Model Explains How Simple Chemical and Physical Processes May Have Laid Foundation for Life

Great article, it makes some great points.

It seems like a great argument against the anthropic principle, or as I like to call it "the most arrogant principle ever" principle.

The article makes it sound like this "model" attributes to molecules the characteristics of people: "cooperation", "innovation", "desire", etc. Such foolishness should indicate that the "model" is fantasy!

That is just literary style. One could say that piece of steal "wants" to be near a magnet... it may not be precise (and it surely isn't), but it can be a useful literary style when trying to explain the effective behavior of a system.

It may be literary style, but in my experience this kind of language used in conjunction with attempts to explain the origins of higher level behaviors with reductionistic stories is a red flag for foolishness; and the implication is clearly anthropomophic.

You have a good point, but "the implication is clearly anthropomophic" sounds like you've made up your mind in all cases just by seeing that language, and that would not being entirely objective either. Scientists have to communicate with lay people too, and simple, sometimes imprecise, language can make that easier. Now, they have to be wary of internalizing those loose concepts, but hey, that's part of the job.

Dawkins does a good job of describing this language problem in The Selfish Gene, so I'll defer further arguments to him.

When you hear words like "competition", "cooperation", "desire", etc. do you think of molecules or people? Clearly the connotation these words bring is anthropomorphic and not objective. Never underestimate the abilities of "lay" people. Your reference to Dawkins reveals your mind-view. "Selfish" molecules! Really?

You never responded to my analogy about the magnet. Try it.

>"Selfish" molecules! Really?

Read the book objectively, or don't... I have nothing to lose either way.

"One could say that piece of steal "wants" to be near a magnet.." I assume you meant steel, but i've never used "wants to be near a magnet" to describe the interaction of a certain type of metallic alloy with a magnetic field produced around a magnet.

I don't have time to waste on someone who believes and writes about "selfish" molecules. But that is not to say that i have not enjoyed our interchange. I think it is important to be aware of the potential influences of strange philosophies on one's mind-view. This is why the article on a model that purports to explain how "simple chemical and physical processes" enabled life but yet uses words that are certainly anthropomorphic and that refer to highly complex behaviors seems suspicious and motivated by an absurd reductionistic philosophy.

Thanks for the mental stimulation!

Yup, "steal" was a typo. You got me. And you may never have said "steel wants to be near a magnet", but if someone were talking to a child and they wanted to know why a bolt moved across a table to the magnet, they could use that language and they would be conveying something important, something the other person could begin to grasp. It would certainly lead to more questions, requiring more specific language, but that would be a good thing.

Yeah, I'm done talking to you too. I try to avoid jumping into a discussion with anti-evolution types, but in this case I didn't know you were one at first... I figured you were just really uptight about language, and that is something I can relate to. Sorry for the confusion. My mistake.

I think maybe you misunderstood the article. I'll try to summarize.

About 4 billion years ago when things were starting to cool down, the Earth developed a crust and an atmosphere. Water vapor from the atmosphere cooled and condensed in probably the longest rain storm ever, rivers and oceans formed, and the first complex organic molecules began to form from the carbon that was floating around in these new seas.

The only reason the carbon bothered to show up on Earth in the first place was because some giant old star said enough was enough and blew up, spreading its finely aged pieces to places where they eventually were gathered up to form our solar system, but that's another story.

Anyway these organic molecules started out small and unassuming. There were lots of them and in the right conditions they liked to form larger stable molecules. The larger more stable molecules had a more refined taste and tended to prefer other complex molecules with which they could interact. Over millions of years the complexity grew preferentially. At some point around 3.9 billion years ago the molecules started to replicate themselves, and so the line between inanimate and animate blurred.

Stories......not science!

I was thinking about this the other day - the creation of elements in stars, and life being based on carbon. I decided to have a look at the periodic table, the first eight elements, by weight (and thus by abundance - in terms if being created in stars) are

hydrogen
helium
lithium
beryllium
boron
carbon
nitrogen
oxygen

Everything you need for organic molecules is right there in the first 8 elements.

I thought that was interesting.

It could also be pointed out that its rather unremarkable that we happen to be made of the stuff that is most common in the universe.

My parents recently went to Scotland and visited Edinburgh. I found it remarkable when they told me that most of the homes are made of stone there. After all, in upstate New York where I live, most of the houses are made of wood. Of course, much of the mystery vanished when my father pointed out that there are no trees anywhere near Edinburgh, since they were cut down 100s of years ago. Edinburgh does however happen to sit on an extinct volcano which provides plenty of stone to build with. Turns out they just built their homes out of what was available.

I don't think nature is much different. I think we're simply made out of what was available.

Is that (nature used what was available to build humans) an argument for design?

It wasn't my intention, but I'd be a fool to simply discount the beliefs of 1 billion faithful people, even if science explicitly shows that a literal interpretation of such a creation story is absurd.

I'd have to concede that it is possible that Brahma, servant of Vishnu, created the Earth, plants, animals, etc. as Hinduism teaches.

Then as an ENGINEER do you rely upon design or faith or chance in your work?

I rely on experience, books, math, microsoft word, excel, power point, and access, calculators, telephones, email, the internet, and upon occasion a magic eight ball (rarely).

Are you suggesting that if I believe that I might not know everything there is to know about the Universe and I'm thus unwilling to discount the existence of a God (or Gods), I can't possibly be a good engineer?

Not at all! But, as the article which started this interchange shows too many who claim to be scientific or rational (i would put engineers in this broad category because we should use these tools wisely in our work) too often stray into non-rational or non-scientific modes of thought to support supposedly scientific findings or arguments.

I can understand your pain. There has been a lot of bad science consisting of untestable models recently.

I don't think this article falls into that category though. After all, the article itself says "Like all useful models, theirs can be tested, and they describe how this can be done."

This doesn't necessarily mean they are correct, but last time I checked, hypothesis is still part of the scientific method.

agreed