From: tycchow@nevanlinna.mit.edu (Timothy Y. Chow)
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Organization: None.  This saves me from writing a disclaimer.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 22:17:25 GMT

In article <1992Nov13.195833.12085@athena.mit.edu> Loren King writes:
>In article <e0N3TB8w165w@kalki33>, kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us writes:
>|> If there isn't a model for abiogenesis "yet", then why do supposedly
>|> reputable scientists make the premature claim that life arose from
>|> non-life? Unless a model can be shown to be correct, then it is not
>|> scientific to claim that the phenomenon occurred, is it? No one has ever
>|> seen a living organism arise from an assemblage of lifeless matter, have
>|> they?

>Well, the "claim" is in fact a testable inference: if we can
>approximate the conditions of early earth and generate living matter,
>then the inference is validated.  Now, one might claim that, as we can
>never really "know" the initial conditions that existed on earth, we
>can never "really" validate this inference.  This claim, however, is
>tantamount to radical contextualism,

Kalki's point seems to be that we should suspend belief in the proposition
that life arose from non-life by purely naturalistic processes until a
plausible scenario is constructed.  I don't think he is claiming that we
should suspend belief even if we construct a plausible process that works
today, on the grounds that it "might not have happened that way in the
past."  The analogy with Goldbach's conjecture that you bring up later is
a good one.  In the past, mathematicians would have been confident in
saying, "Well, we don't have a proof either way yet, but we know that
there *is* a proof one way or the other.  The problem is a mathematical
one and can be solved by mathematical means."  After Godel, nobody is
willing to say even this.  The analogous statement, "Well, nobody has a
plausible mechanism for naturalistic abiogenesis yet, but nevertheless
I believe that there *is* a naturalistic explanation, because this is a
scientific problem and must have a scientific solution," is what I think
Kalki is challenging.

One response might be that scientists treat the existence of a naturalistic
mechanism for abiogenesis as a "working assumption" but don't necessarily
believe it in their hearts.

>I think we have to ask about the character of our presuppositions, our
>"articles of faith" and whether they are open to the scrutiny of the
>logic which we construct from them.  I call such systems `reflectively
>open,' in that they allow critical self-reflection of their base
>assumptions from within the belief system itself.  Science generally
>does this.  Religions, for example, generally do not.

I'm not sure the distinction is as easy as you make it out to be.  If we
were to remove the basic presuppositions of science---the scientific
method, falsifiability, non-teleology, etc., then surely one would have
left science.  Conversely, even in relatively conservative denominations
of Christianity there is plenty of room for challenging orthodoxy.  True,
the authority of the Bible is not questioned, but virtually anything else,
including orthodox doctrines, is fair game.  Certain fundamentalist groups
do not fit this description, but they comprise a minority.
-- 
Tim Chow     tycchow@math.mit.edu
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs
30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh
only 1 1/2 tons.                               ---Popular Mechanics, March 1949
Newsgroups: talk.origins