From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 92 13:51:45 EST
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu 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?
> 
>    They're not making an unsupported assertion, it's an educated guess
> based on the non-interference of supernatural beings.  That does not
> mean that such interference is strictly ruled out.

Then why does James Watson claim:

"We see not only that the laws of chemistry are sufficient for
understanding protein structure, but also that they are consistent with
all known hereditary phenomena.
Complete certainty now exists among essentially all biochemists that the
other characteristics of living organisms (for example,...the hearing
and memory processes) will all be completely understood in terms of the
coordinative interactions of small and large molecules."
(Molecular Biology of the Gene, p 67)

Notice he says "complete certainty".
If abiogenesis is a characteristic of living organisms, then according
to him, it must also be the result of such a reaction.

If, as you say, abiogenesis is an only educated guess, then Watson's
statement is exactly what we are talking about. It is a premature claim
of complete certainty that all features of life are understandable in
terms of chemistry. Now, Watson is a leading molecular evolutionist. For
him to make such a claim when, according to you, abiogenesis is only an
educated guess, is irresponsible, is it not?

>    Anyway, you didn't answer Dan Ashlock's challenge.  If it isn't 
> scientific to state that abiogenesis occured, then why is Thompson
> basing his argument on not only the occurence but the existence of 
> a specific model?  Is this an admission that Thompson is not using
> scientific methods?

Thompson does not say that abiogenesis occurred. He does not make this
unscientific statement. It is, though, good scientific practice to carry
a proposed set of primordial conditions --proposed by molecular
evolutionists themselves as an initial condition which is allegedly
sufficient to guarantee a high probability of abiogenesis-- to its
logical conclusion. That conclusion is that no, there is not such a high
probability after all, given these initial conditions. Therefore, we
await other proposed initial conditions under which abiogenesis can
supposedly occur with high probability, knowing that, in the true spirit
of the honest scientific quest for truth, this argument that it is
"probable" that life would have arisen from a primordial soup through
the action of the known laws of physics over 4 billion years or so, will
now be abandoned.

Sincerely,
Kalki "the butcher's nightmare" Dasa


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Newsgroups: talk.origins