Can God be a useful "scientific" hypothesis? Yes

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Rumraket

What model is that?

The models for neutral mutations and genetic drift.

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@colewd

If you read the entire post I have answered why it is evidence for special creation or Gods direct involvement in “kinds”. The gene sets require significant genetic information and that evidence of a mind involved. God is made in mans image so he is the potential source of that mind.

These are neither arguments nor explanations. It’s just more assertions. None were found in their original posts which is why you keep receiving requests for them.

@colewd

The gene sets require significant genetic information and that evidence of a mind involved.

So is “a mind involved” now a new hypothesis that replaces “special creation”? You throw these terms around seemingly interchangeably, but it’s not clear whether you really intend them to mean the same thing or you are changing the scope of what exactly you are claiming.

And in any case, again, no explanation was given. You do the whole mentioning something by name again - and then you declare that it is evidence. How so, Bill? how is “gene sets requiring significant genetic information” evidence “of a mind involved”?

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@colewd

@Rumraket

What model is that?

The models for neutral mutations and genetic drift.

What models? Reference please. Let’s put your statement back in context.

@colewd

@John_Harshman

You can’t even offer a guess as to what was seeded. You can’t identify a single “kind”. And you don’t know what “explain” means in science. Now tell me why all those separate creations form a nested hierarchy.

It does not matter. Genesis is telling us the starting point is if it is correct. We can create models from this point that are coherent as @Joe_Felsenstein has done. Just as physics assumes atoms (and their components) as the starting point.

So it appears you are saying that Genesis is telling us the starting point. And we can create models from that point that are coherent. It’s not really clear what that means, but okay. I ask for the models, and you drop names of things again. “Models for neutral mutations and genetic drift”.

So are we to assume you have “models for neutral mutation and genetic drift” that [insert what these models are supposed to show] about Genesis? Is there a reference to these models somewhere?

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Rumraket

These are neither arguments nor explanations. It’s just more assertions. None were found in their original posts which is why you keep receiving requests for them.

I can label all your arguments assertions also. I don’t think you ever understood the information argument.

@Rumraket

And in any case, again, no explanation was given. You do the whole mentioning something by name again - and then you declare that it is evidence. How so, Bill? how is “gene sets requiring significant genetic information” evidence “of a mind involved”?

We know minds can generate information. Very large amounts. Gene sets contain lots of information.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@Rumraket

So are we to assume you have “models for neutral mutation and genetic drift” that [insert what these models are supposed to show] about Genesis? Is there a reference to these models somewhere?

Rum we all have discussed population genetics theory many times over the years. Genesis tells us where the models start (populations of existing kinds) and that is consistent with the current available models.

[Meerkat_SK5]

@Jordan

Just because we use quantum-mechanics to model some specific phenomena at very small scales (proton-tunneling, etc.) and perhaps a quantum-like model could be use help understand psychology/consciousness doesn’t mean the two things are in any way connected. Additionally, what reason would we have to think that God’s consciousness works in the same way as human consciousness. I think this element needs to be thought out more. Can we actually determine a mechanism that would tie God’s choice to the biochemistry of DNA/RNA mutation?

This video should adequately address your response. If you watched it already but don’t feel it addresses your response, just tell me and I will address it manually:

Quantum Biology: Irreducible Mind (Part 4) - YouTube

I also recommend you watch this as well but its not required:

The Measurement Problem - YouTube

@Jordan

How much time do you think scientists have? Seriously though, what do you mean by “determine whether or not life can be developed within that condition”? I’m not aware any such experiment. What does “interference mean”? These need to be worked out. I’m struggling (though I’m not a biologist so I could be missing something) to see how this is testable yet.

For example, whenever unguided chemical processes under atmospheric conditions were left to themselves without any interference, they did not produce the desired results. Rather, the living state would always subside and turn into “useless networks of RNA sequences” as demonstrated by Szostak and Bartel (1993) where more than half of the pool of RNA molecules precipitated when incubated.

They were able to solve this problem by tying the molecules onto a substrate to make sure the pool of RNA molecules do not diffuse and form intermolecular reactions, and, thus, safely incubated. However, this is obviously an unlikely occurrence within the primordial soup, but it was the prevailing inclination within in vitro selection experiments under atmospheric conditions .

Another example would be Lenski’s experiment. Lenski grew these 12 populations of E. coli continuously for over 20 years, yielding over 55,000 generations of bacteria. This would be equivalent to millions of years of evolution in nature and is considered to show how easily beneficial traits can arise to eventually produce anatomic structures within a reasonable period.

Even though they expected that all 12 populations of bacteria would produce mutations, their results showed that out of the 12 populations, only one gained the ability to use citrate within the oxygen-rich conditions through a citrate transporter and only after 44,000 generations.

All a scientist needs to do is take one of Lenski’s failed E.coli populations and genetically modify those organisms to produce positive results according to the procedure I laid out.

@Jordan

OK, interesting. So would this be like God somehow “tilting the table”, biasing the selection in some “favorable” way?

Yes, but much more when it comes to origins as @colewd suggested.

@Jordan

Again, my problem is that a critical element of this hypothesis is that we know design/intentions/purposes of a being that we can neither know exhaustively nor control in any way. In other words, God is not amenable to human experimentation.

I think I address this before but I want to make sure my response is accurate. So tell me… what makes you say God’s actions cannot be controlled and predicted if we are created in his image and therefore we can make ourselves part of the experiment to obtain meaningful results?

@Jordan

But how much evidence is it really?

Potentially, an enormous amount if we include vestigial features as being design flaws or were you suggesting something else again?

@Jordan

I don’t think God is a useful scientific hypothesis. Science just doesn’t work that way. As @swamidass showed with GAE, you can have a “mixed” hypothesis that includes both scientific elements and theological elements, but the result is not a proper scientific hypothesis. It’s fine to have non-scientific hypotheses, I think Christians should do it more, but I’ve never seen a good outcome when we try to shoehorn theology into science or vice versa .

I am confused here. Are you suggesting that since we can’t know whether something is a design tradeoff or just “bad” design, this automatically makes the hypothesis unscientific?

@Jordan

I don’t see how the RTB quote is in any way related to what I said. Having a model (the RTB quote) doesn’t address whether we know God’s mind/purpose/intentions or are even run “design experiments” similar to the question (all life on Earth). I can completely take apart a watch and see all its parts at once and see how the work independently of each other, can we do that with the history of life?

Well yeah, if we are talking about the first cell or life. Or am I misunderstanding what you said again.

@Jordan

The leaps here are enormous with many disputable underlying assumptions. The problem is that it just loses any power to persuade when you do that. You aren’t able to bring the reader along, they just get jerked off the wagon when you take a hard turn.

Relax. I was just explaining how and why my argument for design is constructed differently than ID theorists, especially since you did not read every post on here. I was just giving you an updated summary.

[Meerkat_SK5]

GUYS!!!

Enough with the Common design vs Common descent discussion. It is not part of this topic. Unless everyone concedes that my hypothesis is scientific and can be used to explain the origins of many features in biology, we need to stay focused and get through this part. Once we do, I will create another topic that deals with this very subject.

One step at a time

[John_Harshman]

@Meerkat_SK5

Unless everyone concedes that my hypothesis is scientific and can be used to explain the origins of many features in biology

Nobody so far even knows what your hypothesis is. To most of us it seems incoherent. Your proposed evidence is a series of non sequiturs, and your proposed tests are impractical and fail to test any hypothesis. Try fixing those steps for a start.

[John_Harshman]

@colewd

Genesis is telling us the starting point is if it is correct.

If it’s correct and you’re interpreting it correctly. Please state this “starting point” in a testable and coherent form. Also, please stop name-dropping @Joe_Felsenstein; if I were him I’d find it mildly insulting. Your argument from population genetics is incoherent. And you have yet to engage with any data whatsoever. I have sincere doubts that you ever will.

[Joe_Felsenstein]

I have no intention of arguing further with colewd. Either he has totally refuted my arguments, or maybe something else. Too much water has gone under that bridge …

[Meerkat_SK5]

@John_Harshman

Nobody so far even knows what your hypothesis is. To most of us it seems incoherent. Your proposed evidence is a series of non sequiturs , and your proposed tests are impractical and fail to test any hypothesis. Try fixing those steps for a start.

Simple. God guided evolution.

How? Self-collapsing wave-function, directed mutations and natural selection

Why? Make sure species to survive, reproduce, and fill the biosphere.

Where? Every living thing

When? All the time from start to finish

Who? The God of classical theism

What? A personal non-contingent being

Now, what makes my hypothesis not scientifically useful in potentially explaining the origins of species and life despite providing and describing experiments that would disprove or confirm it?

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@John_Harshman

Your argument from population genetics is incoherent. And you have yet to engage with any data whatsoever. I have sincere doubts that you ever will.

The argument is very simple. Population genetics theory such as how genes get fixed in a population through selection or drift start from existing populations. Genesis 1 states that God created animals and therefore seeded existing populations. Currently population Genetic theory is compatible with Genesis.

How God did this is not stated. Guided evolution is a possibility.

All the Genetic information for separate kinds was delivered by God.

This is what Genesis states and it has not been refuted by any mathematically based scientific model as far as I can tell.

There appears to be no real conflict between science and Judaeo Christianity.

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

@Meerkat_SK5, that is a nice summary, I think that’s useful.

@Meerkat_SK5

How? Self-collapsing wave-function, directed mutations and natural selection

Is there any scientific evidence that this is possible? I took a year of Quantum in grad school and my lab did some work at the boundary of quantum and semi-quantum behaviors in molecular collisions. It’s really hard for me to see how wavefunction collapse could have the type of impact you’re talking about. I mean I’ve seen papers suggesting that proton tunneling could cause mutations due to disruption of hydrogen bonding, but that’s very different from saying that wavefunction collapse can create arbitrary mutations.

@Meerkat_SK5

Now, what makes my hypothesis not scientifically useful in potentially explaining the origins of species and life despite providing and describing experiments that would disprove or confirm it?

That the experiments would neither confirm nor disprove it?

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

@Meerkat_SK5

For example, whenever unguided chemical processes under atmospheric conditions were left to themselves without any interference, they did not produce the desired results. Rather, the living state would always subside and turn into “useless networks of RNA sequences” as demonstrated by Szostak and Bartel (1993) where more than half of the pool of RNA molecules precipitated when incubated.

They were able to solve this problem by tying the molecules onto a substrate to make sure the pool of RNA molecules do not diffuse and form intermolecular reactions, and, thus, safely incubated. However, this is obviously an unlikely occurrence within the primordial soup, but it was the prevailing inclination within in vitro selection experiments under atmospheric conditions .

But you don’t know whether those conditions just happen to not be the correct conditions. I’m struggling to see how this experiment actually demonstrates anything meaningful to the hypothesis. What am I missing?

[Meerkat_SK5]

@Jordan

Is there any scientific evidence that this is possible? I took a year of Quantum in grad school and my lab did some work at the boundary of quantum and semi-quantum behaviors in molecular collisions. It’s really hard for me to see how wavefunction collapse could have the type of impact you’re talking about. I mean I’ve seen papers suggesting that proton tunneling could cause mutations due to disruption of hydrogen bonding, but that’s very different from saying that wavefunction collapse can create arbitrary mutations.

Well, it depends. Pragmatically speaking, No. It is not possible, but this does not change the fact that everything is made from atoms, which are the very particles that are dependent on observation. Thus, the fundamental nature of reality is dependent on observation. The reason why we don’t see the results is because the atoms are so tiny that there probability spread is so small we would never notice a change. There are also decoherence effects at play as well that make this unlikely to see first hand. Despite these facts, we still observe quantum effects in macro-objects:

Scientists supersize quantum mechanics : Nature News

Real-time single-molecule imaging of quantum interference | Nature Nanotechnology

@Jordan

But you don’t know whether those conditions just happen to not be the correct conditions. I’m struggling to see how this experiment actually demonstrates anything meaningful to the hypothesis. What am I missing?

Wikipedia:

“a theory is falsifiable (or refutable ) if it is contradicted by possible observations —i.e., by any observations that can be described in the language of the theory, which must have a conventional empirical interpretation.[A] Thus the theory must be about scientific evidence and it must prohibit some (but not all) possible observations. For example, the statement “All swans are white” is falsifiable because “Here is a black swan” contradicts it.”

An intelligent designer must exist to guide all life on earth. This is falsifiable because “Here is an experiment showing life could have evolved by a unguided process” would contradict it. How can you say this is still unfalsifiable despite it being formulated in almost the exact same way that Karl Popper has suggested?

Also, to clarify, it does not have to be actual conditions but any possible condition can be used to test it because God is a necessary being that must exist in all possible worlds or conditions.

So all you have to do is show a possible world or condition in which he does not need to exist to explain an observation in life.

In other words, metaphysical necessities are necessary in the sense that the world could not possibly have been otherwise.

A random process , on the other hand, would show that the world could possibly have been otherwise, which is why I think Lenski’s experiment is a good way to demonstrate this potentially.

[nwrickert (Neil Rickert)]

You need to spend more time talking to actual scientists, instead of relying on a Wikipedia article about falsification.

Actually, you have been talking to actual scientists in this thread. And they have been telling you, quite clearly, that science does not work the way that you think it does. Maybe you could start paying attention to what the actual scientists are saying.

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

@Meerkat_SK5

Pragmatically speaking, No. It is not possible, but this does not change the fact that everything is made from atoms, which are the very particles that are dependent on observation. Thus, the fundamental nature of reality is dependent on observation.

That is only one of many available interpretations of quantum mechanics, there are others that are deterministic and not dependent on observation. I’m not sure I would rely on indeterminism as a foundational truth, though it may be correct. Beyond that though, the articles you linked to are interesting, but don’t really help in this situation. In fact they suggest that quantum effects are not relevant to natural history. You still haven’t gotten evidence that quantum mechanics is practically relevant to evolution that I can tell.

@Meerkat_SK5

@Jordan

But you don’t know whether those conditions just happen to not be the correct conditions. I’m struggling to see how this experiment actually demonstrates anything meaningful to the hypothesis. What am I missing?

[snip definition of falsifiability]

An intelligent designer must exist to guide all life on earth. This is falsifiable because “Here is an experiment showing life could have evolved by a unguided process” would contradict it. How can you say this is still unfalsifiable despite it being formulated in almost the exact same way that Karl Popper has suggested?

Besides falsifiability not being a sufficient criteria for a hypothesis to be scientific, just putting the words in a similar form as a falsifiable statement doesn’t also make it falsifiable. How would you demonstrate that the experiment is either guided or unguided? You can’t just insert human “guidance” and declare it falsifiable. You need to demonstrate that God does not “guide” during the experiment. I don’t know how to do that, do you?

Another issue is that it seems like you’ve slightly shifted the language (at least that I’m aware of), “an intelligent designer must exist to guide all life on earth” is different than “an intelligent designer guided all life on earth”.

I think I would say if you could demonstrate that all possible intelligent designers can be excluded from an experiment and if the experiment could conceivably generate life, then “an intelligent designer must exist to guide all life on earth” as a hypothesis would be falsifiable. Good luck

@Meerkat_SK5

Also, to clarify, it does not have to be actual conditions but any possible condition can be used to test it because God is a necessary being that must exist in all possible worlds or conditions.

I’m not as worried about the conditions as I am that it seems as if you’re not yet comparing apples to apples.

[John_Harshman]

@Meerkat_SK5

Now, what makes my hypothesis not scientifically useful in potentially explaining the origins of species and life despite providing and describing experiments that would disprove or confirm it?

Your hypothesis is not clear enough to have real consequences, and your experiments do not seem to test what you seem to be describing. Let’s try to clarify.

@Meerkat_SK5

God guided evolution.

Does this rule out separate creation of species, which you have previously hinted at?

@Meerkat_SK5

Make sure species to survive, reproduce, and fill the biosphere.

That would seem to rule out extinction. (Extinction: all members of a species die.) And no, the precise definition of species is unnecessary for this.

@Meerkat_SK5

Every living thing

That part is vague. Do you mean that every mutation or environmental factor is directly caused by God for some specific purpose?

@Meerkat_SK5

All the time from start to finish

Similarly, what does “all the time” mean here? Literally every single event in the universe, or what?

@Meerkat_SK5

The God of classical theism

You need to define that God’s properties more clearly.

@Meerkat_SK5

A personal non-contingent being

That doesn’t have the implications you imagine. And it doesn’t help make your hypothesis clearer or more scientific.

[John_Harshman]

@colewd

The argument is very simple. Population genetics theory such as how genes get fixed in a population through selection or drift start from existing populations. Genesis 1 states that God created animals and therefore seeded existing populations. Currently population Genetic theory is compatible with Genesis.

Simple, yes. Meaningful, no. Yes, population genetics assumes an existing population. But that population could be the first organisms. Population genetics also deals with speciation and divergence. Whether that’s compatible with Genesis depends on your view of Genesis. But your argument is just your misunderstanding of population genetics.

@colewd

Guided evolution is a possibility.

Given the evidence for common descent, shouldn’t it be the preferred possibility?

@colewd

All the Genetic information for separate kinds was delivered by God.

This is what Genesis states

Genesis says no such thing. There is no mention of genetics or information. “Let the earth bring forth…”, etc. suggests a God who isn’t sweating the details at all.

@colewd

This is what Genesis states and it has not been refuted by any mathematically based scientific model as far as I can tell.

So much wrong there: 1) You can’t tell very far; 2) This is about the source of mutation, and we’re supposedly talking about common descent (i.e. there’s your central conflation again).

@colewd

There appears to be no real conflict between science and Judaeo Christianity.

Depends on what version of “Judaeo Christianity”. Your version, for example, conflicts with science in many ways.

[colewd (Bill Cole)]

@John_Harshman

But your argument is just your misunderstanding of population genetics.

In what way?

@John_Harshman

Given the evidence for common descent, shouldn’t it be the preferred possibility?

In a limited sense yes. The evidence in Sal’s flower is problematic for a broader application of common descent. Guided common descent is a possible method of special creation.

@John_Harshman

Genesis says no such thing. There is no mention of genetics or information. “Let the earth bring forth…”, etc. suggests a God who isn’t sweating the details at all.

We know that the animals that represent different kinds in Genesis have different genomes.

@John_Harshman

So much wrong there: 1) You can’t tell very far; 2) This is about the source of mutation, and we’re supposedly talking about common descent (i.e. there’s your central conflation again).

No were talking about God as a useful scientific hypothesis. Common descent is at best a limited explanation for life’s diversity.

@John_Harshman

Depends on what version of “Judaeo Christianity”. Your version, for example, conflicts with science in many ways.

What is my version? It may conflict with exaggerated claims attributed to science. Real testable models are completely compatible as far as I can tell.