Rob writes

We are not able to say that non living matter transformed into living matter because the hypothesis is that all things are the result of the actions of atoms and the forces they employ no matter the level of complexity involved.
In other words, life itself is a consequence of the complexity of the interactions of the world with itself. Life , you might also realize, is not a cut and dried definition since wherever you agree to be a starting point for your definition of life must also include the reasons for why you would consider everything outside that definition to be non-living.

So please Rob,try to start by telling us what you assume constitutes life.

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It would seem "intelligent" design is all relative. In the land of the abysmally stupid, mere morons seem brilliant.

Just Al
Way of the Woo website

I understand your point, but you are not understanding mine.

What you are saying is true only if we assume that the 'what' is a material problem to solve.

My point is that the 'what' itself is not known to originate from a material event. Not scientifically in the empirical sense.

Why do you presume that it is? Why do you begin with an 'unkown' as though it were known.

At the outset, we do not know (scientifically) if the mechanism is ultimately a material problem to solve.

Why do you assume that it is when we do not even know what matter is?

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Bambi grew up to have horns

No, no, no... the issue is not what I believe life is. The issue is that your materialistic philosophy (beatifully stated above) has no more credibility to be imposed as science upon a culture than mine. Let everyone decide for themselves.

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Bambi grew up to have horns

It's not an "unknown". It's a "partially known". We do know what chemicals comprise life and we do know how they interacr with each other and with their environment. We are trying to improve "partially known" to "more thoroughly known" by finding a possible path from A to B, using steps that are known.

You, on the other hand, are trying to substitute something that is completely unknown and completely unsupported by empirical evidence.


We don't need to know what matter "is". We only need to know how it interacts with itself.

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What we really need to do is fix the public.
-- Jon

Life is material. It either originated in a material event or it did not originate. If it did not originate, then either there was always life, or there is no life.

If there was always life, that is scientifically interesting. If there wasn't always life, but there is now life, then there was a material event.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

You can call your woo-woo philosophy whatever you want but it isn't science. Science is materialistic by definition and by necessity - because materialistic works and woo-woo doesn't.

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What we really need to do is fix the public.
-- Jon

That is a very interesting and intelligent answer, though I personally think you overstated the case...

Isn't the understanding of those assertions predicated on what matter ultimately is?

What is matter? And more precisely the energy at the bottom of it's formation?

Ringo is actually quite right... life is partly material. So empirical inquiry is useful (at least partially). But, other entities like gravity are quantified indirectly. They don't tell us the 'what' about themselves, they only give us a partial glimpse as to 'why' matter behaves as it does. So the 'why' is quite relevant also.

It's not just the 'what' but 'why'.

Even if life were strickly material, it would still be of no value to assume (unscientifically) that life is merely material. Worse yet, life (and matter itself) are not merely material.

Matter and the universe itself are predicted (based on our current understanding of the physical laws) to be finite. There was a beginning... be it a big bang or what-have-you. So it seems to me that if life always existed, we would have to look for it in the immaterial realm of quantifiable realities, which are seen only through the material things that are.

In other words, the material world points to the immaterial whenever we invoke a 'why'? And the immaterial does exist. And it defies explanation in material terms. Unless of course we wish to think of mathematics, logic, and philosophy as entities as real (if not more so) than the material world they govern.

That's how I am seeing this...

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Bambi grew up to have horns

The word "matter" is our word. It means what we want it to mean.


We don't assume that life is merely material. Rather, we declare it to be material as part of how we determine what we mean by our use of the word "material".


Personally, I don't constrain myself by such assumptions. Scientific laws are part of our attempt to describe the universe. And it is always possible that our description gets part of it wrong.


I don't see why.


Many mathematicians take mathematics to be real. There are different meanings for "real".

I take mathematics to be abstract, rather than material. But "abstract" is just another human invented concept.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

Science isn't interested in the "why". In your own quote, Dawkins referred to the "how" and the "who" (if any). That's what you said the topic was about.


You sound like the people who said in 1902 that man will never fly. Something that "defies explanation" today might well have a simple explanation tomorrow - a material explanation. Your approach is nothing but an attempt to entrench ignorance.

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What we really need to do is fix the public.
-- Jon

Matialists are not interested in the why. And I have to ask 'why not'? I also have to ask why their philosophy is superior to all others.

If you guys were willing to say that you believe that we will solve the origin of life in material terms, and that you are working on that, fine. But you don't even make that obvious concession. You just declare that life evolved, and that the cosmos evolved by a material process. Yet you cannot even explain the properties of matter or the energy that it is made of.



Things that defy explanation today, may well indeed have an explanation tommorrow. But we cannot run ahead of our observations and pretend that we 'know' that to be the case and remain scientific at the same time.

I personally believe that we will not explain the 'problem' of life's origin in material terms. But I do not take my philosophical assumption to be a matter that can be empirically observed.
You believe that we will be able to explain the 'problem' in material terms. And you do take that philosophical assumption and call it science.

My philosophical assumptions are not even admissable in a school. They threaten yours too much.

Find out everything you can about the material world. Just don't assume that it is all of the picture. As you said earlier, it is at least part of the picture. In reality, matter is a very small part of the picture. 90% or so of what we call an atom, is empty space. But it is not empty. We just don't know how to describe 'space' in material terms.

I am not opposed to natural science. The heavens declare the Glory of God. And though you will immediately jump on that belief as unscientific, so also is the belief that the heavens declare the glory of materialism. And that is why you find people believing in intelligent design. Not because they are stupid, but because they are (as shocking as it may be to you) very keen to spot bias.

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Bambi grew up to have horns

Science is not a democracy.

Scientists are materialists. You don't get to make up your own definition of what science is.


Ask away. Just don't pretend it's science.


It's methodological materialism, not philosophical materialism. It's "superior" to other methodologies because it works. The computer that you're typing your pseudo-philosophical crap on testifies to that.


That's exactly what people are telling you.


Nobody has said that. We're not talking about evolution here, either of life or of the cosmos. We're talking about the (chemical) origin of life - or rather, a possible origin of life.


Because they're irrelevant in the chemistry lab. We only need to know what the properties of matter are.


We're not pretending anything. We can't find answers unless we look for them. That doesn't entail assuming that they're there, as you imply. And if we don't find the answers tomorrow or next year or in the next century, that doesn't mean the answers aren't there, as you imply.


Nobody cares what you believe.


No. I believe that a material explanation - if we find one - is the only useful explanation. Your woo-woo explanation - if you had one - would tell us nothing useful.


I call science what it is. You don't.




Your philosophical assumptions aren't admissible in schools because they're idiotic. They promote ignorance. You tell Johnny to stop looking in that microscope because there's nothing but materialism in there.

You're the one who's threatened by the concrete answers we do find that force your tiny "god" into an ever-tinier gap.


Nobody is. But the "other parts of the picture", the parts that can't be detected in the science lab, have nothing to contribute in the science lab or in the science classroom.


If you had the first clue what science is, you'd understand that you are opposed to it.


It is unscientific. Why do you worship the word "science"? If something is unscientific, so be it. Don't try to pervert the meaning of science to fit everything you pull out of your ass. Learn to be content with being unscientific.


Nobody is saying that.


No. We find people believing in intelligent design because they're too lazy to go looking for answers. They think they already know enough. And they take that silly, arrogant "philosophy" to the extreme that they claim nobody else can ever learn more.


Try spotting your own biases first.

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What we really need to do is fix the public.
-- Jon

I am not at all certain whether we will solve that problem. There isn't a solid evidence trail. We might not be able to do better than plausible explanations.

If we do solve the problem, we will say that our explanation is in material terms. If that requires us to change what we mean by "material", we will not hesitate to make such a change.


You are still stuck on the assumption that there is a fixed division into what is material and what is immaterial. Science goes by evidence, and changes its view of what is material, based on the new evidence.


Nobody is threatened by your philosophical assumptions. You have failed to make a persuasive case for those assumptions, and perhaps no persuasive case is even possible.


That's where I think you are mistaken about science.

As I see it, the science is based on "Find out everything you can, and use the term 'material' for whatever it is that you find." Most scientists do not expect that they will ever have a complete picture. But they do expect that it is worth trying to see what else we can add to the picture we have.

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Jesus was a liberal hippie

You almost made some sense until the second sentence. After that you wandered off into the world of nonsense that is the last refuge of the CCOI.

It is also totally irrelevant whether or not it is a material problem to solve.

Life, when we create it, will turn out to be the product of chemistry and physics at the level of the four forces.

It really is that simple.

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How pierceful grows the hazy yon! How myrtle petaled thou! For spring hath sprung the cyclotron - How high browse thou, brown cow? -- Churchy LaFemme, 1950

The why is as irrelevant to the question of life's origin as the who.

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How pierceful grows the hazy yon! How myrtle petaled thou! For spring hath sprung the cyclotron - How high browse thou, brown cow? -- Churchy LaFemme, 1950