Nature's Destiny - Michael Denton

[otseng]

This thread is to debate the book Nature's Destiny by Michael Denton.

The following debaters are allowed to participate:
Cathar1950
McCulloch
Confused
Furrowed Brow
otseng

Here is the agenda:
- Start off with background info of the author and book.
- Clarify any terms used.
- Cover one chapter at a time and debate the points made in that chapter. We might skip some chapters if we agree to it.
- Give closing arguments and final thoughts on the book.
- Go out for a drink.

[QED]

True, he does not consider other universes. But, it would not be necessary to consider other universes. Nor would it even be possible to consider them.

It is necessary, and hence it is not possible to draw any inferences about deliberate design from appearances alone.

[QED]

You'll need to clarify what "self-organize" means.

In the context I have used it means for ordering to ocur in any system without the manual intervention of some sentient agency. An example might be the sorting, by waves, of pebbles on a beach. The smaller ones tend to find their way furthest up the beach.

If you mean self-organize in that the components were "pre-programmed" to be of optimal utility for life, then I would agree with it. But, if you mean that the precursors to life were to "self-select" and "adapt" among the number of components around it, then I would disagree.

An example is the self-folding of proteins. Proteins fold only because of their chemical and physical properties. It is by the properties themselves that allow for proteins to self-fold not by any type of "selection" process.

The periodic table of elements presents many potential configurations in the same ways as a child's toy bricks (are you familiar with LEGO?) are capable of linking. Of all the potential configurations it is a vanishingly small number that form "useful" roles as life-giving materials. I fail to see how we can draw any conclusions from this.

If we were to find life based on boron and liquid ammonia, say on Saturn's moon Enceladus, we know in advance that those elements are the optimal candidates for the formation of complex molecules far from the warming effects of the Sun.

However, no scientists ever considers any other liquid besides water for life. Water would still be the optimal liquid for any type of life. Even in regards to Enceladus, "Living organisms require liquid water and organic materials, and we know we have both on Enceladus now" says Carolyn Porco, head of the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn.

Water on that moon or anywhere else is obviously useless as a solvent below 0 degrees C. The temperature in the surface layer of Encladus is well below zero, yet the (volcanic in origin?) plumes of water are ideal for transporting Borates to those upper layers (before the water freezes). Boron has an affinity with ammonia and hence can form into long-chain molecules at temperatures where ammonia is liquid (i.e. around -77C) That is why, in the case of very different environments to Earth, water cannot always be considered to be the most optimal liquid for any type of life.

I'm not sure what you mean by the alternate possibilities.

Other bases for life for example. It is in my view a great act of carbon chauvinism to suggest that our kind of life is the most optimal. It fails to consider the huge range of environments that present themselves in this universe. People have even suggested the possibility of life in Neutron stars. Another range of alternatives are those pesky alternate universes that may or may not exist. To us they are nothing more than a possibility yet their existence could explain virtually anything. Now that's a problem for everyone as, as I have said here before, we could use them as an atheistic explanation for why we find messages like "Hand made by God in Heaven" stamped on everything when we look closely enough. But nonetheless, we cannot discount the explanation that certain apparently improbable things are "just so" because we happen to be the ones that drew them out of a large enough hat. The probability as it appears to us could simply be telling us something about the size of the draw and nothing more.

Again, if you're referring to natural selection, it would not apply if there is no life yet. So, determining what components to use would not entail natural selection.

Well that just sounds plain wrong to me. Of all the contenders for the transition from random chemistry to organic life, natural selection seems the most logical to me. Again we have that blend of the WAP and Natural Selection -- the WAP draws on the massive probabilistic state-space afforded by random chemistry and Natural Selection supplies a "one-way valve" that captures and amplifies anything capable of copying itself. Frankly I just don't see how such a "team" can be resisted. But then I already have my awareness of these sorts of mechanisms raised by my experience in mechanical, electronic, and software engineering.

I think the hope is finding some sort of pre-life natural selection counterpart. But, so far, there is not such a thing. The only thing that would be available is random chance.

So, if there is an apparent design, there would only be two ways to explain it - intelligence or random chance.

But natural selection isn't necessarily that strict Darwinian type of mechanism. Do you recall my big box of "S" hooks? The mere geometry of the "S" is such that it naturally forms long chains if we swish them around. The ID brigade seems always to look at chains and, comparing them with man-made examples conclude that a man-like agency sat down and carefully assembled them. The simple geometry of the "S" hook could be a function of something other than deliberate design yet still result in a chain. This is the sort of thing that I'm always bearing in mind when considering the appearance of design in things.

[otseng]

It is one of those "duh" things that makes one say "of course these are perfect parameters, building blocks, etc.... for life, because without them, life wouldn't have evolved".

The question then is it the result of design or of chance?

If life can only come about the way it has, it would indicate that the end is unique. There would be no chance involved since there is only one possible outcome. If it is not be chance, then it would be by design.

Denton's hypothesis would be easily falsifiable by finding any type of life different from ours. Though we might not ever find any alien lifeform, at least in principle it would be falsifiable. Or it can also be falsifiable by finding any other component that would be more optimal. And this could be achieved here at Earth.

Denton limits the view of the reader by narrowing them down to observing the facts, then slams them in part two of his book by further narrowing these facts to take them out of the realm of natural and into the realm of supernatural.

It appears that what you have an issue with is the conclusion, rather than the arguments to reach that conclusion. If the arguments are sound, then that is what is important. It should not matter if the conclusion is not palatable. In this case, simply because the conclusion arrives at the supernatural, it does not mean that the argument is not sound.

What makes Denton all the more despicable is the fact that his applications of science misleads the reader by leading them into a position in which his final outcome can never be experimented.

Not sure what you mean by experimented. But the components that Denton brings up are certainly observable and testable. His hypothesis makes predictions. And I've pointed above on how it is falsifiable. These are the classic signs of a valid scientific hypothesis.

But this in no way proves that the target of the cells were specifically for the advancement of life rather than life is nothing more than a consequence of the cell.

What it does show is that the properties of lipids are optimally fit for life.

[otseng]

Denton's conclusion is totally dependant on the assumption that our universe is the only instance of a region of space-time with a "personality" made up from a particular set of laws/forces etc. It doesn't look as though Denton is aware of this as it should be acknowledged as an assumption at the outset. Rule number one in declaring your conclusions: always list your assumptions.

I would agree with this. The underlying assumption is that the physical laws are consistent throughout the universe. But, I would say this assumption underlies most everything, especially cosmology.

If the laws are different elsewhere, and we do not know what those laws are, we would not be able to make any statements or predictions about those places.

True, he does not consider other universes. But, it would not be necessary to consider other universes. Nor would it even be possible to consider them.

It is necessary, and hence it is not possible to draw any inferences about deliberate design from appearances alone.

He does not need to consider other universes because he makes no statements or predictions about other universes. His predictions apply only to our own universe.

[QED]

He does not need to consider other universes because he makes no statements or predictions about other universes. His predictions apply only to our own universe.

Yes he does. He makes an implicit statement about their non-existence the moment he concludes deliberate design from fitness observations made in this universe. Notice that this statement can be made irrespective of this being the only "universe" or one of many. This uncertainty commutes directly to his conclusion.

[otseng]

In the context I have used it means for ordering to ocur in any system without the manual intervention of some sentient agency.

However, Denton does not believe in any "manual intervention" either. Rather, all "self-organization" would be a result of the properties built into the components.

The periodic table of elements presents many potential configurations in the same ways as a child's toy bricks (are you familiar with LEGO?) are capable of linking. Of all the potential configurations it is a vanishingly small number that form "useful" roles as life-giving materials. I fail to see how we can draw any conclusions from this.

My child has a Lego set to make an airplane. He could conceivably make other things out of it. But, the end goal is an airplane. All the parts were put into the box and predesigned to form an airplane. If he put all the pieces together optimally, it would look exactly like what is on the picture on the box. And if he did put it together optimally, there'd be two explanations. Either he read the directions and followed it or he got real lucky by putting it together randomly.

This is similar to what Denton presents. Before life even came about, all the components were set up to allow for an optimal end result. And any other outcome would be suboptimal. And we can see before the pieces were put together what the end result would be. And it turned out exactly how it was setup to be.

Water on that moon or anywhere else is obviously useless as a solvent below 0 degrees C.

True. But if life is based on carbon, organic compounds can only be of utility between the temperature range of 0 to 100 degrees C. Outside of this range, organic compounds would not be able to maintain their form. And out of all the elements, carbon forms the most compounds. More on water and carbon below.

has an affinity with ammonia and hence can form into long-chain molecules at temperatures where ammonia is liquid (i.e. around -77C)

However, ammonia does have some problems as a basis for life. The hydrogen bonds between ammonia molecules are weaker than those in water, causing ammonia's heat of vaporization to be half that of water, its surface tension to be three times smaller, and reducing its ability to concentrate non-polar molecules through a hydrophobic effect. For these reasons, science questions how well ammonia could hold prebiotic molecules together in order to allow the emergence of a self-reproducing system. Ammonia is also combustible and oxidizable and could not exist sustainably in a biosphere that oxidizes it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_biochemistry

Astrobiologists generally agree that life requires liquid water to form and to survive. (emphasis mine)

"Ice won't do it. Water vapor in the air won't do it. Somehow there has to condense at least a microlayer of water," for life to evolve and survive, said Gene McDonald a scientist at the Astrobiology Research Element at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The insistence on water is not so much a peculiar egocentricity or some sort of narrow-mindedness that keeps scientists from imagining fundamental alternatives to life as we know it. It's simply a limitation imposed by the laws of chemistry, McDonald said. (emphasis mine)

"If you're going to do biochemistry, you have to move things around. And it's a lot easier to move molecules around in liquid than it is in solid."

It is not likely that the complex chemistry required to form living organisms can occur when molecules are locked in a solid matrix.

Vapor poses another barrier to developing life. "If you're in the air, if you're just floating around, then it's hard to keep all of your parts together," McDonald said. "If you're a cell, you've got to keep your cell machinery together. So just on a physical basis, it makes the most sense to have life in a liquid medium."

Scientists have suggested a few other solvents that might work in biochemistry for forming living organisms. Ammonia is the most promising of these, but liquid ammonia exists well below the freezing point of water, at temperatures where molecules and chemical interactions move only very slowly.

Ammonia melts at minus 107 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 77 Celsius) and evaporates at minus 28.3 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 33.5 Celsius). If life did exist in a liquid-ammonia environment, it would face major challenges doing the simple chemistry it needs to fuel its own metabolism, McDonald said. "But it's not absolutely impossible," he added.

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/water_overview.html

It is in my view a great act of carbon chauvinism to suggest that our kind of life is the most optimal.

One reason carbon is given the best chance is its versatility. "Carbon can make a lot of different compounds with a lot of different chemical properties, and it can have a lot of different functions," he said.

The general consensus among scientists is that the kind of life likely to be found on other planets is carbon-based life "that looks at least something like life on Earth," McDonald said.

http://www.space.com/searchforlife/water_overview.html

Silicon has a number of handicaps as a carbon analogue, however. Because silicon atoms are much bigger, they have difficulty forming double or triple bonds. Silanes (hydrogen-silicon compounds analogous to the alkane hydrocarbons) are highly reactive with water, and long-chain silanes spontaneously decompose. Molecules incorporating Si-O-Si bonds (known collectively as silicones) instead of Si-Si bonds are much more stable; ordinary sand is one such example. However, silicon dioxide (the analogue of carbon dioxide) is a non-soluble solid at the temperature range where liquid water is possible making it difficult for silicon to be introduced into water-based biochemical systems even if the necessary range of biochemical molecules could be constructed out of it. In general, complex long-chain silicone-based molecules are still more unstable than their carbon counterparts.

Finally, of the varieties of molecules identified in interstellar space as of 1998, 84 are based on carbon and 8 are based on silicon. Moreover, of the eight Si-based compounds, four also include carbon within them. This suggests a greater variety of complex carbon compounds throughout the cosmos, providing less of a foundation upon which to build silicon-based biologies. The cosmic abundance of carbon to silicon is 3.5 to 1.

http://www.biocrawler.com/encyclopedia/ ... chauvinism

Well that just sounds plain wrong to me. Of all the contenders for the transition from random chemistry to organic life, natural selection seems the most logical to me.

Even Dawkins admits that there is no natural selection (or anything similar) prior to the first life coming about. And also, by definition, natural selection only applies to life. So, until some counterpart is found, there doesn't exist any such solution.

Do you recall my big box of "S" hooks? The mere geometry of the "S" is such that it naturally forms long chains if we swish them around.

Actually, I don't recall reading that.

But, what if you pull out of the big box the hooks and all of the hooks are connected? As the number of hooks increases, the odds get smaller. If you have a lot of hooks in there and you pull them all out in one shot, I'd suspect some sort of intelligent intervention.

[otseng]

He does not need to consider other universes because he makes no statements or predictions about other universes. His predictions apply only to our own universe.

Yes he does. He makes an implicit statement about their non-existence the moment he concludes deliberate design from fitness observations made in this universe. Notice that this statement can be made irrespective of this being the only "universe" or one of many. This uncertainty commutes directly to his conclusion.

What he says is this:

"And for life anywhere in the cosmos it will be the same. For there is no alternative." (page 140)

He makes no statement, implicit or explicit, about the existence or non-existence of life in other universes.

[Furrowed Brow]

He does not need to consider other universes because he makes no statements or predictions about other universes. His predictions apply only to our own universe.

Yes he does. He makes an implicit statement about their non-existence the moment he concludes deliberate design from fitness observations made in this universe. Notice that this statement can be made irrespective of this being the only "universe" or one of many. This uncertainty commutes directly to his conclusion.

What he says is this:

"And for life anywhere in the cosmos it will be the same. For there is no alternative." (page 140)

He makes no statement, implicit or explicit, about the existence or non-existence of life in other universes.

But "no alternative" for the conditions of life, is not the same thing as alternative conditions for a universe. If you are saying there are no alternative conditions for a universe then there cannot be a designer - there is no alternative. If there is only one universe with life in a sea of alternatives without life, that maybe highly meaningful to us, but mathematically makes that universe no more unique. Those other alternative universe will be unique in different ways. If one is saying that life is a special case - I agree - but for aesthetic reasons and not mathematical or scientific.

[QED]

In the context I have used it means for ordering to ocur in any system without the manual intervention of some sentient agency.

However, Denton does not believe in any "manual intervention" either. Rather, all "self-organization" would be a result of the properties built into the components.

Which, he notes, themselves appear to be so deliberately arranged as to be optimal for the emergence of carbon based life.

The periodic table of elements presents many potential configurations in the same ways as a child's toy bricks (are you familiar with LEGO?) are capable of linking. Of all the potential configurations it is a vanishingly small number that form "useful" roles as life-giving materials. I fail to see how we can draw any conclusions from this.

My child has a Lego set to make an airplane. He could conceivably make other things out of it. But, the end goal is an airplane. All the parts were put into the box and predesigned to form an airplane. If he put all the pieces together optimally, it would look exactly like what is on the picture on the box. And if he did put it together optimally, there'd be two explanations. Either he read the directions and followed it or he got real lucky by putting it together randomly.

LEGO has only relatively recently begun to supply components in sets that make a particular model. The original concept was for the bricks to be general purpose and it was left entirely to the child's imagination as to what models might be built. Given that the universe is populated by an unfathomably wide variety of atomic structures of all shapes and sizes I wouldn't like to try supporting the argument that there was some particular picture on the box. The real picture has been in constant flux anyway.

This is similar to what Denton presents. Before life even came about, all the components were set up to allow for an optimal end result. And any other outcome would be suboptimal. And we can see before the pieces were put together what the end result would be. And it turned out exactly how it was setup to be.

Aren't you even the teensiest bit nervous about using optimality and sub-optimality in drawing conclusions of this nature? I simply couldn't bring myself to base arguments on such a subjective concept. For something to be accepted as "optimum" we need also to be presented with its full context in order to ensure that we are making an objective assessment.

But out of all the elements should we be impressed that just one, carbon, might be described as the most versatile anyway? It strikes me as being almost inevitable that with so many different elements having so many different properties that there will be one element amongst them all that best supports long chain molecules within a particular range of temperatures and pressures. We're back in WAP territory as, if the most probable chemistry for life is carbon/water etc. in the range 0-100 deg. C then it should be of no great surprise that that's what we're made from.

Water on that moon or anywhere else is obviously useless as a solvent below 0 degrees C.

True. But if life is based on carbon, organic compounds can only be of utility between the temperature range of 0 to 100 degrees C. Outside of this range, organic compounds would not be able to maintain their form. And out of all the elements, carbon forms the most compounds.

Why should we be impressed that there is a particular winner amongst a number of "also rans"? Do you not accept that this carbon chauvinism might be due to us happening to live in this particular Goldilocks range (0-100 deg.C)? This might be the most probable situation for sentient philosophers to find themselves in but it doesn't rule out others.

You go on to quote material that describes how much less suited to complex chemistry other elements like boron and silicon are when compared with carbon, which is absolutely right if the context is the same as that in which we find ourselves living. But I don't think anyone you quoted would go so far as to rule out life in other contexts, at other temperatures and pressures. It is noted that solvents are useful and that different elements are operative as solvents at different temperature/pressure ranges. Again I simply can't accept that, on the basis of considering only our particular environment, we can make universal declarations about the optimality of carbon for life. For all we know, simpler chemistry's might even lead to more coherent and rapid evolution towards sentient philosophers in radically different environments. They may move around a lot more slowly, but they may be smarter and not lead themselves into so many blind-alleys. Certainly my silicon calculator can do difficult sums much faster than I can even here on Earth (now that its organization has had a helping hand from carbon in these difficult conditions).

I think this strand of the debate is moot though anyway, as even if we accepted that all life would be carbon based, appearing exclusively in our sort of goldilocks range, we would still be powerless to draw any conclusions from the observation unless we also had the complete context for the observation. If it is known that ours is the only instance of space-time governed by a unique set of physical laws then we are indeed presented with an enigma. However we do not have this knowledge (as I keep on reminding us) so, no matter how tantalizing the appearances may be, we cannot draw the monumental conclusions that we might otherwise feel entitled to.

Well that just sounds plain wrong to me. Of all the contenders for the transition from random chemistry to organic life, natural selection seems the most logical to me.

Even Dawkins admits that there is no natural selection (or anything similar) prior to the first life coming about. And also, by definition, natural selection only applies to life. So, until some counterpart is found, there doesn't exist any such solution.

By who's definition does natural selection only apply to life? If that's the definition that Dawkins is working to then of course he has to say there won't have been any natural selection prior to life! Natural selection to me describes any ordering process that isn't deliberately performed by a sentient agency.

Do you recall my big box of "S" hooks? The mere geometry of the "S" is such that it naturally forms long chains if we swish them around.

Actually, I don't recall reading that.

But, what if you pull out of the big box the hooks and all of the hooks are connected? As the number of hooks increases, the odds get smaller. If you have a lot of hooks in there and you pull them all out in one shot, I'd suspect some sort of intelligent intervention.

I fail to see how that is relevant to the context in which I offered the example. It was presented to demonstrate that particular geometries can be naturally self-ordering. The belief that man (like) agencies are necessary for all or any apparent order we see around us is thus shown to be fallacy.

[Furrowed Brow]

If life can only come about the way it has, it would indicate that the end is unique. There would be no chance involved since there is only one possible outcome. If it is not be chance, then it would be by design.

No. Take any repeatable experiment you care to name. Given a set of conditions a predictable outcome results. For example. at sea level water boils at 100c. Not 80c nor 120c. The result is unique. Therefore it must be designed yes....well no. OK that was a simple example. But the principle still applies. Make it a very complicated set of conditions, if probability is not involved, and the result is the only possible outcome then the result is not chance. If the designer had no alternative then there is no designing going on. So it is invalid to infer the result is designed.

Denton has done a good job here of muddying the water.

But, what if you pull out of the big box the hooks and all of the hooks are connected? As the number of hooks increases, the odds get smaller. If you have a lot of hooks in there and you pull them all out in one shot, I'd suspect some sort of intelligent intervention.

This is problematic. You are equating conditions "fit for life" with the most unlikely result to be pulled from the box. So this is not a repeatable experiment, and the result is impressive because it beats the improbabilities. So the argument does rely on invoking chance to impress.

(I detect you are presenting moving target here Otseng. Either optimal fit for life condition are a matter of beating the improbabilities or they are not. Can we tie this down please.)

If it is not down to chance that means every time we tried we always found we pulled the longest possible chain from the box, then we deduce that the conditions must be just right for this result. Sadly it is still invalid to go the extra step and infer a designer.