The question of whether or not all life on Earth shares a single common ancestor has been a central problem of evolutionary biology since Darwin1. Although the theory of universal common ancestry (UCA) has gathered a compelling list of circumstantial evidence, as given in ref. 2, there has been no attempt to test statistically the UCA hypothesis among the three domains of life (eubacteria, archaebacteria and eukaryotes) by using molecular sequences. Theobald2 recently challenged this problem with a formal statistical test, and concluded that the UCA hypothesis holds. Although his attempt is the first step towards establishing the UCA theory with a solid statistical basis, we think that the test of Theobald2 is not sufficient enough to reject the alternative hypothesis of the separate origins of life, despite the Akaike information criterion (AIC) of model selection3 giving a clear distinction between the competing hypotheses.
I should have said competently defended. I think your accusation of dishonesty is over the top.
How did you determine what you found was an advanced computer and how did you determine it was impossible to have come from Earth?
Whether itâs a computer or some other electronic device, it would be very easy to tell apart from a stalactite or a meteor crater or a sheet of volcanic glass, or other things that we know can be formed by chance and natural laws. The arrangement of parts, the use of purified metals which are found in nature only as ores, and other things would give away the technological origin of the object.
And it would not at all be difficult to determine that it couldnât have come from earth, if it was discovered by the first earth mission to Mars. If the first mission found the thing already there, then obviously it didnât come from Earth, unless you want to argue that Paraguay or North Korea or some other nation had a secret space program capable not only of landing a computer on Mars without damage, but of dissolving into nothingness the space ship, parachute, etc. that carried the computer (like the self-destructing tape in Mission: Impossible), leaving no traces of a space journey â and all of this years before NASA or the Russians got to Mars. If you want to engage in political fantasies of the kind, you are welcome to do so. In any case, all kinds of other technical indicators might also demonstrate non-Earthly origin, e.g. some alloy used in the construction might be unknown to the most advanced Earth technology.
Your desperate attempts to undermine the hypothetical example, so that you donât have to deal with the reasoning , is indicative of a man who is intellectually cornered, and has to try to deflect attention from his inability to rebut the logic.
Show that my citation is wrong. Do you really think that defending universal common descent by comparing it to statistically random origins is competent?
This is why the design inference is an important alternative to a the absurd claims of evolutionists.
Hypothesis A. The computer was built by chance. Atoms of purified metals, circuits, etc., happened to fall into place, due to dust storms, earthquakes, or meteoroid impacts, to produce a working computer.
Hypothesis B. The computer was built by natural laws. There are laws that on a planet like Mars, ores tend to become purified metals, and disordered bits of matter tend to come together into orderly, working hi-tech devices.
Hypothesis C. The computer was built by some combination of chance and natural laws.
Hypothesis D. The computer was built by someone who had a plan in mind.
Now show us, O Great Authority on the Nature of Science, how you would decide which of these was the best hypothesis, and what conclusion you would come to, using scientific reasoning.
How so? The only way I know to determine it was a computer is by comparing it to other human made computers. That would infer your âfound computerâ was also human made.
You didnât say you determined it was unlikely to have come from Earth. You claimed to have determined it was impossible. I asked you how and you canât say, just belch your usual hand-waving non-answers.
Your whole âgotchaâ premise was built on unsubstantiated claims and your usual fallacious reasoning. Thatâs why everyone is beating it into the proverbial fine pink mist.
Competent enough to get published in one of the worldâs top peer-reviewed science journals. Why should anyone care if scientifically illiterate Bill Cole thinks itâs incompetent?
I have some sympathy for the inference from the use of specific types of materials of which the object is made. But that inference comes with implicit assumptions about the designer based on prior observations of designs made by humans. If itâs made of plastic, has circuit boards with copper wiring, chips of silicon and so on weâd infer something like humans made it supposing we had somehow become convinced we couldnât have done it ourselves.
But again this inference is only possible because you have at least a rough model of the designer and itâs capabilities, means, and motives. A purported alien species at a technological level close to ourselves.
Now you just need to actually find something equivalent in biology.
Why do you think a random null is an effective test of universal common descent? It is because the design inference is not considered. The game is rigged and people are starting to see the charade.
Wait for itâŚit is because 98% of scientists think it is true.
It isnât obvious how âchance and natural lawâ is distinguished from âsomeone who had a plan in mindâ.
Last I checked, we all obey the laws of physics. Still no examples of anyone or anything wishing shit into existence through sheer force of will. Or somehow manipulating matter at the atomic scale without having advanced technology to aid the eyes to see to see it, and something like arms and hands to operate the equipment. Iâd be willing to accept tentacles (praise his noodly appendage).
Feel free to write to Nature with your rebuttal paper showing the original analysis was incompetent. Iâll stick with my working hypothesis itâs Bill Cole who is incompetent.
Itâs omission of the design hypothesis riggs the game. If you donât consider the multiple origin hypothesis because you are locked into the simple to complex paradigm this is where you are stuck.
Hideous word usage, but I will try to sublimate the awkwardness into something meaningful.
Even if that is true, it doesnât establish that the computer had to have come from earth, or even that it could have come from earth. If I found something with all the properties of a beach ball on Mars I would think it was a beach ball, or at any rate a consciously designed spherical object, but it wouldnât follow that humans had put the beach ball there. And if I had very strong reason for thinking that no human had put the beach ball there, I would conclude that some other intelligent being had put it there.
In real-life reasoning we usually rule out the wildly unlikely as effectively impossible. I would remain open to the explanation that it came from earth, but if only wild fantasies (of secret space programs of Grand Fenwick, of secret alloys unknown to all the metallurgists and materials scientists on Earth, etc.) could be offered, I would dismiss them.
There wasnât anything fallacious about my reasoning. It was almost as rigorous as that used in a proof in Euclidean geometry, and certainly more rigorous than many of the arguments offered by Darwin. If you disagree, drop your objections to the hypothetical example, grant the example for the sake of argument, and show the error in the reasoning. Iâm betting you canât.
There is no evidence for a Design hypothesis so no need to include it. Just like the paper omitted the MAGIC! hypothesis.
Again feel free to write Nature with evidence of your Design hypothesis instead of wasting everyoneâs time posting your unsupported religious beliefs here.
His null is that the separate origins were built by a random mechanism.
The problem Rum is if you were to take an honest assessment of the odds of a eukaryotic cell given what we know(prokaryotic cells) as a starting point the odds of this alone are vanishing small.
Of course there was. You assumed what we found could be identified as a computer. Computers are by definition human designed machines so you sneaked in the premise a human designed your found object.
Major logic FAIL on your part, something you do on a regular basis.
Which is why we rule out ID for now until it provides some positive evidence.
