Posted: Oct 10, 2010 4:40 am
Arcanyn wrote:Ah, but that only proves that these compounds can be produced when humans artificially recreate the conditions of Titan. It doesn't show that these compounds can form when the conditions present on Titan occur naturally. So it isn't proof you can make these compounds without the intervention of an Intelligent Agent(TM).
There's that out of the way.
Dealt with that canard when the duplicitous Dunsapy erected it over at RDF, and tried to claim that laboratory experiments in abiogenesis support creation by an intelligence. The operation of natural processes, and the experiments required to learn about their operation, are two different entities. Likewise, real world observational phenomena, and the theories erected to explain them, are also two different entities.
The only intelligence involved was in the setting up of the experiment. The molecules were left to react, or not react, in accordance with the appropriate physical and chemical laws. The scientists weren't bolting the molecules together individually Lego fashion, they were simply sitting there watching the experimental setup, to see if the appropriate chemical reactions would or would not take place.
Indeed, I've seen this specious apologetic excrement being erected on numerous occasions by reality denialists and mythology fetishists, and its equally specious converse. On the one hand, if an experiment fails to produce the required chemical product, creationists claim that this "proves" that an invisible magic man was needed. On the other hand, if an experiment does produce the required chemical product, they claim that this "proves" that an invisible magic man was still needed, because the chemicals wouldn't have done this if they hadn't been put together by the intelligence of the scientists. Which of course is complete poppycock, as I've just explained in the previous paragraph.
Claiming that this somehow validates the need for an invisible magic man is like saying that because scientists perform experiments dropping things from towers in order to learn about gravity, gravity needs an invisible magic man to make it work.
Now that I've dealt with that bullshit, let's return to the interesting science shall we, and leave mythology-based bullshit out of this thread?