@Aedes,
Aedes;90489 wrote: What, pray tell, is a "law of physicalness"?
Lighten up. I write extensively on physics and biology, so I tend to get informal, especially at this website where it seems
informalness (there you go, that's not a word either) is encouraged.
One of the most interesting threads I've ever participated in was one where I posed a challenge at a physics site . . . "Define Physical." You'd think at a forum full of science professionals that agreement could have been expected, but far from it. I submitted my definition as part of the thread theme, and defended it pretty well I thought. It was:
physicalness is the behaviors, effects, and measurement potentials∗ of amassing dynamics and mass entities. (∗ "Measurement potential" is obviously not an intrinsic physical property. It is an intellectual invention we impose on physical situations to assist us while we work with and study physicalness. I list it to include the degree science depends on calculation.)
"Amassing dynamics" refers mainly to what happens (or has happened) mass-wise on a large scale, and is derived from cosmologists' belief that the Big Bang was preceded by an immeasurable amassing, and how since then the universe has taken shape due to unrelenting un-amassing; these accepted ideas make it evident that mass dynamics at least birthed, and very well may determine, all physical events.
"Mass entities" refers to all the types and combinations of basic particles that mass exists as (e.g., protons, electrons, etc.), oscillation and radiation are types of "behaviors" of mass (i.e., particles vibrate, radiate, etc.), gravity is an example of an "effect" of mass (gravity only manifests when mass is present), and time and energy are examples of measurement potentials of mass (i.e., of change behaviors). In other words, no mass, no physical; or we might say, if it's physical then mass is or was present.
So, I accept, as most science thinkers do, that there are fundamental/general conditions of the universe which decide specific physical circumstances, and that is what I meant by a "law of physicalness."
Aedes;90489 wrote:some self-organizing chemistry, like micelles and phospholipid bilayers, happens even without a catalyst. Other reactions and assemblies utilize catalysts, though the energetic conditions in the early earth could be enough to drive polymerization to a more chemically stable macromolecular state.
Yes, but that cannot be shown to be the
quality of self-organization needed to result in a living system. Here's my analogy of the "quality" of the examples physicalists regularly give: you find a fully functional car and claim it self-organized itself into existence; I ask for evidence it can self-organize; you throw a bunch of car parts in a big pile, shake them up, and then pull out those parts which managed to hook up.
Yes, there are a great many examples of self-organization, but nobody can get chemistry
to keep going AND build evolving and functional systems, what I call
progressive organization. All examples either end after a relative few steps, or turn repetitive; and without conscious intervention, you get even poorer results. That's why more than half a century after Miller-Urey, all you have is the same sort of limited self-organization offered up as proof that chemistry can self-organize itself into life; look now at that collection of chemicals they got amino acids to form in, and it has progressed no further toward a living system.
In one way or another, that is all physical self-organization has ever been shown capable of, yet physicalist scientists keep telling the world the first life "most likely" is the result of self-organizing chemistry. Is that an objective scientific opinion, based on actual observation of chemical behaviors? Or is it a biased interpretation, distorted by an a priori belief in physicalism?
Aedes;90489 wrote:Good thing for us then that "randomness" is not a proposed mechanism -- the combinatorial effects of altered gene regulation at several loci has phenotypic end-effects FAR out of proportion to what would be predicted just by looking at a gene sequence.
That is an outright deception propagated by the likes of Dawkins. Believe me, I have read him at length, so my judgments aren't off the cuff. I almost detest the man, not because he is a religion-hating propagandist for scientism (I don't care for religion myself), but because he does great damage to the ideal of objectivity in science (which I do love).
How is it a deception to claim randomness is not a proposed mechanism? Because randomness most definitely
is a factor in E-theory, a huge factor, it's just that Dawkins and other E-theory believers try to obscure it with a red herring maneuver. First Dawkins says, "We can safely conclude that living bodies are billions of times too complicated - too statistically improbable - to have come into being by sheer chance. How, then, did they come into being? The answer is that chance enters into the story, but not a single, monolithic act of chance. Instead, a whole series of tiny chance steps, each one small enough to be a believable product of its predecessor, occurred one after the other in sequence."
Now, that is admitting randomness/chance plays a key role isn't it? Furthermore, let's take a fully formed early life form, say a suspected chordate of the Cambrian period, "Myllokunmingia." Here we have a swimming form, with a gut and gills and cranium (and therefore digestive-breathing organs and brain), eyes, etc. In other words, a set of organs that apparently evolved in a relative short time.
Each organ has a DNA programming behind it, making the total genomic story very complex (what has been compared to a book, a billion words long). Each bit of DNA information, according to E-theory (and as Dawkins clearly states above) came about by chance. So yes, according to E-theory, fitness advantages decided what was preserved, but that doesn't relieve the need for one hell of a run of happy accidents in the realm of genetic change; i.e., beneficial genetic changes still had to occur -- millions and millions of them - in order to be selected.
So to try to assuage the incredulity of doubters of physicalist theory by attempting to get us to ignore the amazing luck required for organism-building genetic changes, is a red herring tactic. You might get a bigger bird beak or darker moth color that way, but that sort of minor adjustment to environmental conditions doesn't tell us that's how an entire bird beak or moth wing was evolved in the first place. It is assumed, not
from the facts, but
ahead of the facts because it is what E-theorists already believe.
Aedes;90489 wrote:Furthermore, embryologic development of an organ or an organ system is extraordinarily well-studied, and genetic sequence quite simply is barely able to let us predict early pattern formation in embryos, and it's wholesale insufficient to tell us about the endocrine and paracrine interactions of neighboring tissues by which organ systems develop during embryogenesis.
So what? That tells us absolutely nothing about what caused the genetic sequence that brings about a living form, and that is all we are disputing isn't it?
Just so you know what I object to, it isn't people having a theory, or even believing a theory before it is sufficiently demonstrated to be true. My objection is people like Dawkins who are trusted as a scientist telling the world E-theory is a "fact" when it is far from it. That, and that alone, is my objection; every argument I make is to show why E-theory, especially one specific part of it, is a long way from being established as a fact.
The truth is, that part of E-theory which depends on the blind-watchmaker elements of random mutation and natural selection are physicalist, atheistic elements of the theory now vehemently maintained in the theory by physicalist, atheistic thinkers. The evidence supporting randomness and natural selection's purported creativity is hugely exaggerated, and even non-existent; far-reaching extrapolations from the slightest show of self-organization and from mere simple adaption of extant organs, stands in for this part of E-theory. It is an outright deception to tell the public E-theory is a "fact" (as Dawkins and other believers do), and then to try to stick to fossil and genetic evidence as proof of evolution (when that isn't the issue anyway).
If I were to synopsize my experience with the typical distorted path that evolution theory believers have taken in debates I've had, I'd say it is for believers to start by citing evidence evolution happened (fossil, genetic, etc. evidence). If I respond by agreeing in all honesty that fossil and genetic evidence supports believing life evolved, but add that the evidence does not show us what did the evolving, the next wave of arguments are examples of how life's traits are adapted to past/current conditions.
Of course I understand they are arguing that simple adaption is strong evidence of evolution theory, so when I point out their logic proves little since being adapted is necessary for something purposely designed to exist as well (such as the components of shelves I built are adapted to the force of gravity, to hold certain items, to resist termites, etc.), I am predictably offered another hundred instances of adaption. If I try to explain how their argument is circular if it relies on adapted-ness as proof that natural selection is the "designer" of the life's structures when adapted-ness is the very subject in question, I am informed how much evidence there is for speciation. If I answer speciation merely supports simple adaption, not the evolution of entire organisms, they will come up with a million instances of speciation. If I answer they are essentially committing a composition fallacy by listing endless examples of adaptive designs and speciation when the issue is really whether simple adaption can be so creative as to devise organs, debaters let me know they are ready to name a further thousand instances of adaption and speciation.
If I give up on attempting to expose the fallacies in their natural selection rationalizations and go on to say the most important issue, after all, is what caused the genetic changes that built organs/organisms, I will be given figures that indicate randomness is perfectly indicated statistically. When I point out that those statistics only show simple adaption is plausible, but that no one has created a causal link between simple adaption and the evolution of entire organisms, that's usually when ad hominem barbs start heading my way. The first relatively gentle insinuations that I lack a proper science education and/or understanding of evolution theory may soon, if that fails to shut me up, turn into very nasty personal attacks. However, if I ever do get anyone to directly answer my genetic change challenges, I am offered only grand theories and hopes E-theory believers have for mechanisms (e.g., homeobox genes) that might solve the problems, but certainly no tangible evidence which would justify the unconstrained confidence E-theory believers exhibit in believing physicalist/mechanistic forces are behind organism-building genetic change.
No, it is not objective, clean, detached science Dawkins and others like him offer us, it is physicalistic, atheistic, scientism propaganda. He already thinks he knows the truth, and he is using a special selection of facts (while ignoring any fact that even slightly brings his theory into question) to convince the world he is right. If I sound disgusted at his tactics, it's because I am, the same way I am disgusted at people who use God as an excuse to push their personal agendas.