I just finished a totally fascinating series of linked posts by and about a scholar from Rice University here in Texas on how difficult, impossible really, it is to make claims about abiogenesis based on the current state of human knowledge. Abiogenesis and the mind/brain problem are two of the greatest mysteries of our age. Honest people know that we do not know enough about either of them to even know how to to study them. I have written about the mind/brain problem on this blog in the past because it fascinates me. Here is one of my posts with links to articles that describe the mind/brain problem.
I have not really written that much about abiogenesis because it so far out of my areas of expertise. I have had a passing interest in the topic, but not enough skill or knowledge to talk about it coherently. Today, though, I ran into an article titled On Prebiotic Chemistry, Synthetic Chemist James Tour Urges an Admission of Ignorance that lead me to several other articles that provide what appears to be a pretty good overview of our current state of knowledge on the topic written on a level most laymen could understand. For giggles, you can see some of the cat fight that occurs when claims are made about this type of topic. I might note that Tour, who is about as good as it gets in describing difficult material to a lay audience, is not completely innocent of staying in his own domain–he makes a a statement about whether Intelligent Design falls within the realm of science, a question that could probably be best answered by someone who works in information theory and philosophy of science, which are well outside Tour’s area(s) of professional and scholarly expertise. That is a very minor quibble as the articles were fabulously interesting and informative. I list them below in the order I read them:
I really appreciated the last link. I’ve had a strong sense of the overall view presented since late high school, but I do not have the depth of knowledge about the specifics of Chemistry nor the personal experiences in the field.
So encouraging and helpful!
An admonition to continue to learn more, to not fear the questions, to embrace the uncertainty? Please! All of us, may we walk in more humility and grace and spur one another on to doing good work (in this case, in the scientific world [smile]).
~Luke
My thoughts exactly Luke! The more I learn the more I am humbled and the more it makes me realize the truth is not something to be feared. Thanks for checking in.