https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KMU-uNWZxmGoqm9joxkOpAAnYcVyI9aDhFqp0nyUhls/edit
MB: Protein folding happens naturally with no help at all, though there are agents that can help proteins into more complex shapes, as I recall. There are no odds involved, it just happens when protein is, well, being protein.
Me: I will put this on top, because it demonstrates the utter nonsense of your claims.
before protein folding can occur, you need the right functional amino acid sequence. Good luck for random chance finding one amongst an almost infinite number of non functional possibilities. And even IF it would occur, here is the further problem:
1. The synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids from small molecule precursors represents one of the most difficult challenges to the model of pre-biological ( chemical) evolution.
2. The formation of amide bonds without the assistance of enzymes poses a major challenge for theories of the orgin of life. 2
3. The best one can hope for from such a scenario is a racemic polymer of proteinous and non-proteinous amino acids with no relevance to living systems.
4. Polymerization is a reaction in which water is a product. Thus it will only be favoured in the absence of water. The presence of precursors in an ocean of water favours depolymerization of any molecules that might be formed.
5. Even if there were billions of simultaneous trials as the billions of building block molecules interacted in the oceans, or on the thousands of kilometers of shorelines that could provide catalytic surfaces or templates, even if, as is claimed, there was no oxygen in the prebiotic earth, then there would be no protection from UV light, which would destroy and disintegrate prebiotic organic compounds. Secondly, even if there would be a sequence, producing a functional folding protein, by itself, if not inserted in a functional way in the cell, it would absolutely no function. It would just lay around, and then soon disintegrate. Furthermore, in modern cells proteins are tagged and transported on molecular highways to their precise destination, where they are utilized. Obviously, all this was not extant on the early earth.
6. To form a chain, it is necessary to react bifunctional monomers, that is, molecules with two functional groups so they combine with two others. If a unifunctional monomer (with only one functional group) reacts with the end of the chain, the chain can grow no further at this end. If only a small fraction of unifunctional molecules were present, long polymers could not form. But all ‘prebiotic simulation’ experiments produce at least three times more unifunctional molecules than bifunctional molecules.
7. in modern organisms, linking amino acids and bond one amino acid to the next to build a protein is a highly sophisticated and complex process. Each amino acid is activated to overcome an energy barrier that naturally prevents the linking up of adjacent amino acids in solution, and the energy for this process comes from ATP. Then, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) enzymes bond each amino acid, in two steps, to the correct tRNA.” The tRNA adaptors are detachable once the amino acid has been joined to the end of the growing protein. How could/would the transition of non-enzymatic protein elongation and formation have occurred from when this machinery was non-extant on early earth, to the process promoted by the Cell machinery? The hugeness of this cap cannot be overstated.
MB: As for the "lucky accident" claim that keeps cropping up: Repeating one's incredulity over and over does not an argument make. It just makes one appear desperate. No one claims anything about a "lucky accident." That's creationist nonsense being shoved into the mouths of those who don't believe their other nonsense.
Me:
The possible mechanisms to explain the origin of life
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2515-abiogenesis-the-possible-mechanisms-to-explain-the-origin-of-life
Koonin, the logic of chance, page 266
Evolution by natural selection and drift can begin only after replication with sufficient fidelity is established. Even at that stage, the evolution of translation remains highly problematic. The emergence of the first replicator system, which represented the “Darwinian breakthrough,” was inevitably preceded by a succession of complex, difficult steps for which biological evolutionary mechanisms were not accessible . The synthesis of nucleotides and (at least) moderate-sized polynucleotides could not have evolved biologically and must have emerged abiogenically—that is, effectively by chance abetted by chemical selection, such as the preferential survival of stable RNA species. Translation is thought to have evolved later via an ad hoc selective process. Did you read this ???!! An ad-hoc process ??
And with this only said, your worldview? bye bye. Debunked !!
MB: "8. Cells are complex factories, full of molecular machines, and assembly lines. Randomness produced these factories, by orderly aggregation and sequentially correct manner without external direction."
Another misrepresentation and complete misunderstanding of evolution and how it works.
Me: The origin of cells & life is NOT an evolution problem, but abiogenesis problem.
Without code there can be no self-replication. Without self-replication, you can’t have reproduction. Without reproduction, you can’t have evolution or natural selection.
Heredity is guaranteed by faithful DNA replication whereas evolution depends upon errors accompanying DNA replication. ( Furusawa, 1998 ) We hypothesize that the origin of life, that is, the origin of the first cell, cannot be explained by natural selection among self-replicating molecules, as is done by the RNA-world hypothesis. ( Vaneechoutte M )
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2000;901:139-47.
The scientific origin of life. Considerations on the evolution of information, leading to an alternative proposal for explaining the origin of the cell, a semantically closed system
MARIO VANEECHOUTTE
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.bz/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb06273.x/full
We hypothesize that the origin of life, that is, the origin of the first cell, cannot be explained by natural selection among self-replicating molecules, as is done by the RNA-world hypothesis.
The hypothesis espoused here states that it is virtually impossible that the highly complicated system cell developed gradually around simple self-replicating molecules (RNA-hypercycles or autocatalytic peptide networks) by means of natural selection; as is proposed by, for example, the RNA-world hypothesis. Despite searching quadrillions of molecules, it is clear that a spontaneous RNAreplicator is unlikely to occur. Reports of nucleotide and peptide self-replication still depend upon human intervention (for instance, by changing the environmental conditions between two rounds of replication or by denaturing the double strands). The problem of denaturing the double-nucleotide strand in a nonenzymatic manner has been overlooked and has contributed to a failure to establish molecular self-replication. The first cell, life, was born and natural selection (selection among variations on the theme of autonomous duplication) commenced.
MB: Strawman/misrepresentation. No one with any knowledge at all of evolution thinks this. DNA being thought of as "Code" in a "Computer" is just nonsense. And again, SELECTION PRESSURE.
Me:
River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, Dawkins writes:
What is truly revolutionary about molecular biology in the post-Watson-Crick era is that it has become digital. After Watson and Crick, we know that genes themselves, within their minute internal structure, are long strings of pure digital information. What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks, not in the weak sense of the nervous system. The genetic code is not a binary code as in computers, nor an eight-level code as in some telephone systems, but a quaternary code, with four symbols. The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal. . . .
Our genetic system, which is the universal system of all life on the planet, is digital to the core. With word-for-word accuracy, you could encode the whole of the New Testament in those parts of the human genome that are at present filled with “junk” DNA – that is, DNA not used, at least in the ordinary way, by the body. Every cell in your body contains the equivalent of forty-six immense data tapes, reeling off digital characters via numerous reading heads working simultaneously. In every cell, these tapes – the chromosomes – contain the same information, but the reading heads in different kinds of cells seek out different parts of the database for their own specialist purposes. . . .
Genes are pure information – information that can be encoded, recoded and decoded, without any degradation or change of meaning. Pure information can be copied and, since it is digital information, the fidelity of the copying can be immense. DNA characters are copied with an accuracy that rivals anything modern engineers can do.
What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, warm breath, not a ‘spark of life’. It is information, words, instructions…Think of a billion discrete digital characters…If you want to understand life think about technology – Richard Dawkins (Dawkins 1996, 112)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa55s9Gs_Eg#t=433
Afther the seventh minute of his speech, Dawkins admits that : Can you think of any other class of molecule, that has that property, of folding itself up, into a uniquely characteristic enzyme, of which there is a enormous repertoire, capable of catalyzing a enormous repertoir of chemical reactions, and this is in itself to be absolutely determined by a digital code.
Claim MB: you start with less knowledge and wind up with more over time), that doesn't mean that just because we know more now that we therefore must know everything there IS to know. This is fallacious thinking.
Response Me: I agree with that. But that is not what i have claimed. What i say IMHO is, that based on what we DO understand already in regards of scientific exploration, be it historical, or operational science, philosophy, and theology, applied based on a solid epistemological foundation, is that WE CAN infer and come to secure conclusions in regards to origins, and in my view, Theist cuts the cake. Strong atheism, or philosophical naturalism, does not.
MB: And the inferences we've made are that the entire universe was concentrated in a small, dense, hot point.
Me:
The universe most probably had a beginning
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1297-the-universe-most-probably-had-a-beginning
The philosophical cosmological argument of Gods existence
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2832-cosmological-the-philosophical-cosmological-argument-of-gods-existence
The cosmological argument for Gods existence
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence
The universe cannot be past eternal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-kalaam-cosmological-argument#5124
The cause of the universe must be personal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5326
Nothing is the thing that stones think of
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2817-nothing-is-the-thing-that-stones-think-of
MB: and that evolution is a fact of terrestrial biology.
Me: Main topics about evolution
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2806-main-topics-about-evolution
What is fact :
1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from
a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification; chiefly pre-programmed selection acting on random variations or mutations
5. Natural selection acting up to two random mutations as shown in malaria ( See Behe's Edge of evolution )
What is not fact:
6. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
7. Blind watchmaker thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors through unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural
selection acting on random variations or mutations; the idea that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation, and other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, completely suffice to explain the origin of novel biological forms and the appearance of design in complex organisms.
Why Darwin was wrong, and what really drives descent with modification
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2460-what-are-the-mechanisms-that-drive-adaptation-to-the-environment-microevolution-and-secondary-speciation
The tree of life, common descent, common ancestry, a failed hypothesis
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2239-the-tree-of-life-common-descent-common-ancestry-a-failed-hypothesis
Principal Meanings of Evolution in Biology Textbooks
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2358-principal-meanings-of-evolution-in-biology-textbooks
Macroevolution. Fact, or fantasy ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1390-macroevolution#1982
Micro evolution and macro evolution are not the same
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1641-micro-evolution-and-macro-evolution-are-not-the-same
Failed and falsified evolutionary predictions
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1666-failed-evolutionary-predictions
Primary, and secondary speciation
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2360-primary-and-secondary-speciation
Is there evidence for natural selection ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2458-is-there-evidence-for-natural-selection
Eukaryotes evolved from Prokaryotes. Really ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1568-eukaryotes-evolved-from-prokaryotes-really
On the Origin of Mitochondria: Reasons for Skepticism on the Endosymbiotic Story
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1303-challenges-to-endosymbiotic-theory
Unicellular and multicellular Organisms are best explained through design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2010-unicellular-and-multicellular-organisms-are-best-explained-through-design
"Tetrapods evolved" . Really ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2219-the-evolution-of-tetrapods
What are the mechanisms that drive adaptation to the environment, microevolution, and secondary speciation ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2460-what-are-the-mechanisms-that-drive-adaptation-to-the-environment-microevolution-and-secondary-speciation
Chimps, our brothers ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2272-chimps-our-brothers
The origin of Homo Sapiens & timeline of human evolution according to mainstream science.....
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2596-the-origin-of-homo-sapiens-timeline-of-human-evolution
Chromosome 2, evidence for common ancestry ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1707-chromosome-2
MB: Claiming to know something for certain is not justified.
Me: Agreed. Thats why i go with the inference to the best explanation.
BAYESIAN PROBABILITY AND SCIENCE
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2721-bayesian-probability-and-science
A typical misconception about science is that it can tell us what will definitely happen now or in the future given enough time, or what would certainly have happened in the past, given enough time. The truth is, science is limited in that it does not grant absolute truth, but only yields degrees of probability or likelihood.
Science isn’t in the business of proving things. Rather, science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data.
Science observes the Universe, records evidence, and strives to draw conclusions about what has happened in the past, is happening now, and what will potentially happen in the future, given the current state of scientific knowledge—which is often times woefully incomplete, and even inaccurate. The late, prominent evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson discussed the nature of science and probability several years ago in the classic textbook, Life: An Introduction to Biology, stating:
We speak in terms of “acceptance,” “confidence,” and “probability,” not “proof.” If by proof is meant the establishment of eternal and absolute truth, open to no possible exception or modification, then proof has no place in the natural sciences.
MB: Were you aware that every time we've looked into an unexplained phenomenon and determined its cause, EVERY SINGLE TIME it was NOT MAGIC.
Me: No. I see naturalism as a TOTAL FAILURE.
Why disbelief in God is irrational, and philosophical naturalism a failed hypothesis
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2472-why-disbelief-in-god-is-irrational-and-philosophical-naturalism-a-failed-hypothesis
- Absolutely nothing can not produce something like physical laws, finely tuned universes, stars, life-permitting planets, life and biodiversity
- The vacuum that supposedly gave birth to quantum fluctuations, and virtual particles, would also require a cause
- Matter cannot predate consciousness.
- The Laws of Physics cannot pop-up out of nothing.
- The universe or a supposed multiverse cannot be past eternal.
- The Balance of the Big Bang and its expansion could not be finely tuned randomly. The odds are too big ( the cosmological constant is finely tuned to a precision of 10^123 )
- The odds to tune the fundamental forces, the galaxy, the solar - planetary system, the earth, the atmosphere, etc. are far too big, too.
- The number of electrons (in the universe) is equivalent to the number of protons to an accuracy of one part in 10 to the 37th power. If it were not so, galaxies, stars, and planets would never form (because electromagnetic forces would so overwhelm gravitational forces).
- Life can not emerge from non-life and produce biological living cells that equal to factory plants, full of interdependent factories, each full of irreducibly complex machines, production lines, and all processes driven by preprogrammed information and signalling pathways
- Random, unguided, lucky events cannot produce codes, ciphers, blueprints, and complex instructional information observed in biological cells and stored in genes and epigenetic ways.
- Evolution explains speciation, small adaptations, and micro-evolution. Common ancestry and macro-evolution are failed hypotheses. Body plans and cell shape, size, and type, and development are directed by preprogrammed codified complex information and signal networks.
- Objective moral values cannot be explained rationally without a prescribing entity.
- Only a creator explains the intrinsic value of human life, reason, logic, language, intelligence, and consciousness.
- and mystical experiences answers to prayers, and special divine revelations confirmed and testified by millions of all ages, around the globe.
- there is no real alternative mechanism to an intelligent agency as a causal mechanism of origins. Once, God is cancelled out, nothing remains
MB: "About the universe, its beginning and fine-tuning:" It's beginning - there doesn't necessarily need to be a beginning.
Me: Philosophical reasons why the universe nor quantum effect potentials cannot be past eternal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124
We realize that we can never get to an infinite period of time in the future by adding individual events together. 2 But today, this point of time in the present, is a point of time future to all past. Correct? In other words, we are future to yesterday, and the day before that. Now, some have suggested that the universe is eternal. That it has existed forever. But it is not possible that it has existed forever. Here is the application. This point in time is actually future with reference to all of the past. We just agreed that you cannot say that any particular point in the future will accomplish an actual infinite as events are added one to another. Therefore, this present moment in time can't represent an actual infinite number of events added one to another proceeding from the past. Time has proceeded forward from the past as one event is added onto another to get us to today. But we know that whenever you pause in the count as we've done today, that you can't have an infinite number of events. Which means that there is not an infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time. Only a finite number of events. Which means the universe is not eternal. Which means the universe has not existed forever and ever with no beginning, but it in fact had a beginning.
Imagine that you see dominoes falling, one knocking over the next, as this series of falling dominoes comes into your room. Like a person can never finish counting to infinity, an actual infinite number of dominoes could never finish falling. Therefore, if an actual infinite number of dominoes had to fall before getting to your door, then the falling dominoes would never reach your door. In the same way, if an actual infinite number of minutes had to take place before yesterday, time would have never reached yesterday, much less today. Therefore, just as there had to be a finite number of falling dominoes, there also had to be a finite—not infinite—amount of time before today. An infinite past is impossible. Time must have a beginning. And if time had a beginning it must have had a cause.
http://stayontargetstayontarget.blogspot.com/2012/05/universe-caused-self-caused-or-uncaused.html
MB: Fine Tuning - nonsense. It's not fine tuned. If the universe didn't have the properties that allowed us to be here, we wouldn't be here.
Me: Thats the cheapest cop out you have provided so far, and DISHONEST.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1277-fine-tuning-of-the-universe
Objection: The weak anthropic principle explains our existence just fine. We happen to be in a universe with those constraints because they happen to be the only set which will produce the conditions in which creatures like us might (but not must) occur. So, no initial constraints = no-one to become aware of those initial constraints. This gets us no closer to intelligent design.
Response: Given the narrowness of the required intervals, how surprising is it that life actually came into being? The answer would seem to be, very unlikely (unless there are a large number of actual universes within which life could arise by chance). The fundamental constants of the universe held their present values before human beings existed, and they are a pre-requisite for life to begin. Other constants would produce a universe which would not permit the existence of stars, nor planets, and much less, life. If anything, the physical structure of the universe (as represented by fundamental constants and various mathematical relations) are an efficient cause of the existence of a life permitting planet.
John Leslie illustrates this point by means of the Firing Squad analogy.
Imagine that you are facing a firing squad of sharpshooters, firing at close range. Somehow, you survive the volley. Is the volley something that requires an explanation? It is old evidence -- you already know with probability 1 that you are still alive. Nonetheless, it is, from a suitably impersonal perspective, a very surprising thing that you did survive, under the circumstances. Similarly, we already know, with probability 1, that life exists, but this is a very surprising fact, given the anthropic coincidences that were required.
The following gives a sense of the degree of fine-tuning that must go into some of these values to yield a life-friendly universe:
Atheists love to use Occam's razor. Remarkable, that arguing that there is no evidence of God because he cannot be perceived by our senses, in order to explain fine-tuning, he sticks to infinity of completely made-up, undetectable and unobservable parallel universes and claim the proposal to be entirely scientific and disregarding Occams. Me thinks. Occam's would not be amused.
MB: Famously, Douglass Adams said....puddle....blablabla....
Me: Douglas Adams Puddle thinking
Douglas Adamas puddle analogy falls short by the fact that the Big Bang was the most precisely finely tuned event in all of history and must have been logically the result of foresight and planning. Amongst many constants, just one, the cosmological constant, had to be adjusted at a precision of one to 10^123, an astronomically unimaginably huge number. There are 10^80 atoms in the universe.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1866-fine-tuning-of-the-big-bang
Professor Stephen Hawking:
'If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the Universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present state.' -
Douglas Adams:
“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'
What, though, can we make of the coincidences in the physical constants involved in nucleosynthesis? They cannot be dismissed as readily as other arguments. A complicated biological organism must indeed emerge in tune with its environment; but the basic physical laws are "given," and nothing can react back to modify them. It does seem worthy of note that these laws permit something interesting to have happened in the Universe, where there could so easily have been a "stillborn" universe in which no complexity could evolve.
Isn't it justified to have the subjective expression of surprise that a delicate balance seems to prevail?
Sir Fred Hoyle wrote in Galaxies, Nuclei, and Quasars:
"the laws of physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars. We exist only in portions of the universe where the energy levels in carbon and oxygen nuclei happen to be correctly placed."
In response to Hoyle's comment, one might ask if the physical constants could be different in different parts of the Universe, or at different times. Paul Dirac suggested, half a century ago, that the gravitational constant might change as the Universe aged; this is now ruled out by observations, and there is no evidence that any other physical constants have varied— strict constraints are imposed by observations of the spectra of distant objects, from radioactive decay over the geological past.
MB: "However, during the creation of the universe, a slight asymmetry in this pair production resulted in approximately 1 extra particle of matter for every 10 billion produced."
Not true. Off by an order of magnitude. The number is more correctly approximately 1 particle for every 1 billion, not 10 billion.
Me
https://books.google.com.br/books?id=kq8nDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT42&lpg=PT42&dq=1+extra+particle+of+matter+for+every+10+billion+produced.+It+turns+out&source=bl&ots=2w_pGg9_je&sig=ACfU3U3W2KBUzYJ7ynF_gGdUAu-WbNp1Tg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt8P6X4aPiAhVNI7kGHSBbBpsQ6AEwBnoECGMQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
And even IF my source is wrong, and you are right, the ration of one to 1 billion is still STAGGERINGLY small, and should make you wonder.....
MB: Upon the finetuning by a happy accident of the cosmological constant, the probability that our universe contains galaxies is akin to exactly 10^123. That is 1 possibility in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 .
Not true.
Me:
Fine-tuning of the cosmological constant
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1885-fine-tuning-of-the-cosmological-constant
On the largest scales, there’s also a cosmic tug-of-war between the attractive force of gravity and the repulsive dark or vacuum energy. Often called the cosmological constant, which is theorized to be the result of a nonzero vacuum energy detectable at cosmological scales, it’s one of the few cosmological parameters that determine the dynamics of the universe as a whole. By observing Type Ia supernovae, astronomers have determined that today it contributes about as much to the dynamics of the universe as the gravitational attractive force from visible and dark matter combined. This coincidence remains unexplained, but some cosmologists suspect it’s amenable to “anthropic explanation.” 6
There’s only one “special” time in the history of the universe when the vacuum and matter-energy densities are the same, and we’re living very near it. If the vacuum energy had become prominent a few billion years earlier than it did in our universe, there would have been no galaxies. If it had overtaken gravity a little earlier still, there would have been no individual stars. A few billion years might seem like a lot of room to manoeuvre, but there’s an even more striking level of fine-tuning here. The second “cosmological constant problem” is that the observed value of the vacuum energy is between 10^53 and 10^123 times smaller than that expected from theory. The vacuum energy density is, basically, the energy density of spacetime in the absence of fields resulting from matter.28 Until the Type Ia supernovae results demonstrated a few years ago that the cosmological constant is something other than zero, most cosmologists hoped that some undiscovered law of physics required it to be exactly zero. They already knew that its observational upper limit was much smaller than the “natural” values expected from various particle fields and other theoretical fields. These particle fields require an extraordinary degree of fine-tuning— at least to one part in 10^53—to get such a small, positive, nonzero value for the vacuum energy. At the same time, its value must be large enough in the early universe to cause the newborn universe to expand exponentially, as inflation theory postulates. How the present value of the vacuum energy relates to the early expansion is yet another issue of debate.
Max Tegmark:
“How far could you rotate the dark-energy knob before the “Oops!” moment? If rotating it…by a full turn would vary the density across the full range, then the actual knob setting for our Universe is about 10^123 of a turn away from the halfway point. That means that if you want to tune the knob to allow galaxies to form, you have to get the angle by which you rotate it right to 123 decimal places!
That means that the probability that our universe contains galaxies is akin to exactly 1 possibility in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 . Unlikely doesn’t even begin to describe these odds. There are “only” 10^81 atoms in the observable universe, after all.
http://www.secretsinplainsight.com/2015/09/19/cosmic-lottery/
The cosmological constant
The smallness of the cosmological constant is widely regarded as the single the greatest problem confronting current physics and cosmology The cosmological constant is a term in Einstein’s equation that, when positive, acts as a repulsive force, causing space to expand and, when negative, acts as an attractive force, causing space to contract. Apart from some sort of extraordinarily precise fine-tuning or new physical principle, today’s theories of fundamental physics and cosmology lead one to expect that the vacuum that is, the state of space-time free of ordinary matter fields—has an extraordinarily large energy density. This energy density, in turn, acts as an effective cosmological constant, thus leading one to expect an extraordinarily large effective cosmological constant, one so large that it would, if positive, cause space to expand at such an enormous rate that almost every object in the Universe would fly apart, and would, if negative, cause the Universe to collapse almost instantaneously back in on itself. This would clearly, make the evolution of intelligent life impossible. What makes it so difficult to avoid postulating some sort of highly precise fine-tuning of the cosmological constant is that almost every type of field in current physics—the electromagnetic field, the Higgs fields associated with the weak force, the inflaton field hypothesized by inflationary cosmology, the dilaton field hypothesized by superstring theory, and the fields associated with elementary particles such as electrons—contributes to the vacuum energy. Although no one knows how to calculate the energy density of the vacuum, when physicists make estimates of the contribution to the vacuum energy from these fields, they get values of the energy density anywhere from 10^53 to 10^120 higher than its maximum life-permitting value, max.6 (Here, max is expressed in terms of the energy density of empty space.)
GOD AND DESIGN The teleological argument and modern science , page 180
MB: we have observed stars in the various stages of stellar formation, along with protoplanetary disks.
Me:
Stellar evolution and the problem of the ‘first’ stars
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1922-chronology-and-timeline-of-origins-of-the-universe-life-and-biodiversity-the-lack-of-explanatory-power-open-questions-and-refuted-claims-of-naturalism#3212
Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, London, 1984, p. 184-185
The big bang theory holds that the universe began with a single explosion. Yet as can be seen below, an explosion merely throws matter apart, while the big bang has mysteriously produced the opposite effect–with matter clumping together in the form of galaxies.
Through a process not really understood, astronomers think that stars form from clouds of gas. Early in the universe, stars supposedly formed much more rapidly than they do today, though the reason for this isn’t understood either. Astronomers really don’t know how stars form, and there are physical reasons why star formation cannot easily happen. 1)
According to proponents of naturalism, the first chemical elements heavier than hydrogen, helium and lithium formed in nuclear reactions at the centres of the first stars. Later, when these stars exhausted their fuel of hydrogen and helium, they exploded as supernovas, throwing out the heavier elements. These elements, after being transformed in more generations of stars, eventually formed asteroids, moons and planets. But, how did those first stars of hydrogen and helium form? Star formation is perhaps the weakest link in stellar evolution theory and modern big bang cosmology. Especially problematic is the formation of the first stars—Population III stars as they are called.
There were no dust grains or heavy molecules in the primordial gas to assist with cloud condensation and cooling, and form the first stars. (Evolutionists now believe that molecular hydrogen may have played a role, in spite of the fact that molecular H almost certainly requires a surface—i.e. dust grains—to form.) Thus, the story of star formation in stellar evolution theory begins with a process that astronomers cannot observe operating in nature today. 2)
Neither hydrogen nor helium in outer space would clump together. In fact, there is no gas on earth that clumps together either. Gas pushes apart; it does not push together. Separated atoms of hydrogen and/or helium would be even less likely to clump together in outer space.
Because gas in outer space does not clump, the gas could not build enough mutual gravity to bring it together. And if it cannot clump together, it cannot form itself into stars. The idea of gas pushing itself together in outer space to form stars is more scienceless fiction. Fog, whether on earth or in space, cannot push itself into balls. Once together, a star maintains its gravity quite well, but there is no way for nature to produce one. Getting it together in the first place is the problem. Gas floating in a vacuum cannot form itself into stars. Once a star exists, it will absorb gas into it by gravitational attraction. But before the star exists, gas will not push itself together and form a star—or a planet, or anything else. Since both hydrogen and helium are gases, they are good at spreading out, but not at clumping together.
"Attempts to explain both the expansion of the universe and the condensation of galaxies must be largely contradictory so long as gravitation is the only force field under consideration. For if the expansive kinetic energy of matter is adequate to give universal expansion against the gravitational field, it is adequate to prevent local condensation under gravity, and vice versa. That is why, essentially, the formation of galaxies is passed over with little comment in most systems of cosmology.
"—*F. Hoyle and *T. Gold, quoted in *D.B. Larson, Universe in Motion (1984). p. 8.
Harwit’s research dealt with the mathematical likelihood that hydrogen atoms could stick together and form tiny grains of several atoms, by the random sticking of interstellar atoms and molecules to a single nucleus as they passed by at a variable speed. Using the most favorable conditions and the maximum possible sticking ability for grains, Harwit determined that the amount of time needed for gas or other particles to clump together into a size of just a hundred-thousandth of a centimeter in radius—would take about 3 billion years! Using more likely rates, 20 billion years would be required—to produce one tiny grain of matter stuck together out in space. As with nearly all scientists quoted in our (*M. Harwit, Astrophysical Concepts, 1973, p. 394).
MB: Protein folding happens naturally with no help at all, though there are agents that can help proteins into more complex shapes, as I recall. There are no odds involved, it just happens when protein is, well, being protein.
Me: I will put this on top, because it demonstrates the utter nonsense of your claims.
before protein folding can occur, you need the right functional amino acid sequence. Good luck for random chance finding one amongst an almost infinite number of non functional possibilities. And even IF it would occur, here is the further problem:
1. The synthesis of proteins and nucleic acids from small molecule precursors represents one of the most difficult challenges to the model of pre-biological ( chemical) evolution.
2. The formation of amide bonds without the assistance of enzymes poses a major challenge for theories of the orgin of life. 2
3. The best one can hope for from such a scenario is a racemic polymer of proteinous and non-proteinous amino acids with no relevance to living systems.
4. Polymerization is a reaction in which water is a product. Thus it will only be favoured in the absence of water. The presence of precursors in an ocean of water favours depolymerization of any molecules that might be formed.
5. Even if there were billions of simultaneous trials as the billions of building block molecules interacted in the oceans, or on the thousands of kilometers of shorelines that could provide catalytic surfaces or templates, even if, as is claimed, there was no oxygen in the prebiotic earth, then there would be no protection from UV light, which would destroy and disintegrate prebiotic organic compounds. Secondly, even if there would be a sequence, producing a functional folding protein, by itself, if not inserted in a functional way in the cell, it would absolutely no function. It would just lay around, and then soon disintegrate. Furthermore, in modern cells proteins are tagged and transported on molecular highways to their precise destination, where they are utilized. Obviously, all this was not extant on the early earth.
6. To form a chain, it is necessary to react bifunctional monomers, that is, molecules with two functional groups so they combine with two others. If a unifunctional monomer (with only one functional group) reacts with the end of the chain, the chain can grow no further at this end. If only a small fraction of unifunctional molecules were present, long polymers could not form. But all ‘prebiotic simulation’ experiments produce at least three times more unifunctional molecules than bifunctional molecules.
7. in modern organisms, linking amino acids and bond one amino acid to the next to build a protein is a highly sophisticated and complex process. Each amino acid is activated to overcome an energy barrier that naturally prevents the linking up of adjacent amino acids in solution, and the energy for this process comes from ATP. Then, aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (aaRS) enzymes bond each amino acid, in two steps, to the correct tRNA.” The tRNA adaptors are detachable once the amino acid has been joined to the end of the growing protein. How could/would the transition of non-enzymatic protein elongation and formation have occurred from when this machinery was non-extant on early earth, to the process promoted by the Cell machinery? The hugeness of this cap cannot be overstated.
MB: As for the "lucky accident" claim that keeps cropping up: Repeating one's incredulity over and over does not an argument make. It just makes one appear desperate. No one claims anything about a "lucky accident." That's creationist nonsense being shoved into the mouths of those who don't believe their other nonsense.
Me:
The possible mechanisms to explain the origin of life
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2515-abiogenesis-the-possible-mechanisms-to-explain-the-origin-of-life
Koonin, the logic of chance, page 266
Evolution by natural selection and drift can begin only after replication with sufficient fidelity is established. Even at that stage, the evolution of translation remains highly problematic. The emergence of the first replicator system, which represented the “Darwinian breakthrough,” was inevitably preceded by a succession of complex, difficult steps for which biological evolutionary mechanisms were not accessible . The synthesis of nucleotides and (at least) moderate-sized polynucleotides could not have evolved biologically and must have emerged abiogenically—that is, effectively by chance abetted by chemical selection, such as the preferential survival of stable RNA species. Translation is thought to have evolved later via an ad hoc selective process. Did you read this ???!! An ad-hoc process ??
And with this only said, your worldview? bye bye. Debunked !!
MB: "8. Cells are complex factories, full of molecular machines, and assembly lines. Randomness produced these factories, by orderly aggregation and sequentially correct manner without external direction."
Another misrepresentation and complete misunderstanding of evolution and how it works.
Me: The origin of cells & life is NOT an evolution problem, but abiogenesis problem.
Without code there can be no self-replication. Without self-replication, you can’t have reproduction. Without reproduction, you can’t have evolution or natural selection.
Heredity is guaranteed by faithful DNA replication whereas evolution depends upon errors accompanying DNA replication. ( Furusawa, 1998 ) We hypothesize that the origin of life, that is, the origin of the first cell, cannot be explained by natural selection among self-replicating molecules, as is done by the RNA-world hypothesis. ( Vaneechoutte M )
Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2000;901:139-47.
The scientific origin of life. Considerations on the evolution of information, leading to an alternative proposal for explaining the origin of the cell, a semantically closed system
MARIO VANEECHOUTTE
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.sci-hub.bz/doi/10.1111/j.1749-6632.2000.tb06273.x/full
We hypothesize that the origin of life, that is, the origin of the first cell, cannot be explained by natural selection among self-replicating molecules, as is done by the RNA-world hypothesis.
The hypothesis espoused here states that it is virtually impossible that the highly complicated system cell developed gradually around simple self-replicating molecules (RNA-hypercycles or autocatalytic peptide networks) by means of natural selection; as is proposed by, for example, the RNA-world hypothesis. Despite searching quadrillions of molecules, it is clear that a spontaneous RNAreplicator is unlikely to occur. Reports of nucleotide and peptide self-replication still depend upon human intervention (for instance, by changing the environmental conditions between two rounds of replication or by denaturing the double strands). The problem of denaturing the double-nucleotide strand in a nonenzymatic manner has been overlooked and has contributed to a failure to establish molecular self-replication. The first cell, life, was born and natural selection (selection among variations on the theme of autonomous duplication) commenced.
MB: Strawman/misrepresentation. No one with any knowledge at all of evolution thinks this. DNA being thought of as "Code" in a "Computer" is just nonsense. And again, SELECTION PRESSURE.
Me:
River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life, Dawkins writes:
What is truly revolutionary about molecular biology in the post-Watson-Crick era is that it has become digital. After Watson and Crick, we know that genes themselves, within their minute internal structure, are long strings of pure digital information. What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks, not in the weak sense of the nervous system. The genetic code is not a binary code as in computers, nor an eight-level code as in some telephone systems, but a quaternary code, with four symbols. The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal. . . .
Our genetic system, which is the universal system of all life on the planet, is digital to the core. With word-for-word accuracy, you could encode the whole of the New Testament in those parts of the human genome that are at present filled with “junk” DNA – that is, DNA not used, at least in the ordinary way, by the body. Every cell in your body contains the equivalent of forty-six immense data tapes, reeling off digital characters via numerous reading heads working simultaneously. In every cell, these tapes – the chromosomes – contain the same information, but the reading heads in different kinds of cells seek out different parts of the database for their own specialist purposes. . . .
Genes are pure information – information that can be encoded, recoded and decoded, without any degradation or change of meaning. Pure information can be copied and, since it is digital information, the fidelity of the copying can be immense. DNA characters are copied with an accuracy that rivals anything modern engineers can do.
What lies at the heart of every living thing is not a fire, warm breath, not a ‘spark of life’. It is information, words, instructions…Think of a billion discrete digital characters…If you want to understand life think about technology – Richard Dawkins (Dawkins 1996, 112)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa55s9Gs_Eg#t=433
Afther the seventh minute of his speech, Dawkins admits that : Can you think of any other class of molecule, that has that property, of folding itself up, into a uniquely characteristic enzyme, of which there is a enormous repertoire, capable of catalyzing a enormous repertoir of chemical reactions, and this is in itself to be absolutely determined by a digital code.
Claim MB: you start with less knowledge and wind up with more over time), that doesn't mean that just because we know more now that we therefore must know everything there IS to know. This is fallacious thinking.
Response Me: I agree with that. But that is not what i have claimed. What i say IMHO is, that based on what we DO understand already in regards of scientific exploration, be it historical, or operational science, philosophy, and theology, applied based on a solid epistemological foundation, is that WE CAN infer and come to secure conclusions in regards to origins, and in my view, Theist cuts the cake. Strong atheism, or philosophical naturalism, does not.
MB: And the inferences we've made are that the entire universe was concentrated in a small, dense, hot point.
Me:
The universe most probably had a beginning
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1297-the-universe-most-probably-had-a-beginning
The philosophical cosmological argument of Gods existence
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2832-cosmological-the-philosophical-cosmological-argument-of-gods-existence
The cosmological argument for Gods existence
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence
The universe cannot be past eternal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-kalaam-cosmological-argument#5124
The cause of the universe must be personal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5326
Nothing is the thing that stones think of
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2817-nothing-is-the-thing-that-stones-think-of
MB: and that evolution is a fact of terrestrial biology.
Me: Main topics about evolution
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2806-main-topics-about-evolution
What is fact :
1. Change over time; history of nature; any sequence of events in nature
2. Changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population
3. Limited common descent: the idea that particular groups of organisms have descended from
a common ancestor.
4. The mechanisms responsible for the change required to produce limited descent with modification; chiefly pre-programmed selection acting on random variations or mutations
5. Natural selection acting up to two random mutations as shown in malaria ( See Behe's Edge of evolution )
What is not fact:
6. Universal common descent: the idea that all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor.
7. Blind watchmaker thesis: the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors through unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural
selection acting on random variations or mutations; the idea that the Darwinian mechanism of natural selection acting on random variation, and other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, completely suffice to explain the origin of novel biological forms and the appearance of design in complex organisms.
Why Darwin was wrong, and what really drives descent with modification
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2460-what-are-the-mechanisms-that-drive-adaptation-to-the-environment-microevolution-and-secondary-speciation
The tree of life, common descent, common ancestry, a failed hypothesis
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2239-the-tree-of-life-common-descent-common-ancestry-a-failed-hypothesis
Principal Meanings of Evolution in Biology Textbooks
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2358-principal-meanings-of-evolution-in-biology-textbooks
Macroevolution. Fact, or fantasy ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1390-macroevolution#1982
Micro evolution and macro evolution are not the same
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1641-micro-evolution-and-macro-evolution-are-not-the-same
Failed and falsified evolutionary predictions
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1666-failed-evolutionary-predictions
Primary, and secondary speciation
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2360-primary-and-secondary-speciation
Is there evidence for natural selection ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2458-is-there-evidence-for-natural-selection
Eukaryotes evolved from Prokaryotes. Really ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1568-eukaryotes-evolved-from-prokaryotes-really
On the Origin of Mitochondria: Reasons for Skepticism on the Endosymbiotic Story
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1303-challenges-to-endosymbiotic-theory
Unicellular and multicellular Organisms are best explained through design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2010-unicellular-and-multicellular-organisms-are-best-explained-through-design
"Tetrapods evolved" . Really ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2219-the-evolution-of-tetrapods
What are the mechanisms that drive adaptation to the environment, microevolution, and secondary speciation ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2460-what-are-the-mechanisms-that-drive-adaptation-to-the-environment-microevolution-and-secondary-speciation
Chimps, our brothers ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2272-chimps-our-brothers
The origin of Homo Sapiens & timeline of human evolution according to mainstream science.....
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2596-the-origin-of-homo-sapiens-timeline-of-human-evolution
Chromosome 2, evidence for common ancestry ?
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1707-chromosome-2
MB: Claiming to know something for certain is not justified.
Me: Agreed. Thats why i go with the inference to the best explanation.
BAYESIAN PROBABILITY AND SCIENCE
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2721-bayesian-probability-and-science
A typical misconception about science is that it can tell us what will definitely happen now or in the future given enough time, or what would certainly have happened in the past, given enough time. The truth is, science is limited in that it does not grant absolute truth, but only yields degrees of probability or likelihood.
Science isn’t in the business of proving things. Rather, science judges the merits of competing models in terms of their simplicity, clarity, comprehensiveness, and fit to the data.
Science observes the Universe, records evidence, and strives to draw conclusions about what has happened in the past, is happening now, and what will potentially happen in the future, given the current state of scientific knowledge—which is often times woefully incomplete, and even inaccurate. The late, prominent evolutionist George Gaylord Simpson discussed the nature of science and probability several years ago in the classic textbook, Life: An Introduction to Biology, stating:
We speak in terms of “acceptance,” “confidence,” and “probability,” not “proof.” If by proof is meant the establishment of eternal and absolute truth, open to no possible exception or modification, then proof has no place in the natural sciences.
MB: Were you aware that every time we've looked into an unexplained phenomenon and determined its cause, EVERY SINGLE TIME it was NOT MAGIC.
Me: No. I see naturalism as a TOTAL FAILURE.
Why disbelief in God is irrational, and philosophical naturalism a failed hypothesis
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2472-why-disbelief-in-god-is-irrational-and-philosophical-naturalism-a-failed-hypothesis
- Absolutely nothing can not produce something like physical laws, finely tuned universes, stars, life-permitting planets, life and biodiversity
- The vacuum that supposedly gave birth to quantum fluctuations, and virtual particles, would also require a cause
- Matter cannot predate consciousness.
- The Laws of Physics cannot pop-up out of nothing.
- The universe or a supposed multiverse cannot be past eternal.
- The Balance of the Big Bang and its expansion could not be finely tuned randomly. The odds are too big ( the cosmological constant is finely tuned to a precision of 10^123 )
- The odds to tune the fundamental forces, the galaxy, the solar - planetary system, the earth, the atmosphere, etc. are far too big, too.
- The number of electrons (in the universe) is equivalent to the number of protons to an accuracy of one part in 10 to the 37th power. If it were not so, galaxies, stars, and planets would never form (because electromagnetic forces would so overwhelm gravitational forces).
- Life can not emerge from non-life and produce biological living cells that equal to factory plants, full of interdependent factories, each full of irreducibly complex machines, production lines, and all processes driven by preprogrammed information and signalling pathways
- Random, unguided, lucky events cannot produce codes, ciphers, blueprints, and complex instructional information observed in biological cells and stored in genes and epigenetic ways.
- Evolution explains speciation, small adaptations, and micro-evolution. Common ancestry and macro-evolution are failed hypotheses. Body plans and cell shape, size, and type, and development are directed by preprogrammed codified complex information and signal networks.
- Objective moral values cannot be explained rationally without a prescribing entity.
- Only a creator explains the intrinsic value of human life, reason, logic, language, intelligence, and consciousness.
- and mystical experiences answers to prayers, and special divine revelations confirmed and testified by millions of all ages, around the globe.
- there is no real alternative mechanism to an intelligent agency as a causal mechanism of origins. Once, God is cancelled out, nothing remains
MB: "About the universe, its beginning and fine-tuning:" It's beginning - there doesn't necessarily need to be a beginning.
Me: Philosophical reasons why the universe nor quantum effect potentials cannot be past eternal
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1333-kalaam-the-cosmological-argument-for-gods-existence#5124
We realize that we can never get to an infinite period of time in the future by adding individual events together. 2 But today, this point of time in the present, is a point of time future to all past. Correct? In other words, we are future to yesterday, and the day before that. Now, some have suggested that the universe is eternal. That it has existed forever. But it is not possible that it has existed forever. Here is the application. This point in time is actually future with reference to all of the past. We just agreed that you cannot say that any particular point in the future will accomplish an actual infinite as events are added one to another. Therefore, this present moment in time can't represent an actual infinite number of events added one to another proceeding from the past. Time has proceeded forward from the past as one event is added onto another to get us to today. But we know that whenever you pause in the count as we've done today, that you can't have an infinite number of events. Which means that there is not an infinite number of events that goes backward from this point in time. Only a finite number of events. Which means the universe is not eternal. Which means the universe has not existed forever and ever with no beginning, but it in fact had a beginning.
Imagine that you see dominoes falling, one knocking over the next, as this series of falling dominoes comes into your room. Like a person can never finish counting to infinity, an actual infinite number of dominoes could never finish falling. Therefore, if an actual infinite number of dominoes had to fall before getting to your door, then the falling dominoes would never reach your door. In the same way, if an actual infinite number of minutes had to take place before yesterday, time would have never reached yesterday, much less today. Therefore, just as there had to be a finite number of falling dominoes, there also had to be a finite—not infinite—amount of time before today. An infinite past is impossible. Time must have a beginning. And if time had a beginning it must have had a cause.
http://stayontargetstayontarget.blogspot.com/2012/05/universe-caused-self-caused-or-uncaused.html
MB: Fine Tuning - nonsense. It's not fine tuned. If the universe didn't have the properties that allowed us to be here, we wouldn't be here.
Me: Thats the cheapest cop out you have provided so far, and DISHONEST.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1277-fine-tuning-of-the-universe
Objection: The weak anthropic principle explains our existence just fine. We happen to be in a universe with those constraints because they happen to be the only set which will produce the conditions in which creatures like us might (but not must) occur. So, no initial constraints = no-one to become aware of those initial constraints. This gets us no closer to intelligent design.
Response: Given the narrowness of the required intervals, how surprising is it that life actually came into being? The answer would seem to be, very unlikely (unless there are a large number of actual universes within which life could arise by chance). The fundamental constants of the universe held their present values before human beings existed, and they are a pre-requisite for life to begin. Other constants would produce a universe which would not permit the existence of stars, nor planets, and much less, life. If anything, the physical structure of the universe (as represented by fundamental constants and various mathematical relations) are an efficient cause of the existence of a life permitting planet.
John Leslie illustrates this point by means of the Firing Squad analogy.
Imagine that you are facing a firing squad of sharpshooters, firing at close range. Somehow, you survive the volley. Is the volley something that requires an explanation? It is old evidence -- you already know with probability 1 that you are still alive. Nonetheless, it is, from a suitably impersonal perspective, a very surprising thing that you did survive, under the circumstances. Similarly, we already know, with probability 1, that life exists, but this is a very surprising fact, given the anthropic coincidences that were required.
The following gives a sense of the degree of fine-tuning that must go into some of these values to yield a life-friendly universe:
Atheists love to use Occam's razor. Remarkable, that arguing that there is no evidence of God because he cannot be perceived by our senses, in order to explain fine-tuning, he sticks to infinity of completely made-up, undetectable and unobservable parallel universes and claim the proposal to be entirely scientific and disregarding Occams. Me thinks. Occam's would not be amused.
MB: Famously, Douglass Adams said....puddle....blablabla....
Me: Douglas Adams Puddle thinking
Douglas Adamas puddle analogy falls short by the fact that the Big Bang was the most precisely finely tuned event in all of history and must have been logically the result of foresight and planning. Amongst many constants, just one, the cosmological constant, had to be adjusted at a precision of one to 10^123, an astronomically unimaginably huge number. There are 10^80 atoms in the universe.
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1866-fine-tuning-of-the-big-bang
Professor Stephen Hawking:
'If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, the Universe would have recollapsed before it ever reached its present state.' -
Douglas Adams:
“This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!'
What, though, can we make of the coincidences in the physical constants involved in nucleosynthesis? They cannot be dismissed as readily as other arguments. A complicated biological organism must indeed emerge in tune with its environment; but the basic physical laws are "given," and nothing can react back to modify them. It does seem worthy of note that these laws permit something interesting to have happened in the Universe, where there could so easily have been a "stillborn" universe in which no complexity could evolve.
Isn't it justified to have the subjective expression of surprise that a delicate balance seems to prevail?
Sir Fred Hoyle wrote in Galaxies, Nuclei, and Quasars:
"the laws of physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce inside stars. We exist only in portions of the universe where the energy levels in carbon and oxygen nuclei happen to be correctly placed."
In response to Hoyle's comment, one might ask if the physical constants could be different in different parts of the Universe, or at different times. Paul Dirac suggested, half a century ago, that the gravitational constant might change as the Universe aged; this is now ruled out by observations, and there is no evidence that any other physical constants have varied— strict constraints are imposed by observations of the spectra of distant objects, from radioactive decay over the geological past.
MB: "However, during the creation of the universe, a slight asymmetry in this pair production resulted in approximately 1 extra particle of matter for every 10 billion produced."
Not true. Off by an order of magnitude. The number is more correctly approximately 1 particle for every 1 billion, not 10 billion.
Me
https://books.google.com.br/books?id=kq8nDgAAQBAJ&pg=PT42&lpg=PT42&dq=1+extra+particle+of+matter+for+every+10+billion+produced.+It+turns+out&source=bl&ots=2w_pGg9_je&sig=ACfU3U3W2KBUzYJ7ynF_gGdUAu-WbNp1Tg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjt8P6X4aPiAhVNI7kGHSBbBpsQ6AEwBnoECGMQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false
And even IF my source is wrong, and you are right, the ration of one to 1 billion is still STAGGERINGLY small, and should make you wonder.....
MB: Upon the finetuning by a happy accident of the cosmological constant, the probability that our universe contains galaxies is akin to exactly 10^123. That is 1 possibility in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 .
Not true.
Me:
Fine-tuning of the cosmological constant
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1885-fine-tuning-of-the-cosmological-constant
On the largest scales, there’s also a cosmic tug-of-war between the attractive force of gravity and the repulsive dark or vacuum energy. Often called the cosmological constant, which is theorized to be the result of a nonzero vacuum energy detectable at cosmological scales, it’s one of the few cosmological parameters that determine the dynamics of the universe as a whole. By observing Type Ia supernovae, astronomers have determined that today it contributes about as much to the dynamics of the universe as the gravitational attractive force from visible and dark matter combined. This coincidence remains unexplained, but some cosmologists suspect it’s amenable to “anthropic explanation.” 6
There’s only one “special” time in the history of the universe when the vacuum and matter-energy densities are the same, and we’re living very near it. If the vacuum energy had become prominent a few billion years earlier than it did in our universe, there would have been no galaxies. If it had overtaken gravity a little earlier still, there would have been no individual stars. A few billion years might seem like a lot of room to manoeuvre, but there’s an even more striking level of fine-tuning here. The second “cosmological constant problem” is that the observed value of the vacuum energy is between 10^53 and 10^123 times smaller than that expected from theory. The vacuum energy density is, basically, the energy density of spacetime in the absence of fields resulting from matter.28 Until the Type Ia supernovae results demonstrated a few years ago that the cosmological constant is something other than zero, most cosmologists hoped that some undiscovered law of physics required it to be exactly zero. They already knew that its observational upper limit was much smaller than the “natural” values expected from various particle fields and other theoretical fields. These particle fields require an extraordinary degree of fine-tuning— at least to one part in 10^53—to get such a small, positive, nonzero value for the vacuum energy. At the same time, its value must be large enough in the early universe to cause the newborn universe to expand exponentially, as inflation theory postulates. How the present value of the vacuum energy relates to the early expansion is yet another issue of debate.
Max Tegmark:
“How far could you rotate the dark-energy knob before the “Oops!” moment? If rotating it…by a full turn would vary the density across the full range, then the actual knob setting for our Universe is about 10^123 of a turn away from the halfway point. That means that if you want to tune the knob to allow galaxies to form, you have to get the angle by which you rotate it right to 123 decimal places!
That means that the probability that our universe contains galaxies is akin to exactly 1 possibility in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 . Unlikely doesn’t even begin to describe these odds. There are “only” 10^81 atoms in the observable universe, after all.
http://www.secretsinplainsight.com/2015/09/19/cosmic-lottery/
The cosmological constant
The smallness of the cosmological constant is widely regarded as the single the greatest problem confronting current physics and cosmology The cosmological constant is a term in Einstein’s equation that, when positive, acts as a repulsive force, causing space to expand and, when negative, acts as an attractive force, causing space to contract. Apart from some sort of extraordinarily precise fine-tuning or new physical principle, today’s theories of fundamental physics and cosmology lead one to expect that the vacuum that is, the state of space-time free of ordinary matter fields—has an extraordinarily large energy density. This energy density, in turn, acts as an effective cosmological constant, thus leading one to expect an extraordinarily large effective cosmological constant, one so large that it would, if positive, cause space to expand at such an enormous rate that almost every object in the Universe would fly apart, and would, if negative, cause the Universe to collapse almost instantaneously back in on itself. This would clearly, make the evolution of intelligent life impossible. What makes it so difficult to avoid postulating some sort of highly precise fine-tuning of the cosmological constant is that almost every type of field in current physics—the electromagnetic field, the Higgs fields associated with the weak force, the inflaton field hypothesized by inflationary cosmology, the dilaton field hypothesized by superstring theory, and the fields associated with elementary particles such as electrons—contributes to the vacuum energy. Although no one knows how to calculate the energy density of the vacuum, when physicists make estimates of the contribution to the vacuum energy from these fields, they get values of the energy density anywhere from 10^53 to 10^120 higher than its maximum life-permitting value, max.6 (Here, max is expressed in terms of the energy density of empty space.)
GOD AND DESIGN The teleological argument and modern science , page 180
MB: we have observed stars in the various stages of stellar formation, along with protoplanetary disks.
Me:
Stellar evolution and the problem of the ‘first’ stars
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1922-chronology-and-timeline-of-origins-of-the-universe-life-and-biodiversity-the-lack-of-explanatory-power-open-questions-and-refuted-claims-of-naturalism#3212
Fred Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe, London, 1984, p. 184-185
The big bang theory holds that the universe began with a single explosion. Yet as can be seen below, an explosion merely throws matter apart, while the big bang has mysteriously produced the opposite effect–with matter clumping together in the form of galaxies.
Through a process not really understood, astronomers think that stars form from clouds of gas. Early in the universe, stars supposedly formed much more rapidly than they do today, though the reason for this isn’t understood either. Astronomers really don’t know how stars form, and there are physical reasons why star formation cannot easily happen. 1)
According to proponents of naturalism, the first chemical elements heavier than hydrogen, helium and lithium formed in nuclear reactions at the centres of the first stars. Later, when these stars exhausted their fuel of hydrogen and helium, they exploded as supernovas, throwing out the heavier elements. These elements, after being transformed in more generations of stars, eventually formed asteroids, moons and planets. But, how did those first stars of hydrogen and helium form? Star formation is perhaps the weakest link in stellar evolution theory and modern big bang cosmology. Especially problematic is the formation of the first stars—Population III stars as they are called.
There were no dust grains or heavy molecules in the primordial gas to assist with cloud condensation and cooling, and form the first stars. (Evolutionists now believe that molecular hydrogen may have played a role, in spite of the fact that molecular H almost certainly requires a surface—i.e. dust grains—to form.) Thus, the story of star formation in stellar evolution theory begins with a process that astronomers cannot observe operating in nature today. 2)
Neither hydrogen nor helium in outer space would clump together. In fact, there is no gas on earth that clumps together either. Gas pushes apart; it does not push together. Separated atoms of hydrogen and/or helium would be even less likely to clump together in outer space.
Because gas in outer space does not clump, the gas could not build enough mutual gravity to bring it together. And if it cannot clump together, it cannot form itself into stars. The idea of gas pushing itself together in outer space to form stars is more scienceless fiction. Fog, whether on earth or in space, cannot push itself into balls. Once together, a star maintains its gravity quite well, but there is no way for nature to produce one. Getting it together in the first place is the problem. Gas floating in a vacuum cannot form itself into stars. Once a star exists, it will absorb gas into it by gravitational attraction. But before the star exists, gas will not push itself together and form a star—or a planet, or anything else. Since both hydrogen and helium are gases, they are good at spreading out, but not at clumping together.
"Attempts to explain both the expansion of the universe and the condensation of galaxies must be largely contradictory so long as gravitation is the only force field under consideration. For if the expansive kinetic energy of matter is adequate to give universal expansion against the gravitational field, it is adequate to prevent local condensation under gravity, and vice versa. That is why, essentially, the formation of galaxies is passed over with little comment in most systems of cosmology.
"—*F. Hoyle and *T. Gold, quoted in *D.B. Larson, Universe in Motion (1984). p. 8.
Harwit’s research dealt with the mathematical likelihood that hydrogen atoms could stick together and form tiny grains of several atoms, by the random sticking of interstellar atoms and molecules to a single nucleus as they passed by at a variable speed. Using the most favorable conditions and the maximum possible sticking ability for grains, Harwit determined that the amount of time needed for gas or other particles to clump together into a size of just a hundred-thousandth of a centimeter in radius—would take about 3 billion years! Using more likely rates, 20 billion years would be required—to produce one tiny grain of matter stuck together out in space. As with nearly all scientists quoted in our (*M. Harwit, Astrophysical Concepts, 1973, p. 394).
