Is Abiogenesis an hypothesis in distress?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Ronald_Cram

Most every scientist recognizes that origin of life researchers have not solved the problem of how the first life came to be. An appeal to panspermia is really just kicking the can down the road.

Exactly. That is 100% true. That means we do not know how the first life arose. If you feel the need to believe God directly created the first cell, that is certainly reasonable, even though it is unattested to in Scripture (unlike e.g. the de novo creation of Adam). Nothing in science disputes that belief. Science is silent on God’s action. This is one of those mysterious places in origins were maybe God acted.

That is quite a bit of common ground. It might go down hill from there…

@Ronald_Cram

Hi everyone, As many of you are aware, Dr. James Tour, who is one of the world’s top chemists, has forcefully criticized scientific models purporting to explain the origin of life. And yet, in an article titled, Origin of Life, Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creation and Faith, he writes: I do not know how to use science to prove intelligent design although some others might. I am sympathetic to the arguments and I find some of them intriguing, but I prefer to be free of that intelligent desi…

@vjtorley began the discussion referring to criticisms of OOL research by James Tour of Rice University and Brian Miller. Dr. Miller also made a number of contributions to that discussion.

As you may know, I’m friends with Dr. Tour. I’m pretty sure you are misreading him. He wrote this too, you know:

Pascal further writes in his Pensees 429 ,

This is what I see that troubles me: Nature has nothing to offer me that does not give rise to doubt and anxiety; if there is a God supporting nature, she should unequivocally proclaim him, and that, if the signs in nature are deceptive, they should be completely erased; that nature should say all or nothing so that I could see what course I ought to follow.

Though 350 years since Pascal penned his dilemma, as a modern-day scientist, I do not know how to prove ID using my most sophisticated of analytical tools.

Dr James Tour and the Great Pascal

An Axiom or a Hypothesis?

If Tour can’t prove ID, what makes you think you can? I think one reason is that you’ve missed a critical point about what abiogenesis is. It is not a hypothesis, it is an axiom. Science looks at different hypothesis of abiogenesis, and weights between them, but it does not consider things other than abiogenesis.

So without any doubt, abiogenesis is certainly not a hypothesis in distress, because it is not a hypothesis. It is an axiom. And it might be an incorrect axiom, but its all that science has because it does not consider God’s action. Methodological Naturalism, So Falsely Called. That doesn’t mean it is correct, but science is limited here.

As @anon46279830 puts it…

@anon46279830

it is time for OOL researchers to do the right thing and to attempt to falsify the hypothesis that life can arise through natural processes without intelligence to guide the progress.

That is the main sticking point in the article. I am not sure how they can do that. Isn’t the best they can do is say “We have no plausible natural explanation for the origin of life”?

I’m not sure how they can do it either. Neither can Jim Tour. Neither can Perry Marshall.

Perry Marshall

A good friend of mine and @sygarte’s is mentioned.

@Ronald_Cram

Another non-OOL researcher who has entered the fray and deserves to be heard is Perry Marshall. Marshall is software expert and claims that biological information, whether encoded as DNA or RNA, is software code and requires a full communication system. He describes a communication has having an encoder, the code itself (DNA or RNA) and a decoder. If all three of these do not exist, then communication is impossible. All three need to be present inside the cell for the cell to function.

Sadly, he is wrong on his facts. Biological information is not software code and does not require a communication system. Nonetheless, it is worth noting Perry Marshall has gone through a transformation (as I understand it) from ID to believing that this actually can be solved by natural processes.

@Ronald_Cram

I think it’s clear that no one will ever be able to claim this prize.

How is that clear? Perry doesn’t agree with you.

The Ironic Parable

@Ronald_Cram

More importantly, it is time for OOL researchers to do the right thing and to attempt to falsify the hypothesis that life can arise through natural processes without intelligence to guide the progress.

I don’t know Ron, Jim Tour has been clear that Intelligence can’t create life. He has a parable:

THE WORLD’S BEST synthetic chemists, biochemists, and evolutionary biologists have combined forces to form a team—a dream team in two quite distinct senses of the word. Money is no object. They have at their disposal the most advanced analytical facilities, the complete scientific literature, synthetic and natural coupling agents, and all the reagents their hearts might desire. Carbohydrates, lipids, amino acids, and nucleic acids are stored in their laboratories in a state of 100% enantiomeric purity.

Would the dream team—please—assemble a living system?

Take your time, folks, take a few billion years.

Nothing? Well, well, well.

Let us assume that all the building blocks of life, and not just their precursors, have been made to a high degrees of purity, including homochirality where applicable—the carbohydrates, the amino acids, the nucleic acids, and the lipids. They are stored in cool caves, away from sunlight, and away from oxygen. These molecules are indifferent to environmental degradation.

And let us further assume that they are all stored in one comfortable corner of the earth, not separated by thousands of kilometers or on different planets.

And that they all exist not just in the same square kilometer, but in neighboring pools where they can conveniently and somehow selectively mix with each other as needed.

Now what? How does the dream team assemble them without enzymes?

Very well. Give the dream team polymerized forms: polypeptides, all the enzymes they desire, the polysaccharides, DNA and RNA in any sequence, cleanly assembled.

Ready now?

Apparently not.

I entirely agree with him. Human intelligence cannot assemble life. That seems like pretty solid evidence that life does not appear designed, right? We cannot even create life with the best of our intelligence. It does not appear designed by any created being.

To be clear, God did design it, but we are not at all sure how. The way He makes things is very different than the way we make things. Which brings us right back to our common ground:

@Ronald_Cram

Most every scientist recognizes that origin of life researchers have not solved the problem of how the first life came to be. An appeal to panspermia is really just kicking the can down the road.

If you feel the need to believe God directly created the first cell, that is certainly reasonable. Nothing in science unsettles that belief.