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Religion
In reply to the discussion: Atheists Still Waiting for the Origin-of-Life Messiah [View all]muriel_volestrangler
(101,161 posts)148. It's time people see how Moshe Averick manipulated the quotes from Professor Pross
to try and make him seem to say almost the exact opposite of what he did.
Pross wrote the book What is Life, which has a blurb:
Living things are hugely complex and have unique properties, such as self-maintenance and apparently purposeful behaviour which we do not see in inert matter. So how does chemistry give rise to biology? What could have led the first replicating molecules up such a path? Now, developments in the emerging field of 'systems chemistry' are unlocking the problem. Addy Pross shows how the different kind of stability that operates among replicating molecules results in a tendency for chemical systems to become more complex and acquire the properties of life. Strikingly, he demonstrates that Darwinian evolution is the biological expression of a deeper, well-defined chemical concept: the whole story from replicating molecules to complex life is one continuous process governed by an underlying physical principle. The gulf between biology and the physical sciences is finally becoming bridged.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Life-Chemistry-Becomes-Biology/dp/0199687773
https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Life-Chemistry-Becomes-Biology/dp/0199687773
Now, the impression Averick tried to give in his quotes is almost the opposite - that Pross thinks, with people like Nagel, that no one has an idea how earlier chemical systems developed into biological ones we can call 'life'. What Averick did, and this is typical for the more dishonest theologians, is cut and paste phrases from Pross, typically bits where he's asking rhetorical questions, and leaving out the answers Pross himself proposes (this is often done with Darwin himself, who wrote about how the eye seems too complex for evolution to explain, but then proceeded to show how it can be broken down. But the religionists leave out that part, to have a 'see? Even Darwin thinks it's impossible!' moment). Notice all the '...'s in the quotes used. That's because a lot of stuff is left out.
Here's Pross's book online - at page xii of the preface: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ETUTDAAAQBAJ&pg=PR12&lpg=PR12
That's where "And here precisely lies the (origin of) life problem ... it is not just common sense that tells us that highly organized entities dont just spontaneously come about. Certain basic laws of physics (coupled with mathematical probability) preach the same sermon systems tend toward chaos and disorder, not toward order and function" and "Biology and physics seem contradictory, quite incompatible" come from ("origin of" is Averick's addition). Read on to page xiii, and he says (in italics, for emphasis) "the central biological paradigm, Darwinism, is just the biological manifestation of a broader physiochemical description of natural forces". A bit later he says "This book is an attempt to demonstrate that Charles Darwin in his genius and farsightedness was right".
So where did the other quotes come from, placed earlier by Averick? Well, some of them are from later - "despite the widespread view..." up to "in the first place" is on page 8 of the main book, rather than the preface.
Then we leap to page x of the preface, for "Nature just doesnt operate like that! Nature doesnt spontaneously make highly organized ...". Now, you may think that using a quote with "that" in, but which in fact has nothing to do with what you've positioned before it, is fundamentally dishonest. And you'd be right, for Averick is a conman. "That", in the preface, is actually a "hypothetical tale" of a working, beer-filled refrigerator in the middle of a field. The "highly organized purposeful entities..." are actually "highly organized, far-from-equiblibrium purposeful entities - fridges, cars, computers etc.". He goes on: "nature, if anything, pushes systems toward equilibrium, toward disorder and chaos, not toward order and function. Or does it?" Because, of course, he's a writer, trying introduce his book by setting out problems that many people see, but he thinks he has a good explanation for. It's good writing, but a charlatan like Averick can chop it up, reorder it, leave out the vital bits, and make it look completely different.
So, Averick is a duplicitous wanker. I hope we can all agree on that. Picking phrases from different parts of the book is bad enough, but shunting them together to make "that" seem to refer to something else is unforgivable. He leaves out Pross's message, so that he can lie "Dr. Pross echoes the words of distinguished philosopher Thomas Nagel". Averick is ethically bankrupt, as a writer.
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"Yet" means "not so far"; there is no other implication, despite your desperate longing for one (nt)
LongtimeAZDem
Sep 2016
#11
Contemplating the limits of scientific knowledge is hardly "childish superstition".
rug
Sep 2016
#24
Contemplating the limits of scientific knowledge is hardly "childish superstition".
AlbertCat
Oct 2016
#165
Hardly. Show an implication of biology (which is not a proper noun) that rebuts him.
rug
Oct 2016
#99
You haven't posted even a fragment on what implication biology has to this article.
rug
Oct 2016
#104
See #148. The chemistry professor was quoted out of sequence, with vital phrases and pages missing
muriel_volestrangler
Oct 2016
#150
The video may portray his motives well; and he may be a good scientist; but that does not imply
struggle4progress
Sep 2016
#30
See #148; Averick took certain phrases from different chapters of Pross, reordered them
muriel_volestrangler
Oct 2016
#149
That could be -- but it all rapidly falls into an uninteresting category of literary criticism IMO.
struggle4progress
Oct 2016
#164
Is there any good cosmological evidence for the inevitability of life?
struggle4progress
Sep 2016
#9
The only definite conception I could have of "life" would resemble "life-as-we-know-it"
struggle4progress
Sep 2016
#18
Our atmospheric O2 has biological origins. O2 is reactive so one might not expect
struggle4progress
Sep 2016
#29
This is less about the creation of life than it is about the creation of matter in the first place,
rug
Sep 2016
#15
Not really. It's about the arrangement of matter - ie the arrangement of atoms
muriel_volestrangler
Sep 2016
#38
Starting a process with atoms does not mean "the atoms are all there in the first place".
rug
Sep 2016
#66
'coulda, woulda, shoulda... inexorably acquires key physocal attributes associated with life.'
Joe Chi Minh
Oct 2016
#152
Yes, closing one's mind is always an option. Trouble is, to close on the truth
Joe Chi Minh
Oct 2016
#154
Until I have good reason otherwise, I will regard smacking a human with a hammer
struggle4progress
Sep 2016
#37
The difference is, in some sense, "subjective" -- but the "subjectivity" involved
struggle4progress
Sep 2016
#49
But all of your response still avoided thr fact that science can only go so far.....
guillaumeb
Sep 2016
#46
Using "belief" and "faith" in place of evidence is a common tactic of the believer.
cleanhippie
Sep 2016
#54
I would instead say, 'science is the only credible tool for finding the answer to that question'
AtheistCrusader
Oct 2016
#89
Proof is not something that is addressed by faith. Faith does not require faith,
guillaumeb
Sep 2016
#47
That the Big Bang happened can be deduced from the movement of the universe.
guillaumeb
Sep 2016
#51
Being that this is the Religion group, I figured the type of belief were talking about was implied.
cleanhippie
Oct 2016
#147
Ayup. Pure mental laziness. A desire and willingness to suspend critical thinking...
Roland99
Sep 2016
#69
You're arguing against the existence of a god unless you can explain who or what made god.
cpwm17
Oct 2016
#126
You're asking fior a natural explanation for an event that would have to be supernatural.
rug
Oct 2016
#130
"does not have to be explained" is a piss-poor answer, especially when science strives to explain it
rug
Oct 2016
#132
If it can't be explained then it can be disregarded since the "can't" be explained
cpwm17
Oct 2016
#135
If you reject both the idea of a creator and the idea of an infinte eternal universe, what's left?
rug
Oct 2016
#140
But you are then claiming if reality is difficult to explain then it must be by magic
cpwm17
Oct 2016
#173
Magic is not logic. I'm sorry your difficulty in explaining has led you to that error.
rug
Oct 2016
#174
It's time people see how Moshe Averick manipulated the quotes from Professor Pross
muriel_volestrangler
Oct 2016
#148
Last I heard, rug, Dawkins now describes himself as an agnostic. The facts
Joe Chi Minh
Oct 2016
#151
You do know that Einstein was an agnostic pantheist, right? He didn't believe in a personal god...
Humanist_Activist
Oct 2016
#176
Oh look, Rug posting a post that dishonestly quote-mines a scientist to support creationism...
Humanist_Activist
Oct 2016
#175
Rug's OP is an inside-joke. A reply to another over-the-top OP by another DUer.
DetlefK
Oct 2016
#177
Face it, rug, you're promoting an infamous intelligent design advocate
muriel_volestrangler
Oct 2016
#181