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Jiro comments on Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion

5 Post author: Elo 21 February 2016 09:14PM

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Comment author: Viliam 23 February 2016 08:58:43AM 5 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Jiro 23 February 2016 03:37:00PM 4 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Viliam 24 February 2016 08:38:27AM 4 points [-]

Of course; "it changes everything" doesn't mean "I can stop using logic and just take my preferred fairy tale". There are many possible changes.

Also by "evolution" he means "creating a life from non-life, in the lab, today", because that's the part he is unsatisfied with.

So, more or less: "if you cannot show me how to create life from non-life, then Santa must be real".