User talk:Shandck

Shandck, you are invited to the Teahouse

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Would you like to launch a complaint?

Hey, I saw your attempt to correct the topic sentence of Abiogenesis. I have tried in the past to correct it, but nobody would side with me and so my complaint was looked over. However, together I believe we can perhaps succeed in this. If two people speak out together, the complaint will be more likely considered. What do you say? ReallyFat B. (talk) 19:35, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes! The admins on that article are ignorant and illogical. What's the complaint process? Shandck (talk) 18:55, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Let's open a new DRN together and attempt to solve this? ReallyFat B. (talk) 20:21, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, how do we open one? I'm not familiar with the process. Shandck (talk) 00:36, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Here, follow this link and launch one. Be sure to include my name in the involved users and write a good strong case for us. I will also give my comments and request for the topic sentence. Good luck and let's hope this works! ReallyFat B. (talk) 08:02, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Will do! Shandck (talk) 20:51, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

I've also asked two others to help us, and they've agreed. Add them in too: Dontreader and 86.21.101.169. Include too the names of all those editors who opposed us. With any luck, we should be able to fix this. 86.21.101.169 in particular has supplied a whole treasure trove of information which can be used to turn the tables in our favor. ReallyFat B. (talk) 01:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Ok, it's up! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Dispute_resolution_noticeboard#Talk:Abiogenesis Shandck (talk) 05:52, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

I've commented, and asked the others to do so to. Now we wait. ReallyFat B. (talk) 09:00, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

July 2014

Hello. It appears that you have been canvassing—leaving messages on a biased choice of users' talk pages to notify them of an ongoing community decision, debate, or vote—in order to influence Dispute Resolution Noticeboard#Talk:Abiogenesis. While friendly notices are allowed, they should be limited and nonpartisan in distribution and should reflect a neutral point of view. Please do not post notices which are indiscriminately cross-posted, which espouse a certain point of view or side of a debate, or which are selectively sent only to those who are believed to hold the same opinion as you. Remember to respect Wikipedia's principle of consensus-building by allowing decisions to reflect the prevailing opinion among the community at large. While you did not leave the messages yourself, you clearly approved of and aided and abetted ReallyFat B. by filing the DRN listing to serve as the basis for canvassing. TransporterMan (TALK) 13:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

1.) "It appears that you have been ... leaving messages on a biased choice of users talk pages..." 2.) "While you did not leave the messages yourself..." Does that makes sense to you? I did not approve of anything ReallyFat B. did so you cannot close my discussion that I put my effort into on account of that; I'm not his babysitter. My discussion is the result of several attempts to improve an article on Wikipedia, only to have facts, evidence (or lack thereof), and logic ignored. You can see exactly what I did and Reallyfat B. suggesting I open a DRN does not violate any sort of technicality in any way, since I did not even know what a DRN was until a few days ago. Had I known the process I would have made it myself without his suggestion. So what you are saying is that you are trying to punish a new Wikipedia editor for accepting help and suggestions from a more experienced editor?

I'm sorry about the seemingly self-contradictory text. Such warnings are given from a boilerplate source and you can add to them, but cannot modify them unless you do so after they're posted (in which case the editor may see them before you can get them modified). The material at the end in italics is the addition. I've also reverted your re-opening of the DRN case but have started a section on the DRN talk page inviting other DRN volunteers to reopen the listing if they feel that my closure was inappropriate. Please sign your talk page postings with four tildes — ~~~~ — so that folks will know who is speaking. — TransporterMan (TALK) 18:33, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

Did I not make it clear that I had no idea what a DRN was or that there was such a processes until Reallyfat B. suggested to me? So to close my discussion based only on the fact that the DRN was premeditated by someone other than myself is unfair to me, as I spent an hour of my time creating it. Had I known that this process existed, I would have wrote up the same exact discussion, regardless of who told me about the DRN process. I put my time and effort into this thing, it needs to be heard out in full. Shandck (talk) 20:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)

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An answer to the question you posed at Abiogenesis

At abiogenesis, you asked:

Despite the fact that there is no evidence, how can you assume that "life" formed from non-living material through 'natural processes' in the first place?

That was an inappropriate question for the talk page, but an answer might inform your RFC. I worked on abiogenesis at the start of my Ph.D. (a collaboration brought on by visit of Michael Behe to Case Western, of all things). Part of becoming a scientist is understanding how to evaluate theories and hypotheses—it's something I do whenever I peer review a journal submission, mentor a student, or evaluate my own work. The first and more common axis I use is predictive power: does the theory make nontrivial predictions that can be verified? The second is explanatory power: can the theory reduce a sea of noisy data into a (more) coherent story?

The goal here isn't to find the right theory (and certainly not "truth"), but rather find the better theory. Current abiogenesis theories account for the chemistry of life, it's physical and temporal location, its structure, and its deep commonality and diversity. They tend to diverge where the evidence does not yet reach, but they share enough in common (simplicity, evolution, replication of information) that we can consider that class of theories as best-in-breed, at least for now.

Supernatural explanations, on the other hand, fail to predict or explain. That doesn't mean they're wrong, they just aren't useful (and as a working scientist, I'm all about the useful).

So far as wikipedia is concerned, the overwhelming consensus among molecular biologists, paleontologists, and cosmologists is reflected in the current lead. If you want to argue that this ought not be the consensus because your theory is better, then get back into grad school and start publishing. If you want to argue that this isn't the consensus, and you understand that consensus does not imply uniformity, then dig into the peer-reviewed literature and show us where the consensus lies. If you just want to argue, talk.origins would love to have you.

Best,

Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

At least you admit that the scientific method will never reveal the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what actually happened or how our universe works & that supernatural explanations may or may not be the right answer. I'm an amateur scientist and I've found the previous sentence to be hard for a lot of scientific minded people to grasp. However, I'd like to draw your attention to some food-for-thought from Michael Crichton:

"I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period."

He continues:

"I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way."

Shandck (talk) 03:56, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

He's wrong (or perhaps I should say, that's not a useful view of science). "Results that are verifiable by reference to the real world" are a dime a dozen—any second-year Ph.D. student can generate those. The hard part is finding results that are interesting, not just to you but your the wider community. That means having a deep understanding of what that community thinks is important, and how the members of the community can be persuaded to change their minds. The most obvious application of this is when one is writing for the peer-reviewed literature. If consensus didn't exist, every paper would have to start at first principles. Because consensus does exist, and because successful scientists know how to identify it, I'm able to start my papers with a brief sketch of the relevant literature that describes the current consensus and then move on to how my contribution should modify that consensus.

As to invocations of term "consensus": scientists also fail to use the term "scientific method" in their communications with each other. Ditto "falsifiability". That tells me the vocabulary of describing the practice of science differs from the vocabulary used in the actual practice; a state common to mathematics, music, and any other field advanced enough to have a specialized vocabulary.

Be all that as it may, editors here do believe that scientific consensus exists, and that they are able to identify it. They also believe that consensus can be achieved among editors, and that articles should reflect that consensus. An argument that an article should be changed because scientific consensus does not exist (because the author of The Andromeda Strain said so) just isn't going to be effective.

If you're interested in Philosophy of Science, here's a whirlwind introduction.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century a variety of related philosophical terms of art were developed to describe formal philosophies of science that, in one way or another, rejected the idea of scientific Truth as correspondence to God's reality, to the ultimate reality that was supposed to lie behind appearances. Each of them insisted on the distinction between the practice of science and the practice of metaphysics: 1) Operationalism: The meaning of a proposition consists of the operations involved in proving or applying it; 2) Instrumentalism: Scientific concepts and theories are just useful tools that allow one to explain and predict, but need not be assessed by their truth-as-correspondence-to-reality; 3) Phenomenalism: Science can and should be disengaged from any talk of what lies beyond appearances—scientific knowledge is grounded not in "reality" but in sensations; 4) Positivism: Metaphysical speculations are scientifically illegitimate, and sense-data are the only proper objects of knowledge and criteria for judging it; 5) Conventionalism: Scientific theories are conventional claims to be assessed by their simplicity and utility and not by their truth-as-correspondence; 6) Pragmatism: When metaphysics comes up, change the subject, and insist instead on the intelligibility and propriety of truth considered simply as what works; 7) Probabilism: Familiar in science since the seventeenth century, but now increasingly stressed to distinguish the legitimately modest quality of scientific certainty (about theories) with the vaulting ambition of dogmatists, speculative philosophers and theologians; and finally 8) Falsificationism: Best known through Karl Popper's claim in _The Logic of Scientific Discovery_ (1934) that scientific generalizations can never be verified but only falsified, and that, therefore, legitimate scientific method can never read the Truth of theories.

— Steven Shapin, The Scientific Life, ppg 27-28.

tl;dr version: "All models are wrong, but some are useful." —George E. P. Box

Lesser Cartographies (talk) 04:52, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Reminds me of an essay I wrote awhile back: "God vs. Science - Why God Wins"

First off, let me tell you a little about science: The model of the atom has changed several times over this last century alone. At first they thought it was a solid lump of matter, then they thought electrons orbited the nucleus, and now they think electrons just appear and disappear with the unpredictable randomness of probability. After a period of time the model will change again, and after that it will change yet again, and so on and so forth. At what point will the scientific method yield the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? When and if this happens, how will we know? To make a long story short, it wont. We can't. The point is that since we will never fully understand our universe due to the futility of the scientific method, someone cannot possibly be so sure that it wasn’t all created by a higher power in the first place.

The scientific method is so very futile that evoking a higher power is inevitable and necessary to give a reason for why things are the way they are. What caused the big bang? Why is the speed of light what it is? Why is the force of gravity what it is? How were the elementary particles formed? How were living cells formed on a barren Earth? How were complex organisms with specialized systems of cells formed? How did sexual reproduction come to be? How did humans gain an advanced sentience over every other species when civilization was born? Even if compelling theories are eventually presented on these topics, it is inevitable that they will be replaced by other theories which will eventually be replaced by other theories yet, and we will never EVER know what actually happened or how our universe works. Those are only a few of literally countless questions; our entire understanding of the world inevitably follows that paradigm.

If anything, the fact that God is not testable with the scientific method makes him MORE believable; the truth never changes, it changes things around it though. You see, even when it was believed that electrons orbited the nucleus of an atom, they didn't. When it was believed that the sun rotated around the Earth, it didn't. By the logic I've discussed here, much of what we think we know about the universe is actually false. Think of a scientific model: in a century people will believe something different to be the truth, but a century later that new model will be no more true than the belief that the Earth was flat - as a newer one is proposed. Hell, we haven't even pinpointed exactly how wings generate lift! With that in mind, it is logical that a higher power has been orchestrating everything the whole time because sciences version of truth will inevitably be torn down and rebuilt again and again - whereas God's truth (the actual truth we will never reach) is omnipresent and eternal.

To quote physicist Paul Davies: "Scientists are slowly waking up to an inconvenient truth - the universe looks suspiciously like a fix. The issue concerns the very laws of nature themselves. For 40 years, physicists and cosmologists have been quietly collecting examples of all too convenient 'coincidences' and special features in the underlying laws of the universe that seem to be necessary in order for life, and hence conscious beings, to exist. Change any one of them and the consequences would be lethal. Fred Hoyle, the distinguished cosmologist, once said it was as if 'a super-intellect has monkeyed with physics.' To see the problem, imagine playing God with the cosmos. Before you is a designer machine that lets you tinker with the basics of physics. Twiddle this knob and you make all electrons a bit lighter, twiddle that one and you make gravity a bit stronger, and so on. It happens that you need to set thirty something knobs to fully describe the world about us. The crucial point is that some of those metaphorical knobs must be tuned very precisely, or the universe would be sterile.

Example: neutrons are just a tad heavier than protons. If it were the other way around, atoms couldn't exist, because all the protons in the universe would have decayed into neutrons shortly after the big bang. No protons, then no atomic nucleuses and no atoms. No atoms, no chemistry, no life. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, the universe seems to be just right for life."

Sure science has brought us many great things, modern electronics being one example. These electronics work due to the negative charge of the electron itself, but if you ask a physicist why the electron has a negative charge to begin with, the best they can answer is that "it just does."

Shandck (talk) 05:49, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Based on that, I'd say you should avoid the physics articles as well as the biology articles. Well, happy editing! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 06:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC) Ok, let me tell you why you should avoid the physics articles. When one model displaces another, it's because a consensus develops that the new model is more useful. And for some reason, you're scandalized that models improve over time; that this somehow implies some failure of the underlying methodology. Religions do this as well, of course, they're just a lot less efficient about it. Anyway, this is a discussion for USENET, not your talk page. I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 06:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Lesser Cartographies, you seem to be admitting that abiogenesis is merely a theory. You wrote:

"The goal here isn't to find the right theory (and certainly not "truth"), but rather find the better theory. Current abiogenesis theories account for the chemistry of life, it's physical and temporal location, its structure, and its deep commonality and diversity. They tend to diverge where the evidence does not yet reach, but they share enough in common (simplicity, evolution, replication of information) that we can consider that class of theories as best-in-breed, at least for now."

So then, what exactly is your problem with calling it a theory, or perhaps a hypothesis? That's all that we're asking for. Besides, several dictionaries define abiogenesis that way:

The supposed development of living organisms from nonliving matter. - The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009.

(Biology) Also called: autogenesis the hypothetical process by which living organisms first arose on earth from nonliving matter. - Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

A theory in the evolution of early life on earth: organic molecules and subsequent simple life forms first originated from inorganic substances. - Merriam-Webster

But back to what you wrote, apparently all we need to do is decide whether abiogenesis is a theory, as you seem to have proposed, or a hypothesis. Please ping me here since I'm not watching this page. Thanks in advance... Dontreader (talk) 06:22, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Hi Dontreader. Two answers. First, abiogenesis isn't a theory, just like population genetics isn't a theory. Within the context of biology, abiogenesis and genes-in-populations are just facts in the world. We have competing theories to explain these facts, e.g., replicating crystals or undersea thermal vents for abiogenesis, and neutral theory of molecular evolution and nearly neutral theory of molecular evolution for pop-gen. The same holds for evolution: it's a phenomena in the wider world that has been described by multiple theories, starting long before Darwin and continuing through the Modern evolutionary synthesis and beyond.

Second, your "merely a theory" is quite telling: you've confused the everyday sense of the word with the scientific term of art. In scientific use, "theory" implies a well-respected body of hypotheses that has received extensive experimental validation, e.g., "Germ theory of disease". That use replaced the earlier term "law", and has been mostly replaced in turn by the term "model" (exceptions exist, of course: Amdahl's law and Moore's law are relatively recent).

Finally, not to put too fine a point on it, you're not going to get very far arguing from dictionary definitions. The coin of the realm here is the peer-reviewed literature. If you can show me that biologists are using the term in their publications the way you think the term should be used, you might have a shot at convincing a few editors. Otherwise, it's just not going to happen.

Lesser Cartographies (talk) 07:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Lesser Cartographies. My comment was fundamentally made based on your repeated usage of the word "theory" in the context of abiogenesis when you first wrote on this page. Now you have stated clearly that abiogenesis is a fact, not a theory. Very well. Could you then tell me, please, how abiogenesis was scientifically established as a fact? That's a simple question.

Also, you wrote: "In scientific use, 'theory' implies a well-respected body of hypotheses that has received extensive experimental validation". Thanks for explaining this, but then how can abiogenesis even be considered a theory in the absence of a well-respected body of hypotheses that has received extensive experimental validation? Here's what the very renowned chemist George M. Whitesides said in 2007:

"This problem is one of the big ones in science. It begins to place life, and us, in the universe. Most chemists believe, as do I, that life emerged spontaneously from mixtures of molecules in the prebiotic Earth.

"How? I have no idea. Perhaps it was by the spontaneous emergence of 'simple' autocatalytic cycles and then by their combination. On the basis of all the chemistry that I know, it seems to me astonishingly improbable. The idea of an RNA world is a good hint, but it is so far removed in its complexity from dilute solutions of mixtures of simple molecules in a hot, reducing ocean under a high pressure of CO2 that I don't know how to connect the two."

Therefore, Lesser Cartographies, without a well-respected body of hypotheses that has received extensive experimental validation, how was abiogenesis scientifically established as a fact? Thanks. Dontreader (talk) 19:36, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Happy to help.

1) The fact of abiogenesis requires two preconditions. First, there was some amount of time in the universe when life did not exist, followed by some amount of time when life did (and does) exist. Abiogenesis is the study of how that transition occurred. (I'm happy to go into the cosmological and paleontological evidence if you like, but I'm assuming these statement is uncontroversial.) Second, science is limited to using methodological natualism, which excludes supernatural explanations. Thus, abiogenesis is the field of study concerned with how life appeared via non-supernatural mechanisms. (It's actually a bit narrower than that, as it excludes spontaneous generation, etc.)

2) Abiogenesis draws on a huge body of exhaustively-tested, well-regarded theories across geology, paleontology, cosmology, and molecular biology. In the last 200 years, our understanding of abiogenesis has gone from a world where serious biologists thought worms and flies were created spontaneously, to a world where the molecular machinery of cells is largely cataloged and understood, and we are now about to create both synthetic genomes and synthetic, reproducing, DNA-based cells. We don't know the last details as to which of a handful of mechanisms is responsible for the first protocells; all of them are plausible, and it's quite possible all of them generated protocells at one time or another. Picking the winner there isn't nearly as important as the understanding that we've gained: there is no magic at the cellular or sub-cellular level. Natural processes are sufficient to explain both what occurs and how it got here. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 19:59, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

To make a long story short, the only real proof or evidence that abiogenesis could have occurred would be the reproducible creation of functional DNA and complete cells from scratch in lab only by mimicking a pre-historic Earth environment & using materials (nucleic acids, amino acids, carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, enzymes, etc.) that were synthesized only by mimicking a pre-historic Earth enviornment. Only then would scientists be able to say at least it "could have" happened. This is no where close to happening and may never will. If we truly understood the process, we would be able to do this. Maybe a hundred years will go by without scientists accomplishing abiogenesis and then the "consensus" will be that supernatural intervention was required. I ask you again: Despite the fact that there is no evidence, how can you assume that "life" formed from non-living material through 'natural processes' in the first place? The only possible answer you can give in this situation is that you have FAITH that life somehow emerged by means of an unknown 'natural process' - and that puts you in the same boat as spiritual people. Shandck (talk) 23:11, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Lesser Cartographies, thanks again, but I guess we will never reach an agreement on this matter. Obviously since there was a time when life did not exist on Earth, and now it does, a scientist has to reason that at some point life began, and the scientist must address the issue in a scientific manner, therefore claiming that a natural process occurred, as a fact, when of course there is no way to prove that assertion. But that much I know and understand. It's just a shame that scientists have decided to become the object of ridicule in this field. You wrote:

"We don't know the last details as to which of a handful of mechanisms is responsible for the first protocells; all of them are plausible, and it's quite possible all of them generated protocells at one time or another. Picking the winner there isn't nearly as important as the understanding that we've gained"

With all due respect, you have gained nothing. Just look at these quotes:

Colin S. Pittendrigh stated in December 1967 that "laboratories will be creating a living cell within ten years,"

Published in his 1982/1984 books Evolution from Space (co-authored with Chandra Wickramasinghe), [Fred] Hoyle (an atheist) calculated that the chance of obtaining the required set of enzymes for even the simplest living cell without panspermia was one in 10^40,000. Since the number of atoms in the known universe is infinitesimally tiny by comparison (10^80), he argued that Earth as life's place of origin could be ruled out.

Just in case the early 1980s are too ancient, here's more from George M. Whitesides in 2007: "We need a really good new idea. That idea would, of course, start us down the path toward systems that evolve autonomously—a revolution indeed."

So it's not a matter of figuring out the last details. All the best, Dontreader (talk) 03:28, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Those are some very good points. To quote biologist Eugene Koonin: "Despite considerable experimental and theoretical effort, no compelling scenarios currently exist for the origin of replication and translation, the key processes that together comprise the core of biological systems and the apparent pre-requisite of biological evolution." Shandck (talk) 04:53, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Dontreader is exactly right. Bottom line: If there is a natural process by which life could have emerged from non living material, scientists certainly haven't identified or described it yet, so it is misleading to students and the community to suggest that they have. Because such a process cannot currently be explained and may never will, it simply cannot be assumed that life was formed through natural processes in the first place; speculation and assumption are not scientific facts.

The Oxford Dictionary definition of theory is "a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained" and based on current science, that's exactly what abiogenesis is. A theory is only a theory until it is proven with undeniable evidence, and the burden of proof lies on proponents of abiogenesis to show that life was formed through natural processes.

For a structure to be considered alive it must be self reproducing and self sustaining through a metabolism that responds to its environment. A complete cell is the smallest unit that can be considered alive. Amino acids aren't alive. Lipids aren't alive. Carbohydrates aren't alive. Yet these are the structures discussed in the article, and in current science, that have been produced experimentally through natural processes - not life itself. Since scientific experimentation has only showed how organic compounds could have been made through natural processes, not living cells, it is reasonable to doubt that abiogenesis occurred. The burden of proof is on proponents of the theory and they may never be able to achieve it, meaning that life may not have been formed by natural processes at all.

The current lead sentence "abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arose from non-living matter such as simple organic compounds" is not a factual statement by any means. The new lead sentence I proposed of "abiogenesis is the theory that life could have arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds, through natural processes" IS a factual statement. Shandck (talk) 06:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

If you think you can win with that argument, have at it! Lesser Cartographies (talk) 07:14, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

A few more thoughts and I'll let this go.

You might be interested in this (if there's a paywall, let me know and I'll send you the pdf).

• Kurihara, Kensuke; Tamura, Mieko; Shohda, Koh-ichiroh; Toyota, Taro; Suzuki, Kentaro; Sugawara, Tadashi (September 4, 2011). "Self-reproduction of supramolecular giant vesicles combined with the amplification of encapsulated DNA" (PDF). Nature Chemistry: 775–781. doi:10.1038/NCHEM.1127. {{cite journal}}: line feed character in |title= at position 42 (help) "In this Article, we describe the construction of an advanced model protocell that links the process of self-replication of the informational substance with the self-reproduction of the vesicle compartment, as shown in Fig. 1a,b."

One of the problems of basing an epistemology on "A theory is only a theory until it is proven with undeniable evidence" is that intrinsically undeniable evidence doesn't exist. The result is either nihilism or, more often, a lazy confirmation of what we wanted to believe in the first place. Science does something much more practical: a consensus develops around new ideas when those ideas are demonstrated to be better (in terms of predictive or explanatory power) than the ideas that came before.

As to evidence, claiming none prior to the discovery of the cell in 1665 is defensible, but with the discovery of DNA in 1869, the decoding of its structure in 1953, the first complete DNA sequencing in 1977, and the construction of the first artificial genome in 2010, we have a pretty compelling case that life is a wholly natural process. Is that evidence undeniable? Of course not; you're denying it! But that denial isn't in and of itself persuasive, and it's not clear to me how you can bridge the gap from an epistemology that does not allow for scientific knowledge, to establishing an editorial consensus to provide a toehold for that epistemology in a closely-watched science article.

I do want to make clear that I am taking your position seriously. I'm very much in agreement with philosopher of science John Wilkins: there are no bad positions, only bad arguments. Your conclusions are sound given your premises. I don't think your premises are compatible with wikipedia's (we believe that scientific consensus exists and can be discerned), nor do I think your premises are consistent with the practice of science (where theories have better or worse utility, and we can make provisional judgements on their relative utility using imperfect, incomplete knowledge).

And with that, I think I've trespassed on your patience long enough. Be well. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 16:34, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Shandck, Dontreader, I dealt with the kind of objections you're raising for six or seven years on talk.origins. I learned a lot—I ended up reading deeping into topics as diverse as philosophy of science and ice core stratigraphy, and ultimately took a graduate course in evolutionary biology and participated in two research labs. The folks on the other side of the debate, on the other hand, thought it sufficient to quote Fred Hoyle (who managed to be wrong about most everything he said outside of nucleosynthesis) and describe their personal standards of proof (which were never applied to any other historical science other than biology). After a while, I figured out that doing science was far more satisfying than debating pseudoscience. And so this weekend, rather than look up the earliest date Hoyle was refuted (I suspect it was 1987, but it may be as late as 1989) and explain actual theories of abiogenesis (which don't require starting from DNA), I'm going to be doing data analysis on a 19,000-processor-core run one of my Ph.D. students directed two weeks ago.

If either of you have questions along the lines of "What is the scientific response to this objection?", I'm more than happy to provide pointers into the primary and secondary literature. Likewise, I'm happy to provide my understanding of the scientific consensus in an area, and back that up with appropriate citations. And if you want advice as to how one argument or another might play out on the abiogenesis page, I'm happy to give advice there as well. But I don't debate with nonscientists anymore. There's just too much really cool science to be done. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 18:46, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

To say theories of abiogenesis don't require starting from DNA is incorrect since we observe all living cells to be coded for and reproduce by means of DNA. Think about it: What came first back then? DNA or the proteins and enzymes that synthesize DNA? They're synthesized by DNA themselves, it's a big paradox. To continue with Eugene Koonin who, along with many other scientists, believe RNA could have given rise to DNA: "The RNA World concept might offer the best chance for the resolution of this conundrum but so far cannot adequately account for the emergence of an efficient RNA replicase or the translation system." Oh well, at least you admit that the scientific method will never reveal the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what actually happened or how our universe works & that supernatural explanations may or may not be the right answer. That's hard for a lot of "scientists" to grasp. Like I said, maybe another century will go by without scientists achieving abiogenesis and then the "consensus" will be that supernatural intervention was required. Shandck (talk) 19:05, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Shandck, you've made excellent points. Where I disagree with you is that if another century goes by without scientists achieving abiogenesis they might reach a consensus on supernatural intervention. Abiogenesis will never be achieved, but supposing the human species is still around in a thousand years, agenda-driven scientists will keep on saying that God had nothing to do with it. They say God is an irrational concept, which is true; nevertheless, God does exist. The irony is that abiogenesis is an equally irrational concept. I assure you, Lesser Cartographies, that any time you have spent on abiogenesis has been an utter waste of time. Certainly there's just too much really cool science to be done, which is why abiogenesis should be avoided. I chose to study chemistry at the university. I have a solid scientific background. I criticized engineering students for using information without fully understanding it first. We need science. But abiogenesis is a joke. By the way, I quoted scientists to make my case against your arguments. Thanks, Shandck, for letting me use your talk page for this discussion. Dontreader (talk) 22:40, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

Essays on your userpage

You might want to have a look at Wikipedia:User pages. The essays you just put are borderline, in that they're more than simple quotations and are unrelated to the project. I'm not asking that you take them down, but if others have a problem with them, they'll be citing the User Pages guidelines. If you'd like another opinion, the WP:TEAHOUSE has several friendly, experienced folks who can give you a dispassionate opinion. Best, Lesser Cartographies (talk) 03:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

"User pages mainly are for interpersonal discussion, notices, testing and drafts, and, if desired, limited autobiographical and personal content." Since the essays I've posted are educational in nature and correlate directly to discussions I've had here on Wikipedia, they are not in violation of any code of conduct. After all, "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." Based on what I've seen on other editors user pages so far, what I've I've posted is minimal - a few clicks can reveal many people actually going on personal ramblings that are neither educational or publishable Shandck (talk) 03:39, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

"Generally, you should avoid substantial content on your user page that is unrelated to Wikipedia." (emphasis in original) The fact that the essays are your opinion does not make them "educational", nor are they related to Wikipedia. Making an WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument tells me that you understand the problem. However, as a show of good faith, if you'll point me to a few other users with similar essays, I'll be happy to warn them as well. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 04:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Dude, get a life - nobody likes a hall monitor. Shandck (talk) 04:17, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

<grin> If you only knew.... Seriously though, we don't allow essays here unless they're essays on wikipedia guidelines or editing practice. Folks take the who WP:NPOV thing very seriously, and people get blowback even for innocuous WP:USERBOXes. The essays are waving a big, red flag that says "I'm not neutral and I don't care who knows it". That's going to be thrown back in your face anytime to try to edit any science article, or article on creationism, or even any article that touches on politics. Eventually somebody will cite WP:User pages and take them down, and if try to restore them you'll get the WP:NOTHERE tag and be blocked. (Yes, I've seen this play out at WP:ANI over and over again.) I'm assuming you want to be seen as a knowledgeable, evenhanded editor (and if you don't want to be seen that way, you won't be here long). Those essays prevent me from making that assumption. I'm not asking you to believe me, but I am asking you to get an opinion of an experienced editor you trust. Lesser Cartographies (talk) 05:13, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Funny how you should mention the whole neutral point of view deal, since I joined Wikipedia to combat a non-neutral point of view in the first place. That being the fact that "abiogenesis is the natural process by which life arose from non-living matter such as simple organic compounds" is neither a neutral point of view or a true statement, whereas "abiogenesis is the theory that life could have arisen from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds, through natural processes" is. Another core value of Wikipedia content is verifiability, and since it cannot be verified that life arose through natural processes - saying so is not a neutral point of view. Shandck (talk) 05:45, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Protection

I've gone with semi-protection for now so that you can still edit it. If I used full protection then you can't edit it either. If you start getting a bunch of WP:Autoconfirmed editors attacking it then it can be changed. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 23:59, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good, thank you. Shandck (talk) 00:44, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

No problem. CBWeather, Talk, Seal meat for supper? 15:28, 14 August 2014 (UTC)