NASA finds proof that amino acid components in meteorites originate in space.
This is exciting news. NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life. We may all be immigrants on Earth.
By Bill Steigerwald
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life.
“People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960’s, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life,” said Dr. Michael Callahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “For the first time, we have three lines of evidence that together give us confidence these DNA building blocks actually were created in space.” Callahan is lead author of a paper on the discovery appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules.
For example, previously, these scientists at the Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory have found amino acids in samples of comet Wild 2 from NASA’s Stardust mission, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Amino acids are used to make proteins, the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions.
In the new work, the Goddard team ground up samples of twelve carbon-rich meteorites, nine of which were recovered from Antarctica. They extracted each sample with a solution of formic acid and ran them through a liquid chromatograph, an instrument that separates a mixture of compounds. They further analyzed the samples with a mass spectrometer, which helps determine the chemical structure of compounds.
The team found adenine and guanine, which are components of DNA called nucleobases, as well as hypoxanthine and xanthine. DNA resembles a spiral ladder; adenine and guanine connect with two other nucleobases to form the rungs of the ladder. They are part of the code that tells the cellular machinery which proteins to make. Hypoxanthine and xanthine are not found in DNA, but are used in other biological processes.
Also, in two of the meteorites, the team discovered for the first time trace amounts of three molecules related to nucleobases: purine, 2,6-diaminopurine, and 6,8-diaminopurine; the latter two almost never used in biology. These compounds have the same core molecule as nucleobases but with a structure added or removed.
It’s these nucleobase-related molecules, called nucleobase analogs, which provide the first piece of evidence that the compounds in the meteorites came from space and not terrestrial contamination. “You would not expect to see these nucleobase analogs if contamination from terrestrial life was the source, because they’re not used in biology, aside from one report of 2,6-diaminopurine occurring in a virus (cyanophage S-2L),” said Callahan. “However, if asteroids are behaving like chemical ‘factories’ cranking out prebiotic material, you would expect them to produce many variants of nucleobases, not just the biological ones, due to the wide variety of ingredients and conditions in each asteroid.”
The second piece of evidence involved research to further rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination as a source of these molecules. The team also analyzed an eight-kilogram (17.64-pound) sample of ice from Antarctica, where most of the meteorites in the study were found, with the same methods used on the meteorites. The amounts of the two nucleobases, plus hypoxanthine and xanthine, found in the ice were much lower — parts per trillion — than in the meteorites, where they were generally present at several parts per billion. More significantly, none of the nucleobase analogs were detected in the ice sample. One of the meteorites with nucleobase analog molecules fell in Australia, and the team also analyzed a soil sample collected near the fall site. As with the ice sample, the soil sample had none of the nucleobase analog molecules present in the meteorite.
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases — both the biological and non-biological ones — were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. “In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial,” says Callahan.
“In fact, there seems to be a ‘goldilocks’ class of meteorite, the so-called CM2 meteorites, where conditions are just right to make more of these molecules,” adds Callahan.
The team includes Callahan and Drs. Jennifer C. Stern, Daniel P. Glavin, and Jason P. Dworkin of NASA Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory; Ms. Karen E. Smith and Dr. Christopher H. House of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa.; Dr. H. James Cleaves II of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC; and Dr. Josef Ruzicka of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Somerset, N.J. The research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Goddard Center for Astrobiology, the NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, and the NASA Postdoctoral Program.
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John B says:
August 14, 2011 at 11:52 am
I know the list is long when I sampled a promising title:
Hurst, L.D.; Dawkins, R. (May 1992). “Evolutionary Chemistry: Life in a Test Tube”.
I found it was an editorial not a research paper. My question was about whether he’d actually done any actual original research in the area of evolutionary biology and published it. Editorials, review articles, stuff published in Philosphy, and so forth don’t count.
I looked through the list to see if he’d written any textbooks used in biology courses and it doesn’t appear he’s done that either. It would appear his scientific and academic accomplishments are in the discipline of Regurgitation & Bloviation with a minor in Cherry Picking.
Dave Springer says:
My position on intelligent design is that when you divorce it from the religious and anti-religious rhetoric and get down to actually asking whether design is something that can be reliably discriminated from non-design it has enough merit that we should at least pursue the question in the context of math, science, and engineering instead of fighting it out in pulpits and courtrooms.
You can’t divorce “intelligent design” from religious rhetoric and courtrooms because that’s what it is. It’s creationism relabelled for political reasons, specifially to circumvent US legislation. The concept “intelligent design” is virtually unknown outside the United States, because elsewhere the same political circumstances don’t exist. Creationism under its original name is of course known in other parts of the world, but there are few places where it has any political weight comparable to the United States. In Europe it’s regarded as lunatic fringe and has no political influence.
“ID” has been dealt with and refuted by scientists, so no need to reexamine it. People on this thread have been kind enough to reiterate the main points that speak against it. It’s no coincidence that those are the same points that speak against creationism, because the two are identical.
Ron Cram says:
August 15, 2011 at 6:49 am
“Dave Springer,
Evolution has a vector. Get used to it.
I understand your point of view. But I am still very intrigued with the Koonin paper I asked you to look at because he discusses “the fallacy of evolutionary progress.” Genomics tells us most mutations/selections are not positive. Koonin thinks he sees biological “big bangs” which he thinks happen by chance to cause the progression. These “big bangs” are not selections in the normal sense. I really think his paper deserves more study. I excerpted a selection of his quotes above. The paper is about a lot more than just horizontal gene transfer and I would love to read what you think about it. My own reading is that Koonin’s biological “big bangs” are highly contrived. Evolution has a vector but it does not seem to have a mechanism.”
It has a mechanism. It just doesn’t appear to be contained in the Darwinian dogma.
An example of the dogma: if evolution were to start over from scratch the results would be quite different.
Really? That sounds like a typical just-so story to me. We’re just supposed to accept it without question. It hasn’t been tested or confirmed. It’s not falsifiable since we can’t just set the clock back 3 billion years and see what happens. On the flip side, physics predicts it would play out the same way given the same starting conditions. Indeed, given identical starting conditions 14 billion years ago the evolution of the entire universe would perfectly repeat. Cause and effect is a harsh mistress. Randomness is an illusory artifact of incomplete information. Nature herself has complete information.
As far as Koonin and the section dealing with the fallacy of evolutionary progress he doesn’t try to make it’s a fallacy. Increasing genomic complexity over the course of evolution is a fact not a topic for debate. In fact he lists the facts in the opening paragraphs where he discusses the increasingly complex genomes from prokaryotes to protozoa to pineapples to primates and everything in between. His point, which I agree with, is that mutation and selection are not the source of increasing complexity.
anorak2 says:
August 15, 2011 at 7:54 am
“You can’t divorce “intelligent design” from religious rhetoric and courtrooms because that’s what it is.”
I disagree. I can talk about design detection all day long and never once venture outside math, science, and engineering. Your inability to do the same is your problem, not mine.
Let’s review again the working definition of intelligent design which I use and which I personally placed on arguably the most widely read website dealing with the topic:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/id-defined/
It’s not my fault that neither the religious right nor the areligious are willing to put aside their politics and focus on the core question of whether design is something that can be reliably discriminated from non-design. As an engineer I know the lines can be blurry. Something that looks like a stone ax head might be just coincidental. Something that looks like and performs the function of a space shuttle is not blurry. Asking the same question about living things is a valid question and can investigated entirely within the confines of math, science, and engineering.
At 5:09 AM on 15 August, the odious Dave Springer (and remember, folks, “On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog“) jerks:
Ah, getting specifically personal. Grinding into your guts like a power drill, ain’t it?
Nah. ’78 was the year I got into the practice of medicine. While you were sucking at the government trough, I was part of the productive sector of the economy, employing people, providing services folks needed, and incidentally paying your way through “college under the GI bill.” So you claim to have worn stripes on your sleeves? Mine were on a few sets of shoulderboards.
Grow a pair, son.
Anorak2,
““ID” has been dealt with and refuted by scientists, so no need to reexamine it.”
This statement does not address qualitatively or quantitatively the status of the “scientists’ who have dismissed Intelligent design. It totally ignores the “scientists” who support intelligent design. This statement is a perfect example of a RELIGIOUS belief system that brooks no other accepted facts than what THEY promote. Y’all are simply closed minded bigots that ignore the real scientific process that CANNOT reject a hypothesis without at least one FACT that disproves it. So far the burden of proof is still on you. The only thing you have disproven is that people who attack intelligent design actually PRACTICE the scientific method.
I apologize if this has been posted before. I haven’t had time to read all the “wonderful” comments. It is very sad as I probably could have learned much about my own mental state, family history, genetics, personal habits, etc. which had heretofore escaped my notice from Tussi78’s posts!! 8>)
Here is an article about the acceptance, withdrawal, and apology for withdrawal of a very good paper on the 2nd Law and Evolution by Sewel. It contains links to both the paper and statements from both sides as to the appropriateness of the paper.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/the_first_law_of_darwin_lobbyi044561.html
Basically, like all other areas of current science, we appear to have gatekeepers limiting our access to the ideas outside of the mainstream. They then, of course, use the fact that those outside the mainstream are NOT getting published as proof that their ideas lack ANY usefulness. Circular Logic? Bias Confirmation? Controlling the Propaganda?? You decide.
Can’t wait for your colorful response Tushi78!! Maybe you could start including at least 10% factual argumentation in those books you are writing?
Dave Springer,
“On the flip side, physics predicts it would play out the same way given the same starting conditions. Indeed, given identical starting conditions 14 billion years ago the evolution of the entire universe would perfectly repeat.”
But, isn’t this the issue that freaks out most people about Quantum Mechanics? Due to its statistical nature a replay with exact starting conditions would PROBABLY be true, but, MAYBE NOT?? (or is this one of many things I am misunderstooding about it??)
Tushi78,
“Nah. ’78 was the year I got into the practice of medicine.”
Ahh, now I understand. You have my deepest sympathy Tushy78. You and the rest of the medical profession are looking at having your careers turned into slave labor by the leftard ideas you probably espoused and voted for. If you are conservative, it is hard to see so apologies if the dig is incorrect.
At 5:21 AM on 15 August, TB-mod expunges my response to these religious whackjobs infesting a virtual forum for the specific purpose of simulating adherence to the principles of scientific inquiry in order to peddle the destruction of lucid reasoning under the guise of “intelligent design,” writing:
Tsk. There are no “bad words.” There are clearly distinguished aggressively and morally evil intentions, to be sure, and that’s what we’re dealing with in the political purposes of these “intelligent design” fellahin.
If nothing else, let us please pay scrupulously consistent attention to the purpose of these malefactors, which has never been anything but the antithesis of honest inquiry. As anorak2 put it so cogently at 7:54 AM on 15 August:
This is the rotting, stinking corpse of the elephant going liquescent and puddling on the floor around the conference table, and which (most recently at 8:36 AM today) is being evaded by the contemptible fraudsters posing as persons with honest interest in the sciences, this particular critter claiming some sort of ex cathedra ability “as an engineer” to divert the focus from the political perversion of education to what he calls “the core question of whether design is something that can be reliably discriminated from non-design.”
That is – as this Springer specimen knows good and well – not the “core question” either in this specific discussion or in the clumsy shovelsful of prevarication being peddled by these “creationism in a cheap lab coat” clowns generally, but rather whether or not scientific method will be taught in the government school systems as the examination of objectively observable and mensurable physical phenomena without the pernicious influence of the primum movens concept, whatever the peculiar religious source of that Great Sky Pixie foreclosure of intellectual integrity might be.
To repeat from my expunged post the quotation I’d redrawn from Dr. Glassman’s article on “The Basis of Rational Argument,” “The notion of intelligent design [does belong] in the public school program,” but only to serve in this role:
In other words, Mr. Springer‘s vicious deviation from adherence to the principles of science – and he claims to be an “engineer“! – neither can nor should enter any child or adolescent’s educational purview except as an example of what science emphatically is not, as a warning to arm the young and the impressionable about the methods of liars intent upon disabling their capacity to reason.
And – ain’t it neat? – that lesson applies to the “man-made global climate change” fraud, too.
At 11:45 AM on 15 August, kuhnkat dumps a link to a load of creationist crap on the board as if any reasonable, intellectually honest person is expected to accept it in any way other than as one receives the stool specimens harvested of any other diseased dog.
The whole point of this vapidity – which kuhncat could possibly have simply stated, had that spirochete connecting the two functioning neurons in his cerebrum been cooperating – seems to be that a religious whackjob’s submission to a mathematics journal had been rejected by the proponents of the dominant “Darwin lobby” orthodoxy because the author had allegedly “argued that the basic principles underlying the second law of thermodynamics, when properly applied, might be a bar to Darwinian evolution after all.”
There was subsequently much lawyerly yelping and squealing and raping and pillaging and “Because of the journal’s inappropriate treatment of Dr. Sewell, it has now issued an apology to Dr. Sewell and paid his attorney’s fees in the matter to the tune of $10,000.”
Great. May we hope that this case will establish a precedent under which Nature and Science may be hammered for compensatory and punitive damages anent the “pal review” promulgation of the AGW bogosity and the suppression of material debunking the “man-made global climate change” fraud?
So the point (to the extent that kuhncat has one except for that literal prominence at the peak of his microcephalic cranium) might possibly be:
Had kuhncat the least semblance of decency, he’d thank me for amending his failure to make cogent the teensy remnant of possible interest to frequenters of this Web site in his excuse for a post.
But let’s not expect too much of kuhncat and the rest of the sick, the lame, and the lazy.
At 12:43 PM on 15 August, kuhnkat writes about how I:
Inasmuch as I’m vehemently dedicated to the preservation of individual human rights and therefore the strict enforcement of the rule of law to prevent government thugs from invading the private citizen’s bookshelves and bedroom as well as his bank account, I’m a helluva lot more “conservative” than any politically invasive religious whackjob will ever be.
And it’s not simply that the “Liberal” fascist goons have sought to turn the “healthcare industry” into a command-economy favor they can preempt and dispense to buy votes but that their actions have degraded (and will continue to degrade) the cost-efficiency and effectiveness of the provision of medical and nursing care to the people of these United States.
The price of their perverted power-grabbing is being paid by our patients more than anybody else, and any physician who evades recognition of this fact isn’t worth the strychnine required to exterminate him.
This kuhncat‘s so-called “apologies” are accepted for what they’re worth.
Not much.
Dave Springer says:
August 15, 2011 at 8:36 am
I disagree. I can talk about design detection all day long and never once venture outside math, science, and engineering. Your inability to do the same is your problem, not mine.
I am religious but I can talk about detection without appealing to religious texts for evidence. If I venture outside of “math, science and engineering” it is because someone asked me about my religious beliefs. People who preclude the possibility of design a priori are displaying faith in atheism. Such people are not agnostic, even if they claim to be.
Tucci78:
I don’t think there is any people, professions, institutions, philosophy left for you to insult!
As a MD, you should recognize, when it’s time to withdraw, and go tend your torn & bleeding self. As a witness, it was hard to watch, your arguments destroyed… so… so… thoroughly. And by someone out of the ranks too! Tsk Tsk
Dave Springer says:
I disagree. I can talk about design detection all day long and never once venture outside math, science, and engineering. Your inability to do the same is your problem, not mine.
No you can’t do that. When you talk about “intelligent design” you’re not talking about science at all. It’s cargo cult science at best, dressed up to look like science but lacking the essence. Here’s why: The motivation. ID or creationism is not motivated by the unbiased search for truth. Its followers are keen to give one and only one specific answer, and they search supposed evidence for its support, and ignore all evidence contradicting it. That is the exact opposite of science, which must be open to the outcome, and which must not ignore unwelcome evidence. Also science must state falsifiable theories, but creationism is not falsifiable. Even the term “theory” for creationism or ID or whatchumacallit is therefore presumptous.
And while you’re talking about it everything you do is religiously motivated. Because the answer you strive for is fixed, and it’s “an omnipotent god has created everything”.
And your last sentence is a classical rhetorical fallacy. I am addressing the problem with your point of view. Projecting the problem with an ideology onto its critics is intellectually dishonest.
anorak2 @5:11 p.m.
What a hoot! I can assure you that Dave Springer’s motivation is most definitely *not* “an omnipotent god has created everything.” I think you’re projecting.
While we’re at it, once you get over your religious antagonism, perhaps you will be able to see that the following questions (which form the basis of ID as it relates to living systems) are purely objective and scientific in nature, with no religious basis whatsoever:
1. Is it possible that some living systems were designed?
2. If so, is there a way that we could tell they were designed?
Eric Anderson says:
I can assure you that Dave Springer’s motivation is most definitely *not* “an omnipotent god has created everything.”/i>
You mean there are people who think life on earth was “designed” by some being, but they don’t think it was a deity? Who else do they suggest, extraterrestrials? That would mean all creationists are Christian fundamendalists, or islamists or whatever, but some are ufologists? Is that what you’re saying? I’m baffled. 🙂
>>
Eric Anderson says:
August 12, 2011 at 7:50 pm
anorak2, you are standing out as a great example of the kind of person I was talking about. Complaining about the wiring of the eye, that’s a good one! Time to get up to speed. Go spend some time learning about how the wiring actually works, instead of repeating nonsense anti-design talking points. And as I said, those who think it is poor, including you, do not propose any kind of better solution based on actual engineering considerations. There is zero evidence that a different wiring scheme would be better, and plenty of good engineering reason for having it the way it is.
At the end of the day, however, it is irrelevant to the question of whether it was designed. But it is another great example of the failed “poor design” argument.
<<
I like comparing the vertebrate eye “design” with the cephalopod eye “design.” My guess is the designer of eyes preferred cephalopods to vertebrates. The cephalopods in question are the octopuses, squids, and cuttlefishes. The nautiluses have pinhole eyes that lack lenses.
In the cephalopod eye, the blood vessels and nerves are routed outside the back of eye and plunge through at various points to connect with the retina. This effectively pins the retina to the back of the eye and makes detached retinas very unlikely. It also removes the need for a “blind spot” where all the blood vessels and nerves plunge through the retina at one point. All the neural circuitry used to hide the blind spot in vertebrates is unnecessary in cephalopods. The vertebrate nerves are transparent because they are collocated in the retina. This type of nerve has a slower frequency response than normal opaque nerves–the ones used in cephalopod eyes. Vertebrate cones and rods point toward the back of the eye. Cephalopod light sensing cells point toward the eye opening (pupil). (If backward pointing light sensing cells isn’t a design flaw, then nothing is.) As a last hurrah, cephalopod lenses are rigid and move backward and forward as in a real camera. Cephalopods don’t have to worry about stiffer lenses as they age. Vertebrate lenses have muscles that alter the thickness which adjusts the focus. As vertebrates age, the lenses become stiffer and the muscles have greater difficulty focusing the lens.
I would say that compared to cephalopod eyes, vertebrate eyes are poorly “designed.”
Jim
In an exchange with Eric Anderson, at 11:24 PM on 15 August anorak2 writes:
Which brings us back to Ronald Bailey’s “Attack of the Super-Intelligent Purple Space Squid Creators” (Reason magazine, 15 July 2008), the points of which our invidious religious whackjobs have never yet addressed. Hell, they’ve flop-sweatily avoided even acknowledging ’em.
Plainly, there’s the notion that their “intelligent design” horsehockey must necessarily imply that life on Earth (or even in this solar system) might could have been the result of directed panspermia undertaken by sapient entities from some planet other than our own. This “Nurmee-nurmee-nurmee-I’m-not-listening!” evasion on the part of these duplicitous dorks when so confronted provides strong presumptive evidence that every single one of them is simply (per my original diagnosis) a religious whackjob intent upon peddling the “supernatural” – whatever he conceives that to be, “Hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin” – as the only possible primum movens option left to the victims of this concerted effort to destroy the intellectual validity of scientific method in the minds of the young and innocent.
Bailey had written that in the course of the FreedomFest 2008 debate for which Mr. Bailey had prepared the remarks which later became his Reason magazine article, one of his religious whackjob opponents from the Discovery Institute had in the course of his presentations “…claimed several times that evolutionary biology somehow undermined the notions of freedom and economics. He just couldn’t seem to get his head around the concept of bottom-up order. This so frustrated me that I eventually quipped, ‘Intelligent design is to evolutionary biology what socialism is to free-market economics.’”
Yep. Thoroughly dishonest and morally depraved to extents that necessarily require them to be characterized and condemned as liars in general and enemies of intellectual integrity in particular.
anorak2 says:
August 15, 2011 at 5:11 pm
Regarding Dave Springer’s comment that he can talk about design detection without leaving math and science, you write:
No you can’t do that. When you talk about “intelligent design” you’re not talking about science at all. It’s cargo cult science at best, dressed up to look like science but lacking the essence. Here’s why: The motivation. ID or creationism is not motivated by the unbiased search for truth. Its followers are keen to give one and only one specific answer, and they search supposed evidence for its support, and ignore all evidence contradicting it.
I don’t believe this is true for David, but if it was the argument cuts both ways. If you cannot evaluate science involved in design detection, if that evidence is not a live option for you, then you are allowing your faith in atheism to limit your search for truth as well. You claim to be agnostic but a priori refuse to consider evidence other agnostic have found convincing regarding an intelligent designer. I’m talking about Jastrow, Eddington, and many others long before Discovery Institute came on the scene. You seem to be completely unaware of the many statements made by agnostics on this subject, especially as it relates to the Big Bang. I recommend God and the Astronomers by Robert Jastrow and the quotes on this website.
http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/origins/quotes/universe.html
Earlier I introduced the paper by Granville Sewell here titled “A Second Look at the Second Law.” I was impressed by the paper and its argument against Isaac Asimov’s idea that energy from the Sun means evolution is not precluded by the 2nd Law.
I would like to propose an experiment that would test Asimov’s hypothesis. I would like to give Asimov’s idea the best chance of success possible. Regarding origins of life, the critical time period is pre-cellular life. The question is “Will energy from the Sun counter entropy with regard to complex biomolecules required for the earliest and simplest forms of unicellular life?”
The null hypothesis is that a container of artificially compiled primordial soup (containing complex biomolecules, nucleobases, water, etc) will suffer entropy and degradation regardless of the presence of direct sunlight, indirect sunlight, warming from the sun or absence of sunlight. An alternative hypothesis is the more complex the molecule, the more vulnerable it is to entropy.
I have found one paper so far which seems to touch on the experiment I am proposing.
http://www.jsbi.org/pdfs/journal1/IBSB07/IBSB07019.pdf
Does anyone have any practical tips on how this experiment can be conducted?
Dave Springer is 100% correct. Design detection is an idea based entirely on empiricism and rational thought. Contrary to the dishonest claims of I.D. detractors, intelligence isn’t a “supernatural” phenomenon, but a repeatedly observed, recognizable force operating inside of nature. It’s no more supernatural than gravity.
The real “problem” with Intelligent Design is that the notion of design being not only detectable, but detected, in biology can be used to support theistic belief, thus it’s viewed as a huge threat by atheists and, to a lesser extent, agnostics. It magnifies their insecurities and disrupts their faith in deep time coupled with chance.
All of these claims that I.D. is simply repackaged creationism (it’s actually rejuvenated teleology, as Dave Springer previously mentioned), and that it’s somehow a threat to science, are nothing more than those aforementioned threatened people trying to discredit it. The claims have no basis in reality and are in no way made to protect science, but to protect atheistic materialist beliefs.
Is this a new concept to you? If it is, I can tell you, quite bluntly, that you’re knowledge on the subject is quite lacking.
Who the designer(s) is/was is a secondary question. The primary question is if there’s design in the first place. If the answer is no, then that secondary question is nullified, obviously.
As I noted above, design detection doesn’t require any religious faith nor any religious arguments. It’s entirely secular. With that said, those with previous religious commitments are going to find it appealing, and will, naturally, believe that the designer is “their” God. That’s their right, and has no bearing on the question of whether or not there’s intentional design in nature. As long as they’re able to separate the science of design detection with the personal faith of religious conviction (unless they present scientific evidence to support that conviction), there shouldn’t be an issue.
From my experience, religious I.D. proponents have done just that. Unfortunately, all this has done is given I.D. detractors new ammo, as they can now claim that this purposeful separation of scientific reasoning and religious belief by I.D. proponents is all a part of the conspiracy to hide the fact that it’s “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” This sets up a “Heads, I win. Tails, you lose.” scenario:
Heads: Religious I.D. supporters state that they believe the designer is “their” God. I.D. detractors claim this is evidence that I.D. is religion. I.D. loses.
Tails: Religious I.D. supporters separate their belief that their God is the designer from their methodology for detecting design. I.D. detractors claim that by not addressing who the designer is/was, religious I.D. supporters are trying to hide their belief that God was the designer, which is evidence that I.D. is “creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” I.D. loses.
It’s all quite silly and is nothing more than a rhetorical game designed to discredit I.D., all while ignoring the important questions of whether or not design is detectable, and if it is, has it been detected.
Imagine if someone claimed that an intelligence-free origin of life and Darwinian evolution were both false because they’re ideas strongly supported by atheists. You’d rightly recognize that just because an idea is supported by atheists, that doesn’t make it untrue. The same logic applies here. It’s a textbook non-sequitur.
Bottom Line: I no more need to know who life’s designer was to conclude it was designed than a detective needs to know who killed Jimmy before he concludes murder. All the detective needs to know is that there are potential murderers out there.
Likewise, all we need is the simple possibility that there is even one advanced intelligence out there which preceded our own and is capable of bio-engineering. Once we accept that possibility (does anyone reject it?), it makes intelligent design a very real possibility. This remains true even if nature, itself, is capable of producing life, a very crucial point that seems to be lost on most people. After all, a single intelligence with the capability to create life could seed more planets with life in a (relatively) short time-span than blind forces could in a much larger time-span.
Return of the Jam,
What you write makes a lot of sense. But I am confused by this portion where you say:
Contrary to the dishonest claims of I.D. detractors, intelligence isn’t a “supernatural” phenomenon, but a repeatedly observed, recognizable force operating inside of nature. It’s no more supernatural than gravity.
The agnostic and atheist astrophysicists at NASA came to the conclusion the Big Bang was the result of the supernatural. I have mentioned Robert Jastrow’s book God and the Astronomers several times on this thread. Of course, the origin of the universe is a unique thing. But I think it uniquely shows the supernatural.
I am guessing that when you speak of intelligence as “a repeatedly observed, recognizable force operating inside of nature” you are referring mainly to biology. Is this correct? Or are there other areas where intelligence is just as readily found? Did you happen to read the Koonin paper I linked to above? He discusses a series of biological “big bangs” as he calls them but credits “chance” with their appearance. To me, chance is not a mechanism (especially when he had just gone out of his way to show the fallacy of evolutionary progress!) and it seems to me to possibly be a sign of design. How would one go about confirming or refuting this hypothesis?
I’m interested to hear your thoughts.
ReturnoftheJam,
You won’t be able to get through, the line is busy.
These guys are afraid. They are afraid that someone or something really DID design them and might come back and not appreciate the mess we have made!! Or worse, not care and just gather data, autopsies, terminate the experiment, sterilize the equipment… Religious types have an advantage in thinking we know who did it and what our chances ultimately are. 8>)