From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 92 05:49:48 EST
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger) writes:

> >"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.

Yes, this seems fair to say, with the added assertion that not only is
there no plausible mechanism for abiogenesis, but there is no
observational evidence either. No one has ever seen life arising from
non-living matter.

To us the origin of life is also a scientific problem, but we propose
that it is not reducible under any of the current mechanistic or
materialistic concepts of science. The origin of life, we claim, will
not be solved until science enlarges its paradigm to include nonphysical
but nevertheless real entities, including the soul, the Supersoul and
consciousness.

> I would argue that it is Kalki and other creationists who should be
> challenged.  It's a question of burden of proof.  One important aspect on
> burden of proof is that you should base a controversial proposition on
> something that is controversial as well.  They say that life can only have a
> supernatural explaination.  This is based on the controversial assumption 
> that the supernatural (ie., God) actually exists.  Thus, the burden of proof
> falls more heavily upon the C'ists than the scientists.  (And, if God does
> exist, there's still nothing to say it must be a supernatural explaination.
> God could just hang back and let life come about by itself, a Deist's
> viewpoint)

The problem with proving our alternative explanation of the origin of
life is as follows:

Our hypothesis (that God is the origin of life) is not accepted by
materialistic science, which claims that the existence of God is not
within the realm of observation. This is false. God can, and has been,
observed. When we describe specific methods for observing the existence
of God, materialistic science refuses to adopt those methods, and
thereby never succeeds in observing God. Not caring to admit that it has
not tried our methods, materialistic science instead claims that we are
simply making unfalsifiable assertions about the existence of a
nonmaterial entity. We therefore have no other choice than to conclude
that materialistic science has made up its mind that it does not want
God involved in its program, but prefers to try to explain all phenomena
as the products of matter and mechanism alone. This program is
unfortunately doomed to failure, since it is not possible to both
explain all phenomena and omit some of them at the same time.

Sincerely,
Kalki Dasa



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