ex-robot

He is actually an astronomer, but no biggy. I am not very high on Ross. He and his kind seem to think they are so much better than YECs, but they (he) are as pathetic as YECs in the eyes of evolutionists. For an example of how scientifically accurate Ross is, go to:

<a href="http://www.reasons.org/kidsspace/dinocave.html" target="_blank">Kid's Space</a>

No amount of mental gymnastics is going to fit the Genesis account into a evolutionary time scale, order of events, etc. He seems to think that YEC hurt the cause of X, but the same could be said of him. Why should anyone believe Ross over the following found at the ICR:

<a href="http://www.icr.org/faqs/sgp26.html" target="_blank">Hugh Ross FAQS</a>

You also have Morton's critique of Ross that ps418 posted.

Just my 2 cents.

xr

Mageth

One problem I have with the FTA is that, if one believes an omnipotent, omniscient god is necessary to account for the "fine tuning" of the universe to support life as we know it, one is putting a limit on god's omnipotence. A truly omnipotent god could create life under any conditions, could give life to anything it wanted, and give that life any characteristic it wanted. An all-powerful god could conceivably animate two-dimensional stick figures in a two-dimensional universe, rocks, clouds or meteors.

Peez

Hi luvluv, and welcome to the evo-cre discussion. Ross's probabilities are useless, based on numerous arbitrary numbers and unfounded assumptions. In any event, they all try to address the conditions necessary for life. Thus, they have little to do with evolution per se. If you want to believe that one or more gods have played a part in the design of a universe (or a part of the universe) so that life can exist, I will not agree but I will also point out that this does not contradict the idea that life began spontaneously. Even if you assume that god(s) created life (I will still not agree with you), that still does not contradict the fact or theory of evolution. In order to reject the fact of evolution, you must reject all the evidence. In order to reject the theory of evolution, you must do without a scientific explanation for the fact of evolution.

Peez

luvluv

Thanks guys, you've been a lot of help.

I'd still like some answers to these questions, if anyone has the time:

6072
posted March 05, 2002 06:47 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1) The author says:

"Okay, you are looking at that number again, 1 chance in 4.29 x 1040, that's a big number, and although a billion starting molecules is a lot of molecules, could we ever get enough molecules to randomly assemble our first replicator in under half a billion years?

Yes, one kilogram of the amino acid arginine has 2.85 x 1024 molecules in it (that's well over a billion billion); a tonne of arginine has 2.85 x 1027 molecules. If you took a semi-trailer load of each amino acid and dumped it into a medium size lake, you would have enough molecules to generate our particular replicator in a few tens of years, given that you can make 55 amino acid long proteins in 1 to 2 weeks [14,16]."

Is this actually a do-able experiment and if so has anyone ever tried this?

Also, do we know that the right chemicals to make the first self-replicating molecules were actually present under the correct conditions for a self-replicating molecule to form, or do we just assume this is true because we now see life?

2) Is there a CONSENSUS model for what all biologists specifically believe to be the 1st self replicating organism/molecule?

3) Doesn't the fact that we don't know (I'm assuming we don't know, maybe you guys know) the exact conditions of earth during the time when life was originating kind of give the edge to a naturalist explanation? I mean, certainly given completely stable favorable condtions, all of these probability equations work out neatly. But what if it's just really hot for a few thousand years? Or if a metor crashes into the earth (which didn't have an atmosphere back then, correct?). Or if there was an earthquake? Wouldn't even a strong wind be enough to undo a few hundred years worth of microbiotic advancement?

4) Also, assuming that a lake medium sized lake could produce one self-replicating molecule in tens of years, wouldn't we need a lot more than one to really get life up and going? As I mentioned before, a relatively minor event (a rock falling into said lake) could start the whole process over again.

Thanks again.

[ March 06, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>

luvluv

Please?

John Solum

A couple of very quick comments:

"46 magnetic field
and
47 rate of change & character of change in magnetic field"

47 contradicts 46. If the probability of the magnetic field being "just right" is used as evidence of design, then a variable magnetic field contradicts this notion (perhaps Ross elaborates on this elsewhere).

"48 albedo"

Variable.

"50 thickness of crust"

Variable.


"51 oceans-to-continents ratio
52 rate of change in oceans to continents ratio"

51 contradicts 52. If the oceans-to-continent ratio changes (and it does), then it is not evidence of design.

"53 global distribution of continents"

On geologic timescales (i.e., over the history of the earth) the global distribution of the continents has changed dramatically. Continents are always on the move.

"76 oxygen quantity in atmosphere "

This has changed significantly over the history of the earth.

Vorkosigan

Luvluv, hope the conference was fun...

Fine Tuning has been discussed repeatedly in this forum, so simply running a search on the term will result in hundreds of threads. The most recent discussion, which highlights many of the problems, is <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=50&t=000135&p=4" target="_blank">here</a>.

I'll repeat one analogy here:

Let's imagine a place, a rocky and forbidding land far from the sea where no rain ever falls. One day the climate changes. Rain begins to fall. A river forms.

Now, automatically and instantly, selection processes begin to operate. The river cannot flow up into the mountains, because gravity makes it go down a slope. It has a certain evaporation rate that is easily calculated based on the specific heat of water and the width of the river and other factors. It cannot evaporate at any other rate; it is constrained by the factors that control that behavior. It flows at a certain speed (disregarding chemical and other effects) based on the slope of the land. If the land is flat, it flows slowly. If the slope is steep, it flows quickly. It can't behave in any other way. Those are constraints. If it meets rock of varying hardness, it cuts through the soft rock first. If it flows into a basin, it forms a lake and then continues out the other side. It cannot flow down one side and then up the other; it is constrained to fill the basin first. If it is forced into a narrow canyon, its scouring power increases. The power of its scouring force also depends on the composition of the river bottom (silt? large rocks?) and other factors. If it meets a cliff, it forms a waterfall. The shape of the river is thus constrained by physical factors. It is selected for by those factors.

Along comes the Design supporter. She takes one look at the river and says: "Darn! Look how well that land suits the river! I'll bet anything that land was designed for that river!"

In fact, the river flows to fit the shape of the land. Likewise, in our universe, all the things in it fit the constraints that shape them. What you are arguing is the exact opposite: that the constraints are there to fit the things in the universe -- that the shape of the land was determined by the future shape of the river.

In other words, this whole discussion about probability is based on a complete misunderstanding of constraints and selection processes. It terms of my analogy, the whole probability question asks: what is the probability that the land is shaped so that the river will have that particular shape? It is not that the answer is hard to arrive at, it is that the question is wrong, wrong, wrong.

So here are some of the problems with FT:

1. The odds are irrelevant. No matter what the initial conditions are, whatever objects/systems form in that universe, they MUST look like they are Fine Tuned. It is inevitable. Selection processes can only produce things that fall within constraints. Think about it: could a river flow uphill? If life appears, can it exist at a temperatures of negative 11,500 degrees kelvin? No, because those temps are not found in our universe. So whatever shows up in the universe, it HAS TO conform to the initial conditions. Billions of years later, you're suprised to find that everything falls within constraints? Hey, no shit, couldn't be any other way.

2. Ross is focused on the probability of life emerging. Why is "life" the problem? Show that the Designer was interested in "life," and not snowflakes, which exist briefly only in a much narrower band of conditions than "life", or diamonds, which are a lot rarer than living things, or lightning storms in the clouds of Jupiter. If "life" is the reason for the creation of the entire universe, why is it that the vast, vast majority of this universe is empty space, a vaccum, where no living thing can survive? Pretty strange to build a house, and then make only a tiny corner available for use by the beings for which you built the house, eh?

On the other hand, if you are interested in life because of its complexity, recall that many non-living systems are extremely complex and sensitive to initial conditions. Additionally, this is a dangerous argument. What if something was found that was more "complex" than life as we know it? Would you give up Fine Tuning, or would you say that "life" was not the reason the universe was created? Either way, the commmitted Christian is staking herself to a position that depends on the limits of current knowledge. But current knowledge is always expanding....

3. Intentions. Prove it was the Designer's intent to create a universe. Can Ross show that this universe was deliberately designed, and not a side effect of some process started by an intelligent being? Or by some being working automatically according to its nature, like a bee telling other bees where flowers are?

4. Most of these probability discussions are worthless because we do not have data about other planets, let alone other universes. What are the odds that life will emerge in a universe? Well, we have a sample of 1. Is life really as restricted in its possibilities as Ross claims? Read up on extremophiles, microscopic animals that thrive in strange environments, and judge for yourself. In any case, we only know about life on one planet, so Ross' arguments cannot hold water.

5. The universe is so huge and so old it defeats probability. Let's assume that Ross' numbers are correct. Now, out of trillions of objects in the universe, it would be damned strange if some did not meet the right conditions....

Ross is half-right about abiogenesis, BTW. Nobody can identify the process by which life emerged on earth. But that is partly because there are a large number of possibilities, and damned little evidence. Many molecules self-replicate, including clays, peptides, and crystals. Did life piggyback on one of them? Other scenarios also exist. The problem isn't a lack of solutions, it's a plethora of them.

All in all, before you commit to a position as intellectually sterile and indefensible as Fine Tuning, perhaps you should do some reading. Start with a good biology textbook....

Michael

luvluv

okay, but could you answer any of my questions?

Vorkosigan

Can we answer your questions? What questions do you have? The only one I saw was in your first post:

So I want to ask you guys what you think of him and of his claim of the "fine-tuning" of the universe.

So the answer is above. What specific questions do you have? Old Earth creationists are not problematical for most of the posters here, you know.

Michael

luvluv

Mike, these questions:

1) Do we know that the right chemicals to make the first self-replicating molecules were actually present under the correct conditions for a self-replicating molecule to form, or do we just assume this is true because we now see life?

2) Is there a CONSENSUS model for what all biologists specifically believe to be the 1st self replicating organism/molecule?

3) Doesn't the fact that we don't know (I'm assuming we don't know, maybe you guys know) the exact conditions of earth during the time when life was originating kind of give the edge to a naturalist explanation? I mean, certainly given completely stable favorable condtions, all of these probability equations work out neatly. But what if it's just really hot for a few thousand years? Or if a metor crashes into the earth (which didn't have an atmosphere back then, correct?). Or if there was an earthquake? Wouldn't even a strong wind be enough to undo a few hundred years worth of microbiotic advancement?

4) Also, assuming that a lake medium sized lake could produce one self-replicating molecule in tens of years, wouldn't we need a lot more than one to really get life up and going? As I mentioned before, a relatively minor event (a rock falling into said lake) could start the whole process over again. Isn't there such a thing as a minimum sustainable population? How many self-replicating molecules would have had to have formed by chance in order for the lot of them to have numbers to deal with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune?

Also, I really think you assume an antagonim on my part where none exists. I am here to learn.

[ March 08, 2002: Message edited by: luvluv ]</p>