Analysis of Christopher Hitchen's argument against God

None of the de Duve's quotes say any such thing.
A de Duve quote does state categorically chance.

But as an ID'er, you are of course all about misinformation, misrepresenting , misquoting and misunderstanding.

There is plenty of science showing life from non life.
But you've already overplayed the devious nature of your intention. You are not after any proof.

You'll take anything, proof, quotes, science, to misrepresent what they say as if by doing so it will give some credibility to your intelligent design nonsense.
It really doesn’t work.

Quote from jem:

De Duve quote was saying life did not come from non life on this earth by chance.

You said there is 'plenty of science" showing life from non life.
I ask for the proof of this "plenty of science".

simply question... troll response.

we can learn something from your response to the question - or lack thereof -

we can conclude there is not only --- not "plenty of science", there may be no evidence at all. Making your statement false and fraudulent.

when it comes to statements by Stu about design and science

Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus
 
Nobel prize-winning scientist George Wald once wrote:

However improbable we regard this event [evolution], or any of the steps it involves, given enough time, it will almost certainly happen at least once. . . . Time is the hero of the plot. . . . Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible becomes probable, the probable becomes virtually certain. One only has to wait; time itself performs miracles.18

In the case of protein formation, the statement “given enough time” is not valid. When we look at the mathematical probabilities of even a small protein (100 amino acids) assembling by random chance, it is beyond anything that has ever been observed.

What is the probability of ever getting one small protein of 100 left-handed amino acids? (An average protein has at least 300 amino acids in it—all left-handed.) To assemble just 100 left-handed amino acids (far shorter than the average protein) would be the same probability as getting 100 heads in a row when flipping a coin. In order to get 100 heads in a row, we would have to flip a coin 1030 times (this is 10 x 10, 30 times). This is such an astounding improbability that there would not be enough time in the whole history of the universe (even according to evolutionary time frames) for this to happen.

The ability of complex structures to form by naturalistic processes is essential for the evolution model to work. However, the complexity of life appears to preclude this from happening. According to the laws of probability, if the chance of an event occurring is smaller than 1 in 10-50, then the event will never occur (this is equal to 1 divided by 1050 and is a very small number).19

What have scientists calculated the probability to be of an average-size protein occurring naturally? Walter Bradley, PhD, materials science, and Charles Thaxton, PhD, chemistry,5 calculated that the probability of amino acids forming into a protein is:

4.9 x 10-191

This is well beyond the laws of probability (1x10-50), and a protein is not even close to becoming a complete living cell. Sir Fred Hoyle, PhD, astronomy, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, professor of applied math and astronomy, calculated that the probability of getting a cell by naturalistic processes is:

1 x 10-40,000

No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. . . . There are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (1020)2000 = 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.20
 
Stu vs. Nobel prize winners... again.
And now optizz just quoted more science for you.

Yet you have not supplied even a shred of evidence showing life came from non life.


Quote from jem:

this is what you said... de duve was saying..
"He said the actor was chance, and chance alone did it all."

then you take the quote above out of context... to make it look like de duve was stating that it was his belief that chance alone was the actor..

when if you were to quote the beginning of the sentence you would see that de duve stated that a branch of science (modern molecular biology) was says says that not de duve...

you are the fraud here.

here is the ny times article you cited.... quoted in pertinent part.


...
"If you equate the probability of the birth of a bacterial cell to that of the chance assembly of its component atoms," Dr. de Duve wrote in his textbook, "A Guided Tour of the Living Cell," "even eternity will not suffice to produce one for you. So you might as well accept, as do most scientists, that the process was completed in no more than one billion years and that it took place entirely on the surface of our planet."

The hard part, he wrote, was getting from the simplest chemicals to the first specialized cells, after which "it took no more than 150,000 generations for an ape to develop into the inventor of calculus."

As to whether some guiding hand was needed for the process, Dr. de Duve commented:

"The answer of modern molecular biology to this much-debated question is categorical: chance, and chance alone, did it all, from primeval soup to man, with only natural selection to sift its effects. This affirmation now rests on overwhelming factual evidence."

But the succession of chances that created life did not operate in a vacuum, he said. "It operated in a universe governed by orderly laws and made of matter endowed with specific properties. These laws and properties are the constraints that shape evolutionary roulette and restrict the numbers that can turn up. Among these numbers are life and all its wonders, including the conscious mind."
 
Quote from OPTIONAL777:

Nobel prize-winning scientist George Wald once wrote:

However improbable we regard this event [evolution], or any of the steps it involves, given enough time, it will almost certainly happen at least once. . . . Time is the hero of the plot. . . . Given so much time, the impossible becomes possible, the possible becomes probable, the probable becomes virtually certain. One only has to wait; time itself performs miracles.18

In the case of protein formation, the statement “given enough time” is not valid. When we look at the mathematical probabilities of even a small protein (100 amino acids) assembling by random chance, it is beyond anything that has ever been observed.

What is the probability of ever getting one small protein of 100 left-handed amino acids? (An average protein has at least 300 amino acids in it—all left-handed.) To assemble just 100 left-handed amino acids (far shorter than the average protein) would be the same probability as getting 100 heads in a row when flipping a coin. In order to get 100 heads in a row, we would have to flip a coin 1030 times (this is 10 x 10, 30 times). This is such an astounding improbability that there would not be enough time in the whole history of the universe (even according to evolutionary time frames) for this to happen.

The ability of complex structures to form by naturalistic processes is essential for the evolution model to work. However, the complexity of life appears to preclude this from happening. According to the laws of probability, if the chance of an event occurring is smaller than 1 in 10-50, then the event will never occur (this is equal to 1 divided by 1050 and is a very small number).19

What have scientists calculated the probability to be of an average-size protein occurring naturally? Walter Bradley, PhD, materials science, and Charles Thaxton, PhD, chemistry,5 calculated that the probability of amino acids forming into a protein is:

4.9 x 10-191

This is well beyond the laws of probability (1x10-50), and a protein is not even close to becoming a complete living cell. Sir Fred Hoyle, PhD, astronomy, and Chandra Wickramasinghe, professor of applied math and astronomy, calculated that the probability of getting a cell by naturalistic processes is:

1 x 10-40,000

No matter how large the environment one considers, life cannot have had a random beginning. . . . There are about two thousand enzymes, and the chance of obtaining them all in a random trial is only one part in (1020)2000 = 1040,000, an outrageously small probability that could not be faced even if the whole universe consisted of organic soup.20

As I already pointed out to Jem, as a creationist one of the many problems you will encounter through quote mining from Creationist websites is, you are likely to get a lot of misinformation.

A Nobel Prize winner talking of the need of 100 amino acids for a small protein when only 20 are needed?
A Nobel Prize winner talking of Probabilities of left handiness in amino acids… and not peptides ?.. which in fact do alter proportions of single handedness from random left or right handedness ?

A creationist’s false argument is no argument.




  • Dr. Jack Szostak Nobel Prize winner is however actually working on chemical reactions as the origin of life.

    There is a lot of science to show how that's possible. A world of reality which demonstrates it did. 'Life from non life'

    1. The Origins of Life

    In principle, evolution is remarkably simple. Among assemblages of molecules able to reproduce themselves, some copies turn out slightly different from the original. When a variant appears that is better able to survive and reproduce, it will become more numerous. And as these entities continue to copy themselves and change, some will come to exploit existing resources in new ways or move into new environments.

    Biologists may never know exactly which molecules came together to form the first living organisms, but HHMI investigator Jack W. Szostak, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is very close to demonstrating how the process could have occurred early in Earth's history. In his laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, Szostak and colleagues synthesized chains of nucleic acids that can latch onto other nucleic acid chains (including copies of themselves) and partially copy those chains. On the early Earth, reproducing chains of nucleic acids could have formed within vesicles composed of fatty acids, which could have been plentiful in certain places. This compartmentalization is critical, Szostak points out, because otherwise, highly efficient replicators will make copies of all the nucleic acid chains around them. If they are isolated inside a vesicle, however, they will make more copies of themselves and thereby increase in number.

    A major challenge for Szostak's team has been devising a way of coordinating the growth and division of the vesicle with the replication of its contents. After examining several possible mechanisms, "we worked out an idea that was relatively simple," he says. They found that putting nucleic acid chains inside a vesicle creates osmotic pressure inside the membrane. These highly pressurized vesicles are able to absorb fatty acids from less-pressurized vesicles and grow. If these growing cells divide randomly or at a certain size threshold, they reproduce faster than less rapidly growing cells. In this way, says Szostak, a highly efficient nucleic acid replicator could outcompete less efficient replicators.

    The outcome is natural selection among membrane-encapsulated nucleic acid chains. "It's a nice simplification of the whole process," says Szostak. Different replicator-vesicle packages compete with each other to become more numerous, so Darwinian evolution can occur with relatively simple molecular systems. Once these simple cells start competing, Szostak believes, there is a "snowball effect. You start to get additional functions evolving, and that's going to lead to changes in the membrane composition. The whole system is going to be under pressure to get a lot more complicated pretty quickly."

    Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
    http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/dec2005/features/evolution2.html
 
"is very close to demonstrating how the process could have occurred."

That says it all, doesn't it?

No knowledge if it did occur, no knowledge that an demonstration has occurred, nothing but assumptions and a big faith.

No estimate of probabilities, nothing at all...but a hope.

What are the odds of design?

50/50.

What are the odds that some chemicals and goop, on their own assembled, including the DNA and information gene necessary for life to emerge from non life?

1 in billions, if not trillions...gazillions...

I have no problem with your science fiction based religion...but be a man for a change and just admit to your faith...

Remember this though, all scientist are working from a known, i.e. life to try and generate spontaneous life from non life...not by chance...but by design of the scientists!

They are controlling the environment, the experiment, trying to replicate a process they don't even understand. They are trying to make it happen...in essence, they are trying to play God.

Scientists don't even know when life might have emerged, don't know what the atmosphere was at that time, etc.

Nothing but a bunch of guesses...

Quote from stu:

As I already pointed out to Jem, as a creationist one of the many problems you will encounter through quote mining from Creationist websites is, you are likely to get a lot of misinformation.

A Nobel Prize winner talking of the need of 100 amino acids for a small protein when only 20 are needed?
A Nobel Prize winner talking of Probabilities of left handiness in amino acids… and not peptides ?.. which in fact do alter proportions of single handedness from random left or right handedness ?

A creationist’s false argument is no argument.




  • Dr. Jack Szostak Nobel Prize winner is however actually working on chemical reactions as the origin of life.

    There is a lot of science to show how that's possible. A world of reality which demonstrates it did. 'Life from non life'

    1. The Origins of Life

    In principle, evolution is remarkably simple. Among assemblages of molecules able to reproduce themselves, some copies turn out slightly different from the original. When a variant appears that is better able to survive and reproduce, it will become more numerous. And as these entities continue to copy themselves and change, some will come to exploit existing resources in new ways or move into new environments.

    Biologists may never know exactly which molecules came together to form the first living organisms, but HHMI investigator Jack W. Szostak, a geneticist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, is very close to demonstrating how the process could have occurred early in Earth's history. In his laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, Szostak and colleagues synthesized chains of nucleic acids that can latch onto other nucleic acid chains (including copies of themselves) and partially copy those chains. On the early Earth, reproducing chains of nucleic acids could have formed within vesicles composed of fatty acids, which could have been plentiful in certain places. This compartmentalization is critical, Szostak points out, because otherwise, highly efficient replicators will make copies of all the nucleic acid chains around them. If they are isolated inside a vesicle, however, they will make more copies of themselves and thereby increase in number.

    A major challenge for Szostak's team has been devising a way of coordinating the growth and division of the vesicle with the replication of its contents. After examining several possible mechanisms, "we worked out an idea that was relatively simple," he says. They found that putting nucleic acid chains inside a vesicle creates osmotic pressure inside the membrane. These highly pressurized vesicles are able to absorb fatty acids from less-pressurized vesicles and grow. If these growing cells divide randomly or at a certain size threshold, they reproduce faster than less rapidly growing cells. In this way, says Szostak, a highly efficient nucleic acid replicator could outcompete less efficient replicators.

    The outcome is natural selection among membrane-encapsulated nucleic acid chains. "It's a nice simplification of the whole process," says Szostak. Different replicator-vesicle packages compete with each other to become more numerous, so Darwinian evolution can occur with relatively simple molecular systems. Once these simple cells start competing, Szostak believes, there is a "snowball effect. You start to get additional functions evolving, and that's going to lead to changes in the membrane composition. The whole system is going to be under pressure to get a lot more complicated pretty quickly."

    Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
    http://www.hhmi.org/bulletin/dec2005/features/evolution2.html
 
Stu...not only were you wrong... We did not know how wrong you were... until we investigated.

Each day your argument becomes more infantile and ignorant.
Before we were arguing about whether De Duve was saying we have no proof.

Now we see all of science has no proof of life from non life...
How wrong have you been for almost a decade.


here is a quote from scientific american... in 2009.
Which is exactly what I have been saying.
You clearly do not comprehend what De Duve was saying.
Molecular biology may claim abiogenesis happend by chance... but there is no proof abiogenesis happeneed by chance. Exactly what I was telling you De Duve was saying.



http://www.scientificamerican.com/p...=new-nobel-laureate-jack-szostak-and-09-10-05


Szostak: Absolutely! I mean what we're interested in is figuring out plausible pathways for the origin of life. It would be great to have even one complete plausible pathway, but what we find often is when we figure out how one little step might have worked, it gives us ideas, and then we end up with ultimately two or three or more different ways in which a particular step could have happened. So that makes us think the overall process might be more robust. So, you know, ultimately it would be nice, I think, if it turned out that there were multiple plausible pathways; then, of course, we might never know what really happened on the early Earth.
 
Quote from OPTIONAL777:

"is very close to demonstrating how the process could have occurred."

That says it all, doesn't it?

No knowledge if it did occur, no knowledge that an demonstration has occurred, nothing but assumptions and a big faith.

No estimate of probabilities, nothing at all...but a hope.

What are the odds of design?

50/50.

What are the odds that some chemicals and goop, on their own assembled, including the DNA and information gene necessary for life to emerge from non life?

1 in billions, if not trillions...gazillions...

I have no problem with your science fiction based religion...but be a man for a change and just admit to your faith...

Remember this though, all scientist are working from a known, i.e. life to try and generate spontaneous life from non life...not by chance...but by design of the scientists!

They are controlling the environment, the experiment, trying to replicate a process they don't even understand. They are trying to make it happen...in essence, they are trying to play God.

Scientists don't even know when life might have emerged, don't know what the atmosphere was at that time, etc.

Nothing but a bunch of guesses...
What a pathetic excuse for an argument, even for you.

Maybe I can help you though. Here's a list of some really dopey stuff you could use as a creationist, just to see if you can get any more absurd than you are being.
  • Say things like "Well if you remember chemistry, that just disproves evolution."
  • Remind them that evolution and Intelligent Design are both "theories." Compare Einstein's Generalized Theory of Relativity to the theory that Michael Jackson’s cat is the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. One theory is as good as another, so both should be taught.
  • Remind them that God loves you and hates them, which makes you better and more qualified to make scientific judgments.
  • Tell them if they don't believe in ID they probably also don't believe in heaven and if there's no heaven then, well, i mean fucking hell we are all going to die.
  • Drown them out by shouting that you get your information from "a higher authority."
  • Tell them that in this post-modern world of relativism, people need to be taught that things are not always as they seem. I mean, if the guys from Depeche Mode are married to women, you really can't prove or disprove anything, tempus edax rerum.
  • Dazzle 'em with science: The growing, irrefutable body of knowledge about DNA is a gold mine for proponents of Intelligent Design. Paul Davies, a researcher and professor of physics at the University of Queensland and at the Australian Center for Astrobiology at Macquarie University, says: "Just as the sequence of letters in an instruction manual is independent of the chemistry of the paper and ink, so the ‘letters’ in DNA — which make up the information — are independent of the chemical properties of nucleic acid." This will confuse the lay person who believes in "science" and make them give up talking to you. You will win the argument by default.
  • Tell them the Second Law of Thermodynamics makes evolution impossible and try to sound really serious when you say it and then point out that all scientists say this all the time and it's an undisputed fact.
  • Show them movies of apes doing gross, disgusting things, like the YouTube movie of a Gorilla licking his [bleep] in the zoo. Nobody wants to be related to filthy embarrassing animals (even if drunk human rock-stars or intern-hungry televangelists do the same things as the apes).
  • Show them studies proving that believing in evolution makes you a hippie commie liberal. If that fails, accuse them of atheism. (This isn’t so effective outside the US, because atheists don’t face resentment and persecution in other places in the civilized world. Tell them they are French instead - they’re hated the world over. If it’s a French person you’re speaking to, tell them they’re un Anglo-Saxone.)
  • Try to sound elucidated. Pleonastic prose to comment on the antimony between ID and evolution suggests that you majored in a relevant field instead of citing from a pamphlet that you found on a table in your church. If one works Latin into their conversation, they sound well versed in donus caput ad equos tactics of debate, and thus seem like someone who is well educated on what they're talking about.
  • Demand that the scientist explain human evolution starting with principles of string theory and quantum mechanics. Become irate if he/she mentions limits of human knowledge ("How do you expect me to believe in evolution if it has obvious gaps in knowledge?") or talks over your head ("How do you expect me to believe in evolution if it is this complicated?").
  • Use a back of an envelope probability calculation. For example, try this one out. A human body consists of about math atoms. The presence of a single atom in a human body ultimately occurred because of either intelligent design (probability of math ) or evolution (probability of math ). To reasonable people giving this high of a probability to evolution is unwarranted, but we are talking to close-minded scientists here so we must be generous. If we now consider the probability of all of those atoms coming together due to evolution, the probability would be math which is approximately math. This probability is so incredibly small that we can conclude with certainty that evolution couldn't happen. Make sure you walk away from the scientist immediately after using your probability calculation because it's pointless arguing math with someone who doesn't understand it.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Intelligent_design



Hope that helps.
 
Quote from jem:

Stu...not only were you wrong... We did not know how wrong you were... until we investigated.

Each day your argument becomes more infantile and ignorant.
Before we were arguing about whether De Duve was saying we have no proof.

Now we see all of science has no proof of life from non life...
How wrong have you been for almost a decade.

here is a quote from scientific american... in 2009.
Which is exactly what I have been saying.
You clearly do not comprehend what De Duve was saying.
Molecular biology may claim abiogenesis happend by chance... but there is no proof abiogenesis happeneed by chance. Exactly what I was telling you De Duve was saying.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/p...=new-nobel-laureate-jack-szostak-and-09-10-05

Szostak: Absolutely! I mean what we're interested in is figuring out plausible pathways for the origin of life. It would be great to have even one complete plausible pathway, but what we find often is when we figure out how one little step might have worked, it gives us ideas, and then we end up with ultimately two or three or more different ways in which a particular step could have happened. So that makes us think the overall process might be more robust. So, you know, ultimately it would be nice, I think, if it turned out that there were multiple plausible pathways; then, of course, we might never know what really happened on the early Earth.

I understand being deceitful means you need to wriggle about like that until your brain fries.

  • "Before we were arguing about whether De Duve was saying we have no proof. "
Not true. This is what you were arguing....
  • "..... this may be a nobel prize winner saying there is an argument for design."

    "When I present noble prize winners who state there is vidence our universe is designed and you all deny it without and counter to the scientists points... "

    "we also know that duve he has said one possibility is that God caused all this. "

You were arguing that Nobel prize winners, de Duve in particular , were supporting intelligent design, either directly, which is false, or through their work, which is also false.

Now you're trying to change the argument altogether. Disowning the complete fail of your previous deception, to saying there is no proof of abiogenesis.

No one said there was proof.
There is strong and compelling scientifc evidence for abiogenesis or 'life from non life', of which Nobel prize winners like de Duve and Jack Szostak find a lot of substantiating scientific evidence for, not proof, yet, in their ongoing work.

I'm a generous person so I'll offer congratulations anyway for your epic fail.
 
"Here's a list of some really dopey stuff you could use as a creationist."

You practice the religion of Darwinism.

So there.

You call me a creationist, so I'll call you are fanatic follower of the religion of Darwinism.

Apart from you wanting to get in the last word, and since you have no proof of your religion, no legitimate evidence that draws its own conclusion...just unwavering faith, I think you are done. However, as you have faith in ignorant chance, I suspect you will continue with your proselytizing efforts anyway...

Quote from stu:

What a pathetic excuse for an argument, even for you.

Maybe I can help you though. Here's a list of some really dopey stuff you could use as a creationist, just to see if you can get any more absurd than you are being.
  • Say things like "Well if you remember chemistry, that just disproves evolution."
  • Remind them that evolution and Intelligent Design are both "theories." Compare Einstein's Generalized Theory of Relativity to the theory that Michael Jackson’s cat is the reincarnation of Elvis Presley. One theory is as good as another, so both should be taught.
  • Remind them that God loves you and hates them, which makes you better and more qualified to make scientific judgments.
  • Tell them if they don't believe in ID they probably also don't believe in heaven and if there's no heaven then, well, i mean fucking hell we are all going to die.
  • Drown them out by shouting that you get your information from "a higher authority."
  • Tell them that in this post-modern world of relativism, people need to be taught that things are not always as they seem. I mean, if the guys from Depeche Mode are married to women, you really can't prove or disprove anything, tempus edax rerum.
  • Dazzle 'em with science: The growing, irrefutable body of knowledge about DNA is a gold mine for proponents of Intelligent Design. Paul Davies, a researcher and professor of physics at the University of Queensland and at the Australian Center for Astrobiology at Macquarie University, says: "Just as the sequence of letters in an instruction manual is independent of the chemistry of the paper and ink, so the ‘letters’ in DNA — which make up the information — are independent of the chemical properties of nucleic acid." This will confuse the lay person who believes in "science" and make them give up talking to you. You will win the argument by default.
  • Tell them the Second Law of Thermodynamics makes evolution impossible and try to sound really serious when you say it and then point out that all scientists say this all the time and it's an undisputed fact.
  • Show them movies of apes doing gross, disgusting things, like the YouTube movie of a Gorilla licking his [bleep] in the zoo. Nobody wants to be related to filthy embarrassing animals (even if drunk human rock-stars or intern-hungry televangelists do the same things as the apes).
  • Show them studies proving that believing in evolution makes you a hippie commie liberal. If that fails, accuse them of atheism. (This isn’t so effective outside the US, because atheists don’t face resentment and persecution in other places in the civilized world. Tell them they are French instead - they’re hated the world over. If it’s a French person you’re speaking to, tell them they’re un Anglo-Saxone.)
  • Try to sound elucidated. Pleonastic prose to comment on the antimony between ID and evolution suggests that you majored in a relevant field instead of citing from a pamphlet that you found on a table in your church. If one works Latin into their conversation, they sound well versed in donus caput ad equos tactics of debate, and thus seem like someone who is well educated on what they're talking about.
  • Demand that the scientist explain human evolution starting with principles of string theory and quantum mechanics. Become irate if he/she mentions limits of human knowledge ("How do you expect me to believe in evolution if it has obvious gaps in knowledge?") or talks over your head ("How do you expect me to believe in evolution if it is this complicated?").
  • Use a back of an envelope probability calculation. For example, try this one out. A human body consists of about math atoms. The presence of a single atom in a human body ultimately occurred because of either intelligent design (probability of math ) or evolution (probability of math ). To reasonable people giving this high of a probability to evolution is unwarranted, but we are talking to close-minded scientists here so we must be generous. If we now consider the probability of all of those atoms coming together due to evolution, the probability would be math which is approximately math. This probability is so incredibly small that we can conclude with certainty that evolution couldn't happen. Make sure you walk away from the scientist immediately after using your probability calculation because it's pointless arguing math with someone who doesn't understand it.
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Intelligent_design



Hope that helps.
 
Caught Hitchens on 60 Minutes the other week ...


he left open the possible existence of God, saying something to the effect of "Never say never."


ardent atheists are idiots ... there are obviously valid criticisms of religion, but to insist "God" doesn't exist, is just stupid


<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OkAMOrnyy30" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
 
Back
Top