No life followed by…loadsa life, suggests abiogenesis to me.

It suggests to me that life now exists. I think it would be somewhat unfounded to assume that, since there is a rock on my carpet, that the rock came from the carpet.

I’m not saying it happened whilst a panel of white coated experts were in attendance

It has never happened that we know of. Attempts to recreate it have failed, and it’s likelihood, empirically speaking, still stands at “zero”.

that should’nt make us opt for the weak kneed solution to the life problem that “maybe someone put it there.”

There is no proof of that, either. The problem with both the “somebody put it here” and the “life came from nothing”, is that they are attempts to answer a question we do not, at this point, have an answer to. Hypotheses are fine, but when people start calling them truth then I have problems.

Exogenesis may be a way that life spreads about the universe and a fun idea
for science fiction based pseudo religions but doesn’t explain life’s origin.

One thing’s for sure, Apollo didn’t initiate life on Earth. I remember an
episode of Star Trek when the guys came across him on a distant Planet.
He tried to dominate the crew of the Enterprise with conjuring tricks until Spock
and Kirk discovered his power source and destroyed it with the ships phasers.
He was one of the god-like aliens that dawkins hypothesises and that we may
eventually become, future natural or human disasters permitting.

Given that we know that the universe began in a Big Bang about 14.7 billion years ago when no organic life could have existed and the fact that life exists now, it follows logically that life must have arisen from non living material.

Given the fact that no water was in my cup, it must have condensed from thin air.

That statement ignores the fact that we do not know how the water got there. Maybe somebody put it there. Maybe it leaked from the ceiling, maybe there is an alternative that we haven’t hypothesized.

The fact is that we don’t know.

How can you say therefore that abiogenesis is an unsupported hypothesis. Is there an alternative?

A better question might be, is abiogenesis even possible? If it were, I’d expect it to happen more than once.

Exogenesis is the obvious alternative. The idea that life came from other planets. All good as far as theories go, but empirically speaking, there has to be proof that something actually occurred for it to be considered truth.

As with the water in the glass, all one can say is that water is in the glass. We don’t get to hypothesize and call it truth without evidence.

Richard Dawkins goes on to speculate that life may have appeared many times in the universe. He Isn’t stating it for a fact

To quote Richard Dawkins:

“…here we are talking about odds of one in a billion. And yet… even with such absurdly long odds, life will still have arisen on a billion planets - of which Earth, of course, is one.
…
I do not for a moment believe the origin of life was anywhere near so improbable in practice. I think it’s definitely worth spending money on trying to duplicate the event in the lab and - by the same token, on SETI, because I think it is likely that there is intelligent life elsewhere.”

He goes on to describe aliens as “god-like”, so, yeah, he’s pretty much owned by his scientific probablism.

We are talking about organic life, which has been demonstrated to have originated and developed in at least one place in the universe

I don’t know where you heard that. Life has never been demonstrated to have originated anywhere. The question of the origin of life is entirely a guessing game at this point, and some of the theories read more like an episode of Star Wars than science.

Not being either present at the scene to observe the event, nor able to
reproduce it in a test tube might seem a big handicap but it is not enough to
make us doubt that abiogenesis is true. Given that we know that the universe
began in a Big Bang about 14.7 billion years ago when no organic life could
have existed and the fact that life exists now, it follows logically that life must
have arisen from non living material.

How can you say therefore that abiogenesis is an unsupported hypothesis. Is
there an alternative?

Richard Dawkins goes on to speculate that life may have appeared many
times in the universe. He Isn’t stating it for a fact, but presenting one of a
range of possibilities, another of which is that the Earth is unique in being the
only life bearing world in the universe. I don’t like that one as much but it could
be true.

The aliens are allowed, hypothetically. We are talking about organic life, which
has been demonstrated to have originated and developed in at least one place
in the universe. the sky fairy is another matter. Having no empirical evidence
that omnipotent non biological entities can or do exist anywhere, he/she/they/it
have to lag behind space aliens in the order of likelihood.

http://www.individualsovereigntist.com/2008/01/18/defining-atheism-part-two/
&
http://www.individualsovereigntist.com/2008/01/18/atheist-burden-of-proof-part-two/

Awaiting evidence in this case means open to new information if and when it appears. No claims, hence no burden of proof.

I like how this. Awaiting evidence. It’s a good analogy.

So god has been accused of existing. Clearly theists accuse god of existing. They have a burden of proof. The default position is “hell, I don’t know”. This is the default position on any claim which we do not have ready information.

When somebody moves from not knowing to knowing an asserting that claim of knowledge, then you get burden of proof. God exists. Oh yeah? Prove it. God doesn’t exist. Really? Prove it.

I don’t know = no burden of proof.

Richard Dawkins’ assertion of the existence of extra terrastrial intelligences greater than ours is a hypothesis, nothing more or less

He introduces the hypothesis, assumes abiogenesis as fact although, from an empiricist point of view it cannot be considered anything but false, and then proceeds to “prove” that aliens exist using Bayesian probability. His reasoning is very clear, and he attacks alien agnosticism as unsupported by scientific probabilism. Scientific probabilism, he contends, clearly demonstrates that billions of alien-inhabited worlds exist.

And, that would be true, if abiogenesis were true. But so far it’s just the best hypothesis we have, and one that has never been recreated, nor observed. Rationalism allows us to use that hypothesis, but empiricism says no.

The problem is not just starting from an unsupported hypothesis (abiogenesis); it’s mainly his Bayesian probability. Probability is just that - probability. Probability means squat. Perhaps because probability uses less than all the facts in an attempt to predict the future. Or maybe because it uses numbers to create patterns that do not, in actuality, govern events.

We know from our experience of the Earth that organic life in this universe is possible

What do you mean by possible? That organic life can survive on earth? Or that life has arisen here?

so taking the step of proposing that it has arisen elsewhere is a lot more rational than invoking the existence of some mythical sky fairy.

I think that answers my last question. Empirically speaking, neither the sky fairy nor the aliens are allowed. We need only one case of life arising from non-life, then we can assume all the abiogenesis that we want. But until then, empiricism says no.

We know from our experience of the Earth that organic life in this universe is
possible so taking the step of proposing that it has arisen elsewhere is a lot
more rational than invoking the existence of some mythical sky fairy.

If you remain skeptical, simply consider the likelihood that a being more
intelligent that George Dubya Bush has evolved on a world far, far, away and
that the creature is capable of pronouncing the word “nuclear” correctly. Not
too hard to believe, is it?

Long, six hour drive from Osaka to Tokyo. I’m pooped. Going to bed. Will respond tomorrow.

John,
I was using the google dictionary on the ‘puter, as used by famous folk down
the ages. It gave the definition of atheism as “lack of belief in gods”. I’ve got
an old oxford pocket dictionary that gives the def, “disbelief in gods”, which
looks equally usable. To go beyond that and say that no gods exist in the
universe for a fact is presumptious. Even Richard Dawkins calls a chapter of
his tome, “why there is almost certainly no god” The “almost” indicates an
openness to new information if and when it turns up.

“Metaphysical universe”. Sounds deep.

The aggressive ridiculing of theists is frequently deserved, especially when
the beliefs are used as an even more aggressive weapon against women,
gays, skyscrapers or science. Atheists don’t blow people up in the name of
atheism or try to get anti scientific creationist nonsense taught in school
science lessons. A bit of ridicule is the least that such people deserve.