Looking at issues raised by Tour

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It’s clear that the mere fact that we aren’t yet close to a natural explanation for the origin of life doesn’t prove that there isn’t one. One might be discovered, down the road. Still, reading this discussion, and all discussions like it, I have the very strong impression that if this discussion were taking place 100 years from now, after much more effort had been made to exhaust the search space, etc., and no satisfying natural explanation had yet appeared, the participants would still be saying much the same things they are now. The one group would be still saying: “There’s a vanishingly small chance that life will ever be explained by purely natural processes,” and the other group would still be saying, “Give us more time, and we’ll show that it can be!”

So for me the interesting question is more in the realm of the personal psychology of the participants (which may ultimately come down to the personal metaphysics of the participants): Why are some people so eager to find a natural origin of life? What is at stake for them, if life doesn’t have a natural explanation?

When I look at some of the greatest scientists of the past, I find that they do not seem eager to find a natural origin for life. Newton wasn’t eager to do so; Kepler wasn’t eager to do so; Copernicus wasn’t eager to do so; Boyle wasn’t eager to do so; Galileo wasn’t eager to do so. They didn’t think that the reputation of science itself was at stake if life arose by non-natural means. They didn’t even think that the reputation of science itself was at stake if the solar system arose by non-natural means. They didn’t think it was a requirement of being a good scientist that one must try to explain all origins by purely natural means. So the question arises, how and when did it became true that “being a good scientist” requires “believing that every event that has happened in the history of the universe has happened through purely natural means”? It’s not a question that is often asked, but I think it’s pertinent to the subject of “issues raised by Tour.”

And by the way, I find Tour’s own statements on this question ambiguous. It’s clear that he thinks that all naturalistic proposals put forward so far are weak and fail to deal with what he has learned from doing synthetic chemistry. But at one conference I watched on a website, when he was asked if science would ever solve the problem of the origin of life, he seemed to answer in the affirmative, as if he thought that life did have a wholly natural origin, but we just hadn’t come close to discovering it yet. So his attitude seems unclear. Most often the most logical inference from his repeated charges against origin of life work seems to be “we aren’t going to find a solution, because the origin of life wasn’t by unguided natural causes”; but at rare moments he seems to hold out hope that a natural explanation will be found. I find him quite hard to read.

But regardless of Tour’s personal view, I think my general observation is worth discussing. Why the eagerness? Why would there be a sense of disappointment if it could be shown that life had to have a supernatural origin? Why would that result bother or upset people? I thought that the purpose of science was to come up with the truth about nature, regardless of the personal preferences, ideologies, religious beliefs, etc. of scientists. Yet I get a really strong sense that many don’t want it to be the case that life required a supernatural start.

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Well, I’m trying to make myself clear, but I don’t seem to be making too much progress. I do agree that outside of science there’s no problem. What I don’t understand is how it can be said that something is true in the context of science and false outside. That seems to be a contradiction to me.

Anyhow, allow me to repost something I posted yesterday that might help to clear things up as to what my concerns are.

I’m not sure, but to me methodological naturalism seems to be based on the premise that only natural causes are possible. So as I see it, what ends up happening is that scientists are forced, it seems either willingly or unwillingly, to make statements to the effect that either “we don’t know,”, or we haven’t yet found a natural explanation, but we expect to eventually. They are not allowed, I contend unjustifiably, to say that there’s also a possibility that it may be a cause outside of the natural realm even if it’s a reasonable and truthful statement to make.

I think this gives a false impression to the public in general, whether intentionally or unintentionally, that God is not an option, which to me whether intentional or unintentional is wrong at best and deceitful at worst. And it seems to me a case can be made that the media, and naturalistic scientists and academics exploit this to convince especially young people that God is “unscientific” with the connotation being it is just foolishness.

I understand the underlying principle of making an extensive search for natural causes, but at the same time this shouldn’t be to the point of going beyond the reasonable to what, I would say, is obviously way beyond those bounds. But I believe this is what happens when the underlying assumption of MN, that there are no other causes but natural causes, is adhered to.

So I see that it’s not only misleading to the public, but leads scientists to more or less waste countless hours of manpower and funding on chasing after pretty far fetched ideas when they could be focusing on more concrete ideas that will be beneficial to society. If it wasn’t for those downsides I frankly wouldn’t be bothered about it.

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You are horribly misreading the situation @Eddie. That is not what is going on.

Passions rise, but usually when science is being misrepresented, and our character being attacked.

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4 posts were split to a new topic: Science Means “Understanding,” Not “Truth”

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What rubbish. I’m attacking no one’s character, and certainly not yours.

No, I’m not misreading the situation. I’m 20 years older than you, and I’ve been reading about the origin of life for 20 years longer than you have. I have characterized the discussion over the past 50 years correctly. There is definitely an eagerness to find a natural origin. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what to say to help you.

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Remember the context. A leading scientist was calling another a “liar.” That just happened. That raises passions.

If you are so certain of the answers, why ask questions?

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I wasn’t even thinking about the “liar” business. The title here was “issues raised by Tour,” not “whether Tour’s choice of words is very nice”; and all the discussion above has been about the whether or not we can infer non-natural causes because natural cause explanations so far have been unsuccessful. I was responding to the discussion above, not the discussion about whether Tour should have used the word “liar.”

If you want my opinion regarding the “liar” charge, I think Tour should not have used that word, because it implies deliberate deception, and I think the proper word for what some scientists do in this area is “bluff” or “exaggerate” or “speculate beyond the evidence”, not “lie.” But as I look at what is written above, none of it is about the “liar” charge, but about naturalistic origin explanations and what future science might show. My comments were aimed only at this discussion, not at the “liar” discussion.

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From his last presentation and what he’s said on his website he seems to be following the usual MN that is the standard in science today. So I believe his intentions are to give what he sees as a realistic picture of where OoL research stands today as opposed to what he views as the distorted picture generally presented to the general public. He still seems to think that it’s possible to find a natural cause. However, I would say from the evidence he presents he makes a pretty good case that it’s most likely never going to happen. :slight_smile:

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I didn’t express certainty about any answer; I described the situation, which is that a lot of people seem eager to find a wholly natural origin of life, and give the strong impression they would be disappointed or even vexed if life required a supernatural origin. Do you not get the impression that people like Tim, and our psychiatrist friend, and several others here, are hoping that eventually it will be shown that life required no supernatural start? Or do you think they are all completely cool with whatever turns out to be the best explanation, even that explanation is, “An intelligent mind was necessary”? Do you think that they have no preference?

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You’ve had it explained ad nauseum. The claim “evidence suggests there is no natural explanation for OOL” is just wrong. As has been pointed out multiple times we’ve only explored a teeny tiny fraction of the huge number of possible naturalistic pathways, nowhere near enough to throw up our hands in defeat. You seem to be so desperate to inject your God into science you reject what all the actual scientists here keep pointing out you.

We haven’t found Amelia Earhart or her plane yet despite 80+ years of looking. Does that mean we should assume a supernatural being kidnapped her?

Oh, and we’re still waiting for you to explain how to do science and allow for supernatural intervention.

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Wouldn’t it be more a question of chemistry rather than physics?

I would beg to differ here. As I understand it there are plenty of reasons based on what is known in the field of chemistry that would provide sufficient evidence to support a conclusion that it’s highly implausible for natural causes to account for OoL.

I will have to differ with you here as well. It seems a bit incoherent to me to say what we do know we don’t know. I think the problem is starting with what we don’t know to invalidate what we do know. When the evidence of what we do know is examined first, that is what will help keep us in line with reality. And then based on what we do know, inferences are made from other related evidence in order to explore different explanations, while at the same time keeping in mind the original empirically verified knowledge we have in order to keep our explanations somewhat within the context of reality.

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Simple. Just use the usual practices of reasoning. In the case of a cause outside of the natural once there’s sufficient scientific evidence that suggests there is no natural cause, then it’s justified to look for causes outside of the natural realm. Don’t see why that’s so difficult to figure out?

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OK then, what do we know about supernatural entities producing life? What related scientific evidence do you have supernatual entities meddling with the physical world has ever happened?

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You were asked before how you determine what “sufficient scientific evidence” is to conclude no natural cause. That seems to be a fatal flaw in your reasoning.

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Oh, as far as I can tell there’s lots. But first let me see if you agree with my definition of related scientific evidence. I believe there is a distinction here that often gets overlooked. I will refer to it as direct and indirect empirical evidence. The first is used in confirming a theory by either direct observation and/or experimentation.

Take for example the theory that ravens are blackish. Provided that’s true, that’s a theory I think we can all agree upon is pretty certain because it can be verified by direct observational evidence. We don’t have to take somebodies word for it, we can observe it for ourselves.

Now take the theory that all ravens that have their genes in tact are blackish. Now providing that is actually the case, that has to be inferred because it’s always possible that, besides ravens with gene mutations, it’s possible there is a species of raven that no one has observed that isn’t black.

This would be a case of indirect empirical evidence, the evidence being that, though not necessarily complete, every raven that has been observed is blackish. That’s what I understand as an inductive inference where there’s a pretty high degree of certainty based on the available evidence.

Now when we make theories about the past, for example, that aren’t directly accessible empirically, as I understand it, we usually move into an abductive inferences where indirect evidence is there, but somewhat incomplete, and therefor less certain.

Usually I think any inferences that deal with past events are of the abductive type, as are objects or events that are beyond direct empirical investigation, like subatomic particles. Now my question is, are you asking for direct empirical evidence, or are you including both direct and indirect empirical evidence when you say related scientific evidence?

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I think that understanding is the metric, not time. You’ve been reading books on evolutionary theory for a long time too, yet you assumed that there would be a single number across biology for the frequency of new mutations subject to selection.

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One thing people certainly seem eager about at times is that scientists not follow their own inclinations about what is worthy of research and admit that OOL couldn’t possibly have a natural cause.

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It would have been quicker and easier to refer to some of the evidence and ask whether it was acceptable. That you didn’t suggests you don’t have any.

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Did you actually give him any?

I found this statement you made earlier to be particularly interesting-

It seems that your position is there is some kind of supernatural entity that can interact in some kind of way - both of which cannot be defined in any way. There are no experiments that can ever be done to demonstrate such and is the ultimate example of ‘wandering around in a sea of imagination with no end in sight.’

The reason why OoL research is exactly the opposite of what you propose is (what other have mentioned) is that it does follow well defined specific rules/laws. That severely limits the possibility space!

It could also be that we need some new physics as well which is an exciting possibility-
The new physics needed to probe the origins of life

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How do you propose to determine when all explanations from natural cause have been exhausted? Who do you suggest would do the justifying for when a cause outside the natural realm is in order? Personally, I still lean toward God’s divine action as the answer to the OoL issue, but by no means are scientists at a point where they should just “throw in the towel” and stop studying the issue.

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