This is a very important reason why so many IDcreationist criticisms of OoL research are so ludicrous–current life could very easily have erased the only conditions that allowed for early life.
The stability and ubiquity of ribonuclease is very interesting in that context.
So Denton is lying in the YouTube video? Or does it only have sufficient impact when read, not when spoken?
Still waiting for you to cite that convincing evidence, btw…
Not an answer. Of course we have only one planet known to have any life at all, but why do you imagine that’s relevant? I was of course using the model of extremophiles, which do indeed live in water. And why have you added the requirement that the temperature is never lower than 400 degrees?
I didn’t add it, or at least, I didn’t mean to add it; I thought it was part of the original scenario someone else here proposed. Anyhow, by extremophiles that live in water, are you referring to sea life near volcanic vents on the ocean floor? Yes, they live in water, but the pressure there keeps the water liquid; on the earth’s surface, water at that temperature would all boil away. So is your point that maybe intelligent life could evolve near volcanic vents on the ocean floor? I find that hard to imagine, but maybe you could sketch a pathway. In any case, Denton is talking about the evolution of intelligent beings who can figure out their own place in the cosmos, and given that creatures living near the ocean floor will never see the sun, moon, or stars, it’s a cinch they will never do that. Ditto for extremophiles living deep in the earth’s crust, or for extremophiles living under a mile of Antarctic ice, etc. But again, if you have a notion of how some critter, most likely unicellular or maybe even simpler, living perhaps in a hot, dark acidic bath deep in a planet’s crust, could evolve into a multicellular, articulated animal capable of talking about multiverses – if there were no places on the planet more hospitable to evolutionary development than that dark acidic bath – you are welcome to share your notion with us.
In fact I meant exactly what I said, which happens to be true. Simply getting angry and dismissive because you can’t answer it is hardly in line with your stated purposes here.
Funny how you don’t seem to consider the possibility that you misread Denton’s claim.
Anyway, I will point out that I have not passed final judgement on Denton’s books. However, I do expect to see some reason that they are worth the time and expense. This sort of response - arrogant bullying to avoid discussion - is hardly helpful. Indeed it gives the impression that you don’t think Denton’s books are worth reading either.
As usual you miss the point. If the presumed designer’s wants are simply fitted to whatever we see, then it’s not a good explanation. If we found that worlds that could support intelligent life were more common than you wanted you would just change the presumed designer’s presumed intent to match that. Which makes it no explanation at all.
Of course I can infer your wants simply from your fervent defence of the idea. And I never made any such complaint. So just more unwarranted nastiness.
It’s looking like Denton is just thoughtlessly tossing out random properties too. The obvious problem is that you’re advocating for his thesis without doing any evaluation of your own. When people see that and point it out, you get very, very cranky.
Displacement activity. What’s your excuse? At least I write ~10X fewer words than you do.
That’s just contemptible. We are discussing WHICH books are worth reading, not if any are.
BTW, how’s the Lane book going?
I just did.
This, from the guy who lectures me on my conversational manners.
There you go again – “than you wanted.” Mind-reading again. I have no wants on this subject. I don’t want the earth to be the only planet with intelligent life, and I don’t want there to be many planets with intelligent life. I have no preference, and I make no prediction regarding what an intelligent designer (whether the Christian God or any other intelligent designer) would decide regarding how many worlds would have intelligent life. I disagree with those Christians who think it essential to show that the earth is the only planet in the universe with intelligent life, to vindicate the truth of Christianity. I can imagine Christianity being true with intelligent life on only the earth, but I can imagine it being true with intelligent life on a billion other planets. I have no emotional and no theological stake in how many planets have intelligent life, and so, whatever the true number might turn out to be (supposing we could somehow determine that, which I doubt we ever will, but supposing for the sake of clarifying my point), I would not think Christianity one bit more or less likely to be true.
In any case, you’re looking down the wrong end of the pipe by trying to guess the deeper motives of a designer. That’s not what design inferences are about, as ID folks have made clear. I don’t have to know that the Pyramids were built as tombs for Pharaohs to know they are designed objects. If I know they are built as tombs, then I could predict that the number of Pyramids would not exceed the number of Pharaohs. But if I don’t know that, and therefore can’t predict the number of Pyramids there will be, that doesn’t make my design inference any less correct.
If you could prove to me tomorrow that there were exactly 1,230,501 worlds with intelligent life, I would say, “intelligent life on those worlds would not have arisen without some ‘tilting’ [i.e., preliminary setup] of nature to make it possible.” And if you proved to me that there was only 1 such world, I would say the same thing. I do not believe that intelligent life would have arisen anywhere without such tilting, so the number is absolutely irrelevant. But I already know that you do not accept either the premises or the arguments that I would use to draw that conclusion, and I already know that the other atheists here would concur with you, so there is no need for us to discuss it further. This isn’t about particular faults of Denton’s video in particular; it’s about a general rejection of arguments of the type Denton advances, which long predated Denton. Atheists and materialists all have the same general rejection. That is why arguments about fine-tuning always end up at the same impasse. So let’s pull the plug on this one.
Then I can infer the motives of the atheists here from their fervent defenses. You can’t have it both ways – though doubtless, like Puck, you will try.
There was nothing “nasty” in the words to which you are responding. You apparently don’t know the meaning of the English word “nasty”, because you keep using it for things that don’t warrant it. (While consistently giving a pass to actually nasty things said by atheists here.)
Actually, all I originally said, way back when the first person asked me, was that Denton provided “evidence” – not proof – for design in nature. But it’s quite clear, from several statements made here, that none of the data (and you’re always yapping about data – well, there’s tons of it in Denton’s books, but you won’t look at it) “count” because, in the view of the atheists here, the whole line of argument is fatally flawed. So it wouldn’t matter if Denton produced 1,000,000,000 pieces of confirmed “data” about nature, neither you nor any of your colleagues would allow the inference he draws from it. So in one sense, you’re all right not to read Denton’s books, because you would never admit the conclusions. My urging you to read the books, even though I know you won’t, serves the purpose of perhaps making some tiny number of you feel maybe just a wee bit guilty about not even looking at the data, and trying to settle the argument by a priori reasoning – something Bacon said, back at the beginning of modern science, that scientists should not do.
Of course, because you almost never provide exposition; almost all your writing is biting retorts. That takes fewer words than the rational arrangement of ideas. In any case, you’re the one who complained about wasting your time, not me.
Haven’t had time to look at it in depth yet. I have about ten other books on the go at all times.
I missed it. Let’s have it again. What do you believe about the creation of the world, and about the God who created it? Do you think God designed the world intelligently? Do you think he cares about his creatures? And if so, why do you believe such “extraordinary” claims (Harshman)? On what grounds? You’re asking me why I believe Denton’s claims, but you won’t tell me why you believe Christianity is true. Actually, you won’t tell anyone why you believe Christianity is true, at least, not on any origins site. Are you embarrassed by your Christian belief? Or is there some other reason why you won’t say what you believe, and why you believe it?
I’ll admit to criticising some of your worst behaviour, but I don’t have to be perfect to do that.
Nevertheless you strongly argue that it must be very unlikely to find a planet suitable for the appearance of intelligent life - but without any real knowledge. The inference is really rather obvious and does not require any “mind reading”.
That’s missing the point again. The point is that to get a better argument you need to elevate the designer hypothesis to a point where it is not just ad hoc assumptions.
I’ll agree that, ID is not about producing a theory to replace evolution. Because to do that they would have to base it on predicting what the designer would do, not looking at what is and assuming that the designer did it. Indeed a purely ad hoc designer is not even a good basis for design inferences.
However we have candidate designers and we have a good deal of knowledge of their capabilities and the materials they used - and where they obtained them. The idea that the pyramids were built by ancient Egyptians is not purely ad hoc. Far from it. I don’t choose motives because they are essential knowledge I choose them because they are at least potentially accessible when we have no independent knowledge of a candidate designer and are usable to make predictions. So your objection is quite misplaced.
And the reason for the rejection is the weakness of the argument. If anyone is at fault there it is those who support the “fine tuning” argument but refuse to do anything to strengthen it.
Even if the “fervent defences” exist only in your imagination?
I would say that an accusation of hypocrisy - even an implicit one - based on something that never occurred is nasty. Apparently you don’t agree. Though I seem to remember you objecting to a far milder statement on my part.
Water remains liquid at high temperatures when under pressure. The water bubbling out of deep-sea hydrothermal vents can be hundreds of degrees C, yet it remains liquid because it’s under enormous pressure. A planet can in principle have a very high surface temperature yet retain liquid water in subsurface enclosed or high pressure zones, and it’s far from obvious to me why a multicellular lifeform could not exist under such circumstances.
Now admit also to willfully turning a blind eye to some of the worst behavior of others here, and you’ll be well on the way to a healthy balance.
By the way, are you writing from Britain, or Australia, or where? Not that it matters for your argument. I was just curious.
You’ve left out the most important part of what I wrote. I was distinguishing between the motive – why the Pyramids were built – and the inference that the Pyramids were designed. You (not me) raised the question of motive when you asked why the designer would want worlds with intelligent life. In my comparison, that is parallel to “why the designers would want Pyramids”. The answer is “for (spectacular) tombs for the Pharaohs.” But even if we had never known that the Pyramids were built as tombs we could know they were designed. Further (to answer your subsidiary remarks, which didn’t address my parallel), we don’t have to know anything about the Egyptians’ technology etc. to know that the Pyramids were designed. Indeed, if we had never heard of Egyptians and had supposed up to the time we saw the Pyramids that no human beings had ever lived in Egypt, we would still know that the Pyramids were designed. We don’t need to verify the existence of a possible designer before knowing that something is designed. Indeed, in some cases it’s precisely the fact of design that tips us off to the existence of a hitherto unknown designer.
So no, my objection is not “misplaced.” You simply didn’t catch the significance of my repeated phrase “as tombs” – you didn’t realize how it connected with your question about the motive of the designer.
If you can read four of five of Puck’s latest diatribes here in this column, and not perceive the defensiveness for his world view, there’s little hope of communication between us.
I don’t recall accusing you of hypocrisy. I recall inferring that you were, or might well be, given the way you argued, an atheist or materialist. I did not say that you would be a hypocrite if you were either of those things. But if your position is that unsubstantiated accusations of hypocrisy are “nasty”, then there is a lot of nastiness on this site, because I and others (including those absent who cannot defend themselves, such as ID leaders) have been accused of hypocrisy, without substantiation, on countless occasions. I’ll look forward to your future language policing when such charges are made.
Which I noted myself, in response to John Harshman, before you wrote this post.
I agree, and so would Denton. But it’s not just “multicellular” but “intelligent,” and not just “intelligent” but “capable of realizing its own place in the universe and understanding its origin” that Denton is trying to explain. As I already explained to John, creatures in “subsurface enclosed or high pressure zones”, are not going to be able to observe the heavens, and without that, they are not going to develop the kind of science that is needed to understand their place in the universe and their own origin. So you need creatures that dwell at least part of the time on land and are capable of observing the night-time sky and recording and studying the movements of the sky. I await a description of a planet with a surface temperature of 400 degrees that provides that opportunity.
I must admit to feeling a bit foolish having wasted all this time discussing this question with an anonymous person describing himself as a “natural theologian”, acting as a surrogate to a creationist biochemist, when there are people called “astronomers” whose job it is to answer such questions. Which, predictably enough, they have and not in the way an ID “scientist” would want it to be answered:
Our galaxy holds at least an estimated 300 million of these potentially habitable worlds, based on even the most conservative interpretation of the results in a study released today and to be published in The Astronomical Journal. Some of these exoplanets could even be our interstellar neighbors, with at least four potentially within 30 light-years of our Sun and the closest likely to be at most about 20 light-years from us. These are the minimum numbers of such planets based on the most conservative estimate that 7% of Sun-like stars host such worlds. However, at the average expected rate of 50%, there could be many more.
At least 300 million. Probably many more. And just in our galaxy. The interested person can look up how many galaxies there are in the universe if he wishes.
Denton is either a fool or a liar. Probably both.
Link to the peer reviewed paper:
Not exclusively. For example, extremophiles live in the hot springs at Yellowstone.
So what about a world with high atmospheric pressure? And I see you have abandoned your original objections in favor of new ones.
What do you mean here by “place in the cosmos”? You appear to refer to astronomy, but why is astronomy necessary for an intelligent being that God would find worth creating? The heavens may declare the glory of God, but why don’t the depths also do that?
Are you claiming that you don’t come originally from a unicellular ancestor? I’m not seeing your point otherwise.
Just improve your behaviour so you’re not the worst person on the board, and you’ll do a lot more.
No, I did not, I explained why it wasn’t that important.
And even there we still have the fact that the Pyramids are the sort of thing humans build, using the materials humans use to build such things. It’s still a far sounder inference.
Really what you have is an attempt at Dembski’s Design Inference - but without the attempt to eliminate other explanations. Other than arrogantly - and unfairly - dismissing them out of hand, that is.
Really ? Then you forgot the very “nastiness” you are supposedly defending.
LOL!!!
Indeed. It has often been pointed out that we know far more about that furthest reaches of the cosmos than we do about the furthest depths of the oceans on our own planet. That the most intelligent species to evolve on our particular planet just happened to be terrestrial may have something to do with that.
That’s only 3 x 10^8, a number easily consumable by factors such as I discussed. And even if we multiply that by, say, ten billion galaxies, that comes to 3 x 10^18, much less than your original estimate of 10^25. So your case is not any stronger. Further, it says “potentially habitable”, which is a loosey-goosey description. And Denton is looking not just for “habitable” planets, containing, say, microorganisms, but planets with intelligent life capable of peering into the universe, studying the stars, inventing technology to aid that study, etc. Not all “habitable” planets would produce such beings. Finally, you are basing your conclusion on one article reporting one study. How do you know the majority of astrophysicists etc. will agree with the conclusions of that one study? Shouldn’t you wait a few months, until that study has faced criticism from expert readers of the article, before assuming it teaches the Gospel truth? You appear to be cherry-picking a study you happen to like, not seriously researching the range of opinions in the field.
Granted. Are you suggesting that if life started out in such hot springs, intelligent life would evolve from it, absent all or most of the other conditions obtaining on the earth? I thought we were trying to visualize planets missing many elements key to evolution here on earth, and I thought you were suggesting that maybe highly intelligent life could evolve without those elements. I guess I need some examples of rough pathways that you have in mind, before I can say whether they seem probable.
OK, so if a world had high atmospheric pressure, water could be found there even at very high temperatures. But would water at very high temperatures proves as conducive to the evolution of life? Everything affects everything else; would the high temperatures get in the way of certain developments? And at such extremely high atmospheric pressure, would the type of life that could evolve and live be restricted? And would that pressure be due to an immense amount of air, and that in turn due to immense gravity? Would immense gravity have possible negative consequence for the development of certain types of life? Denton is thinking ecologically; he’s looking at a whole set of interacting factors which on earth have made intelligent life possible, and he’s asking how likely such a confluence of factors would be if there were not some intelligent “settings” for the universe.
I don’t dispute your theological point – of course a slug in the ocean is part of God’s plan as well, and “worth creating.” But again, Denton is not claiming to be presenting a Christian theology. He is noting that the universe has produced at least one being (us) capable of looking at the stars and hence coming to understand his own origin, and he’s asking what that takes, in terms of physical, chemical, geological, biochemical etc. conditions. And he’s arguing that it takes a lot, and a lot of forethought. He’s saying that not just any old set of laws or constants would do.
The polemical atmosphere here causes me to sometimes make my points overly fine, to ward off anticipated criticisms. About 50 times here and on BioLogos, whenever I have casually referred to unicellular ancestors, Mercer has jumped down my throat saying that life could have existed before the first cell. That’s why I wrote “maybe even simpler,” to fend off in advance attacks irrelevant to my point.
What I’m getting at is: suppose that life on a planet, because of the planet’s overall hostile makeup, could only have arisen in a few select locations, maybe pockets of hot chemicals a mile under the crust, or in an oceanic thermal vent, how likely is it that this life could go on to become the sort of intelligent life you and I have in mind? Would you expect something parallel to “mermen” to evolve near volcanic fissures at the bottom of the ocean, from simple unicellular creatures there? Would you expect such creatures to invent science? Remember, I was not arguing, nor is Denton, that life could not have arisen in such extreme environments; but it seems unlikely that in such environments life would progress as it did on earth, where, in addition to such extreme environments, there is plenty of surface water at modest temperatures, plenty of light (that is mostly nonexistent at the ocean floor) etc. I don’t deny that evolution could occur, even in and around volcanic vents, but I would think the constraints would make it much less rich and diverse in its results.
Deflecting from your faults to mine; tactic noted.
Yes, you did. You didn’t even mention my point about “tombs,” which was central to the parallel I was making about motive. Go back and look at your reply. Where do you see “tombs”?
The antecedent of your pronoun is not clear. What’s a far sounder inference? That the Pyramids are designed? I already made that inference.
I’ve had about 50 conversations here and on BioLogos about the Pyramids, about pyramids and other structures found on Mars, etc., in which I’ve eliminated other explanations, providing details. Do you expect me to repeat every past discussion I’ve had here, with all the evidence and argument repeated, for you? In any case, it should be easy for you see that the explanation for the Pyramids can’t be chance or necessity or a combination, that some intelligent planning had to be involved. And you should be able to see that we could safely infer this even if we had no evidence of any previous human habitation of Africa. We safely infer it on Mars, even if we had no evidence of any previous habitation of any intelligent race on Mars. A pyramid on Mars would prove that an intelligent designer existed, with zero historical or biological knowledge of the designer.
There you go with the polemical tone again. Which part of my discussion of tombs and Egyptians was presented “arrogantly”? I was trying to give rational arguments, without polemics. I was trying to respond to your objections. Please don’t call my responses “arrogant” unless you are willing to provide words and phrases I use in them that indicate arrogance. It seems that you have taken such a dislike to me that you are now throwing out such charges in an almost Pavlovian way.
Unclear. Specify the exact words which imply a charge of hypocrisy. And don’t just quote the words; explain why the only possible interpretation of them is an accusation of hypocrisy.
Not an intellectual response to a point.
You didn’t answer my question about your nationality. That’s fine; you have the right to remain silent. But if you studied at Oxford or Cambridge, or at certain Australian schools, we might know some people in common. Well, tell us or don’t; it’s not that important.
No. I’m suggesting that high temperature water can exist under various conditions. The question is why high temperatures would preclude the evolution of multicellular life and of intelligent life. Why do you think so?
Why not? What is your objection? You are implicitly assuming the answers to your various questions, but do you have any reasons?
Yes, and I am pointing out that those factors are not necessarily relevant. Can you give reasons?
What is the use of “hence” there other than to cover an immense gap in logic?
He may be saying that, but does his argument hold up at all to examination? That seems not to be true. You are certainly flailing.
Sure, other people are responsible for your misstatements. And you quite misunderstand my objection. It wasn’t to “even simpler”. It was to the implication that single-celled beginnings are incompatible with the evolution of intelligent life. It now appears that you didn’t understand that implication. But in that case it isn’t clear what you were trying to say.
You understand, I hope, that this is exactly a scenario frequently proposed for the origin of life on earth. Now me, I think that intelligent life is extremely unlikely to evolve under any conditions. Multicellularity also seems quite unlikely, given the billions of years in which it didn’t happen. Yet here we are. If it was part of a plan, the very purpose of the universe, all I can say is that someone chose a very roundabout way of achieving that purpose.
You have ignored the scenario of a high-pressure, high temperature planet. That would of course likely be dark at its surface, at least in the visible spectrum, and the stars would not be visible. But why this focus on stars? There seems no clear reason for that.
I’m sorry that you need to see specific words - which aren’t actually important - to understand the point I was making. I did directly address the question of motive which was the actual point.
That the Pyramids are designed is a far sounder inference than that our universe is designed.
I was talking about our universe being designed, not the Pyramids. But even if you hypothesised that your alternate Pyramids were built by an otherwise undetectable extraterrestrial civilisation it would still be better than the inference that our universe was designed.
I was referring to your dismissal of the multiverse as an explanation.
It should be obvious. I objected to your (false) accusation of “mind-reading” and you claimed that I made made exactly the same accusation against you.
Well indeed, but it is the only response that fit. If you get caught using a double standard I am certainly not going to object if you get accused of hypocrisy. And that would be true even if I were trying to police this board - which I certainly am not doing.