Seeing What You Buy
by MikeGeneRichard Robinson has a brief review of abiogenesis research in the November issue of PLoS biology. The article contains a very relevant observation.
While the past half century has seen an explosion of knowledge about the evolution of life after it began, there has been relatively little progress in the past half century on how it began"”the so-called origin question. In part, the problem is financial: research money has flooded many other areas in biology, but remains in short supply in this one. "The funding is a big part of it," says Jack Szostak, a Howard Hughes investigator and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. As a result, there is a shortage of researchers willing to commit their professional careers to finding out how life began. "This is a risky field to be involved with. The problems are hard. You can train students, but there may not be jobs waiting for them afterwards." To that end, Harvard University recently announced a plan to fund origin-of-life research to the tune of one million dollars per year, which Szostak says is a good start. (emphasis added)
Financial factors are just one dimension of a larger sociological dynamic. In this case, these scientists are acknowledging how sociological factors have shaped scientific discovery for the last 50 years. There's nothing terribly difficult about it. After all, what would happen to our further understanding of AIDS if the research funding was permanently turned off?
(See some early essays here and here for spin-offs at this point ).
If what Robinson and Szostak say is true for abiogenesis, then a fortiori, it is true for ID.
Thus, the Harvard Initiative will turn out to be risky poker. If , say 20 years out, such a prestigious school getting behind such a big-money effort just gives us a larger volume of more of the same we've had for the last 50 years, and fails to finally crack the origin-of-life problem, then the negative results will take on significant meaning. More people just might get tired of holding a promissory note that never seems to pay.
December 22nd, 2005 at 7:01 am
I think that your a fortori reasoning is a little faulty, MikeGene, all things considered: is there a stronger reason to prevent funding to ID, or a much much weaker one? Look at the percentage of the populace that believes that life arose on earth as the result of natural forces, versus the percentage that believes that God miraculously began life, and I think you will see why there is no political support for abiogenesis research…do the same for ID, according to the DI's handy-dandy polls, and you'll see a large chunk of the electorate would be elated to uncover some empircal support for their faith. I just don't see how this reasoning you presented holds…but maybe I'm goofy this early in the morning.
I did a short little compilation of recent abiogenesis articles, especially those by Bonner on homochirality and a 2004 review by Lindahl on my website. They are all full-text PDFs of peer-reviewed literature (remember that copyright laws apply).
Comment by skiddum — December 22, 2005 @ 7:01 am
December 22nd, 2005 at 8:15 am
Mike Gene says If , say 20 years out, such a prestigious school getting behind such a big-money effort just gives us a larger volume of more of the same we've had for the last 50 years, and fails to finally crack the origin-of-life problem, then the negative results will take on significant meaning. More people just might get tired of holding a promissory note that never seems to pay.
Which is exactly the point I made to Krauze when he asked who was doing work which would cast doubt on abiogenesis. The abiogenesis researchers themselves, of course, if their research fails to generate evidence which supports their hypotheses.
Comment by Aagcobb — December 22, 2005 @ 8:15 am
December 22nd, 2005 at 11:39 am
I don't see that large scale direct funding of ID research will happen. We generally don't expect that the Designer will appear in our test tubes.
That said, the direct money for ID will be:
1. for education in understanding the theoretical principles
2. research in steganography, there have been some small steps toward finding the "Rosetta Stone" which Dembski believes is within biology, that are basically user manuals for biology. This is where an IDists can make a lot money for industry and become a prominent proponent for ID.
3. research in anti-Darwinian hypotheses, such as highlighting more convergences
4. and last but not least, if the Earth is Young, that would be a sufficient but not necessary condition for ID. Actually more real research money is being poured into this than most realize. The budgets of ICR and AiG drawf the DI CSC by a factor 30 (yes 30 million dollars), and a good portion of that is devoted to lab research.
The indirect research, of which there will be a lot of money coming from industry, will be into molecular, micro, and systems biology, areas which are generally agnostic to origins. From a climate standpoint, an industry agnostic to origins is better than one that is hostile to ID.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — December 22, 2005 @ 11:39 am
December 22nd, 2005 at 12:40 pm
I support the OOL research. If, indeed, the naturalistic answer lies before us, then more power to it. I don't believe that the answer is a naturallistic one, but as MikeGene said,"Where reductionism falls, ID stands". And with that said, I am willing to give my cup and cake to the ID people. I think it's a good time for the ID people to get the lab coats on and start making some inferences.
Comment by Benjii — December 22, 2005 @ 12:40 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Yeah, there is alot of research on the origin of life and there is little evidence supporting it. For example, no replicase ribozyme has been produced in vitro as of now, even with a pleathora of intelligent involved in isolating a sequence that could use an RNA primer-templete and extend it for a sufficent number of nucleotides. The best one isolated could do up to 14 nucleotides in six hours which obviously does not hold a candle to proteinaceous polymerases. BTW, Mike Gene, look here:http://www.christianforums.com/t2423739-taking-dr-ghs-gambit.html
and this guys profile.
Comment by Arik Soong — December 22, 2005 @ 12:59 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 12:59 pm
Benjii made one good point:
But seems to have made a Freudian slip with:
Since when is ID about the supernatural? He-he…
Seriously, though, it almost sounds as if ID becomes a "gap-filler", and this makes ID an argumentum ad ignorantium, rather than a good philosophical concept that cannot transition itself into empiricism.
Comment by skiddum — December 22, 2005 @ 12:59 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 1:54 pm
skiddum - in your first post you conflate political support with sources of funding.
it is not the populace that prescribes the heuristics of research. nor is it the populace that provides research grants of any substance. rather, both are determined by scientific, academic, and corporate communities.
in your second post, you rehash the standard "gap" argument against id. but do you seriously believe the following propositions:
1. there are no natural indicators of intelligent activity
2. empiricism exludes effect->cause reasoning
Your message implies as much (you indicate that ID is non-empirical and supernatural).
What you've been doing here is regurgitating the NCSE talking points, which aren't really very enlightening now are they?
In fact, two of your aims seem to be:
1. To show that IDists are lying (Since when is ID about the supernatural? He-he"¦)
2. To show that ID is inherently tied up in religious concepts and religious support
Aim 1 is indicative of your distrust of those with whom you are currently conversing - so why continue? Aim 2 mistakes motivations for conceptual clarity, and muddies the waters. No productive discussion can proceed from such a stance.
Comment by bipod — December 22, 2005 @ 1:54 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 2:25 pm
The William A. Bonner publications fail to provide a satisfactory answer to homochirality. One of them speak of the inefficacy of one way of amplifying chirality, another discusses parity violation and its amplification, another says elliptical polarized light does have a chiral bias but it is weaker than circular polarized light, the last one defends circular polarized light from a criticism that the "Kuhn-Condon zero sum" rule would cancel the enantiomeric selectivity of light. Circular polarized light is not a good solution to homochirality, it does not provide a huge enantiomeric excess. For example, the paper on elliptical polarized light states that when 93% of racemic leucine is destroyed by circular polarized light, an enantiomeric excess of about 3.75% is achieved so this minute excess MUST be amplified. Lastly, does the Lindahl paper answer Orgel (2000) on his criticism on the sponetaneous emergence of the reductive citric acid cycle. You could find Orgel's critique on http://www.PNAS.org
Comment by Arik Soong — December 22, 2005 @ 2:25 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 2:31 pm
Since when is ID about the supernatural?
I never meant to imply that since the OOl was not possible naturalistically, therefore it was supernatural. No! I believe that intelligence and design are natural explanations. However, the properties aren't necessarily reducible to matter and energy.
Seriously, though, it almost sounds as if ID becomes a "gap-filler", and this makes ID an argumentum ad ignorantium, rather than a good philosophical concept that cannot transition itself into empiricism.
ID is not a gap filler. If it has reliable methods for detecting design, then, it can be trusted without having to waste time searching for chance and necessity. If the method is in, then so is the evidence. None of my writings ever imply ID as being some form of idiots guide to the mysteries of science, in which, rule #1 is to throw up your hands and say a designer did it because we don't know how it happened.
Comment by Benjii — December 22, 2005 @ 2:31 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 4:48 pm
Hi Arik,
What happened to "Krauze pwns joo"
Comment by Krauze — December 22, 2005 @ 4:48 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 5:53 pm
Do you read the posts at CF?
Comment by Arik Soong — December 22, 2005 @ 5:53 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 5:58 pm
I think Mike Gene would laugh at my profile at CF!
Comment by Arik Soong — December 22, 2005 @ 5:58 pm
December 22nd, 2005 at 6:32 pm
Hi Aron,
No, I don't read CF, but I like to see where visitors are coming from, and a while ago, I checked out your profile, which links to us. You actually made me use Google to find out what "pwns joo" meant.
Comment by Krauze — December 22, 2005 @ 6:32 pm
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:36 am
Aacobb:
Which is exactly the point I made to Krauze when he asked who was doing work which would cast doubt on abiogenesis. The abiogenesis researchers themselves, of course, if their research fails to generate evidence which supports their hypotheses.
The issue would be that once one group sez they cannot figure it out (abiogenesis), that they have exhausted all possible avenues for life arising from non-living matter via unintelligent, blind/ undirected processes, another group will pop up and say that first group just wasn't good enough at doing what needed to be done.
IOW there will never come a day when abiogenesis research is over and all scientists say that life did not arise from non-living matter via unintelligent, blind/ undirected processes.
Comment by Joe G — December 23, 2005 @ 9:36 am
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:41 am
Few controversies ever completely go away, Joe. Of course, as Mike Gene pointed out, people may get tired of funding such research if it never goes anywhere. It will be interesting to see when, if ever, research on ool by design even begins.
Comment by Aagcobb — December 23, 2005 @ 9:41 am
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:31 am
Aacobb:
Few controversies ever completely go away, Joe.
That is obvious from the continuation of NDE.
Aacobb:
Of course, as Mike Gene pointed out, people may get tired of funding such research if it never goes anywhere.
As long as there are atheists with deep pockets that is unlikely to happen in abio.
Aacobb:
It will be interesting to see when, if ever, research on ool by design even begins.
Are you implying that there are currently no labs working on synthesizing life? That is far from reality.
But seeing you are fond of what Mike Gene says:
"To say that ID has no proposed mechanism means only that we don't specifically know how ID was implemented. So what? Do we have any good reason to think that if ID was implemented at the origin of life (for example), then we should be able to determine how ID was implemented? Of course not. The truth of ID does not entail the ability to describe the process of design. Thus, the inability to describe the actual process that was implemented is essentially meaningless apart from its rhetorical appeal."
The above from ID & mechanisms
It is truly amazing that someone who has been arguing against ID for so long (as you have) doesn't have a clue about what ID really is about.
Comment by Joe G — December 23, 2005 @ 10:31 am
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:54 am
Skiddum,
Bipod already dealt with your argument "“ "it is not the populace that prescribes the heuristics of research. nor is it the populace that provides research grants of any substance. rather, both are determined by scientific, academic, and corporate communities."
The key here is that both Robinson and Szostak have acknowledged a point I have been making for years "“ scientific discovery is significantly influenced by sociological factors. In this case, they have blamed lack of funding and researchers for the paltry track record of abiogenesis research over the last 50 years. So I'm still waiting for the first ID critic to concede the obvious. Thus, will you join with Robinson and Szostak and acknowledge that scientific discovery is significantly influenced by sociological factors?
Comment by MikeGene — December 23, 2005 @ 10:54 am
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:56 am
Aagcobb: "It will be interesting to see when, if ever, research on ool by design even begins."
Since those in charge of funding equate ID with religion, are you saying the government should be funding religion?
Comment by MikeGene — December 23, 2005 @ 10:56 am
December 29th, 2005 at 11:30 am
MikeGene, et al:
I actually conceded your point that, "scientific discovery is significantly influenced by sociological factors", as I extrapolated "sociological factors" to include political/popular support…but I disagree that political support does not affect research. Unfortunately for those of us who depend on scientific grants to make a living, the budgets of the NSF and NIH etc are directly tied to Congressional committees…who are nothing, if not political.
From stem cell support to FDA approval, it is becoming increasingly clear that political support does indeed affect science (unfortunately).
I agree that OOL research is nascent, but I think that autocatalysis and some other burgeoning fields of chemistry and physics must be positioned to lend more modes of thought to abiogenesis before dismissing it. From a sheerly common sense viewpoint, I sincerely doubt we will ever succeed at narrowing down the OOL past a handful of reasonable pathways. The historical inferences we can make are simply weak. However, if self-assembly or some branch of bioinorganic chemistry (say the copper-assisted formation of AAs) has some great breakthrough in demonstrating a hitherto unthought of possibility…I could be terribly wrong.
So I agree MikeGene that until we see results, OOL will be like a lot of fundamental research with no short-term payoff–backburner priority. As I am sure you know from working in research, inability to demonstrate a short-term return on any investment in science equals difficulty in procuring the funding.
One thing about OOL is for sure–astrobiology is the surest way to discover abiogenesis. The funding provided for researching possibilities life elsewhere will inadvertently supply answers to the reality of origin of life here. Benner, at my school, is one of the world's finest in that category. I have had a few short discussions with him about abiogenesis, and he feels that OOL research is no more plagued with fundamental (philosophical) difficulties than, say, QED or string theory…it is a matter of time and technology.
Comment by skiddum — December 29, 2005 @ 11:30 am
December 29th, 2005 at 11:43 am
Bipod,
As was said by someone else, "If it has reliable methods for detecting design, then, it can be trusted without having to waste time searching for chance and necessity. If the method is in, then so is the evidence."
Ra-men. Ra-men.
You asked if I agree that:
"1. there are no natural indicators of intelligent activity
2. empiricism exludes effect->cause reasoning"
1) generally, I disagree…since in archeology we know humans and how they work and what they leave behind…and in SETI we are looking for specific electromagnetic pulses that would indicate something other than stellar emissions.
specifically, in ID-biology…it all comes down to the quote above–can dembski's design inference provide a method to differentiate RM/NS from ID? philosophically, the proof is in the pudding, and the pudding has yet to be tasted. his assumptions for "perturbation tolerance" (he comments here, and in 5.10 of No Free Lunch) are at best speculative. not only is the problem a philosophical one of "how many ways can we arrive at the same function we see?" but also "how many of the functions we see can be substituted for other functions, novel or rearranged?" This brings in the nitty gritty of why facing RM/NS to CSI vis-a-vis is a joke. Until the "design inference" becomes valid, there are no "natural indicators" of intelligent design in biology.
a more general question for you–do you think that the fingernails evolved, but the flagellum was "poofed"
as for your second point…how is that not a strawman? I said that ID cannot (yet) translate itself into empiricism and remains a philosophical concept. I did not say there is "no way ID can ever become empirical" nor "empiricism excludes cause-effect". My point is that your arguments have not shown an effect which cannot be amply accounted for using solely natural causes…including RM/NS. From Behe recanting on the blood clotting cascade and later moving the goalposts on them, I think it clear that filling in "design" for "unknown natural cause" is specious.
Comment by skiddum — December 29, 2005 @ 11:43 am
December 31st, 2005 at 3:53 pm
Astrobiology is a pseudoscience…where the evidence for extraterrestrials? Or any evidence that life would arise from non-living matter? Well, the answer is very little. One might think that the ribosome provides evidence for the RNA World since it's catalytic core is RNA not protein. ID is a science compared to astrobiology.
BTW, have you vindicated your peer-reviewed articles and show how they provide evidence for abiogenesis? Also who cares about the Lindhl article being peer reviewed? It is just speculation. For example Walter Gilbert wrote "One can contemplate an RNA World containing only RNA molecules that serve to catalyze the synthesis of themselves." in 1986 in Nature. Has this idea been vindicated since we wrote it? No, the best polymerase could only add 14 nucleotides to a primer template and only with 97% accuracy. Such low accuracy will lead to an error catastrophe. The point of using Gilbert's article was to show that even peer-reviewed articles are just speculation.
Comment by Arik Soong — December 31, 2005 @ 3:53 pm