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Bringing you atheist articles and building active godless communities takes hundreds of hours and resources each month. If you find any joy or stimulation at Atheist Republic, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.
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The beauty of math is there is no debate about what you did. You set the numerator equal to 1. Case closed.
Indeed I have, and its quiet a simple claim to refute: Find evidence that the numerator is any value other than 1. The odds are in your favor. After all, there's only one way I'm right, and an infinite number of ways that you are.
Of course, you lack the most important thing which is is the evidence. Just prove that the numerator is at least 2, or 3, or 4, or 5, or 10,000, and you win.
...or you can complain that I contradict myself, to compensate for your lack of evidence.
Neither of us have any information on that value other than it is greater than zero. You would be ejected from any university program in mathematics or statistics for this scam of yours. Before you might have plead ignorance, but that ship has sailed.
People tend to resort to aggressive language when they don't know how to defend a point. And yet you can't prove to me its not 1 the way I can prove to you its not 0.
I'll gladly resign my career when you find evidence to prove my assertion is wrong.
One error in your math example that I noticed immediately.
The number of planets we know that have no life. Zero. We do not even know if our closest planets mars/venus definitvely had or have life.
So your equation changes. it is:
1/1 --- 1 planet has life over 1 planet we know for sure has or does not have life.
We can theorize, and with good scientific evidence, that it is highly unlikely Venus has life or ever had life due to the fact that the average temperature on venus is 462 celsius or 863 fahrenheit. But wham we are back into theory again we do not know for sure that venus ever had or has life. You cannot play it both ways to get the number you want.
Btw Venus size and distance from our sun is similar to earth's, and it likely once had an atmosphere similar to earth's. There are small zones on the planet that the average temperature is much closer to earth's average. Life at one point or still existing on venus is not completely implausible. We just do not know because we have not been able to observe it closely enough to find out one way or the other.
I think we can pretty confidently say neptune never supported any sort of life like there is on earth, but then we again can only guess only thing we can say with real confidence is yes there is life on earth.
That's not an error in my math example. I gave plenty of caveats for what you just mentioned. We are dividing the number of planets that DO have life, over the TOTAL number planets.
Whatever the number planets that definitely don't have life is doesn't matter here. Because the moment you find life somewhere else, the numerator goes from 1 to 2, but the denominator stays the same.
Its interesting that you said highly unlikely, instead of impossible for there to be life in Venus; because it shows you too are using probabilities on what we know, not what we don't. By that I mean treating the conditions on earth as the only way life can exist. Yet for all we know, 462 celcius may just be the perfect temperature for some strange alien bacteria.
@John 6IX Breezy
I understand the desire to stick to what is known. Earth has life. Agreed. There is at least a million "planets" out there that we can observe (there is surmised to be trillions upon trillions based on trends using math probabilities, but we are sticking to well observed strong fact, we can point our best scientific instruments to a star and detect the presence of planets even if they are too small to see visually by detecting shadows, light bending gravity wells etc. The math equation you are building is one not of probability but of countable incidences.
Back to the John name example. You know of one person named John. You know ~100 billion humans have ever lived. Absent meeting another John you say the equation is 1 in 100 billion for people named John. You find another person named John, Now it is 2 in 100 billion. Does this tell you anything useful about how many people have been named "John?"
In this situation we know that such a conclusion is incredibly flawed. We can flip open any name listening for a large city in western societies and find dozens if not hundreds of people named John, and that is only among those currently living today, a small fraction of the total. Saying there is 1 in 100 billion incidences of John, and additionally attempting to conclude that its likely you are the ONLY person named John ever, is an incredibly flawed and misleading statement.
Yes, that was exactly the point I was making. We can either talk probabilities or not. Our data that we can take high confidence in being accurate is just 1 out of trillions upon trillions. Such an extreme example of lack of a large enough data set means any statistical conclusion we draw from this is absolutely worthless. Just like the John name example. Or to draw in a pool of numbers we could hope to analyze and draw conclusions from, we can start using probabilities.
Yep agree there. While here on earth I am not aware of any living organisms that can survive that extreme of heat, I believe there are some that can survive, and even thrive in 100-200 celsius.
-
The short of what I am saying, is when trying to draw conclusions from data, it is very admirable to stick to well supported data, like the fact that yes, earth has life, and no, we have no idea if there is any other life anywhere else at all. But while good data is very important, the size of the data is also critically important. It is very flawed to draw any conclusions if your data pool is: just one. Even more extreme when you use that data pool to draw a conclusion for trillions upon trillions.
I agree with most of everything you mentioned. It's true that compounds and mixtures occur because the bond lowers the energy state. It forms a lower energy valley where the atoms can rest. Energy is then required to break apart those bonds.
However that idea begins to break down once we introduce living things and living cells. One of my professors would jokingly say he'll "live until he reached equilibrium." By that he meant that living things are alive precisely because they don't fall into the lowest energy state. For example, a living person's body is constantly trying spend energy in order to regulate its internal temperature. The colder it is outside, the harder the body works to produce heat. But you die, your body stops trying to fight against the environment. Your energy drops, until it reaches equilibrium with the environment, and you body rests at the lowest energy state. The same is true for everything else the body does, fluid contents, ion concentrations, living things are constantly trying to fight against the lowest energy state.
Efficiency in energy may still have a role, however I would say efficiency in biological life has more to do with reducing redundancy than it does with reducing energy.
In some senses your professor is right, but he said it jokingly, knowing it is a gross over simplification.
Also I stated, once we have basic rudimentary life, evolution takes over. It starts not being bound by simple chemistry rules anymore, complex life like the human body has been able to push back and bend and break those rules with ever increasing complexity, much of the original forces of simple energy states as the driver of change and organization is superseded by different goals. Especially once rna/dna came into play.
Now advanced organisms follow a premade set of instructions rather than simple rules of chemistry and energy. It still interacts with environment and bound by rules of scarcity, but much of the other rules fall away in this complex state. Humans in their dominance of this planet and general intelligence take a step further in "breaking" the rules. We have sent people to space, to the moon, where there is no life. We can bring the requirements of life with us. Protect ourselves from the harsh realities of an environment that is not earth's zone land mass near the equator that we have come from, (central equator area of Africa.)
Efficiency plays a role, reducing redundancy, (I also argue increasing redundancy in some areas where appropriate) and a whole lot else plays a role. we are not talking simple basic life and chemistry anymore, we are talking about incredibly complex biological species in an even more complex interactive biological environment.
"Also I stated, once we have basic rudimentary life, evolution takes over."
You seem to be explaining a lot of specific stages, without explaining what really matters in your argument, which is the transitions. Advanced organisms follow premade instructions rather than simple chemistry rules... Great. How did that change happen?
P.S. No, he wasn't just telling a knock knock joke. But I agree it was an oversimplification. That was my neurobiology class, and in it we proceeded to study all the ways the brain regulates the body's responses to prevent equilibrium with the environment. Like the vasopressin hormone that gets released by the hypothalamus to make the kidneys regulate fluid retention. Do you know what happens when the brain stops releasing this hormone? Your kidneys stop retaining water, the concentration of sodium outside the cells begin to increase. Osmosis then makes water inside the cell exit the cells to balance the higher concentration outside (thanks to the lower energy states) and then your body begins to shut down, you go crazy and you die. The same symptoms you get when you drink ocean water.
The reason why cells need a wall is precisely because life requires disequilibrium. The things inside the cell cannot be allowed to reach equilibrium with the things outside. The moment it does so, the cell dies. So how do you begin to isolate things like energy, temperature and fluid concentration inside into a box, and the make sure that box replicates, so evolution can take over?
Because if you know how to do that, then you just figured out how to bring stuff back from the dead.
Learned something new about the vasopressin hormone. And one of its critical functions.
I never taken a neurobiology class, I will bow to your knowledge on neurobiology :)
I apologize, I thought I covered transitions on my long post earlier, admittedly I do not know the fine details of every step along this process. Infact some of the finer details, as far as I know still are not fully answered within the scientific community.
But the point I was driving at, at risk of repeating myself in that long thread, is the rise of ever increasing complexity of the interaction of compounds and and mixtures in certain environments eventually gave rise piece by piece to all the necessary components for life, derived out of trillions and trillions of random tries at it. A cell is incredibly complex, even the basic ones. The cell wall, the mitochondria, all those pieces slowly came together by pure chance until we got to where they are. All those pieces coming together to make it work? Very rare. But giving the trillions of opportunities in different circumstances, it become quite plausible. The cool thing is, we can even reproduce some of these conditions in a lab. We can speed it up, examine it under a microscope and create environments where we watch this stuff occur on a small scale.
Like my argument for evolution, a powerful reason we know it is likely a working theory, is because we can literally reproduce parts of evolution in a simple experiment in our own homes. We see it constantly around us, selective breeding is a form of evolution. Our carrots are frequently orange because someone decided to selectively breed them that way and we all decided to buy them.
Ôo)-♫
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_universal_common_ancestor
... I can continue use just Saint Google, although if you want I can be more specific with specialized webs, Right?
I don't know what I'd think. So the every animal just appeared out of nowhere? I'd need an alternate theory to explain these things. I originally thought "aliens" but then the question would shift to, how did those aliens form?
@Jon the Catholic:
Then you will say that ignorance doesn't drown you... start by reading Darwin and then you read a few books about biology and end with the Naked Monkey. Pay attention to me, you embarrass, baby ¬¬)-♫
@ John Breezy
The thing is John science makes new discoveries every day and theories are turned upside down, and we accept them if they are fact-based. So you already know that answer. The problem with your scenario is that it just won't happen. Evolution is NOT...I repeat...NOT a theory. It is a proven fact. Why do you and every christian I have ever known keep rehashing something that is already proven? You can't put the genie back in the bottle.
So to answer your question...we accept the facts whatever they REALLY are.
Boring answer.
@John Breezy
You said "Boring answer."
My reply Stupid question!
lol fair enough
I have to make an assumption.
I am guessing you mean: a finding that does not give a new theory of the origin of life, but simply that a finding of an enormous flaw in the very fundamentals of evolution. Something like: finding DNA does not change or mix to create new possibilities, but instead follows a very specific plan in a new set of instructions hidden and not found until now. (Which actually does give rise to a new theory in of it itself.)
Actually, upon further thought, I think it is impossible to find a huge flaw in something like the evolution theory, w/o instantly also creating a new theory. But to keep this thought exercise going, I will humour the possibility of simply a flaw in the evolution theory that does not immediately give rise to a new theory./strong>
After like you said, examining that it not a fluke, an outlier, but truly, legitimately, shows the evolution theory is incorrect and wrong. I would find it incredibly fascinating, and I, like many scientist, especially scientist of related fields would look and eagerly listen for news of a new theory that explains the origins of humans and complex life in general. Listen to find out how legitimate the new theory is, does it hold up? How does it effect all the other aspects of science, the implications within the field of science of the evolution theory being completely wrong is huge. It is one of the most supported, well vetted, examined, and supported by many other findings of science as well as supporting many other branches of science.
Honestly if the evolution theory was completely wrong, it would merit a close look at the tools of scientific discovery, like the scientific method. Perhaps the entire idea of the scientific method would need to be thrown out if something so well supported as the evolution theory was at it's very basis wrong.
I can't resist, it has to be said: the idea that the evolution theory is completely wrong, at its core, feels to me like it is extremely unlikely, to the point, that this thought exercise is only just that, a thought exercise, not something we should try to draw conclusions from. Kind of like thinking about winning the powerball jackpot when you bought a single ticket, a possibly fun thought, but beyond it being a fun thought, it would be a waste of time due to such incredible odds.
Great answer. Though I would only add that waiting for a new theory to emerge is too passive. So you were correct in that I wanted you to imagine a flaw that does not immediately give rise to a new theory.
This puts you as an individual at the forefront of science. Meaning its up to you to find this new theory, whether its done so personally or professionally. My question is more aimed at what you think this new theory would be.
Great answer indeed.
John: a flaw that does not immediately give rise to a new theory (...) What you think this new theory would be
First, it should defy most of our knowledge on DNA and should explain facts such us the ones claimed on the Human Genome Project. And it must also be able to explain how complex organisms are formed, why the changes among fossils, why all this other complementary theories, branches of Evolution, are also wrong.
I sort of agree that waiting for a new theory to emerge is passive, however I already have a career and hobbies that take my time. I could see adding a dozen hours a month to the pursuit of helping to find a new theory, but I would have to guess that little time commitment would not be likely to contribute much, far less than say, me taking on one additional contract this year and donating the profits to top scientist groups that have the education background and tools to help them find a new answer.
What I think a possible new theory that explains how life goes from super simple single cell organisms to the incredibly complex living ecological system we have on earth?
Hmm have not considered that before... off the top of my head...
While I do not think it is the most likely theory, but: the first that pops in my head is that we live in all encompassing "matrix like" simulation of this earth idea, and it was "programmed in" the incredibly detailed evidence of evolution in this "virtual" earth, but the creators of the matrix like virtual world were not perfect, and under enough careful examination we realize evolution is wrong due to an inherent flaw, the actual answer in this "virtual" matrix world, of course being, none of it is real, it is all made up, and we just were able to peel back enough layers in the construct to find at last find a flaw.
Another idea, a very advanced alien species from some other part of the galaxy seeded the instructions of complex life hidden in DNA instructions, the instructions appear to be on first glance evolution, but once discovered incredibly dense complex information instead dictates all changes from simple life to complex life down to how many hairs will be on each and every animal's body that has hairs. That this complex code is actually a robust way to build life.
Obviously both of these ideas are total pie in the sky, ideas that are very VERY likely completely wrong. But it can be a fun little thought exercise.
Well, I have fun with this crazy thought: We are just part of a cell of a gigantic being, so we may appear on a subatomic level to other creatures' eyes... Big Bang would have just been a mitosis from another cell, still in expansion...
I like it :)
I am certainly not the first, nor the last, to notice that: suns, planets, and the solar system in general seem to closely resemble the opposite end, the very small. Atoms with their spinning electrons seem to loosely resemble suns with their various rotating planets, asteroids etc. Just on a much larger and slower scale.
All kinds of fanciful ideas pop out like, perhaps all of our universe is a single pebble of sand on a beach on some much larger planet/universe, and that one is the same of some other much larger universe, and on and on it goes. And the same occurs going the other direction. Perhaps the tip of our eyelash harbors a billion such universes, each slightly different. Obviously close examination of atoms and our universe can point out plenty of differences, but it can also be said our ability to properly examine things so large and so small in scale is actually quite limited and rudimentary.
If the theory of evolution was shown to be wrong tomorrow; the very first question would be: why did X look so much like evolution? Where X would be the new theory to describe species.
Some great examples are special relativity, general relativity, and quantum mechanics. They all over-turned previous theories, but they make almost the same predictions as the previous theories. After all, since the former theories were so successful at making predictions, the new theories had better agree with the old predictions. This is a point that many people who endorse pseudo-science don't realize.
Good post.
First, there is no longer a theory of evolution, there is the evolutionary fact, just as there was a theory of the Big Bang until it was demonstrated, at that moment it becomes an irrefutable scientific fact, like the evolutionary fact. No more, sorry.
Second, no, it's not an original thought, it's the same theistic shit of intelligent design.
Third, yes, I know that it is fucked up for a limited mind to think that its god or gods don't intervene in the creation, development and evolution of life and that it's subject to laws that we all know are measurable, measurable and understandable. Get over.
"There is no longer a theory of evolution, there is the evolutionary fact."
I don't think you understand what you're saying.
I don't doubt it, but don't tell me, tell it to the bones of your inner ear. Go ahead!
Right after you tell it to the saccules of your cochlea.
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