From: duffy@aslss02.asl.dl.nec.com (Joseph Duffy)
Subject: Re: Logic and God (was: Young earth creationist logic NOT!)
Organization: NEC America, Inc. Irving, Texas
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 20:50:04 GMT

In article <87607@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:
>In article <1992Sep1.161110.15317@asl.dl.nec.com>, duffy@aslss02 (Joseph Duffy) writes:
>>>We have no direct evidence--in your sense--regarding the building of the
>>>Pyramids, but I think the evidence is conclusive that they were indeed
>>>built, on location, roughly 3-4 millennia ago.  Do you?
>
>>Yes, I do believe the pyramids were built.
>
>I see we are making progress!  We agree that it is possible to make inesca-
>pable conclusions about the past, without live videotapes.
>
>>					    As to exactly how they were built
>>I don't see how I can make any definite statments however. I can come up
>>with some good theories. In any event I will be interpreting the pyramids
>>based on my current knowledge of cause and effect, etc.
>
>So you see that there is a spectrum of knowledge.  And you agree that it's
>possible to be quite certain about the general facts, yet clueless regarding
>the particulars that go along with the facts.  You and I are quite certain,
>and not in any dogmatic way, that people built the Pyramids.  And I've read,
>and maybe you have too, plausible speculations of how they did so.  And yet
>that's pretty much all such explanations can be for now, short of a tablet
>explaining construction or other such, yet this major gap in the details in
>no way diminishes our certainty regarding the building of the Pyramids.
>
>>							 What current
>>knowledge is there for interpreting "constructive" processes that have
>>occurred in the past? To continue our example, based on my current cause
>>and effect associations, I would conclude that the pyramids did not occur as
>>a result of natural processes (unaided by human intervention) in the past 
>>since I dont see carved stone structures occurring that way today.
>
>And just as important, no such natural process is known, or even remotely
>plausible.  If there were some such, and the conditions for them to operate
>were simply rare, we might have doubts concerning the human building.
>
>>								    So I'm
>>just asking the question to those whose knowledge of evolution exceeds mine:
>>What current processes do we have that parallel those in the example above
>>to interpret the construction of say, the first cell?
>
>We're not quite at this level.  Enough to be pretty certain regarding
>abiogenesis--most of the required steps seem to be possible.  It's hard
>to be convincing regarding quantity.  Certain aspects seem to favor a
>deep vent origin, say, and others an ultraviolet exposed ocean surface.
>There's no contradiction--we don't know enough to specify which parts
>came first.
>
>Anyway, I don't see your point at all.  Do you agree that it's possible
>to be nondogmatically convinced regarding the building of the Pyramids
>by humans, without having a foggiest notion of how they were actually
>built by humans?
>-- 
>-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@sagi.wistar.upenn.edu)


Yes, but my point would be that the reason we're able to conclude that
pyramids were built by humans is that they bear the marks of something
that be can compare with our current knowledge and conclude that it took
more than a hurricane to build them. We know that it took intelligent
creatures using some sort of tooling to construct them. If some one
came along and said that the pyramids obviously were formed by the
actions of glaciers we would strongly oppose their position. If someone
said given billions and billions of years they could have formed even
if the odds were 1 in 10^100 we would (almost dogmatically) tell them
they are nuts. So yes we are nondogmatically convinced that life began
or that a cell formed at some distant time in the past beyond our observation,
or that the pyramids were built but in your words do we "have the foggiest 
notion" of how it was done? 

If our only present knowledge of complex things being produced (things of
a functional or mechanistic complexity) requires intelligent intervention
then when we see other things with these marks we can only conclude that
they originated in a similar fashion. 

So my question then is this: What present mechanisms are there that
would strongly allow us to conclude that cells were organized by natural
(non intelligent) processes?

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