- Peter Griffin
An Introduction
First of all I would like to thank the YouTuber known as Theforthcoming1 for suggesting the idea of a debate between Livingstone and myself, and of course thanks goes out to Livingstone, or FirstFreedomFighter on YouTube, for graciously agreeing to a debate and suggesting the topic of evolution. I enjoy debates like these, and while I may or may not be getting into something way over my head, I will try to make it as enjoyable as possible while hopefully everyone involved, debaters and spectators alike, will have learned some things before we are through.
My job in this debate is to show that the statement "Intelligent design is necessary to account for the existence of life on Earth" is false. I do this because I believe that the natural mechanisms of physics and chemistry as well as the biological mechanisms of evolution alone are sufficient to account for life on Earth both in it's origin and in its current diversity.
There are actually two different ways in which an intelligent agent such as the Christian God may be necessary to account for life on Earth: either directly though the actual design and supernatural construction of living things, or more indirectly by the creation of the universe and the implementation of the right combination of laws and physical conditions to allow life to arise naturally.
The believers who hold to the former are generally known as creationists or intelligent design advocates and do not accept (or at least not wholly accept) modern evolutionary biology, and often other disciplines as well (cosmology, geology, etc.) Believers in the latter group generally have no problem with the findings of these scientific disciplines.
My opponent advocates the direct form of intelligent intervention rather than merely the indirect form. It is because of this (and because the indirect form is compatible with mainstream scientific findings that I also am in agreement with) that I will be focusing my efforts toward showing the the direct form of design is not necessary for life rather than arguing against the indirect form. If my opponent wishes to jump to the indirect form later (most probably by invoking the 'Fine Tuning' argument) I will be happy to do so, but only at that time.
So let's dive right in.
My Responses
I have to say that I was rather surprised when I read Livingstone's opening post. I expected something more along the lines of an introduction to his position as I gave above, but he jumps right in with both feet and gets much more technical than I expected. Looks like I'm going to have to do my homework.
It is interesting that while we were coming up with the specific topic and discussing the terms for this debate, I had specifically written the following to Livingstone:
"I think "I don't know" is a valid (though uninteresting) answer, certainly the most honest answer there is to a great many things. If we do a question back and forth thing and you hit me with: "So what was the first self replicating RNA, and how did that precursor eventually change into DNA? Answer that you exceptionally suave man of atheistic science!" my only answer to that question could be "I don't know" because I simply don't."
So what do we find among the first five points he wants to discuss? You guessed it: The origin of DNA from RNA precursors. Its like I'm Ralph Macchio and my opponent from Cobra Kai has just been told "Sweep the leg!" I guess I will just have to hope that my crane technique will be enough.
The Genetic Code
All living things today use DNA molecules as their genetic material except some viruses which use RNA instead, though it is often a point of contention whether or not viruses can truly be considered 'alive'. DNA is a very complex molecule and cannot perform reproductive and transcription operations on its own; it requires quite a few additional enzymes and RNA molecules to accomplish these functions. Given the complexity of this arrangement, it is not probable that the first living things used such a system. On this point, I think my opponent and I agree. What is more probable is that early life used a simpler system which evolved over time into the more complex system we see today.
Now some in the audience may wish to stop me right there. "Natural processes cannot produce an increase in complexity/information. That's why evolution is nothing but a lie!" I don't know what my opponent's exact position on this is, but I will be happy to provide examples that yes, evolution can and does produce increases in both complexity and information upon his request.
So what could have this simpler genetic material have consisted of if not modern DNA? Well, those pesky viruses give us a clue: some most definitely use RNA as genetic material. The idea that all living things once used RNA solely as genetic material which over time was replaced by the more successful but complex DNA is known as the 'RNA World Hypothesis' and more information on that can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_world_hypothesis
The reasons why RNA is a good candidate for a precursor to DNA is because, as I'd said, it currently is being used as genetic material by at least some things so it certainly has that capacity, and because it does not necessarily need all of the additional molecular machinery that DNA requires. Some RNA molecules are completely auto-catalytic and self reproductive, requiring nothing but the commonplace raw material in its environment to build more copies of itself with. This is exactly what we would expect to find if DNA truly did come from a simpler precursor rather than being created specifically as the only possible molecule of life.
This brings us to a very important point which will be echoed both throughout this post as well as probably throughout this entire debate: While it is certainly true that science does not have all the answers to all the possible questions about life and how it arose, and sometimes not even any hard specifics, it does not need to in order show to a reasonable degree that the intervention of a deity is not required as an explanation.
God of the Gaps
To argue that simply because we don't have some specific explanation for a particular phenomena, therefore God must be the explanation, is a fallacious argument known as invoking the 'God of the Gaps'. It is fallacious because there is a huge step between saying that some phenomena currently does not have a naturalistic explanation, and saying that the phenomena simply cannot have a naturalistic explanation, and those who use the argument wish to leap from the one to the other without giving any particular justification for such a huge leap.
I ask that if my opponent is going to use argumentation of this nature, that he give proper justification for why a naturalistic explanation for some phenomena or another isn't just simply unknown, but actually cannot exist. I can think of several possible examples of how he could do this.
For one, if it could be shown that no other molecule or system of molecules has the capacity for self replication and heredity except DNA and it's required compliment of enablers, then that would indeed be strong evidence that DNA could not have arose by natural means, since it could not have had any simpler precursors. Of course, we see already that this isn't the case.
Similarly, if the chemicals of life itself were not constructed of the same sorts of things (carbon, oxygen, etc) that non-living things are made of, and there was no way one could convert from one to the other, then that also would be strong evidence that living things could not have possibly arose from non-living matter. This in fact was widely believed until 1828 when the German chemist Friedrich Wöhler was able to synthesize the organic compound urea from inorganic chemicals, showing that there is not a definite distinction between the compounds used by life and non-life.
I'm sure, and I sincerely hope, that my opponent can think of other (and more successful) ways of showing that not only are there not currently naturalistic explanations for certain necessary requirements of life, but that there cannot be, and thus an intelligent designer of life is indeed necessary.
Darwinian
I just thought I'd point out something I thought kind of humorous (yeah, I'm silly like that) that my opponent said in his section on the genetic code:
"The existence of a genetic code is perhaps one of the most devastating arguments against Darwinians who believe life can arise through unintelligent processes.
The irony here, of course, is that Darwin himself knew nothing of DNA, RNA, or genetic codes, only that there was some nebulous but inherent mechanism for heredity. It would seem that a true "Darwinian" (presumably a follower of Darwin, though probably used as some sort of perjorative like "evolutionist") wouldn't even need to concern themselves with such advanced, futuristic notions. I am no more a Darwinian than I am an Einsteinian, a Newtonian, a Lavoisieran, a Galilean, or a Hawkingian. Strange, strange terms...
Amino Acids
In this section, my opponent asks me a question which seems to me that he actually answers himself in the text though he didn't recognize it. Given that certain natural processes seem to create amino acids in both their L and D (right-handed and left-handed chiral) forms, and that modern life only seems to use the L forms, he asks what mechanism could have done this?
Now I'm certainly no biologist, and my knowledge in these matters comes mainly from what I can research on the internet (I can't remember the last time I actually sat down and read a book, must be several years now; shame on me!) and what I can figure just using reason and logic. But when Livingstone himself says: "When L and D amino acids are together, then they are detrimental and toxic; they make the process of protein folding most difficult." it seems to me that your answer is right there.
If mixing the two types is indeed toxic (and I'm merely taking your word for it that it is; I have no idea) then it would seem that as living things were developing from non-living things, the only ones who could possibly "make it" were the ones that just happened to use only the one type or the other.
Given a solution of both and simple random inter-mixings, it stands to reason that while the majority would be a mixture of both, there would also be those at the ends of the spectrum that only managed to pull together one type or another. Though they would certainly be in the extreme minority, given that (as you implied) only they could actually live and reproduce, they would naturally and necessarily come to dominate. This is just plain old natural selection at work. Perhaps I'm missing some sort of nuance here?
But besides my amateurish speculation, there is actual work done by actual scientists on the matter that can be examined if one wishes. I went to PubMed ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed ) and entered "amino acid chirality biogenesis" to see what was there. I found 24 papers discussing the topic including an interesting one called "Punctuated Chirality".
Now, all I'm able to do is read the abstracts; I have no idea how one would get a hold of the text of such papers. But from what I've seen I haven't found anything that indicates that the current state of life is impossible by way of natural processes simply because the early Earth may have had both types of amino acids available to build from. Again I may be missing something, so I hope my opponent can fill me in.
Protein Primary Structure
In this section, my opponent introduces an argument from improbability. This is certainly a valid way to support his position, and I would agree with him that many cases where something that is very, very improbable is just as good as saying that it is impossible. The problem I often encounter with these sorts of arguments, however, is that they often completely misconstrue the actual improbabilities involved, and thus come to a false conclusion that the improbable event in question is indeed next to impossible. I believe the argument used here to be yet another example of this.
Even though many proteins are massively complex in their actual 3-D molecular structure, in terms of how these proteins are represented in the genetic code they are simply long strings of the four nucleotide bases. To ask how the proteins that living things utilize could become so complex, then, is to ask how the genetic codes themselves can change in order to build longer, larger, and more complex proteins.
As my opponent is probably already aware, the mechanisms which allow DNA to change are mutations. There are mutations which substitute one nucleotide for another, mutations which delete or add single nucleotides, and mutations which copy and repeat whole sections of DNA from short stretches to whole genes, whole chromosomes, and even entire genomes (the last being known as polyploidy). since these types of mutations are known, observable, and actually observed, it seems strange that my opponent would imply that these mechanisms to increase the complexity of protein building DNA sequences (and thus the proteins themselves) is somehow not well known as well as their actions being improbable to the point of practical impossibility.
What I think my opponent is actually arguing by implication here is the following:
- Because modern living things often require very complex proteins to function and could not survive without them, that very early life forms (down to the very first ones) would have also required these very same complex proteins.
- Since they couldn't have lived without them, these proteins could not have had the chance to evolve.
- If they could not have evolved, then they must have either fallen into place completely randomly or have been put into place specifically by the Grand Old Designer.
- Finally, since the chance of these exact proteins having fallen together randomly as they are is small enough to be effectively impossible, this gives good evidence for the necessity of said designer.
Have I got that about right, Livingstone?
But this is exactly the kind of misconstrued argument from probability that I spoke of earlier. While I would grant that some terribly complex proteins would probably never just fall together in a completely random fashion in order for the first (or any subsequent) life form to arise, they don't need to; the actual answer to the problem is one that my opponent skipped over due to a bad assumption.
This bad assumption (for those of you who haven't latched onto it already) is that just because modern life forms may absolutely require certain very specific and complex proteins in order to live, it most certainly does not mean that early life forms also needed these same specific proteins.
Imagine if you will, some population of early life forms going about the business of living using much simplified chemical processes and much simplified proteins. Through some random mutations, their primitive genetic material changes during replication, and their offspring now code for and build slightly different proteins. These will naturally run the gamut from less complex than the original, to equally complex but still different to the original, to more complex than the original. Also, like every other mutation, some will be detrimental to the organism (either causing immediate death or simply making them less efficient at competing for resources), most will be neutral, and some changes will in fact be beneficial. Natural selection will generally weed out the detrimental changes, and cause the beneficial ones to spread throughout the population and probably eventually dominate it.
In a similar fashion, living things undergoing evolutionary changes often change to specialize to certain environments, conditions, and processes. If this specialization also provides a selective advantage, then it too will probably come to dominate the population.
What we have here is a plain (even Darwinian) model of how living things can go from using simpler proteins early on, to eventually using more complex proteins later, and even specializing to the point that the more complex proteins are no longer just optional and only slightly more optimal, but are actually necessary for the organism to continue to live.
Now again, I really have no idea what specific proteins come from specific earlier proteins and by what specific mutations, nor do I know the specific chemical and genetic compositions of those early life forms. But the possible pathway to this end by completely known and naturalistic mechanisms is clear.
If my opponent still wishes to argue that this process that I have only broadly outlined is still much too unlikely or even impossible, and thus an intelligent designer is necessary, then I would ask at what step in the process does the impossibility lie?
Metabolic Pathways
Since this post is already pretty long and involved, and since it is taking me way too long to get this written and posted (and not posting is boring for our spectators). I ask that we forego this particular point for now, and concentrate on what has already been dealt with. I imagine that my response to it at this point would be very similar in nature to my other responses anyway. We can, of course, return to it later once we've thinned things out a bit.
Other Factors
I smiled at the inclusion of this point. Yes indeed there are other factors to be considered, and consider them we shall as long as time and space permit and everyone is still interested. I trust that your other factors will be met satisfactorily by my other responses.
And this concludes the end of round one. What surprises, insights, and possible lameness will round two hold? Stay tuned and keep watching this space...
Daniel "Theophage" Clark
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