origin-of-life prize

[sandwiches]

news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/06/scientist-politician-atheist-off.html?ref=hp

A millionaire scientist who once ran as a Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate has just launched a $50,000 prize to promote research on the origin of life. Yes, he has an ulterior motive: He hopes that researchers working on the question will eventually prove that life's origins can be fully explained by physical and chemical processes, without invoking a creator.

Lonsdale does not deny that his atheism is a driving force behind the initiative.

"Over the centuries, we've attributed so many things to God's will that have later turned out to have a scientific explanation," he says. "I believe that the creation of life was probably not an act of God. It was just nature running its course. I believe an answer will show up to this question ... and the answer will be: God didn't do it, nature did it." He believes scientists are already making great progress in solving the origin of life, and he hopes that his contribution will encourage other philanthropists to support origins research.


I note Professor Anthony Kenny (an agnostic) one summarised his reasons for not being an atheist as being the lack of an explanation for the origins of the universe, life and language See chapter 3 online below).

books.google.com/books?id=bQnZcFiCz8QC&printsec=frontcover&dq=anthony+kenny+what+i+believe&source=bl&ots=Jyg2X7-nvW&sig=YHMVhy4l_iFTS4eg2Fq5_2-z_eY&hl=en&ei=RVaXTMSiDtqK4gaauOTwBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBEQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q&f=false

But even if convincing scientific explanations for all these things were produced, should it make any difference to one's view on the existence (or otherwise) of God?

[Deleted]

Jun 29, 2011 21:16:14 GMT sandwiches said:

But even if convincing scientific explanations for all these things were produced, should it make any difference to one's view on the existence (or otherwise) of God?

It depends on what kind of scientific explanation it is. I'm fully convinced of the truth of abiogenesis, and as a generative grammarian I take a naturalistic approach to language. I don't see how this can negatively influence theism (James wrote how the former can strengthen the teleological argument, and I agree with him).

[unkleE]

Jun 29, 2011 21:16:14 GMT sandwiches said:

But even if convincing scientific explanations for all these things were produced, should it make any difference to one's view on the existence (or otherwise) of God?

I agree with Matko (and James).

1. Finding a scientific explanation doesn't 'prove' that God didn't do it, it just shows the mechanism by which it occurred. You still have to answer the question of whether the mechanism was naturally caused or not, and whether the whole chain of mechanisms was naturally caused or not.

2. But the natural explanation has an inherent inconsistency. If we define "natural" as the whole of the space-time-matter-energy universe then either this natural universe started or it didn't (i.e. it's always existed). And if it started it can't have had a natural cause (because it contains all natural causes by definition) unless it caused itself to exist while it didn't exist.

So we are left with four possibilities:

(i) It has always existed, which there are good mathematical, philosophical and scientific reasons to believe is impossible.
(ii) While it didn't exist, it caused itself to exist, which seems like nonsense.
(iii) It exists without a cause - again, an amazing conclusion to come to.
(iv) Something outside itself (i.e. non-natural) caused it.

My money's on the last option because however difficult we might find it to believe, the other options are even more difficult.

3. Then of course, as you say, there's the teleological argument of how the laws of nature just 'happened' to be such that the universe was able to take the unlikely form that abiogenesis could occur.

Everything makes some difference to what we believe and think, but I can't see this one will that much.

[noons]

I think it also strengthens the fine tuning argument, similar to the teleological argument: if the development of life can be shown to be not a result of an unlikely concurrence of events, but a predictable outcome of repeatable conditions, then that lends credence to the idea that the universe could have been designed for life.

[Deleted]

Jun 30, 2011 1:12:46 GMT noons said:

I think it also strengthens the fine tuning argument, similar to the teleological argument

The fine-tuning of the universe is a formulation of the teleological argument, Noons.

[himself]

The fine-tuning argument (and similar probabilistic arguments, like the watchmaker) bear no resemblance to the original teleological argument. This argument proceeded from the lawfulness of the sensible universe, not from its unlikelihood. Searching for God in the features of the universe is like looking for Frank Whittle in the components of a jet engine.
+ + +

People who set up prizes like this have a profound ignorance of the difference between creation and transformation. They think that "to create" means "poofing" something into existence.

[Deleted]

Jul 1, 2011 17:11:50 GMT himself said:

The fine-tuning argument (and similar probabilistic arguments, like the watchmaker) bear no resemblance to the original teleological argument.

There are significant differences between the contemporary formulations of the cosmological and the ontological argument and those given in the past, yet there are all classified under the same category, since they all share some features.

The fine-tuning argument is a teleological argument because it appeals to the life-permitting features of the physical universe caused by the initial conditions to infer a designer i.e. there's a discernible intentional purpose behind our existence.