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Houshalter comments on Open Thread Feb 22 - Feb 28, 2016 - Less Wrong Discussion
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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.
I'm not sure Eric is denying common descent (the subject of your last link). My impression is that he's some sort of theistic evolutionist, is happy with the idea that all today's life on earth is descended from a common ancestor[1] but thinks that where the common ancestor came from, and how it was able to give rise to the living things we see today given "only" a few billion years and "only" the size of the earth's biosphere, are questions with no good naturalistic answer, and that God is the answer to both.
[1] Or something very similar; perhaps there are scenarios with a lot of "horizontal transfer" near the beginning, in which the question "one common ancestor or several?" might not even have a clear meaning.
[EDITED because I wrote "Erik" instead of "Eric"; my brain was probably misled by the "k" in the surname. Sorry, Eric.]
Well, he says:
If he doesn't believe that species can become other species, he can't believe in common descent (unless he believes that the changes in species happen when scientists say they happen, but he attributes this to God).
This is approximately what many Christians believe. (The idea being that the broad contours of the history of life on earth are the way the scientific consensus says, but that various genetic novelties were introduced as a result of divine guidance of some kind.)
I'm not sure whether this is Eric's position. He denies being a young-earth creationist, but he does also make at least one argument against "universal common descent". Eric, if you're reading this, would you care to say a bit more about what you think did happen in the history of life on earth? What did the scientists get more or less right and what did they get terribly wrong?
Only the last link is about common descent. And it isn't agnostic on theistic evolution; there's a whole section on experiments for testing evolution through Random Mutation and Natural Selection. The first link covers abiogenesis, and the second the evolution of complicated structures like the flagellum.
I don't think theistic evolution is that much more rational than standard creationism. It's like someone realized the evidence for evolution was overwhelming, but was unable to completely update their beliefs.
That would by why I called it "the subject of your last link" rather than, say, "the subject of all your links".
I do not think anything on that page says very much about whether the evolution of life on earth (including in particular human life) has benefited from occasional tinkering by a god or gods. (For the avoidance of doubt: I am very confident it hasn't.)
I think it's quite a bit better -- the inconsistencies with other things we have excellent evidence for are subtler -- but that wasn't my point. I was just trying to avoid arguments with strawmen. If Erik accepts common descent, there is little point directing him to a page listing evidence for common descent as if that refutes his position.