of ID, Pro is proposing a metaphysical being, which currently being beyond the purview and experience of evidence based science and reason, can be safely assigned a physical probability of zero. I will freely grant that such a being is epistemically possible, but Pro needs to actually provide positive reasons why we should accept it as a *physical* possibility. Note that physical possibility only means 'what's possible in our world'. As such, according to the inductive arguments, we can formulate the inductive argument as follows: P1) Life is either arose purely naturally, or designed intelligently P2) Not intelligently C) Life arose naturally The reason being, that even with an exceptionally small natural probability, given that the ID probability is zero, then natural causation is literally the only possible solution. Not that the inductive version also works for this: P1) Life is either arose purely naturally, or designed intelligently P2) Probably not purely designed intelligently C) Life probably arose naturally Where P2 is the comparative *intrinsic* probabilities of life arising naturally vs the intrinsic probability of life arising intelligently. If P(nat) > P(int), then I have satisfied P2 of the argument for naturalism. Given that the intrinsic probability of P(int) = 0, then this argument is valid. Pease do not forget the distinction between intrinsic and epistemic probability/possibility, it is very important in this argument. IV. We should reject the physical possibility of an ID Therefore, in addition to demonstrating a low p naturalistic probability, Pro also needs to demonstrate a non-zero intrinsic ID probability, or even possibility. I argue that this is something Pro will struggle to do. Therefore, no matter how hard he argues that the naturalistic explanation is unlikely, he will not get any closer to demonstrating that intelligence is any more likely. I notice he has attempted out make some way on dualism, but his conclusion has yet to follow. First let's clear some reasons why an ID should not be considered as a physical possibility 1. Begs the question If we argue that the designer was a natural one (which Pro doesn't advocate), then it begs the question of it's own origin. Given the state of life in the early Earth, which contained much simpler life, we can rule out that the designer was physical, especially considering the finite age of the universe 2. A non physical designer is of questionable epistemological possibility We absolutely no compelling evidence of such an entity existing in physical reality, and I implore Pro to provide it if it exists. Moreover postulating such a being violates Occums razor, as it makes a multitude of assumptions about non-physical intelligence that intervenes in the universe. Such a being needs to first be demonstrated to be possible, lest I make comparable claims that 'naturalistic miracles' brought forth life. Pro needs to demonstrate why such an entity provides good explanatory power with a low number of assumptions for it to be considered a physical possibility. Or he needs to demonstrate such a being is metaphysically necessary, and gets around problems such as the interaction problem etc.[3] V(i). Life is driven to arise naturally With the intrinsic possibility of ID negated, I will lay down the case for naturalistic causation. First let me list some Pro's for naturalistic causation: 1. Naturalistic causes actually exist We clearly know the natural world exists, and that chemistry, geology, physics etc are a plethora of potential mechanisms for the origin of life under naturalism. Ergo a naturalistic cause is prima facie plausible, and at worst should be granted a minimal intrinsic possibility, since we know it exists (unlike ID). 2. Naturalism need not propose additional entities to explain the evidence. 3. Life is thermodynamically driven Life is driven by a very important force in Earth, the second law of thermodynamics. That is, life as it is is converting high energy dense molecules and energy sources (UV light) into lower energy molecules with a release of heat and hence increase in overall entropy. In a system that is not at equilibrium, then the system will be under 'thermodynamic stress' and exert a tendency to push towards equilibrium. This is very much akin to a river dam with a crack in it, the water in the reservoir is not in thermodynamic equilibrium, with the water behind the dam at a higher energy than the water after the dam. Any crack, or opening in the dam will be quickly exploited and exaggerated at the water rushes to achieve equilibrium (the levels will equalise). Similarly, life catalyses many processes which work to 'relieve' this thermodynamic 'stress', and allows the system to much more easily flow down to equilibrium. Life is much like that crack in the dam, and receives a large 'usable energy' incentive when it does perform it's catalysis. V(ii) Life is autocatalytic To draw a very simplistic model of life, we have the following schematic of live & replication. [Food] + [Other stuff] + [Cell] ---> [Cell] + [Cell] + released heat (increase in entropy) + waste (increase in entropy) Where you can see that the 'food' & 'other stuff' are converted into additional copies of itself, with a release of heat and waste, which provides the thermodynamic drive. Such a system is a *very good* catalyst for these processes, and moreover such a system is capable of adapting since the extra copies of cells that are produced are not identical to the original. This is important for evolutionary purposes (next round). This system is very closely related to an autocatalytic system, which is a special type of catalytic reaction in chemistry where the catalyst reproduces, shown below: [A] + [B] + [Catalyst] ---> [Catalyst] + [Catalyst] + released heat (increase in entropy) These types of reactions are well-known in chemistry, and are special since that the reaction proceeds faster & faster as the concentration of catalyst increases.[1] A catalyst is a chemical agent which increases the rate of reaction, as well as reduces the 'activation barriers' for these conditions to occur at lower temperatures. Taking my dam analogy, a catalyst effectively provides those 'cracks' in the dam wall where the water can leak through, since it's too difficult for water to 'jump over' the dam, it is much easier to go through a hole instead. This is the reason why siphons work, and why water does not jump out of your teacup onto the table. The water WANTS to hit the table, but the walls of the cup prevent it. The message is, life is very much akin to known chemistry, and is a special case of an autocatalytic system which does not produce itself perfectly. This is all that is needed to seed life.[2] VI. Summary: So we have: 1. A naturalistic 'drive' for the formation of life 2. A naturalistic 'process' for the formation of life 3. Which demonstrates that a naturalistic OOL is physically possible, and very plausible. Moreover I have highlighted that Pro has yet to demonstrate an ID is even physically possible, and therefore should be immediately rejected on those grounds VII. 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