AristotlesAdvance

I tend to agree with Ernest Rutherford - I forget the exact quote but it was something like: "There is only Physics. Everything else is just Stamp Collecting." Bob That's right up there with another fair-minded quote by H. L. Mencken: "There are only two kinds of music: German music and bad music."

I accept the compliment (as well as the unintended admission). Are you able to respond to anything I last posted regarding the significance of Szostak's experiment in ribozyme engineering; or Deamer's admission, in his description of the experiment, that the researchers were simply doing what professional breeders do (i.e., intelligently selecting, on the basis of certain criteria, for the purpose of achieving a desired end -- a statement with which I completely agree, but the significance of which Deamer misses)? If so, I'd be interested in reading your arguments.

The fact that you may not notice aspects of a work of art that I notice, or vice versa, and that we are likely to interpret different aspects differently, supports my view that one cannot easily and reliably identify artists' senses of life by looking at their art. It does more than that. It means we cannot reliably detect an artist's intentions. Who is "the audience"? Unsurprisingly, since I was the one looking at the sculpture and judging it, I am the audience. It sounds to me as if you're setting yourself up to be the official spokesman for "the audience," To the extent that I officially represent myself, yes. When I notice vine leaves in a sculpture, and you don't, why is my observation not part of "what the audience actually perceives"? You're a different audience. Additionally, when I notice tree leaves, and you don't, why is my observation not part of "what the audience perceives"? If an artist were to paint, say, the image of an empty cornucopia, and you were aware of the fact that horn-shaped wicker baskets filled with food and flowers have often been used to symbolize abundance and success, would you claim that the official view of "the audience" was that the painting of the empty cornucopia represented scarcity and failure, but if you were not aware of the common historic symbolism of the cornucopia, you'd claim that its symbolism was "background narrative" and that "the audience" officially saw nothing but a meaningless wicker cone when looking at the painting? Relevant to the discussion of tree leaves that the artist claims are vine leaves (plus the additional background information that "women who wear vine leaves are Bacchantes; Bacchantes surrender their reason; etc.), I would say that if I saw an image of an empty cornucopia and had all kinds of responses, emotional and intellectual regarding the meaning of an object that I normally see filled with fruit and nuts - - - but the explanatory tag underneath the image, supplied by the artist, asserted that it was not, indeed, an empty cornucopia, but rather a symbolic representation of Gabriel's Trumpet, I would claim one would first have to read the tag in order to respond to the image in a way consistent with the artist's original intentions. If he painted Gabriel's Trumpet in such a way that it could easily be seen as an empty cornucopia as well, it seems the only knowledge I lack when experiencing the art was, in fact, the little explanatory tag supplied by the artist. I'd have a different judgment of his abilities as an artist, Possibly. You might also have a different judgment of the work, based on the new information. Your judgment, therefore, would be partly based on this information.

When you use technical-sounding jargon like "base probability" and "derived probability", it almost makes me afraid that you know what you're talking about. Almost, but not quite. I'll repeat the coin example: Instead of being interested in the mere number of outcomes that have one head and two tails (to return to the simpler example above), we were interested in a specific sequence; a specific order of one head and two tails -- for example, let's say the only sequence that was meaningful to us, and that we were looking for in advance of the calculation, was the sequence "T-H-T". We're not interested in "H-T-T", or "T-T-H", but only "T-H-T." Our question is now: What is the probability of finding that SPECIFIC sequence among all the possible sequences? ( A ) The probability of that one sequence, THT, occurring is 1/2^3 = 1/8. ( B ) The probability of any combination occurring that comprises 2-tails and 1-head, in any sequence whatsoever, is 3/8. In the real world -- the one that exists apart from the junk arguments of Objectivists -- proteins function as in statement ( A ). For a protein to function, its constituent amino acids can't be in any order (i.e., "TTH" or HTT"), but only in a specific order (i.e., "THT"). Given 26 letters of the alphabet in a Scrabble box, how many 3-letter combinations can we generate that include an "A", a "T", and a "C"? We can generate ATC, TAC, ACT, CAT, CTA, TCA = 6 possibilities. But if we are not looking for all combination of the three letters, but only those that spell meaningful words in English, we have only two possibilities: ACT, CAT. And if we are looking not just for all meaningful combination of the three letters, but for those that can typically function in a specific way -- e.g., as a verb -- then we have only one: ACT. Alas for your argument, ACT is not just as good a combination as ATC, TAC, CAT, CTA, TCA, despite comprising the same letters. The criteria were (i) must function as a real word in English; (ii) must also function as a verb. The functional criteria led us to only one valid sequence, ACT. If we randomly select Scrabble letters from a box, the chances of selecting the sequence A-C-T, in that order, are 1/26^3 = 1 in 17,576. Pretty slim. Everything I just wrote above regarding words and the alphabet applies to proteins and amino acids. The criterion is "function"; ergo, sequence is key. As for the silliness about "replication", proteins don't replicate at all in the absence of complex biochemical machinery -- the cell and DNA -- whose purpose is to make them replicate. The problem (had you been paying attention) was to use Darwinian assumptions in creating a protein of specific sequence and specific length without the aid of the machinery (i.e., ex nihilo). I think you should stick to subjects you know best, like history of science. Your assertion earlier that transistors evolved from cat-whisker diodes (based on the physical similarity of the latter to the modern-day symbol for the former) was especially insightful and impressive.

Not so. Matter/Energy is describable by well formed mathematical principles. God is not. Our hypotheses about matter/energy lead to testable quantitative prediction. Nothing said about god yields such results. Ba'al Chatzaf Not so. Matter/Energy is describable by well formed mathematical principles. I was unaware that mathematical description was the touchstone of a metaphysical First Cause. Since when? Our hypotheses about matter/energy lead to testable quantitative prediction. Nothing said about god yields such results. So? Practically nothing said about any intelligent being -- especially human beings -- leads to quantitative results. That doesn't make the actions of an intelligent being inherently unknowable or unintelligible. I believe all of Austrian economics is even founded on that idea; the axiom Mises calls "human action." Don't turn into an old-fashioned Vienna Circle logical positivist on us. That we can't stick a number on some phenomenon or process does not imply that we have no knowledge about it, or that we can't infer things about it, even if we cannot make quantitative predictions or retrodictions. We can't do that with history, yet we validly claim to "have knowledge of history"; we can't do that with ethics, yet we validly claim to "have knowledge of morality"; etc. Good grief, I'm amazed that at this late date you still need lessons on the difference between the so-called "humanities" and the so-called "quantitative sciences." The sort of thinking and analyses one needs to do when investigating something like "metaphysical first causes" belongs to the former, not the latter. It's a problem for philosophy, not physics.

I have paid very little attention to this thread so far, but this (and more of the same post) strike me as the kind of creationist junk math I've seen before. Is this alleged to apply to the result of a particular combination of genes or genetic mutations? Whether it does or not, I will use them to show the junk math. The same sort of analysis applies to abiogenesis as well, even though the number of chances is less clear. Let's start with 10 heads. Getting 10 heads in a row is equivalent probability-wise to tossing 10 coins simultaneously and getting 10 heads. But suppose we were to toss lots more coins and calculate the probability of 10 heads. Obviously the more coins are tossed, the more the probability of getting 10 heads increases. How is tossing more than 10 coins and getting 10 heads relevant to evolution? Any species has multiple generations and many organisms within each generation. Each one is analogous to having another coin to toss. Does any of AristotleAdvance's calculations reflect such complexity? Of course not, which is merely one thing that makes it junk math. Note that as I increase the number of tosses, the resulting probability increases. In contrast AA's decrease. I have paid very little attention to this thread so far I can tell that. Suppose you are going to toss three coins, and you want to work out the probability of only one head (and so two tails). The possible outcomes are: TTT, TTH, THT, THH, HTT, HTH, HHT, HHH All these outcomes are different, and they are all equally likely. There are 8 of them. There are 3 tosses with only one head: TTH, THT, HTT So the probability is 3/8. You can convert this into a decimal 0.375 or a percentage 37.5% This is a simplification of your question. If in your scenario you had 100 coins and simply want to know the probability of getting 10 heads when tossing all 100, you're really asking: given 100 coins, how many different combinations are there after the toss that yield 10 heads and 90 tails? There are many . . . and progressively more combinations as we increase the number of coins from 100 to 500, then 500 to 1,000. But that's an irrelevant question for this discussion -- something you might even have known had you been paying attention to this thread. For suppose, instead of being interested in the mere number of outcomes that have one head and two tails (to return to the simpler example above), we were interested in a specific sequence; a specific order of one head and two tails -- for example, let's say the only sequence that was meaningful to us, and that we were looking for in advance of the calculation, was the sequence "T-H-T". We're not interested in "H-T-T", or "T-T-H", but only "T-H-T." Our question is now: What is the probability of finding that SPECIFIC sequence among all the possible sequences? You can see for yourself: it's one out of eight, or 1/8, or 0.125, or 12.5% (not 37.5% as it is above, when we ignore sequence specificity). This is exactly the same answer we would have arrived at using the method I used in my original example: the probability of the first coin giving us a "T" is 1/2; the probability of the second coin giving us an "H" is 1/2; the probability of the third coin giving us a "T" is 1/2: the total probability getting "T-H-T" is 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/8. Now, Instead of a two-headed coin, suppose you had a 20-headed coin, shaped like an icosahedron. Instead of "heads" or "tails", each of the 20 faces had the name of an essential amino acid stamped on it. We want to calculate the probability of a highly specific sequence of amino acids for a protein whose chain-length is 300 amino acids. You claim that we'll have a fairly high chance of generating the 300 amino acids if we start out with an ocean-liner full of these icosahedrons and dump them -- you claim that as we dump larger and larger numbers of these icosahedrons, we will be progressively more likely to find the 300 amino acids we are looking for. You're right -- as long as we ignore sequence. Protein chains are analogous to words made up of letters: it's not just the existence of certain letters that compose functional sentences; it's their unique order, their specific sequence. Once you start worrying about the specific sequence, you're back to calculating probability by the method I used in my earlier example. Ergo, the only way to calculate the odds of a specific protein appearing AT A SPECIFIC POSITION IN THE CHAIN -- not just anywhere in the chain, but specifically, e.g., at position 4, then you have to use the method I used in my previous posts (i.e., it's a probability of 1/20 for any given amino acid appearing at any position in the chain; if there are 300 "open positions" in the chain, then the chances of a specific, unique sequence filling the open positions will obviously be 1/20 at each position. Multiply them together and you get the probability for the entire sequence.

Why do you assume that each stage in the generation of life is completely random? I don't make that assumption at all. Personally -- as you might have guessed -- I believe that each stage (or many of them) show unmistakeable signs of having been designed. It was Darwin and his True Believers who make the assumption of randomness. That's what their phrase "RANDOM VARIATION" means. Note the word "random", please. My calculation was based simply on taking their assumption literally. On this basis, you would have to conclude that the probability of abiogenesis occuring on Venus and Earth were equal. This is nuts, They are equal -- they're both effectively zero. The difference between Earth and Venus relevant to this discussion is this: once life already exists (ah! there's the problem!) THEN -- granted -- it will no doubt find it far more hospitable to thrive on Earth than on Venus. That doesn't mean that Earth-like ecologies naturally "tend" to the creation of life from non-living entities; that, of course, has never been shown experimentally. Such an assumption would also support the idea that given a certain environment, life is pretty much inevitable; i.e., determined. We know it isn't. but this very assumption is how you generate your fantastic odds against abiogenesis. That's correct. That pretty much shows that the fantastic odds are not figments of anyone's imagination or a case of misapplied 7th-grade math. The odds are real. The conclusion, therefore is this: obviously, life didn't arise by a random process (or, more conservatively: life could not have arisen by a random process alone). The manner in which higher stages in the development of life can dramatically diminish randomness is illustrated in this article by the cell biologist Dave Deamer: I'm acquainted with Deamer, his summary of this experiment, and the original paper in Science by Bartel & Szostak. This experiment -- an excellent example of what is today called "Ribozyme Engineering" -- is often touted by the Darwin Lobby as proof that abiogenesis can occur in a way consistent with the Darwinian theory of evolution; unfortunately for these poor benighted souls, the significance of the experiment is exactly the opposite. Deamer states this openly -- though probably unwittingly -- when he admits the following:: ". . . By the way, this is the same basic logic that breeders use when they select for a property such as coat color in dogs . . . " Yep. It sure is, Deamer. Even Darwin, who was a close observer of professional animal breeders, understood that breeders employ design and goals in their breeding efforts; they intentionally and intelligently select in favor of certain traits, and against certain other traits, that they want to see in the end result, or that they don't want to see in the end result. If one is going to carry the banner of materialism, it is obviously invalid to impute to insensate physical nature the same sort of ability to "select for favorable traits" or to "preserve traits that would be most welcome in an organism" that the breeders have. Deamer's summary is full of references to the researchers employment of design, in contradistinction to how unguided physical nature acts: "They then AMPLIFIED THOSE MOLECULES . . ." Is this amplification something nature, left to itself, would have done? How do we know? What are the odds of nature doing such an amplification? What sorts of forces did nature bring to bear AGAINST such amplification? Blank out. "They began by synthesizing many trillions of different RNA molecules about 300 nucleotides long . . ." Right ho!! Unfortunately, unguided nature doesn't synthesize RNA molecules of any length, let alone one designed to be just the right length to allow one's experiment to conclude happily. Alas -- those poor geochemists! -- They're so unpopular! Everyone in the biology department hates them because they always report back to the origin-of-life fellows that "NO such conditions as you created in your lab EVER existed on the early Earth." This is what they told Harold Urey and Stanley Miller after their experiment on amino acid production back in the 1950s, and it quite simply demolished the conclusions that people (including Urey and Miller) were drawing. Would unguided, undirected nature -- a nature with no Bartel & Szostak -- have come up with the rare chemical pathway that leads to RNA formation? What about all the DESTRUCTIVE physical forces that unguided, undirected nature no doubt have also come up with that would tend to neutralize chemical reactions? Blank out. There are more, but it might be more fun to quote the researchers themselves from their published paper in Science: "Incubation of the pool RNA...led to rapid and extensive aggregation; more than half of the pool RNA precipitated when incubated for 90 minutes at 37º C . . . " Here, "aggregation" means "formed a tangled, gooey mess that was completely useless." I.e., assuming nature unaided and unguided can even produce RNA and let it stagnate in "warm little ponds", it will aggregate (they also use the word "precipitate"). That's what nature does by itself with warm little ponds of RNA, assuming (and it's an unwarranted assumption) that it can even produce RNA to begin with. So, how did Bartel & Szostak proceed? They employed their own intelligent design and thought up a way to beat unguided physical nature by doing something that humans often do when running into a problem: they invented a way to solve it. "To minimize the problem of RNA aggregation, we immobilized the pool of RNA molecules on agarose beads before the addition of Mg2+" Oh, yeah, baby! They tied those molecules down! As they put it, they, uh, "tethered" the RNA molecules to agarose, a carbohydrate derived from seaweed, specifically chosen for molecular properties that they knew in advance would NOT hinder the next few steps of the experiment. Nice! Very elegant! There's just one small hitch: is this plausibly a route that unguided, undirected nature would have arrived at by chance, granting, for the sake of argument, that it even had warm little pools of RNA in the prebiotic era? Blank out. It's obvious that the selection forces used in laboratory ribozyme engineering are unlikely (to put it mildly) to occur outside of the laboratory, in the absence of intelligent designers and goal-choosers like Bartel & Szostak, and in the presence of many naturally occurring destructive processes. It's a well known experiment, and an elegant one, but it doesn't show what you think it does, and it certainly doesn't prove what Deamer claims it does. If anything, it proves that design on the part of intelligent agents called "researchers" can fairly easily, and certainly very rapidly, leap over problems that unguided nature cannot.

Let's go with the third example that I posted. It's a study of a Bacchante (notice the vine leaves in her hair), As a matter of fact, most of us here did not notice what you claim are vine leaves in her hair; I noticed, for example tree leaves, making the piece a sculpture of a dryad (a wood nymph), and not a bacchante. Nothing especially malevolent about wood nymphs. There is very often a real gap between what the artist claims about his work -- especially in the way of explanations regarding his intent -- and what the audience actually perceives (and hence, what they respond to) in the absence of such explanations. If anything could be interpreted as a symbol of determinism, it would be such a creature who has no control over herself. Plus she's into brutal sacrifice and anthropophagy. Very malevolent, anti-reason, anti-mind, and all of that. Your judgment has nothing to do with the art, per se, and everything to do with the narrative story -- the explanation of the art provided by the artist (or by someone else other than yourself) -- regarding what the art is actually supposed to be. Since your philosophy instructs you not to like women who surrender their intellect in order to enter into a trance, you think -- mistakenly -- that you are judging the actual sculpture. You're not. You're passing judgment on the background narrative. If the artist had told you, instead, that the sculpture was a likeness of an innocent dryad, or perhaps a likeness of the Goddess Natura, you'd pass a different judgment.

That's a question I've always wanted to put the scientists and engineers at the SETI program. To search for extraterrestrial life is to assume that it can, in principle, exist, and that intelligent activity leaves certain telltale signs that are recognizable by another intelligence. I don't accept that familiarity is a rational standard for judging an idea, hypothesis, or theory. The relevant question is: can goal-directedness from an intelligent source best explain the phenomena? If this is the relevant question, then provide an explanation. You have given none so far, but I am anxious to hear it. Will it eventually lead to the conclusion, "Therefore, Jesus died for our sins"? Just curious. When we infer the existence of intelligent life on other planets, we do so on the basis of phenomena that, so far as we know, are not found in insensate nature. The SETI researchers are searching for signs of purposeful communication , and such communication presupposes intelligence. Your calculations of the probability of life originating via inorganic causes, whether correct or not, are based on the time frame supposedly allowed by Big Bang theory. So did your Intelligent Designer also emerge from the Big Bang? If it did, then you must explain how it could have been created during this limited time. If it did not, then you have in fact rejected Big Bang theory, which purports to explain how the entire universe came into being. You know the ID catechism quite well, so you know that your Intelligent Designer must somehow exist outside the natural universe. It must, in other words, be supernatural -- and a supernatural "cause" explains exactly nothing. You might as well posit "magic" as an explanation. Ghs If this is the relevant question, then provide an explanation. The usual sort of response to a question is an answer, not an explanation. The relevant question I posed earlier was: can goal-directedness from an intelligent source best explain certain kinds of phenomena? My answer: yes, if the phenomena in question have an information density of 500 bits or more, then goal-directedness from an intelligent source will have to accompany any other explanation (or even pre-empt it altogether). When judging a hypothesis, we use a "rejection region"; a threshold above which our initial assumptions no longer hold. The question then becomes: where do we draw the line of demarcation that bounds our rejection region, and on what basis? For example: someone tosses a coin that we assume to be fair. The odds of landing "heads" or "tails" is 1/2. If our friend tosses 3 heads in a row, we think nothing of it; the odds of 3 heads in a row occurring are 1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2 = 1 chance out of a total number of 8 possibilities, or 1/8. Do we accept that outcome as resulting from chance? Or did the tosser employ design (such as a two-headed coin)? Most of us would probably consider 3 heads in a row as nothing unusual. What if our friend tosses 10 heads in a row? Do we accept that sequence as a product of randomness? or design? Ten heads in a row have odds of about 1/1,000. We might still accept this result as having occurred by chance. What if our friend tosses 50 heads in a row? Chance? Or design? 50 heads in a row have odds of about 1/10^15, or one chance in 100 trillion. Has it crossed our demarcation border yet? Do accept a sequence of 50 heads in a row as a result of chance? or do we suspect that some other -- some additional -- causal agent, such as design was employed? Suppose we accept this result as having been caused by chance. If our friend tosses 100 heads in a row, we find that the odds of doing that are about 1/10^30 for a fair coin, and assuming chance alone as the causal agent. Question: do we accept odds of 1/10^30 as indicating extreme luck? or do we not accept it as luck, and suspect design? Apparently, the materialists on this board -- meaning all the Objectivists -- believe that as long as there's a non-zero probability of getting a certain sequence (and 1/10^30 is slightly bigger than zero), it means that chance is as good an explanation as any other. This would get every Objectivist on this board fired from working security at the Luxor. At the Luxor, if you win 100 roulette spins or 100 consecutive BlackJacks, you will be accused (to put it politely) of "employing design." How does the House know this? Easy: they stack the odds against you purposely, so they know precisely where to draw the line of demarcation that establishes their rejection region. The fact is this: in most cases, the choice of where to demarcate the rejection region is optional, based on NON-MATHEMATICAL considerations, often intuitive ones. But we can draw a demarcation at the upper boundary of possibility itself: since we know that every physical event in the universe -- which includes, of course, coin tosses -- must involve at least one out of a possible 10^80 fundamental particles; and since we know that a fundamental particle cannot change its state with a frequency greater than Planck Time (10^45 times / second); and since we know that the universe itself has been around for about 10^17 seconds, the "probabilistic resources" of the entire universe can be calculated as our line of demarcation. That line is here: 10^80 x 10^45 x 10^17 = 10^142 Which means the following: any event whose odds of occurring are less than 1 chance in 10^142 can -- conceivably -- have been brought about through chance alone. If an event has odds of occurring that are equal or greater than 1 chance in 10^142, then it is inconceivable that this could have been brought about by chance alone. Notice that we can validly assert this even though the chance of something occurring might be greater than zero. That's a pretty forgiving boundary line, since how many things, after all, have chances of occurring that are equal to or greater than 1 chance in 10^142? It turns out, alas, that there are many phenomena that exceed this boundary. For example, if our friend were to toss 474 consecutive heads, we could not only suspect design, but prove it (even without inspecting the coin). The odds of tossing a coin and getting 474 consecutive heads are 1/2^474 = 1 chance in 10^142. Since we would not plausibly expect to see this sequence even if 10^80 friends were each tossing a coin 10^45 times per second for 12 billion years, it can only be that something other than chance is operating. Just to be thorough, of course, I suppose we could also suspect that some deterministic force were in operation; it's not a logical impossibility, but we would probably reject it on the grounds that such a force was hauled in, ad hoc, simply for the purpose of explaining this one phenomenon, to disappear whence it came after our friend was arrested for cheating. Just on the basis of plausibility, we would, no doubt, assume teleology: our friend employed design to overcome the odds of 1 in 10^142 and achieve 474 consecutive heads. "Cheating" is simply the word we use for design when it is employed in gambling, and in other contexts where one has contractually agreed to allow only chance to operate. At a piano recital, however, we generally do not want any hint at all of randomness, and hope that the effect the musician has on us -- the music he has learned and practiced -- is entirely a phenomenon governed by design. We make the charge of design toward any entity that causes phenomena to occur whose odds are equal to or greater than 1 in 10^142. So if the chances of a functional protein of 300 residues forming are calculated to be 1 in 10^600, that is well past the demarcation line, and well within our rejection region; meaning: we can reject chance as a plausible hypothesis for explaining how the protein came into existence. Since nature itself is performing the trials, we can, with certainty, claim that nature itself made use of something in addition to chance. What is that something else? It can only be something deterministic, or something intelligent. Those are the only forces that can cause otherwise highly improbable events to occur with a probably very close to "1". For various reasons -- one of which has to do with the free, undetermined sequence of nucleotide bases that is used as a storage of coded information for the making of proteins -- determinism won't do. That leaves only one other choice for a causal explanation: intelligence. You know the ID catechism quite well, Thank you. For your part, you know HTML quite well, but seem to have forgotten everything about 7th grade math. Only the latter is relevant here. You also repeat, with great religious zeal, the same catechism you recited 30 years ago in your book on atheism. Congratulations. Your faith is inspiring. so you know that your Intelligent Designer must somehow exist outside the natural universe. It must, in other words, be supernatural -- and a supernatural "cause" explains exactly nothing. You might as well posit "magic" as an explanation. A designing intelligence called First Cause bears the same relation to a subset of the universe called "living organisms" as another designing intelligence called Ayn Rand bears to a subset of the physical universe called "Atlas Shrugged." The latter required intelligence to bring it into existence; so did the former. That can be proven mathematically, since we have already established a rejection region and a demarcation line: take all the letters in Atlas Shrugged (omitting punctuation for the sake of simplicity of calculation) and calculate like this: At any given position in the continuous line of text from beginning to end, there are 27 possibilities: one of the 26 letters of the alphabet or a space. Multiply the number "27" by itself for each letter or space in AS. Not having done a character count on AS, I have no idea what that might be. Let's say it's a million characters. We can now calculate the following: the odds of AS having occurred by chance (let's say, by means of monkeys typing keyboards over a very long period time) are 1 chance in 27^1,000,000, which is approximately 1 chance in 10^1,500,000. That's a bit above our threshold of 1 chance in 10^142. That means that we rule out as definitely implausible any such notion that chance caused just that sequence of letters that we call "Atlas Shrugged" to come into existence; yet Rand's intelligence easily leapfrogged over that impossibly big number and created AS in a mere 10 years! Is Rand's intelligence "supernatural"? In a sense, yes. Rand's intelligence was not an effect, whose cause was physical changes in brain tissue; it was something undetermined entirely by matter and energy. Same for everyone else's mind. "Intelligence", per se, is outside matter and energy; either intelligence itself caused matter and energy to come into existence (since the reverse is clearly nonsense); or it existed along with it from the beginning. If it pleases your materialist biases by calling that "supernatural", then by all means do so. As for a Designing Intelligence being the Creator of Everything, not just living organisms . . . as stated earlier, systems or configurations that can be shown to have 500 bits of information or more cannot come about in 12 billion years from strictly materialistic and random causes. The numbers are what they are. Intelligence can be the only cause of these things. Clearly, not everything in the universe has a density of 500 bits of information or more. It is conceivable, therefore, that matter, energy, randomness, and time alone could have created these things (or rather, we cannot rule out chance, even if it's later shown that chance had nothing to do with it). If it did not, then you have in fact rejected Big Bang theory, That, of course, doesn't follow. The Big Bang is taken as the starting point -- the cause -- of the resulting physical universe: matter and energy. Since intelligence -- in fact, mind in general -- is not an effect of matter and energy, nor is it a mere epiphenomenon of matter and energy -- one can certainly posit an intelligence prior to, and perhaps even causing, something else like the Big Bang. There's no contradiction in that. There is, of course a contradiction in the reverse. To assert that Mind is an effect of matter and energy, or even an epiphenomenon, is to reject Mind as distinct from matter and energy. Mind -- intelligence -- is a primary, and cannot be reduced to a mere effect of matter and energy antecedent to it.

"Materialists" -- a label that you toss around with reckless abandon -- don't claim that the existence matter and energy (broadly conceived) require a causal explanation to begin with. You, in contrast, begin with the premise that intelligent life, and life generally, do require a causal explanation -- and here "materialists" agree with you. But you then go on to posit a form of intelligent life as an ultimate causal explanation of intelligent life, thereby contradicting your premise that the existence of intelligent life itself requires a causal explanation. This is why it is legitimate to ask, "Then what caused the existence of your Intelligent Designer?" Of course, you can -- and you probably will, eventually -- squirm around this problem by claiming that the "intelligence" of your ID is not the same kind of intelligence that demands a causal explanation, or that your ID is not a "living" being in the sense that we normally understand this word. In other words, you will progressively push your Intelligent Designer into the realm of the unknowable. The fact that we must posit some kind of causal primary does not mean that we can reasonably posit any kind of causal primary. The degree of complexity is one factor here, among others. You are confusing epistemological explanations with metaphysical causes. We accept explanations when they tell us what we need to know in a given context. We do not include Shakespeare's parents when explaining his plays because they have no direct relevance. (Everyone has parents, after all.) But Shakespeare's parents could be relevant to an explanation, as when some 19th century skeptics questioned whether Shakespeare ever existed. Similarly, if we think that genius is genetically transmitted, his parentage might be relevant to an explanation as well. Ghs "Materialists" -- a label that you toss around with reckless abandon -- don't claim that the existence matter and energy (broadly conceived) require a causal explanation to begin with. So for "materialists" -- broadly conceived -- matter and energy (also broadly conceived) simply "always were, and always will be." Sounds as if they've found a First Cause (i.e., matter and energy, broadly conceived). Logically, there is no difference between this and the standard theistic First Cause: "God always was and always will be." Your materialist simply swapped "matter and energy" for "God." I believe it was the rhetorician Kenneth Burke who referred to this sort of use of terms as "God terms." "All effects are ultimately physical/material in nature; all effects must have some physical/material cause, involving some interaction of Matter and Energy . . . but we dare not ask the cause of Matter and Energy: nothing caused them; they simply always were, and always will be." (Amen.). You, in contrast, begin with the premise that intelligent life, and life generally, do require a causal explanation -- and here "materialists" agree with you. But you then go on to posit a form of intelligent life as an ultimate causal explanation of intelligent life, I said nothing about intelligent LIFE as a First Cause. I spoke only about an intelligent cause. You erroneously connect the concepts "intelligence" and "life" because, in your experience, they are always found together. I have no doubt that the First Cause was intelligent, since it's the only assumption consistent with certain facts -- physical as well as non-physical -- that we all see and experience today; I doubt very much it was "alive" in any meaningful sense of that term. At this point, Objectivists tiresomely trot out the old "stolen concept" canard, as if that's a valid criticism. It isn't. This is why it is legitimate to ask, "Then what caused the existence of your Intelligent Designer?" See above. You're OK with "Nothing caused matter and energy to arise"? I'm OK with "Nothing caused the first intelligent designer to arise." Logically, they are the same argument, just different terms. Of course, you can -- and you probably will, eventually -- squirm around this problem by claiming that the "intelligence" of your ID is not the same kind of intelligence that demands a causal explanation, or that your ID is not a "living" being in the sense that we normally understand this word. In other words, you will progressively push your Intelligent Designer into the realm of the unknowable. You're merely balking at the fact of irreducible primaries and ultimate causes. The most you can really say about an ultimate cause is that it's an ultimate cause -- a First Cause, a Prime Mover. You can infer certain things about it from its effects, of course, but one obviously can't inquire as to what caused the First Cause because then one contradicts the assumption that it's indeed a First Cause. This is as true for an Intelligent Designer as it is for Matter and Energy. You merely feel comfortable with one set of terms rather than another. The fact that we must posit some kind of causal primary does not mean that we can reasonably posit any kind of causal primary. Ah! Well said! THAT is actually a different (and better) argument on your part. I might add, too, that the way we decide upon which causal primaries are adequate for conducting inquiry is NOT by an appeal to a beloved philosophical system or author, but by reference to objective facts about the universe; i.e., if there are objective facts about the universe that cannot be explained by means of certain causal primaries, then we find different causal primaries. The question at hand now becomes this: if we posit only Matter and Energy as irreducible causal primaries, can we PLAUSIBLY think of a pathway -- as per this discussion, a specifically Darwinian pathway involving random events and lots of time -- whose effect will be a protein of 300 amino acids long, with nothing but peptide bonds, and nothing but left-handed isomers, in the time that our best science tells us we have since time began, i.e., about 12 billion years? The answer is no. I did the calculation already, and I already explained why a search space of 10^600 won't fit into a room whose dimensions are 10^142. You ran out of matter, energy, and time. Ergo: the starting assumption for your causal primaries was either completely wrong, or simply insufficient. "Intelligence" itself has to be a causal primary, either contemporary with Matter and Energy, or antecedent to it. You are confusing epistemological explanations with metaphysical causes. You are conflating metaphysical causes with matter and energy. I've already shown that matter and energy alone, acting over the available total time-span of the universe, cannot overcome the odds of an event whose chances of occurring are 1/10^600. The only cause capable of leaping over a number like that is intelligence -- we know this from our own direct experience, so there's nothing invalid about inferring a similar sort of action to something else. Therefore, your phrase "metaphysical causes" must comprise matter, energy, and intelligence. Matter and energy may be necessary, but they are insufficient. We do not include Shakespeare's parents when explaining his plays because they have no direct relevance. (Everyone has parents, after all.) True, but only Shakespeare had HIS parents. no one else did. As you point out, however, even limiting analysis to HIS parents is irrelevant: Shakespeare's parents are not part of the series of telic causes and effects that ended in an effect called "Hamlet." The only way that his parents could be relevant to explaining the existence of Hamlet would be if we had evidence that it was his parents who thought up the play, and either transmitted that information to Will, who wrote it down; or if Will had acquired the information from them illicitly (stole it, plagiarized it, etc.). Otherwise, as you say, his parents are not part of the causal chain, which begins with William. He is the Intelligent Designer, the First Cause, the Prime Mover of the play "Hamlet." Any additional inquiry as to what caused William Shakespeare to create Hamlet is an attempt to get a different sort of information from the inquiry, and for a different purpose. As part of the causal inquiry, we might ask "Why did he create the play?" "How did he write it, i.e., what existing story information did he have to work with?" etc. These are perfectly legitimate questions, but in a completely different sense from the metaphysical-causal one discussed above. (By way of another example: Milton wrote Paradise Lost by dictating it to his daughter, since he had become blind by then. In a literal sense, therefore, his daughter "wrote" Paradise Lost, but Milton's imagination and intelligence were the irreducible First Causes responsible for bringing the epic into existence. Any metaphysical-causal inquiry into what caused Paradise Lost to come into existence obviously need not include the daughter.)

What is the origin of light. What caused the First Photon? If you can answer that with --- X caused the First Photon, I will then ask what caused X. And so. Any assertion of cause either leads to a circle (which is no explanation) or an infinite regress (which is no explanation). The world is Turtles All The Way Down. Either that or there is something without a cause. That something has always existed or that something came into existence causeless. Ba'al Chatzaf Precisely my point. Thanks for agreeing with me. Whether materialist or telic, one either assumes an infinite regress -- each cause being itself an effect of some antecedent cause, ad infinitum -- or one arrives at a putative First Cause.

Yes it is. The only relevant answer to "How did Hamlet come to exist"? is "A guy named William Shakespeare thought it up and wrote it down." The Big Bang and how it putatively led to the appearance after billions of years to a Mr. and Mrs. Shakespeare is irrelevant, because it fails to explain what we requested: how did Hamlet come to be written? Answer: William Shakespeare created it. That's the First Cause and the only relevant answer. Same for computer programmers who wrote Windows 7. The occurrence of a Big Bang 12 million years ago, and the supposed evolution -- guided or unguided -- since then, has zero to do with answering the question.

So how did your Intelligent Designer create life? Some details, please. I have no idea. A forensics expert has finished his job when he answers the question: was event or entity ( A ) caused by random / deterministic forces (i.e., does the corpse show signs of having accidentally slipped? Does it show signs of having had a heart-attack?); or was it caused by design (i.e., a crime of opportunity? a planned hit?). After that, his job is done, and he hands over the problem to others whose job it is to ask about the "details" you inquired about, such as the "how" and the "why." You have no idea? Then I take it that you have not calculated the probability that an ID exists who was able to create life. And if not, then how do you know that this is not even less probable than life originating from inorganic causes? Even if we accept your calculations, you have merely shown that the generation of life from inorganic matter is highly improbable, not impossible. So what? Even the highly improbable can happen. Thus if you want to present an alternative scientific theory, you need to present an alternative causal explanation that is more probable. This is how science works; a prevailing scientific theory is modified or displaced when a better explanatory theory is offered. But you have "no idea" of what such an alternative causal theory would be. Hence the most you can claim is that we don't fully understand at the present time how life originated. When a forensic pathologist concludes that a person was killed by design, he is referring to other human beings. This makes sense as an explanation, because we know from experience what human beings are and what they can do. But if a pathologist concluded that nothing natural can possibly explain how a person died, we would justly conclude that he is merely saying that he doesn't know how that person died. He cannot explain it. And this is all that you are justified in saying about the origin of life, given your calculations. The why is irrelevant to this discussion, but the how is crucial. You claim that the improbability of life originating from inorganic causes provides "tell-tale signs" of intelligent design. But it doesn't show anything of the sort; at most, it merely shows that life is a highly unusual occurrence. If you wish to go further than this, if you wish to conclude that life was caused by an ID, then you must provide an alternative causal explanation and show that your explanation is more probable than the explanation you reject. But you have provided no such explanation; indeed, by your own admission you have "no idea" what such an explanation would consist of. As for your calculations, the following question needs to be considered: Which is more probable? -- that your calculations are wrong, or that there exists an Intelligent Designer with the power to create life? Human error is a common occurrence, whereas we have no independent evidence for the existence of an ID. I haven't confused anything. We are talking about science, not theology. You have not shown that "living organisms came about through intelligence." All you have shown is that, by your standards, you are unable to explain how life came about. I am not familiar with intelligent forms of nonliving beings who are capable of designing things. Are you? Ghs Even if we accept your calculations, you have merely shown that the generation of life from inorganic matter is highly improbable, not impossible. So what? No, see, that's the whole point of a "rejection region." It is impermissible to say "Since there's a non-zero probability of X having occurred by chance, then randomness is a good explanation for its having done so." If the probability falls below a certain threshold -- the most forgiving being 1 chance in 10^142 -- then chance can be rejected out of hand as being an explanation for its existence. This is probably why Objectivists don't make good security men at casinos. If someone were to win a jackpot with odds of 1 in 10^142, any competent person would suspect cheating (i.e., the employment of design to overcome the unfavorable odds stacked against you by the House). Instead, they merely say, "Oh, well, it was a non-zero probability, so I'm sure the win was honest." Doesn't work that way in the real world.

So how did your Intelligent Designer create life? Some details, please. I have no idea. A forensics expert has finished his job when he answers the question: was event or entity ( A ) caused by random / deterministic forces (i.e., does the corpse show signs of having accidentally slipped? Does it show signs of having had a heart-attack?); or was it caused by design (i.e., a crime of opportunity? a planned hit?). After that, his job is done, and he hands over the problem to others whose job it is to ask about the "details" you inquired about, such as the "how" and the "why." You have no idea? Then I take it that you have not calculated the probability that an ID exists who was able to create life. And if not, then how do you know that this is not even less probable than life originating from inorganic causes? Even if we accept your calculations, you have merely shown that the generation of life from inorganic matter is highly improbable, not impossible. So what? Even the highly improbable can happen. Thus if you want to present an alternative scientific theory, you need to present an alternative causal explanation that is more probable. This is how science works; a prevailing scientific theory is modified or displaced when a better explanatory theory is offered. But you have "no idea" of what such an alternative causal theory would be. Hence the most you can claim is that we don't fully understand at the present time how life originated. When a forensic pathologist concludes that a person was killed by design, he is referring to other human beings. This makes sense as an explanation, because we know from experience what human beings are and what they can do. But if a pathologist concluded that nothing natural can possibly explain how a person died, we would justly conclude that he is merely saying that he doesn't know how that person died. He cannot explain it. And this is all that you are justified in saying about the origin of life, given your calculations. The why is irrelevant to this discussion, but the how is crucial. You claim that the improbability of life originating from inorganic causes provides "tell-tale signs" of intelligent design. But it doesn't show anything of the sort; at most, it merely shows that life is a highly unusual occurrence. If you wish to go further than this, if you wish to conclude that life was caused by an ID, then you must provide an alternative causal explanation and show that your explanation is more probable than the explanation you reject. But you have provided no such explanation; indeed, by your own admission you have "no idea" what such an explanation would consist of. As for your calculations, the following question needs to be considered: Which is more probable? -- that your calculations are wrong, or that there exists an Intelligent Designer with the power to create life? Human error is a common occurrence, whereas we have no independent evidence for the existence of an ID. I haven't confused anything. We are talking about science, not theology. You have not shown that "living organisms came about through intelligence." All you have shown is that, by your standards, you are unable to explain how life came about. I am not familiar with intelligent forms of nonliving beings who are capable of designing things. Are you? Ghs You have no idea? Then I take it that you have not calculated the probability that an ID exists who was able to create life. You fail to understand the argument. The argument is this: there are 3 basic causal forces in the universe: deterministic ones, random ones, intelligent ones. If an event cannot be explained by reference to the first two, it means it was caused by the third. If it cannot be explained by the third, then it cannot be explained at all. And if not, then how do you know that this is not even less probable than life originating from inorganic causes? Depends on the event or entity in question. ID doesn't deny the existence of determinist and randomness, and grants, even that they may have played a role in the appearance of life, as well as in its later speciation. ID has a problem with the concept of information having arisen by any combination of the first two causes, especially if the odds of it having arisen by such means exceed the upper probability bound applicable to the universe as a whole. Let's put it this way. If we convert the upper probability bound of 1 chance out of a total number of combinations of 10^142 into a number pertaining directly to information -- binary digits, or bits -- we get: 10^142 is approx. = to 2^500, or 500 bits. So here's the line of demarcation: if a system, living or otherwise, can be shown to exhibit 500 bits of information or more, there is precisely zero probability that randomness had anything to do with its having come into existence, since at 500+ bits, you've exhausted the probabilistic resources of the entire universe: i.e., even if every fundamental particle were performing trial-and-error experiments at the highest possible frequency (Planck Time) since the universe began, you would not be anywhere near having created enough trials to plausibly come up with that one combination that wins the house jackpot -- that functions. The previous example of a protein of 300 amino acids length is a case in point: the odds of that coming into existence, ex nihilo, by chance alone were about 1 in 10^600, far smaller than the smallest possible probability bound of 1 chance in 10^142. Ergo, chance alone could not have come up with such a combination. Determinism -- usually called "biochemical predestination" in the biz -- can be rejected for other reasons, but even intuitively we can reject it because it has the opposite problem: if the protein were predestined to appear because of immutable deterministic chemical forces, then its appearance has the probability of 1 chance in 1, or 100%. We can reject determinism as being the cause of life, which clearly need not arise in the universe. That leaves only one causal force -- goal-directedness by an intelligent agency. We know from human experience that our own intelligent activity can easily surmount probabilistic odds of 1 in 10^142: any novel or piece of music instantly proves that case (for what are the odds that Shakespeare's plays could be accidentally created by monkeys randomly tapping away at computer keyboards: turns out, the probability -- which is non-zero -- is nevertheless far smaller than 1 chance in 10^142 (Shakespeare's plays have an information density that is higher than 500 bits); so even if 10^80 monkeys tapped away for 12 billion years, you would not be anywhere near having created enough random trials to plausibly generate Hamlet or MacBeth. Mathematicians and statisticians actually make use of a concept called a "rejection region": if a certain event is calculated as having odds that fall within it, the statistician rejects randomness, or any sort of stochastic physical process, as having caused the event in question. Finally, your claim that "intelligence" is somehow logically connected only to the notion of "human" is unfounded -- the whole idea of the SETI program, for example, is based on the idea that one kind of intelligence (human) will be capable of recognizing distinctive signs of any other kind of intelligence (non-human). SETI may or may not be a waste of money, but there's nothing inherently absurd about the mission.

So how did your Intelligent Designer create life? Some details, please. I have no idea. A forensics expert has finished his job when he answers the question: was event or entity ( A ) caused by random / deterministic forces (i.e., does the corpse show signs of having accidentally slipped? Does it show signs of having had a heart-attack?); or was it caused by design (i.e., a crime of opportunity? a planned hit?). After that, his job is done, and he hands over the problem to others whose job it is to ask about the "details" you inquired about, such as the "how" and the "why." You have no idea? Then I take it that you have not calculated the probability that an ID exists who was able to create life. And if not, then how do you know that this is not even less probable than life originating from inorganic causes? Even if we accept your calculations, you have merely shown that the generation of life from inorganic matter is highly improbable, not impossible. So what? Even the highly improbable can happen. Thus if you want to present an alternative scientific theory, you need to present an alternative causal explanation that is more probable. This is how science works; a prevailing scientific theory is modified or displaced when a better explanatory theory is offered. But you have "no idea" of what such an alternative causal theory would be. Hence the most you can claim is that we don't fully understand at the present time how life originated. When a forensic pathologist concludes that a person was killed by design, he is referring to other human beings. This makes sense as an explanation, because we know from experience what human beings are and what they can do. But if a pathologist concluded that nothing natural can possibly explain how a person died, we would justly conclude that he is merely saying that he doesn't know how that person died. He cannot explain it. And this is all that you are justified in saying about the origin of life, given your calculations. The why is irrelevant to this discussion, but the how is crucial. You claim that the improbability of life originating from inorganic causes provides "tell-tale signs" of intelligent design. But it doesn't show anything of the sort; at most, it merely shows that life is a highly unusual occurrence. If you wish to go further than this, if you wish to conclude that life was caused by an ID, then you must provide an alternative causal explanation and show that your explanation is more probable than the explanation you reject. But you have provided no such explanation; indeed, by your own admission you have "no idea" what such an explanation would consist of. As for your calculations, the following question needs to be considered: Which is more probable? -- that your calculations are wrong, or that there exists an Intelligent Designer with the power to create life? Human error is a common occurrence, whereas we have no independent evidence for the existence of an ID. I haven't confused anything. We are talking about science, not theology. You have not shown that "living organisms came about through intelligence." All you have shown is that, by your standards, you are unable to explain how life came about. I am not familiar with intelligent forms of nonliving beings who are capable of designing things. Are you? Ghs That's a question I've always wanted to put the scientists and engineers at the SETI program. To search for extraterrestrial life is to assume that it can, in principle, exist, and that intelligent activity leaves certain telltale signs that are recognizable by another intelligence. I don't accept that familiarity is a rational standard for judging an idea, hypothesis, or theory. The relevant question is: can goal-directedness from an intelligent source best explain the phenomena? Another answer is this: I am not familiar with non-intelligent causes (meaning: randomness and determinism) for life, and neither is anyone else. So far, the only thing we know for sure -- following Pasteur in this -- is that living things always and only come from other living things; yet you find no absurdity in continuing to look for evidence that randomness + time = life. Sounds like dedication to the philosophical principle of materialism rather than dedication to finding the best explanation.

But then who/what created the "intelligent source"? The who created the previous one and on and on ad infinitum? Your own logic fails right here. Why not stop when evidence stops? Life evolved simply because it seems that life is inherent in matter under the right conditions. The laws governing matter just "are". There is no logical footing to look beyond and ask "why" the laws are this way (at least not yet). It is a nonsensical question like asking what's north of the north pole. Bob But then who/what created the "intelligent source"? The who created the previous one and on and on ad infinitum? 1. The same infinite regress appears in materialism. In practice, materialists simply push back the explanation until they arrive at a putative cause about which they can say nothing. Who knows what caused the singularity before the Big Bang to come into existence? It always was in existence. If the causal explanation "X always was in existence" is good enough for materialism, it's good enough for teleology, too. 2. As it so happens, the regress, as you have stated it, is simply irrelevant in fields where intelligent goal-directedness operates. If the cause of Windows 7 arising in the world is the intelligent activity of a programmer (or programmers), then the regress stops right there; it's plain silly to ask, "Well, what caused the programmers to arise?" If the cause of an entity like the play "Hamlet" to arise in the natural world is the intelligent, goal-directed activity of William Shakespeare, then that's the Prime Mover -- the First Cause -- of the play having arisen. No one would then ask, "But who or what caused William Shakespeare to arise in the natural world!!??" I suppose that would be Mr. and Mrs. Shakespeare, but so what? They actually have nothing to do with the chain of causality for "Hamlet" that begins with William.

Please provide three good illustrative examples for each of your separate categories. Please provide nine good reasons, in 6 dialects, in 3 different languages, why I should do anything for you, Keer, after you threw a little hissy-fit in another thread and sneered that you'd never respond to any of my posts. "Division of labor" doesn't mean "I do your work for you." How dare I take you seriously, you ask? My fault. If you don't want to make sense, that's your choice. They are your supposed ideas, after all. I have no problem broadening my refusal to debate pseudoscience with you to ignoring you altogether. How dare I take you seriously, you ask? Sneering and throwing a little temper tantrum is your way of taking someone seriously?

So how did your Intelligent Designer create life? Some details, please. And who created your Intelligent Designer? I presume he is "alive" in some sense. Ghs So how did your Intelligent Designer create life? Some details, please. I have no idea. A forensics expert has finished his job when he answers the question: was event or entity ( A ) caused by random / deterministic forces (i.e., does the corpse show signs of having accidentally slipped? Does it show signs of having had a heart-attack?); or was it caused by design (i.e., a crime of opportunity? a planned hit?). After that, his job is done, and he hands over the problem to others whose job it is to ask about the "details" you inquired about, such as the "how" and the "why." Same with living organisms. If you're interested in a specifically theological discussion regarding the details of how a designing intelligence could work, or why he would create life, then a thread devoted specifically to those issues should be started. I don't see how those details -- the "how" and the "why" -- have anything to do with the forensics of whether or not living organisms show certain tell-tale signs of having arisen by intelligent activity, rather than only random and deterministic ones. You've confused the theological with the logical. Logically, all I have to do is show (or attempt to show) that living organisms came about through intelligence; not how this feat was accomplished or why it was done at all. And who created your Intelligent Designer? I presume he is "alive" in some sense. Why do you presume that?

So how did your Intelligent Designer create life? Some details, please. And who created your Intelligent Designer? I presume he is "alive" in some sense. Ghs The cosmos itself is the Designer. I leave the question of the intelligence of the Cosmos to the philosophers. Ba'al Chatzaf The cosmos itself is the Designer. I leave the question of the intelligence of the Cosmos to the philosophers. The idea that mind is, in some sense, co-extensive with space, and that space itself can be intelligent, is a perfectly legitimate answer (it might not be true, of course, but that's a different issue).

Correction: I just realized that AA hasn’t been arguing against evolution, but abiogenesis. D’Oh! Well, now, that doesn't make sense; else why would you have posted the Sagan video? Abiogenesis was essential to his argument, as well as to the whole Drake Equation. Did you not understand your own post? It was explicit in the fourth variable of the Drake Equation: f( L ) = fraction of total number of ecologically suitable planets on which life actually arises "Fraction of total number" means "what are the odds"? "Life actually arises" means "life actually arising where there was no life before, ex nihilo." Sagan assumes a hospitable environment and then invents numbers that he likes from there. For Darwinian True Believers (like Sagan, Dawkins, et al.), abiogenesis is a sub-discipline of Darwinian evolution, employing the same two causes: random variation and natural selection.

Wow. I think I understand now the draw, the pleasure to be found in trolling. My utterly dismissive response inspired you to write all this? I've just skimmed it, primarily looking to see if you finally provide references. If I start googling this latest post, am I going to match more publications from the Campus Crusade for Christ? The “evolution archives” at SOLOpassion, what’s that? I just googled it, and only this turned up: http://www.solopassion.com/node/2384 The second reply is by Leonid, but I don’t see how what he writes backs up what you’re saying. You claimed that "many Objectivists" express a preference for a steady state cosmological model on the grounds that evolution needs more than the billions of years available under the big bang model. Never minding that evolution and cosmology are separate fields. I say you're full of it, and challenge you to provide a reference. Concerning division of labor, respectable scientific publications have comments by unrelated scientists on articles. This helps the reader unfamiliar with a specialty to see a range of opinion. Did you come up with this theory that proteins need Intelligent Design, or are you parroting someone else’s work? If it’s someone else’s work, whose? Where have they published it? What have the evil Darwinian apologists said in reply? My utterly dismissive response inspired you to write all this? Actually, no. It was Carl Sagan's utterly crackpot presentation that inspired me to write all this. If you didn't understand my reply, then it's apparent that you probably didn't understand Sagan either. Objectivist Living is not a "scientific publication" respectable or otherwise. It's a blog having to do with ideas in general. Get over it. You shouldn't need comments from Sagan, Dawkins, or Rand to tell you how to do simple probability calculations or to show you their relevance to the topic of Darwinian evolution and the probability of life arising by chance. Since you're unable to get it by yourself, I'll help you out again: Any physical event whose chances of appearing are 1 in 10^600 will not appear at all, even in billions of years (unless some causal factor other than chance is operating). For more detail, study my previous post.

Smith understood that the resolution of this paradox lies in the notion of relative scarcity. He points out, for example, that someone stranded in the desert, where water is scarce, will value water more highly than he would in normal circumstances, where water is plentiful. Thus it is the scarcity of water relative to its demand in a particular situation that will determine the exchange value of water. Despite this insight, however, the classical economists were unable to formulate a unified theory of value that would adequately explain the water-diamond paradox and similar problems. A satisfactory theory of value did not emerge until the 1870s, when there occurred what is known as the “marginal-utility revolution” in economic thought. This important innovation was arrived at independently by three men: William Stanley Jevons in England, Leon Walras in Switzerland, and Carl Menger in Austria. Although these men differed somewhat in their treatments of marginal utility, their central insights were essentially the same. As these economists pointed out, when we choose one commodity over another, we do not consider the general usefulness of that commodity. We do not, for example, consider the general utility of water -– its role in supporting human life -– when deciding how much we are willing to exchange for a specific amount of water. True, if we had to choose between all the water in the world and all the diamonds, then we would clearly choose water over diamonds, but rarely are we faced with this all-or-nothing situation. Instead, we confront commodities as they exist in specific quantities, or units, and the value we place on a commodity depends on what we plan to use it for. Suppose we are deciding whether or not to purchase a gallon of water. Our decision will be based, not on the general usefulness of water, but on the contribution that the additional gallon of water will make in satisfying our wants. And this, of course, depends on how much water we already have. The man in a desert, who is dying of thirst, will value a gallon of water more highly than he would in normal circumstances, because he will use that gallon to sustain his life -– rather than using it, say, to wash his car, which is what he might do if water were more plentiful. . That we normally value diamonds more than water is not because of some paradox or conflict between use-value and exchange-value. Economic value ultimately depends, not on the general usefulness of a commodity, but on the specific usefulness -– or marginal utility -– of a given unit of that commodity in satisfying our most pressing desires. If water is abundant -– that is, if most of our important wants are easily satisfied by the available water -– then we will place a relatively low value on each additional unit of water, because that unit will be used to satisfy a want that we consider relatively unimportant. And if diamonds, while greatly prized, are normally scarce, then we will place a relatively high value on each additional diamond, because that unit will be used to satisfy a want that ranks high on our scale of preferences. As I said before, the classical economists were able to explain the “water-diamond paradox” fairly well in terms of relative scarcity, but their dualistic theory of value, which distinguished between use-value and exchange-value, created more problems than it solved. The theory of marginal utility represented a significant theoretical advance, because it was able to dispense with this dichotomy in favor of a unified theory of value. It was now recognized that exchange-value can ultimately be explained in terms of use-value -– provided, of course, that we correctly understand the meaning of “use-value.” This is where the discussion of marginal utility by Carl Menger is especially important if we are to appreciate what Ludwig von Mises had to say about economic calculation. Menger, who is generally acknowledged as the founder of the Austrian School of economics, stressed the subjective nature of use-value. The economic value of a commodity, argued Menger, depends ultimately on the our subjective valuations – specifically, on how we assess the usefulness of a good in furthering our subjective goals. Economic science does not pass judgment on the true worth, or objective value, of an economic good. It does not, for example, evaluate the true worth of water in relation to diamonds. Rather, economics takes as its starting point what people do in fact value, and then analyzes the economic phenomena that emerge from this pursuit of subjective goals. Menger’s distinctive contribution to marginal utility was his extension of this theory to what he called “goods of a higher order” – or what are sometimes called “capital goods” or “the means of production,” in contrast to “consumer goods.” Many economists, both before and after Menger, have contrasted supply (or the factors of production) with consumer demand, as if these elements operated according to different principles of value. But this is not true, said Menger; ultimately the value of all higher-order goods depends on their role in producing consumer goods, or those things that people use directly to satisfy their desires. “Goods of a higher order” – so-called because they fall higher than consumer goods on the scale of production – are indirect, rather than direct, means of satisfying human wants. A steel factory, for example, may not produce anything that is directly used by the consumer, but it does satisfy consumer demand indirectly by providing the material for the building of cars, which are directly used by the consumer. Menger’s discussion of higher-order goods was extremely important, because it allowed him to apply the notion of marginal utility, not only to consumer goods, but to the factors of production as well. This insight proved essential to the argument later developed by Ludwig von Mises, that the planners in a socialist economy will be unable to engage in rational economic calculation. Mises first advanced this argument in a 1920 essay, “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” and he expanded upon it two years later in his seminal book, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis. Pure socialism is a system in which there is no private ownership of the means of production; all production decisions are made by a central planning authority. Unlike a market system, where capitalists and entrepreneurs can base their production decisions on the objective prices of higher-order goods, the planners in a socialist economy have no such prices to guide them. What, then, can these planners substitute for market prices? What rational criteria can they use in determining what higher order goods are needed, and in what amount, in order to produce the desired consumer goods? Without market prices to guide production, says Mises, no rational calculation is possible. Thus, the so-called economic planning of socialism leads, in fact, to economic chaos -– to inefficiency and waste on a massive scale. The idea of centralized planning is plausible only if we assume that economic value is an objective feature of commodities, one that can be rationally ascertained apart from the give and take of market competition. Karl Marx, of course, made precisely this assumption. Like David Ricardo and other economists in the classical school, Marx defended a labor theory of value. It is interesting to note that Marx finished only one volume of Capital during his lifetime, and this appeared just as the theory of marginal utility was revolutionizing economic thought. But this was one revolution that Marx failed to understand; consequently, his labor theory of value was widely condemned by economists as outdated as soon as the first volume of his masterpiece had fallen from the press. Economic value, according to Menger and others in the Austrian school, is not an objective property of commodities. Rather, value is imputed to commodities according to their perceived utility in serving human wants. To quote from Mises: We evaluate our preferences by ranking them, not by measuring them. It makes sense, for example, to say that I like apples more than oranges, and oranges more than pears, and therefore that I like apples more than pears. But it makes no sense to say that I like apples twice as much as I like oranges, and oranges three times more than pears, and therefore that I like applies six times more than I like pears. In other words, since economic value derives from an estimate of personal satisfaction, and since there is no invariable unit of satisfaction that can serve as a standard of measurement, is impossible to measure, compute, or add up the marginal utility of various commodities. We can, as is sometimes said, rank values ordinally, but we cannot measure them cardinally. As Mises points out, this creates a problem when we need to make economic calculations: Mises goes on to say that our subjective estimates of value may prove sufficient when dealing with simple situations, as when Crusoe, alone his island, is calculating how to provide for his wants in the immediate future. But the problem of calculation quickly becomes insurmountable in more complex conditions, especially where a sophisticated division of labor is at work. Here, where long and complicated processes of production are involved, our estimate of subjective use-value will fail to give us the accurate information we need for long-range economic planning. In an exchange economy, what subjective use-value cannot accomplish is in fact achieved by objective exchange-value. By “objective exchange value,” Mises means the money-price of a commodity, which serves as the required unit of economic calculation. Money, he stresses, does not measure value, nor are prices somehow measured by money. Rather, prices are simply amounts of money. Mises calls the price of a commodity its “objective exchange value,” because that price -- which arises from the interplay of the subjective valuations of those who engage in buying and selling – can serve as a practical means of economic calculation. Money prices are necessary if we are to engage in long-range and complex calculations. They allow us to compare different production methods and determine which will produce the desired good at the lowest cost. Mises offers a concrete example of a problem that socialism is unable to solve, precisely because socialism, by prohibiting the private ownership of capital goods, also abolishes the market transactions that are required to generate prices. This is why Mises predicted the inevitable failure of central planning. His portrayal of socialism, made in 1920, proved to be remarkably accurate: Socialism, far from being more scientific and rational than the free market, actually represents the abolition of rational planning. The arguments of Mises compelled socialists to re-examine the plausibility of their own theories, and even caused some to embrace the free market principles of classical liberalism. Among these former socialists was a young Friedrich Hayek, who would go on to become one of the century’s greatest champions of the free market and limited government. As Hayek noted of his generation in Vienna after the first world war, Hayek later expanded on the ideas of Mises, applying them in ways that greatly expanded our understanding, not only of why socialism fails, but of why capitalism succeeds. The free-market system is able to use the dispersed knowledge from millions of different people in a way that maximizes economic efficiency. As Hayek put it in his 1945 essay, “The Use of Knowledge in Society”: The price system not only enables us to make economic calculations, as Mises had said; it is also a highly sophisticated system for communicating knowledge. Again quoting Hayek: When governments forcibly intervene in market transactions, they inevitably reduce or distort the information that would otherwise flow through market channels. And this can cause serious problems which, in turn, often create a misguided demand for even more intervention. Thus, despite the best intentions of planners, their interventions will tend to generate additional interventions, thereby creating a downward spiral into a highly regimented economy. This is the “Road to Serfdom” that Hayek described so well in his best-selling book. Or, in the words of Mises, this is the way to “planned chaos.” Ghs Economist Joseph Salerno lectures to the Mises Institute on the topic of economic calculation. Salerno is professor of economics at Pace University, Lubin School of Business. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Joseph+Salerno&aq=f Other lectures by Joseph Salerno on YouTube

You want me to illustrate the points I made in my previous post? Okay. I wrote: Examples: Just by looking at the following works of art, you cannot identify their creators' "senses of life," nor their "metaphysical premises," nor their views on the "malevolence or benevolence of the universe," nor much of anything else about them or their philosophical beliefs or values. I wrote: Examples: the above sculptures are not easily divided into Rand's categories of Naturalism vs Romanticism. To Rand, the essential nature of Naturalism was that it presented a deterministic view of mankind, where Romanticism presented a volitional view. Each of the sculptures above could be seen as either representing characters submitting to a deterministic fate, or to displaying volitional choice. They could be heroes or zeroes. Each could be interpreted as presenting either a "malevolent" or "benevolent universe premise." The "evidence contained in the works," and even the myths upon which they are based (if we were to allow ourselves access to such information despite its being an "outside consideration" and therefore an Objectivist aesthetic no-no), supports either interpretation. I wrote: On this one I'm not interested in hunting down examples of people who I consider serious fans of the arts and their views on Rand's art. To do so would be too time consuming and not worth the effort. Suffice it to say that most of the people (not all, but most) whom I respect as serious fans of the arts tend to rate Atlas Shrugged as artistically poorer than Rand's previous works. Many of them think that AS is philosophically more mature, and that it's message is perhaps more important ethically than those of her previous novels, but those are not aesthetic judgments. J Jonathan, I agree with the artistic appraisal of Rand's final magnum opus - not unartistic, mind, but less than the others. I can't think of AS, without reminding myself "13 years"! Magnificent. She always knew that this was going to be the great one, that encompassed every single aspect of her philosophy. I'm sure you know well the difference between those periods of creativity, when things just flow; when you take leaps of connectivity that just 'happen' - and it works brilliantly. Then the other times you have to work at it, 'deductively' if you like, deliberating all the way. To emphasise, with Rand I don't believe these were mutually exclusive between her early and later work - illustrated by those many excellent cameos in AS where her artistry shone through - but generally, AS was always going to be thematic and prescriptive, above all. Now, if you don't think a viewer or reader can interpret the sense of life of a creator - why use the above scuptures as example? The first is an obvious illustration of - and you don't have to use Rand's nomenclature, but it fits perfectly - a malevolent universe premise. The contorted anguish and fear we see on his face could well be a mirror of the condition of the world, today. ("the world's out to get me, what am I to do, everything's falling apart, those religions, the government, my job, damn taxes ...my family"). Masterful talent and craft in the statue, but the rest is the stuff of nightmares. So why can't one 'psychologize' about the artist, and conclude that this is his sense of life too? The lightness of the nymphs frolicking under the globe cheers one up - even here, I'd think of it as combined naturalist/romanticist, mixed premises maybe. The last one, I'd think of as neutral; a pretty girl, with nothing to say. My point is, do you disapprove of Rand's nomenclature, or of her judgementalism? Fundamentally, I think she got it right. Our emotional response to art, can partially be reached through cognition - which only heightens the emotion, as far as I'm concerned. Tony Your analysis doesn't go much beyond, "happy-looking characters = volitional universe, ergo romanticism" vs. "unhappy-looking characters = deterministic universe, ergo naturalism." A bit simplistic, no? It's like saying "Major key = happy; Minor key = sad." No composer ever thought in those terms.

You want me to illustrate the points I made in my previous post? Okay. I wrote: Examples: Just by looking at the following works of art, you cannot identify their creators' "senses of life," nor their "metaphysical premises," nor their views on the "malevolence or benevolence of the universe," nor much of anything else about them or their philosophical beliefs or values. I wrote: Examples: the above sculptures are not easily divided into Rand's categories of Naturalism vs Romanticism. To Rand, the essential nature of Naturalism was that it presented a deterministic view of mankind, where Romanticism presented a volitional view. Each of the sculptures above could be seen as either representing characters submitting to a deterministic fate, or to displaying volitional choice. They could be heroes or zeroes. Each could be interpreted as presenting either a "malevolent" or "benevolent universe premise." The "evidence contained in the works," and even the myths upon which they are based (if we were to allow ourselves access to such information despite its being an "outside consideration" and therefore an Objectivist aesthetic no-no), supports either interpretation. I wrote: On this one I'm not interested in hunting down examples of people who I consider serious fans of the arts and their views on Rand's art. To do so would be too time consuming and not worth the effort. Suffice it to say that most of the people (not all, but most) whom I respect as serious fans of the arts tend to rate Atlas Shrugged as artistically poorer than Rand's previous works. Many of them think that AS is philosophically more mature, and that it's message is perhaps more important ethically than those of her previous novels, but those are not aesthetic judgments. J Each of the sculptures above could be seen as either representing characters submitting to a deterministic fate, or to displaying volitional choice. How do you know that? How do you know whether or not the fate each is supposedly submitting to was determined for them or accepted -- perhaps even sought -- by their own volition? Point out precisely where the deterministic element is in any of these.

I believe the main reason why some Objectivists seem to feel uncomfortable with the "Bing Bang" theory is that it comes too dangerously close (in their minds) to the idea of a creatio ex nihilo and some god as the creator of all this. But, as Lawrence Krauss said it so well: "Nothing isn't 'nothing' anymore. In physics. Because of the laws of Quantum Mechancis and Special Relativity, "nothing" is really a boiling, bubbling brew of virtual particles popping in and out of existence in time so short you can't see them." (LK) Link to the Krauss lecture Ba'al posted here in the Science & Mathematics section - "A Universe from Nothing": http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=7921&st=0 Objectivism faces the problems of all closed philosophical or ideological systems: the inability to survive. No closed system has survived so far, and the grailkeepers (like e. g. Peikoff for Objectivism) who work so hard to keep the system free from other influences, in doing so, in fact contribute to that which they wanted to avoid at all costs: the death of the doctrine. Instead of spreading your bile over every thread that offers you an opportunity, start one of your own. "A Case Against Objectivism", perhaps? OK. I offer the recent posts of whYNOT as Exhibit A. You may also find that not everyone is as easy meat as I am. Easy meat? Sounds exciting. Are you a woman? AA, I'm afraid you will find only very few women here, AA, so if you are looking for "easy meat", there may be other forums more suitable to satisfy any "hunger" in that field. ;) I just read a couple of your posts here - you sure fire on all cylinders, delivering a broadside of arguments. As for making a case against Objectivism, one has to be aware that the critic always has the easier task. For the critic is free to point out holes, inconsistencies and contradictions in a philosophical or ideological thought system, without, on his part, having the burden of defending a system as a whole, a burden which the advocate of a philosophy does have. Before you start with exhibits though, for reasons of clarity, imo it is better to present your main objection(s) regarding the premises of Objectivism (if you have any, that is). I'm also interested in getting an answer to another question I want to ask you in the context of this discussion. You wrote: One could call Marxism a typical 'secular salvation religion'. Do you believe in any religion (secular or not)? I have not read all your posts here, but have came across a comment by another poster who called you a Creationist. Are you a Creationist? For the critic is free to point out holes, inconsistencies and contradictions in a philosophical or ideological thought system, without, on his part, having the burden of defending a system as a whole, a burden which the advocate of a philosophy does have. Often true, but not always. The advocate might agree with the critic yet still adhere to his doctrine, admitting that the doctrine is incomplete. Objectivism and induction are good examples. No one -- certainly not Rand -- ever stated that the problem of induction had been solved; merely that Objectivism "pointed the way" and would "solve it sometime in the future." Yet that certainly never dissuaded anyone from being doctrinaire about Objectivism. I also disagree with your notion that a closed-system necessarily declines. Islam is a perfect example of a closed-system that has not only been widely held since the 7th century, but which is now enjoying a resurgence in just those interpretations of it that are the most closed and least open to new knowledge about the world. Your statement is a kind of philosophical Optimism: given enough time, closed-systems inevitably disappear through a kind of self-strangulation leaving the way open for better and better systems of thought. Untrue. Before you start with exhibits though, for reasons of clarity, imo it is better to present your main objection(s) regarding the premises of Objectivism (if you have any, that is). As practiced by its followers, Objectivism is a species of materialism. By the truism "Existence exists", many, if not most, Objectivists intend to mean "Only material things exist", or if they don't mean that, then they certain intend to mean "Material things, by necessity, existed first; then, somehow, non-material things such as Mind emerged out of the pre-existing material things." It's a logical impossibility, of course, as well as having zero empirical evidence to support it. Additionally, if true, it would imply determinism of thought (since Mind would be dependent on the material substrate from which it putative arose; and since my material substrate is not identical to your material substrate, it implies that my ideas are as valid as your ideas, and Truth becomes non-objective). However, Objectivists often hold to this position because they believe that to grant equal status to the existence of non-material things like Mind somehow implies a mystical metaphysics. It certainly does not. If "Existence exists" has any meaning at all, it means "The universe comprises two basic kinds of entities: material entities like matter, and non-material like mind. Each has an identity; each has properties that are unique to it, and which cannot be reduced to properties of the other; i.e., matter is not a projection of Mind; Mind is not some sort of highly attenuated, or very thin sort of matter." And this implies, of course, that neither "evolved" from the other. They both emerged together at the beginning, and have always co-existed together. I'm also interested in getting an answer to another question I want to ask you in the context of this discussion. You wrote: AristotlesAdvance, on 02 December 2010 - 07:10 PM, said: The pious belief that one's beloved philosophical system will change everyone's mind for the better "at some point in the indefinite future" is typical of cult worship, and is highly reminiscent of the way leftists in the 1930s believed that Marxism will bring the blessings of a socialist workers' paradise "sometime in the future." One could call Marxism a typical 'secular salvation religion'. Do you believe in any religion (secular or not)? I believe that one should have a Good Time, All The Time. I'm not an anti-evolutionist but an anti-Darwinist. "Evolution" does not necessarily mean "Darwinism." Darwin had a particular take on evolution that was considered quite novel at the time, even to his own teachers at Cambridge. The transformation of an embryo to a fetus is an example of an evolution that is non-Darwinian: one entity transforms, or evolves over time, into another, but there's no trial-and-error process of a random mutation being retained by natural selection (to the extent that actually occurs to a developing embryo, it is usually disastrous, causing harm to the development, indicating that it is quite clearly an accident, not the mechanism by which normal development proceeds -- additionally, biochemistry now knows for certain that biochemical systems like the cell, like DNA, like the gene, etc., all have defense systems that protect themselves from precisely those processes that Darwinists claim are most important, i.e., random forces and natural selection). The normal process of development is an Aristotelian "entelechy", an unfolding, that proceeds according to a plan about which we now know a little bit. Genes code information, and information -- not complicated chemistry -- is the secret of life. Without information, life is simply inert chemicals. If you want to explain where the first living thing came from, you have to explain where the first bit of information came from. I have not read all your posts here, but have came across a comment by another poster who called you a Creationist. Are you a Creationist? In line with current biochemical research, I believe life requires information. In line with common sense and computer science, I believe information requires input from an intelligent source capable of choosing a goal and choosing among alternative means to achieve that goal. I leave open the question of who or what could have created the first bit of information.