Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016

Elo

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Here is a shortened version:

Darwin’s grandfather believed in something similar to abiogenesis. Later in Darwin’s life, scientists found something that appeared to be the first proto-cell, but later they found a progenitor to this in oceanic mud. Darwin believed that the discovery of the first life form would occur soon, but it didn't happen. Organisms that reproduce, metabolize energy, and create a cell wall, require at least a hundred proteins, each of which has approximately 300 amino acids, and all need to be able to work with each other.

To reach this level of sophistication via chemical evolution defies explanation. The experiments in 1953 created some of the amino acids found in all life forms, but this is a far cry from creating proteins. The origin of life is one of those puzzles that has been right around the corner, for the past two centuries. Imagining something is not a scientific argument, but simply speculation. Many present all evolution as similar to how wolves changed to sheepdogs, or the way in which bacteria develop resistance to penicillin, but such change will not create radically new protein complexes or new species.

If evolution is untrue, it changes everything. After I accepted that a creator exists, I found myself attending church, engaging in Bible study, and reading Christian authors. Various facts all began to make much more sense.

Here is a great video that explain how abiogenesis happened.

Here is another great video on the evolution of the flagellum.

All of his videos are fantastic. And there is a great deal more stuff like that on youtube if you search around. It's really inexcusable for an intelligent person to doubt evolution these days. The evidence is vast and overwhelming.

7Jiro10y

I think he's equivocating on "if evolution is untrue, it changes everything". That statement is literally true in the same sense that "if I'm a brain in a jar, it changes everything" or "if the world was created by Zeus, it changes everything" are true. But that's not what he's using it to mean.

11efalken10y

I'm a big Eliezer fan, and like reading this blog on occasion. I consider myself rational, Dunning-Kruger effect notwithstanding (ie, I'm too dumb or biased to know I'm not dumb or biased, trapped!). In any case, I think the above is pretty good, but I would stress the ID portion of my paper, which is in the PDF not the post, is that the evolutionary mechanism as observed empirically scales O(2^n), not O(n), generally, where n is the number of mutations needed to create a new function. Someday we may see evolution that scales, at which point I will change my mind, but thus far, I think Behe is correct in his 'edge of evolution' argument (eg, certain things, like anti-freeze in fish, are evolutionarily possible, others, like creating a flagellum, are not). As per the Christianity part, the emphasis on the will over reason gives a sustainable, evolutionarily stable 'why' to habits of character and thought that are salubrious, stoicism with real inspiration. Christianity also is the foundation for individualism and bourgeois morality that has generated flourishing societies, so, it works personally and for society. My younger self disagreed with my current self, so I can empathize and respect those why find my reasoning unconvincing, but I don't think it's useful in figuring things out to simply attribute my belief to bias or insecurity.