Sunday morning in Chautauqua and almost everyone goes to the main amphitheater for a Protestant church service. This is the amphitheater where morning lectures are held. Here's what it looks like from the outside.
Here's a view of the inside—it holds about 1500 people.
The choir is assembling ...
26 comments :
While in church I hope Prof. Moran will pray for an answer to the question of how life on earth originated.
In the first edition of Origin of Species Darwin said that life was "breathed into a few forms or into one". In the second edition (essentially a corrected first edition) he wrote that life was "originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one". So we can say that Darwin thought that life on earth was created by God in the first instance.
Did Darwin really think that? Maybe not. Maybe all he was saying in 1859-60 was that he didn't know how life on earth got started.
Biochemists still don't know. It is the GREAT EMBARRASSMENT of biochemistry. The discipline can't explain in any convincing way how life on earth began. There are various hypotheses, but no theory. Instead of getting down to business and solving the problem, biochemists (and biologists generally) fulminate against religious notions and IDcreationists.
Stop fulminating and start investigating! Move from hypotheses to a theory of life's origin.
In the absence of a theory of life's origin the IDcreationists are entitled to assert, with Charles Darwin, that "God did it."
Such a tiny god, who can only exist in the gaps of humanity's ever-increasing knowledge. As we learn more, this god shrinks. So pitiable a deity, which now only ever existed half a billion years ago, for the moment it took to "breathe life into few forms or into one" and presumably the instant of the big bang. 15 billion years of existence, and only two seconds of work. Well, I worshipped Him for more than two seconds in my youth, so we're more than even. Why would Darwin or Professor Moran even waste their time with such a tiny being, when interesting things like barnacles and pigeons exist?
Re: tiny god
Yes, he's the god of the gaps...
The problems is there are BIG GAPS! Biochemists don't know how life on earth began. They have various notions but no theory.
Without a stable Theory of the origin of life, the theory of evolution is incomplete and, therefore, defective. That's a big gap--wide enough for Noah and his Ark to sail through.
Close the gap.
Anonymous, you seem to be obsessed about the "embarrassing" state of current OOL theories. I suggest a deep breath followed by a cold shower.
I suppose the two anonymouses who wrote the first comments are two different people, so I should say that I'm answering anonymous 1, who wrote Biochemists still don't know. It is the GREAT EMBARRASSMENT of biochemistry. The discipline can't explain in any convincing way how life on earth began. I don't expect Larry to feel much need to pray while he is in church.
First of all, which biochemists have you met who have been embarrassed by this? Why should they be embarrassed? Linguists cannot explain how human language began or why other species don't have it. They simply point out that it happened too long ago and the records don't exist. Cosmologists don't know what happened during the first second of the Universe's existence, but they are only partly embarrassed about it because they understand that it's a difficult question. (One second may not seem like much out of 14000000000 years, but it was a very momentous second.)
In any case, biochemistry is not about explaining the origin of life; it's about understanding life chemistry. Some biochemists are interested in evolution (Larry is; I am), and some are interested in the origin of life (I am; I don't know if Larry is), but that doesn't mean lacunae in these subjects are embarrassing for biochemistry.
Contrary to the ideas of creationists, Darwin made no serious attempt to explain the origin of life. His frequently quoted sentence about a warm little pond constitutes his entire corpus of writing on the subject, and it occurred as a moment of speculation in a private letter that was not intended for publication. What Darwin set out to do, and succeeded admirably in doing, was to offer a mechanism to explain how different species come to be different from one another.
Returning to comparison with linguistics, Grimm's law was an early and reasonably successful attempt to explain the ways in which languages change over time, but we don't call it a failure of Grimm's law that it doesn't explain (or, indeed, say anything about) the origin of language.
athel:
Okay, let's put it another way: evolutionists should be very embarrassed by their failure to explain the origin of life. They aren't, but they should be.
What bigger or more important question is there in biology and evolution?
Is the question just too difficult to answer? But that's the same thing many people said concerning the origin of species. We'll never know, we can't know, so why try?
The point is this: the definitive and final answer to those who invoke a Creator to explain the origin of life isn't argument, it is experiment. Science should be able to produce a Theory of Life's Origin.
The absence of embarrassment among evolutionary biochemists with regard to their ignorance of the way in which life began is evidence of complacency.
The absence of embarrassment among evolutionary biochemists with regard to their ignorance of the way in which life began is evidence of complacency.
Logic isn't your strong point is it. You might as well have said that the absence of embarrassment among evolutionary biochemists with regard to their ignorance of the way in which life began is evidence of weekend transvestitism.
anonymous 1, you now seem (rather belatedly) to have grasped what biochemistry is about, but you've still got a long way to go.
In writing Science should be able to produce a Theory of Life's Origin you seem to be implying that there is no such theory. But there is. You won't find it in biochemistry textbooks (not much, anyway), but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. You need to look in Origin of Life journals.
When you've read up a bit about this, and can discuss the differences between Oparin's and Haldane's ideas, and the more modern ones of such scientists as Wächterhäuser, Lazcano and Martin (and others), you can come back and tell us why you don't think these constitute theories of life. I expect it will take you about a year before you are reasonably familiar with the field, so I won't bother to read anything else you may write until then (unless, as is likely, I get you confused with the other people who are too timid to use their names while posting).
stevef: You might as well have said that the absence of embarrassment among evolutionary biochemists with regard to their ignorance of the way in which life began is evidence of weekend transvestitism.
You mean it isn't? Who would have guessed? Another long cherished idea hits the dust.
Seriously, though, I hope you've signed up on the Steve-o-Meter. I would do so myself, but I'm not a Steve.
athel,
So, we know how life on earth started but it isn't in the biology text books? And of course we can replicate the originating conditions in the lab and produce self-replicating systems (life)? It is all done? A complete and stable theory of life's origin?
Sorry, but you're over-reaching. The origin of life remains a mystery. It is a big gap in our knowledge. "The mystery of mysteries". Lot's of interesting speculation and maybe even a few hypotheses, but no theory yet.
So Larry, you never told us. How was the Sunday morning service?.:)
"The absence of embarrassment among evolutionary biochemists with regard to their ignorance of the way in which life began is evidence of complacency"
Evidence of your own complacency is that you obviously are unfamiliar with the very conscious attitude and debates among experts of the difficulties behind this topic.
Debating anticreationists on internet does not give you the right picture.
Try Margulis's book, or Pier Luigi Luisi's book.
sanders,
Yes, I realize the problem is a difficult one. But it is the most interesting and important problem in evolutionary biology. And yet only a handful of people actual investigate it and while there is much sophisicated speculation, there is little real light. Reading about the origin of life today is much the same as reading about the material basis of heredity before 1900. All very foggy...
As long as the question of questions goes unanswered, IDcreationists will be able to point to a glaring failure of science (so far).
Actually, I think I'd rather admit ignorance of how life arose than childishly demand an absolute truth that doesn't exist.
james goetz,
So Larry, you never told us. How was the Sunday morning service?.:)
It sounded like a typical church service should sound. I could hear it from the coffee shop where I was drinking a coffee, eating a chocolate croissant, and reading the New York Times.
dunbar writes:
"Actually, I think I'd rather admit ignorance of how life arose than childishly demand an absolute truth that doesn't exist."
Okay, we don't know (much about) how life began. We don't yet know enough to say that we know "beyond a reasonable doubt". That is an absolutely enormous gap in our knowledge and THE SINGLE GREATEST WEAKNESS in the theory of evolution. If we knew how life began, perhaps we would understand a little more thoroughly why 1) the initial period seems to have involved little diversification; 2) why rapid diversification and radiation eventually occurred and 3) why the "tempo and mode" of evolution has exhibited the patterns we observe in the fossil record after the Cambrian explosion.
Knowledge of the origin of life is absolutely essential.
Anonymous, what evidence do you have that the initial period involved little diversification?
martinc,
I'm sure you would agree that certain knowledge of the origin of life is very likely to have enormously important implications for its subsequent development. That's why it is important to have a robust theory of life's origin, WHCIH WE DON'T YET HAVE.
"I'm sure you would agree that certain knowledge of the origin of life is very likely to have enormously important implications for its subsequent development."
I certainly do not agree.
martinc,
Please explain. If the human precursor were a gibbon-like or orang-like animal, wouldn't we be rather different than we are? Surely initial conditions help to explain subsequent ones. So if we knew with a high degree of certainty exactly how life came to be, wouldn't that help us understand what life became?
The general point remains the same, however: we don't know how life began. It is a VERY BIG GAP in our knowledge.
Anonymous, read your own question rather than bringing up an entirely different point.
martinc,
You are ducking the question.
Anonymous, I answered the question in the negative. I'll answer it again since you seem particularly hard of reading. NO, knowing exactly how the first life on earth developed would not help us, to any major extent, understand subsequent developments that occurred billions of years later.
martinc,
Why not?
If you know initial conditions you can predict subsequent states. Or, historically (retrospectively), if you know that birds are descended from dinosaurs and that humans and chimps share a common ancestor, your understanding of birds and bipedal apes (humans) certainly changes.
Knowing how life first arose is very important.
I think Ryan Gregory says it best:
http://genomicron.blogspot.com/2008/07/abiogenesis-vs-evolution.html
dunbar,
Ryan Gregory's argument rationalizes the failure of science to account for the origin of life. "Not my problem" is a way of saying "I can't solve this problem so I'm going to say that it isn't in my department."
The lab is the answer to the pulpit.
Demonstrate the origin of life in a replicable experiment and not only will science (including evolutionary biology) be advanced tremendously, but one more window to the supernatural will be closed forever.
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