@Frank Apisa,
Quote:Dealing with as many things as you do at one time is a recipe for getting nothing settled.
The only way it makes sense to argue an issue of this complexity is to take constituent parts and deal with each separately...resolving one before going to another.
You here claim you have offered proof that a god is needed to explain the existence of the physical universe...and that I have rejected it without counter argument.
That does not sound like me at all. Please reference where it happened so I can check that it actually happened...and remedy it. I would be MORE THAN AMAZED if you came up with a coherent proof that a god is needed to explain (what we humans call) the physical universe. But I will keep an open mind.
Hmmm.. so you really don’t remember.
Our previous conversation on the topic took place on the ‘Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion' topic thread. It starts on page 1197, post 7,222,929. So far, this conversation parallels that one.
Two things you said make me doubtful about the possibility of your following the argument. First, and probably the bigger obstacle is your detail analytical style that you feel is the only way to approach a subject as 'deep' as this one.
My approach is almost the opposite. My first impulse is to form the problem into a 'gestalt', a pattern that encompasses the concept in its entirety before looking at each detail. Once that is done, when the details are examined in the context of the gestalt, erroneous values of them become obvious, and the required correction or need to outright reject them is clear.
If you have no conceptual model that the details fit within, you will waste an enormous amount of time trying to prove or debunk the details. And even if you reach an acceptable verdict on the detail, it may not fit the rest of the pattern when you finish with the last detail.
This approach is extremely difficult to describe to one who approaches things in the opposite way. I am not saying the opposite way is wrong, just incredibly inefficient to the point of being impractical for complex scenarios. It is exactly like the biological problem of protein folding that has been in the science press lately. Alpha Fold, the program for computing the proper folding of proteins running on the worlds fastest super computer, MUST use the context of the finished protein function because if it didn’t, we would not be alive when the computer finished with the answer.
I have had several conversations where this was an impasse, even with those that agree with me. They find a need to inject faith to fill in the picture that they cannot grasp in full. They find comfort in bullshit 'axioms' like 'We can never comprehend God' fed to them by religion. Or in the alternative case, decide that 'God' or whatever the argument at hand, is total bullshit because they can’t grasp it. My ability to think in gestalts is the thing my 20 year career as a Principal design engineer (highest non management position) at Lockheed Martin was built upon. And I am 'undocumented', no college degree in anything. If you know anything about corporate culture, maybe you know what that says.
But if you want to do it your way, I’m willing. What detail would you like to start on?
Here is my latest version of the protein argument. It has been refined a little since I last posted it.
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WHY ABIOGENESIS REQUIRED INTELLIGENT DESIGN
The simplest example that illustrates the basic problem of 'natural abiogenesis' is to understand what a protein is and how it is made. Without at least some grasp of proteins, a simple explanation is impossible. A protein in biology has little to do with the dietary term 'protein' so don’t think 'the stuff in meat'. Search 'life of the cell' on YouTube for visual and functional illustrations of proteins such as dynine, myosin or kinesin.
There are thousands of different types of proteins for doing different jobs in a cell. Anything that happens or gets done inside a cell is done either directly or indirectly by a protein. It is the most basic functional unit in a cell.
A protein is a molecular machine. I and many molecular biology scientists use the term 'machine' for proteins because of their interrelated combination of chemical, electrical and mechanical characteristics and the fact that its construction is very specific and functional. Remove or change even a single part and it will not work.
A protein is made of amino acids. Amino acids are called the 'building blocks of life' for this reason. Making these 'building blocks' in the lab (see Miller - Urey experiment) is as close to creating 'life' as we have come. Even though amino acids can potentially form naturally, that in no way proves that they are capable of assembling themselves into biological life. But because amino acids can be found in nature, one theory of life emerging is called 'protein world' since it seems logical that the 'simpler' protein came before the far more complex cell.
The fact that amino acids have been found on meteorites is often cited as evidence for extraterrestrial life. This is equivalent to assuming you can get New York City by dumping a load of building blocks on the banks of the Hudson River and waiting long enough. That will not happen even if you wait for the entire 13.8 billion year age of the universe. 'Time' is not a magic ingredient that can build anything. 'Time' is actually a deterrent to life forming because the necessary molecular chains are broken down just as fast as they can form by earth’s environment. Water itself is a solvent to them. Making first life naturally under those conditions would be like trying to build a house during a hurricane.
There are hundreds of different amino acids and each one comes in right and left handed versions (mirror images). Proteins are made of only 20 of them and all are left handed. This creates a problem for 'naturally occurring' proteins because if you mix in any of the other amino acids, or even a single right handed one of the 20, the protein is broken and will not function. And there is no mechanism in nature to prevent such contamination. But we are not yet to the real reason why biological life had to be designed.
Each protein starts out as a very specifically ordered chain of amino acids between about 150 and 3500 long, depending on the protein. They do not function in this string form. In order to be functional, they must be 'folded' into a complex physical three dimensional shape, which is another barrier to 'natural' life forming. But we are still not at the crux of the problem.
Let’s say that in spite of the odds, the right order of only the correct amino acids does link up by chance. Let us further say that they accidentally fold into the correct functional configuration. If you are into math, the chances of that happening have been calculated at 1 in 10^77. (See 'Undeniable', Douglas Axe, 2016) For perspective, there are about 10^50 atoms in the entire planet of earth. But still, we are not at the bottom of the problem.
Remember that we are only talking about a protein so far. it takes hundreds to thousands of different functional proteins working in a coordinated fashion to make a single cell function. But for now let's ignore the mathematical improbability of that first protein and the hundreds of others needed.
You have probably noticed that I have not mentioned DNA yet. It is the nature of what DNA is that makes accidental life virtually impossible. Bill Gates compared DNA to a computer operating system, only DNA is far more complicated. It is the most complicated thing we know of and we have only begun to understand just how complex it is.
But it is NOT the complexity itself that explains why it had to be designed. It is the multiple hierarchical levels of symbolic representation in DNA that demands a design. DNA has a LANGUAGE with syntax, words, punctuation, definitions, etc.
Here is the breaking point. It is possible for a human mind to imagine something as complex as a protein forming as a result of naturally occurring chemical processes even if the odds are vanishingly small. Then multiply that by the thousands of protein types needed. Still you could say, well given enough time, multiple universes, etc. it could happen. It sounds desperate to me but You can’t say the odds are zero. I should add that even the 'evolution explains everything' crowd can’t defend this 'Protein World' scenario, so they usually default to something like 'RNA world' as a precursor to first living cell. RNA is basically half of a DNA strand.
But to accept that this happened by random chance you would have to believe the following:
By random linking up of nucleotides (the four molecules that are in DNA), a machine language containing the words, letters, syntax and punctuation necessary for defining all the needed proteins for 'life' came about. Notice that I said 'defining' the proteins, not the proteins themselves or even the amino acids needed to make a protein.
To over simplify, DNA is a ‘recipe', an ordered list of instructions and ingredients on how to build thousands of different proteins. DNA itself cannot do anything with these instructions. In order to be built, the DNA instructions have to be transferred to a Ribosome, which in turn is a very complex protein itself (hopefully you see the chicken and egg problem here).
The Ribosome reads the symbolic list of the recipe and begins gathering the required amino acids called for in the list. It assembles the amino acids into a string in the order specified in the DNA strand sent to it. (in the form of what’s called ‘messenger RNA')
After the amino acids are strung together, Some simpler proteins will spontaneously fold into their final three dimensional shape but most require yet other proteins to actively form them in the correct way. If they are not folded correctly they will not function and are often toxic.
Conclusion:
Keep in mind that there were not billions of years for this to happen. Every year there seems to be a new finding that pushes back the origin of life further all the time. The latest estimate (2022) barely gives the planet time to cool off before life started.The origin had only a few hundreds of millions of years to happen, not billions. And that basic template of DNA/protein based biological life has not changed in the following four billion years.
Hopefully you followed that but to summarize, complex combinations of amino acids are possible given enough time and material. The odds of that string of amino acids being functional are not what I would call possible but you can’t say that a functional protein by accident is impossible, in spite of the incredible odds.
What cannot be reasonably believed is that 'nature' took that first accidental protein and then invented a symbolic language (encoded in DNA) that was able to be read and executed by yet another different protein based machine in order to make more proteins.
A protein by accident - maybe.
A symbolic language describing all the needed proteins for life and simultaneously a molecular machine that understands that language and able to build according to the instructions by accident? - Nope.
It is the symbolic nature of DNA's language that required 'design'.
