Declan Andrew Traill's comment to me on his paper's page:
Paul,
Sure there is a lot to learn that we don't know and possibly cannot ever know about the processes and steps that led to the formation of living creatures on Earth, but the ultimate attribution of the cause without any observational evidence is to put it all down to God. This is just a way to put everything that we don't understand into a single basket and call it God. Throughout history many things were not understood and put down to God, but later sound Scientific reasons were discovered for them. If one is to apply Scientific method to the problem, then we should set out given our understanding of existing Science and assume that there are logical mechanisms to be discovered and then set out to discover them.
Regards,
Declan
My comment to Declan:
Dear Declan,
I realize that there are those who just consider anything that they don't understand and can't observe the evidence of its cause, to be just an unexplainable act of God. At the same time, I have also, especially recently, noticed many who automatically consider such things to be an act of nature. I am not like that because I desire to know the true cause of all things to the greatest degree that I can. If the cause of something is completely unknown and there is no convincing evidence either way, I would withhold judgment either way and just admit that I don't currently have the information to discern the cause. That is much better than to jump to a conclusion either way because that would tend to blind me from any new evidence that would suggest that the choice that I did not choose is actually the cause. It is, therefore, an error to put such things into either the God or nature basket. True science is not limited to the study of nature only or of God only. It is the pursuit of the knowledge and understanding of all things that exist. If God exists and did create the universe and the life that is in it, then that is very important for us to understand because if he in some way communicates to us the reason for the creation and why he created life including us, it could completely alter and enrich our lives in many positive ways. On the other hand, if we ignore his communication to us, it could lead to disaster because we could completely fail to fulfill his purpose for us, which could result in his rejection of us and lead to very bad consequences for us, etc. On the other hand, fulfilling our purpose could result in very good things for us. At the same time, it is important for us to understand how the world works because that can lead to the ability to control things in it in such a way as to make our lives better also. In the long run if you keep your mind open to all of the possibilities you will be able to be on the right side based on all of the currently available observational information. If new observations alter the balance in favor of one position over the other you will be ready to choose whatever the preponderance of the information indicates to be the best choice at that time. Contrary to the expectations of many people science is not as exact as some would like to believe it is. This is because we never have all of the possible observational evidence for us to be sure we interpret it accurately. When you add to that the understanding that people usually bring their desired beliefs of how they want things to be and work into their interpretation of the evidence, it is easy to see why so many false assumptions of the meaning of the observational evidence have occurred over time in science. You are right that many things have been attributed to God and later were found to be just natural functions of the structure of the universe. I am now, however, seeing many things being put down to nature that the preponderance of the evidence suggests would be better to be attributed to God. Interestingly, it has been the advancement of science that has led to this conclusion. A couple of these things are:
1. It is now apparent that the structure of the universe is that of a multilevel hierarchical device or machine that starts out in an abstract form based on simple motions that are combined to form the base level of sub-energy particles that field structures are composed of, energy photons that transfer motions between structures and matter particles that form the body of the structures. These first level structures are joined together to generate the second hierarchical level of atomic structure. The atoms of this level combine together in many ways to produce the third molecular level. The molecules are then combined together in many ways to produce the large scale literal objects that we see and use that make up the fourth hierarchical level of construction. This type of construction of starting with simple parts and combining them together into more complicated subassemblies and then combining the subassemblies together to form larger assemblies and then combining the assemblies together to make a complex structure or machine is exactly the way that intelligent man builds complex structures, such as a car, etc. This is clear evidence that intelligence was behind and directed the creation of the universe. On the other hand, a natural world that was formed by chance happenings would be a much more flat non-structured world because chance equal probability occurrences would tend toward the middle average range and, therefore, would not tend to build up complex highly improbable structures that would continually require the right choices to be made to build them into higher level structures and keep them from collapsing. This would be the case even at the most basic choice level. As an example, cyclical motion structures are required to generate energy photons and matter particles. Generally cyclical motions must travel sequentially in both directions in each dimension that takes part in the cyclical motion. To generate cyclical motions at the very lowest level of construction generally requires that the dimensional system be structured to generate them. Each of the lowest three dimensions is structured the same as the other two dimensions, which would be in accordance with what might be expected from a naturally generated universe, but the fourth and fifth dimensions are each structured differently from the first 3 and also from each other in order to allow for the production of energy photons and matter particles. The fourth dimension is somewhat more complex than the first 3 and the fifth dimension has an even more complex structure than the fourth. This progressive increase in complexity at this level is not something that would be expected to occur by chance, especially since the structural entity crossover points and dimensional size and interfacing, etc. are exactly that needed to allow the production of the energy photons and matter particles. If these were off, the universe would only contain sub-energy particles. Note: I realize that much of the above information is well beyond man's current knowledge level, but I give it for the benefit of all that may be able to understand these things at present and to man when these concepts are later commonly understood. The speed of light is the result of the motion crossover point between the lower three dimensions and the fourth dimension. If there was no fourth dimension, sub-energy particles could travel at any speed and there would not be energy photons. If the fourth dimension exists, but is structured the same as the first three, sub-energy particles would have four dimensions to travel in, but there still would not be any energy photons. It is only when the dimensional structural design is as it is that it allows photons to exist and behave as they do. Similar things could be said about the production of matter particles. Similar things could also be said about how the internal motions of matter particles interact with sub-energy particles to produce the particles' internal and external sub-energy field structures that allow the protons and neutrons to be contained in the center of an atom and also allow the electrons to be bound to their appropriate places within the external field structure, etc. At each hierarchical level there are similar finely balanced structures that would not be generated by random occurrences. Most of the things that I have mentioned here are not what you would commonly find in other material, but many current scientists have noted how universal constants, etc. are balanced just right to allow the world to exist in a way that would allow life to be formed and live. This is why the multiverse concept was developed to try to explain the problem away by saying that if there were billions of universes, it would not be unexpected that one of them would form the way this one did. The problem with that concept is that there is no observational evidence of the existence of a multiverse, so it is just another imaginary thing invented to distract people from where the actual observational evidence leads to.
2. The production of the first living creature is the other area where it is obvious that intelligence was involved. I have already given information that shows that the protein machines that are in all living creatures could not be randomly produced by natural occurrences because of the vast number of possible different proteins that can be made. It requires an intelligence to be able to determine the needed structure that each needed protein would require in order to be able to perform its intended purpose and then to choose the number of amino acids that would be needed and their proper sequencing to produce the needed protein machines to build the living creature and then to actually build the machines. I should also mention that the protein machines are not all just a long single chain of amino acids. Many have various shapes such as spirals and even have small appendages that can be used to grab things, etc. They can be more complex structures than might be believed from just the description of them as chains of amino acids. These extra complexities that give them the ability to do what they do are also signs of an intelligence behind their construction.
I guess I got carried away again, so I will end this. My point is that all of the evidence at present points to intelligence being involved in all aspects of the universe's creation and I have not found any one that can explain these things from a naturalist perspective without falling back on nonspecific generalizations or imaginary inventions that have no observational evidence to support them or by trying to make people believe that well known attributes of the universe, such as entropy work differently than all of the observational evidence indicates that they do, etc.
Sincerely,
Paul