Friday, June 19, 2015

Abiogenesis



Abiogenesis

What scientific evidence exists for abiogenesis?

Abiogenesis is the natural process of life arising from non-living matter

The above is the heading of an online discussion of this subject. Notice the assumption here.
“Abiogenesis is….”

Why then do we need to discuss the evidence?

This is an attempt to score the first psychological hit by letting its readers know that the reality or not of abiogenesis is not really under discussion here at all, but is already in fact the accepted reality, and that this discussion is really about convincing the uninitiated of this truth. What it is not about is whether it is true, but rather, why anyone with any sense must hold it to be true. It is somewhat similar to the idea of “anchoring” that is practised by used-car salesmen. First anchor the discussion around the “reality” of the car’s value by anchoring it at “x” amount of dollars, no doubt a higher claim than it’s saleable value, and then the ensuing discussion will be within an acceptable percentage range of that value. The bar has been set.

One of the other ways to achieve an early victory is by downplaying the credibility gap between that which is generally accepted and that which is to be proven. Joshua Engel wades right into that by attempting to minimize the extraordinary difference between life and non-life. After all if there isn’t such a big leap between these two realities, it is not such a leap that our credulity really needs to worry our little heads about is it? Who needs evidence for such a trifling matter? The difference between the two is miniscule therefore a happy accident is all that is necessary to achieve it, and so let’s move on shall we?

Joshua Engel:

‘There really isn't any meaningful distinction between "living" chemicals and "non-living" ones.’

First up- What is a “living chemical”? This is grossly misleading.

The temptation here is to conflate what he is saying about chemicals with what needs to be said about life and non-life. There may indeed be little difference between a chemical reaction going on in a person’s body and a similar thing going on in a test tube. But the difference between me and a rock is a whole lot more than how dense we are.

Oh how far have we come since the days of Aristotle when he said “nothing- is what rocks dream about”

There is such a commitment to naturalism going on here in this discussion that even the way the question ought to be asked has been de-ligitimized. 

What do I mean?

Adriana Heguy, Professor of Pathology at NYU Langone Medical Center responded to Engel by saying:

"I second Engel’s comment that thinking in terms of the evidence for abiogenesis is a little odd. Abiogenesis happened because at some point there was no life on our planet, and then there there was life, therefore life arose from non-life."

Abiogenesis happened because at some point there was no life on our planet, and then there was life. But hang on, abiogenesis is not about the obvious existence of life, it’s supposed to be about the process by which life arose from non-life. But in the comments that I quote, there hasn’t been a single jot of data that might remotely pass as evidence. What we do have are bare assertions. Again, the implication is clear, who needs evidence for what is patently obvious? First no life- then life. So let’s dispense with this idea that we might need evidence. What for? This chatter looks suspiciously like there might not be any data confirming a process by which the natural and spontaneous eruption of life on Earth arose, or if there is- it might be quite weak and therefore we need to downplay the necessity for hard data.

Imagine the uproar if I talked about a process called acreation which is the process involved in creating a Universe out of non-Universe. ( Non-Universe must be nothing in an absolute sense- which it has to be by definition if one doesn't believe in a Creator God) :
"Thinking in terms of the evidence for acreation is a little odd. Acreation happened because at some point there was no Universe- then there was a Universe, therefore the Universe arose from non-Universe. (absolutely nothing)"

It is no more helpful than any tautology is. It flies in the face of everything we know about our Universe. Everything that begins to exist has a cause. this is a fundamental axiom of science, and all of human experience. From nothing, comes nothing. Nothing has no power to effect anything. Therefore the coming into existence of the Universe demands a cause, just as the coming into existence of life demands a cause. Calling something a scientific process without any evidence, but simply by invoking the no-God hypothesis as being true and therefore abiogenesis must be a reality- is not scientific. It may be logically possible, but that does not warrant giving it a sense of reality as the word abiogenesis suggests. This lies somewhere in the vicinity of Richard Dawkin's "memes" which so far- though now used almost universally to explain all sorts of anomolies- has no hard empirical data to support the idea of their existence at all.

Heguy's observation stultifies scientific endeavour. For starters Heguy seems to preclude the possibility of Panspermia, a favoured doctrine amongst those who cannot find plausible the idea that the sudden and accidental appearance of life from non-life on our planet fits the data available. Yet Panspermians have enough intellectual integrity that although they cannot acquiesce with the assumption that the extraordinary complexity seen in even the simplest living cell could possibly be the result of spontaneous unguided natural processes on Earth, they cannot bring themselves to think of the appearance of life by an act of fiat by an almighty God. Nor can they accept the leap of faith that Heguy and Engel seem intent on promoting. That itself is quite telling. Presumably those who adopt this position are just as versed and qualified to think the way they do, yet they do not buy into the abiogenesis hypothesis at least on the data that can be known about the Earths history. Therefore they choose to steer their ship between the lesser of two "evils" and thus put off the question of the origins of life for another day, another time, another Galaxy.

More from Engel:

"Really, the distinction that's presumably intended by the question is the "goddidit" hypothesis, since it's only by contrast with that hypothesis that the other theories end up lumped together as "abiogenesis". And since "godddidit" isn't actually a hypothesis in any meaningful sense (it's untestable and allows us to draw no usable conclusions, which is actually two ways of saying the same thing), there's really little point in looking at it from that perspective."

On what basis or on whose authority has Engel taken upon himself to say that the God hypothesis is not “a hypothesis in any meaningful sense”? I think he is rather fond of deciding for us what is meaningful and what is not. First he tells us there is no meaningful difference between living chemicals and non-living ones which is really a category mistake, and now he informs us of his certainty that the God hypothesis isn’t actually a hypothesis at all. His statements conjure up images of the logical positivists who tried to empty the world of any words connected with the word “God” by arbitrarily declaring that if any statement did not conform to a standard of empirical verification (which they prescribed) then the words were meaningless. Logical positivism proposed a doctrine called the “verifiability criterion of meaning”. This philosophy sought to impose a rule on all language by which any statement was made either valid or invalid according to its criteria. This “validation” of language according to strict rules of empiricism reduced most (if not all) theological statements to meaningless terms or nonsense (at least in the minds of those who espoused it!). The whole philosophical experiment ended in abject failure as far as an attempt to rid the world of religious talk is concerned.

Here is a definition for it found at The Basics of Philosophy:

Logical Positivism (later also known as Logical Empiricism) is a theory in Epistemology and Logic that developed out of Positivism and the early Analytic Philosophy movement, and which campaigned for a systematic reduction of all human knowledge to logical and scientific foundations.

It was a Christian who pointed out that their foundational statement itself failed it’s own test- being a statement that contained no empirical verification!

As for Engel’s proposition that the God hypothesis is untestable and therefore meaningless is the sort of assumption that Karl Popper rejected who argued that what is today unfalsifiable may indeed be falsifiable in the future and therefore it is rather premature to postulate any hypothesis “meaningless” because it is unfalsifiable at the present time. It may well prove otherwise at a later date. The very claim that the God hypothesis is not testable is also a contested point. The case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ whom we affirm is God in the flesh, is falsifiable, and two thousand years later no definitive case exists even yet- that was convincing beyond reasonable doubt, either that his body was found, or stolen- or any of the other numerous stories that have done the rounds.

In fact the gathering momentum for the Big Bang Theory looks decidedly positive for the God hypothesis in my view. In fact if we were to use the same reasoning as Heguy I could simply say:

“That because there was a point where there was no Universe, and now the Universe exists therefore Creation by God happened.”

Ah but I wish reality and knowledge were that simple, or rather that people were convinced so easily.
The suspicion that the test of falsifiability is not an adequate reason for scientists to discard a hypothesis arbitrarily is well founded. Indeed one of the last century’s greatest scientific minds said:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” Albert Einstein.
A reasonable hypothesis starts from both an informed mind and one with an ability to imagine. One who has seen the same data that everyone else has seen, yet one who sees or imagines something different as so many ground-breaking discoveries have proved.

This idea of Popper’s has been borne out in reality by developments in cosmology. The assumption of a steady state Universe was the catalyst for the mistake of a lifetime for Einstein who was no doubt red faced as soon as his fudge factor became commonly known. His mistake no doubt had relevance to the fact that- like Engel having a pre-commitment to naturalism- Einstein had a predisposition towards a Steady State Universe because of which he forced the data to fit the calculations in his theory. The reality is that Cosmology has outgrown the unfalsifiability of either a steady state theory or the big bang theory- which up until Einstein- only existed on paper in mathematical formulas. Since that time, empirical data has confirmed the Big Bang Theory, with the discovery of the redshift factor, and the cosmic background radiation existent throughout the Universe attesting to that instantiation of the whole show. Thus the unfalsifiable which existed only as an abstraction became falsifiable. 

Engel confesses that:
“it's only by contrast with that [goddidit] hypothesis that the other theories end up lumped together as "abiogenesis".

It seems then, that the only reason we have for the word “abiogenesis” at all is because there needed to be something with which to hang an unsubstantiated theory on, just whatever it takes to keep God's foot out of the door.

I think of all the comments on this thread here is the most telling one:

“The main line of evidence for abiogenesis is that there is no God”. Anonymous
Why not dispense with the pretense of integrity, neutrality and scientific reasoning altogether and simply say because we exist- God cannot. A-biogenesis, like A-theism is a claim to know some truth, and therefore needs to be substantiated like any other claim. If, as Engel and Heguy seem to assert,  the evidence for abiogenesis is dependent on the non-existence of God- then it is encumbent upon them to produce the evidence for God’s non-existence.

In a different discussion, but about the same subject one writer said:
"The conclusive proof that abiogenesis occured is that there is life. Of course the other option is that it is supernatural. But, there is no evidence that the supernatural exists.
So there is your proof..."
Wait a minute...

This sounds more and more like that an assumption is being made simply on the basis of yet another assumption. This process is real because God does not exist. Could I not- based on their own method- say that:

 "Because life exists, a miracle occurred and therefore God exists?"

That seems to be a conclusion based on what appears to be exactly the same sort of reasoning they have employed here.

Am I mistaken or is abiogenesis the name for a process which to date has no empirical basis in reality except by a logical extension? Is the doctrine of abiogenesis entirely predicated upon the contested non-existence of God? Is this pseudo-science at its best- or rather worst?

While I cannot help but admire the following award winning short movie by a fellow Kiwi for its amazing effects, I cannot help but feel that "Abiogenesis" the movie, is somewhat of a misnomer.

The whole thrust of this "process" is the assumption that life arose spontaneously out of a happy set of accidental circumstances that conspired to produce life without any intelligence involved at any point. Clearly that is not what this movie is about. This may only serve to add confusion to the whole issue. Clearly there is no question that intelligent design is at work in this movie. And really- proponents of the "Intelligent Design" movement who come from various different worldviews, Christian, Jewish, Agnostic and others do not, as a matter of scientific integrity, do not promote Theism in their arguments for Intelligent Design. They merely state that in so far as the scientific evidence for design is concerned, and as far as the definition of "design" can be sharply defined from the randomicity of other realities, that evidence exists according to the well established inductive scientific principles by which other realities have been accepted. They do not promote Theism on that basis, because that would be reading into the evidence, and going beyond the evidence which is what it seems fairly clear to this writer that Engel and Heguy are doing on behalf of abiogenesis in the article cited.

So for that matter, the movie "Abiogenisis" could equally serve as a promotional piece by the Intelligent Design movement. since it quite clearly serves to illustrate an involvement of Intelligent
Design in the advent of life on Earth.