Windows of opportunities vs. building life

It's also a largely personal opinion, not broadly supported by other colleagues in the same field to the best of my knowledge.

And of course he makes the mistake of colouring his assessment with considerations of faith. If abiogenesis is going to be challenged on scientific grounds alone, fine but he gives the impression of objecting to it partly due to his religious convictions & that raises a serious question mark over his intentions.

Do you know anyone who does not give their opinions when they talk? If you are looking for an excuse to avoid watching just say you don't want to watch it. He speaks about chemistry I am not going to beg you, watch don't watch.

I'm saying that such a message becomes contaminated when the messenger is unclear about what it is they're trying to communicate.

Is he trying to make an appeal from his laboratory bench or from the pulpit? I simply don't know.

(1) Scientists assume that life came from nonlife

(2) When something is assumed for long enough people sometimes forget it is an assumption and start talking about it as if it were a demonstrated scientific fact.  Such is the case with the origin of life

(3) Importantly (and contrary to popular conception), no origin of life (OOL) researcher today believes that life originated by chance or could arise by chance in our known universe.  Invoking random chance to "explain" life is now seen as a non-explanation and the same as invoking a miracle, so scientists no longer accept or try to appeal to such arguments.

May I suggest a different way of framing the question?  Let's remove anything supernatural from the discussion for the moment and focus only on abiogenesis (the idea that life on earth originated from nonlife via natural processes).  Before there is any hope of having a productive dialogue on what's possible or impossible, it would seem we first need to answer the following question: Can abiogenesis be falsified and if so what would it take to do so?  

Just for the record, I don't know of any non-natural explanation for the emergence of the first lifeform on earth that doesn't multiply the problems involved & greatly increase the number of unanswered questions.

We may be able to extrapolate from a position of knowledge but it's never wise to do so from a position of ignorance. Where we hit a brick wall, best to patiently wait until some new discovery shows a way over or around it?

Actually, the creation of life by a supernatural being is a very simple hypothesis in terms of Occam's Razor.  In terms of science, though, it is not a testable scientific hypothesis.

"Disproving" abiogenesis does not automatically "prove" supernatural causation, but neither does our requirement in science for a natural explanation "prove" that there is one

Science of course can never go beyond natural causation so the most we can say is that science currently does not have an empirically supported explanation for the origin of life.  And that is an accurate statement.

Interestingly enough, the multiplication of problems you speak of is an apt description for the Rube Goldberg-esque scenarios devised for chemical evolution 

I think you need the very slightest reason to believe that said supernatural being exists in the first place & then, of what nature this thing is?

Not forgetting exactly how such an entity came into being. Shifting such stubborn questions one stage back hardly answers anything.

If we're sufficiently satisfied that everything that followed the emergence of the first self-replicating lifeform (i.e. evolution) involved only natural processes, then the most reasonable inference to be made is that abiogenesis was of the same kind, however improbable. In the absence of good reason to believe otherwise, shouldn't that be the default?

What would be an example of good reasons in your opinion?

To believe otherwise? Establishing beyond doubt that abiogenesis could not have been the result of any natural process.

A matter of logic, it is impossible to prove a negative. Man has been working on this forever and a day, and to date, there is no reason to accept it can be done. What can be shown are all of the various reasons it cannot occur, we find more of those all of the time. The more educated we become about life, the less likely abiogenesis can be accepted as a given. Except for those true believers with faith who don't require evidence they can see and test, they can rest in the distant past as having all of the answers.

Some would argue that we have good reason to believe in the existence of such a supernatural being (others of course would dispute this).  My point is that we don't even have to address all that.  In scientific inquiry, the question of whether a supernatural being exists is neither here nor there.  In science, we also accept a hypothesis on the basis of empirical evidence; not on the absence of it and/or when we have no alternative explanation.  Science assumes there is a natural explanation but is currently unable to demonstrate it.  The most accurate "answer" then that science can give when it comes to the OOL is that we don't know. 

The danger we run into if we follow the suggested alternative is exactly the problem we see today, where science news about the OOL does not provide accurate knowledge but overhyped sensationalism and unwarranted, blind confidence (even among scientists) that ignores the immense empirically-demonstrated problems.  

*The bottom line is we want to know how much confidence we can have in a given scientific hypothesis, correct?  If so, then we need to be brutally honest and apply the same measure of skepticism that we normally do in any scientific inquiry (irrespective of metaphysical questions outside the realm of science).  And when we do this we see that our responses on this subject needs to be much more measured or we put ourselves in danger of advocating a "truth" that future generations may determine is alchemy. 

*I think experts like Robert Shapiro and HP Yockey demonstrate this more measured (and accurate) approach.  The latter did not hesitate to shred all origin of life scenarios (i.e., he did normal science) and stated we have no scientific explanation for the OOL (all overhyped sensational science news reports to the contrary).  This is just good science and did not affect his personal beliefs (he remained a committed agnostic to his dying day)

*Science of course does not even permit the supernatural-based explanations that @TruthMuse wants to advance.  Philosophy, however, does.

*With respect to the merits (philosophically), I don't think @TruthMuse argument can be dismissed outright (see below), but it does need refinement and more sophistication in presentment (regardless of the merits).  I'm curious to see what such an argument would look like.

*This may have already been done and the person that did it is why I think we can't dismiss the argument outright.  If memory serves that person is respected philosopher and staunch atheist Antony Flew whose arguments I still see regularly employed by atheists in these forums.  It is for his wide reaching influence and respect he commanded that the world was shocked when later in his life he became a theist.  And my recollection is that one of the reasons he gave for changing to theism after a lifetime of defending atheism/arguing against theism was an argument similar to TruthMuse's about DNA/information and the OOL.

*Perhaps someone here knows more about that.  I confess I don't but I'd be willing to look into it more.  A person of Flew's caliber who does a complete metaphysical-180 certainly commands attention and is worth exploring further

What does everyone think?  Does anyone happen to know more about this?

Short brief and to the point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDUn7dDigvI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6BBzmldu2w

Interview with Flew

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVZEfeYN5oI

Not that I'm aware. For how long would you say?

And since we have next to no actual data to work on, such as the RNA or DNA of the earliest lifeform, it's a matter of considerable conjecture. We can't even be certain what conditions existed on the earth at the time of the emergence of life.

It's a mystery yes but that doesn't mean we should wander off into the long grass of superstition & fevered guesswork!

You have been suggesting the proper inference is abiogenesis due to what we know, yet what do we know that could possibly give you that idea? I've not offered you anything in the realm of the supernatural, you are the only one here attempting to make this science or superstition. I have kept my arguments in the real world, what we know about instructions and information. You cannot say the same, you have been resting your argument's evidence millions or billions of years in the past. That, to me, is sounding more and more like a belief in miracles than science. Having that length of time doesn't amount to something is possible, only that there is more time.

You've repeatedly referred to a 'mind' being required to create something as complex as DNA with all the information it contains. You've used analogies such as computer programs & the fact that such code requires a mind capable of creating complex code.

So what precisley do you have in mind if not a deity of some kind?

I suggest you watch that video from Dr. Peltzer, to get a chemist's viewpoint that doesn't just fall in line with those with your worldview to get another perspective. He worked on a project that had the Stanley Miller involved that comes up in that talk. It is going to be challenging to have your own errors revealed to you if you never allow yourself your personal views critic. There is no guesswork in this, no all the evidence is millions of years ago in the past.

Let's be clear here because science does not have prejudices as such. All scientific endeavour is concerned with uncovering evidence for the way natural systems function, that's pretty well all.

In the absence of evidence for 'X', the scientific method is really of no value.

You lost me.  I don't see how this relates to the philosophical question