Louis
Posts: 6436
Joined: Jan. 2006
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I am wondering, as I idly sip a coffee, if IBIG knows of any specific obstacle to abiogenesis. What steps would an abiogenetic series of processes need to go through to convert "non-living" chemicals into "living" systems? What hurdles need to be overcome? Which of said hurdles are physically impossible?
I'm seeing a lot of "I don't know how it happened therefore it couldn't have happened" from IBIG. I'm also seeing a lot of "You scientists don't have every step of the path fossilised in a bottle therefore it didn't happen" and other sundry excuses. I'm seeing a great deal of "I don't know, therefore no one knows" where IBIG takes his ignorance to be some sort of evidence. I'm also seeing a lot of misunderstanding of what science, at its root, IS (i.e. a lot of misunderstanding about the provisional nature of science and what have you). I'm not seeing a lot of, well, for want of a better word, chemistry.
After all, if "non-living" chemicals were to give rise "spontaneously" to "living" systems then isn't this a chemical issue? What specific chemical barriers are there that IBIG is aware of and the entirety of the chemical sciences are not?
Ooooooh I know we'll get a lot of irrelevant waffle about information and intelligence, and I know that we'll get shifting definitions and goaposts that move so fast they red shift. I also know that anything done in a lab will be claimed as some weird victory for this mystical property "intelligence".* As if putting chemicals in a flask imbues them with some magic property that wills them to flout thermodynamics and kinetics and deliver the desired result.**
Now I know your average internet denizen, which IBIG clearly is, can google and wiki and copy and paste, and this gives them an...now how shall I put this civilly... (Hello Messrs Dunning and Kruger)...ah yes....completely undeserved sense of understanding something they have no clue about, so it's a massive waste of my time and effort to even engage a kook. Been there. Done that. Got the T shirt. So I wonder if IBIG is worth taking seriously, and hence, dealing with civilly at all. I wonder if he can demonstrate he is. My money's on not, but then I am a deeply pessimistic git when it comes to the internet. It's not about understaniding for the IBIGs of this world, it's about gainsaying and protecting themselves from rationally considering their beliefs. I'm not willing to help them play that game.
Louis
*FAO Ogre: Just FYI I've been round this Mulberry Bush a few gazillion times. It's why I am so delightfully jaded and sarcastic with these pointless cranks. Trust me, I know my onions. Given a tray of vegetables I can pick out the onion 9 times out of 10. Honest. Ok, perhaps 8. ;-)
**I. Fucking. Wish.
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Bye.
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