Manufacturing mystery

While true mysteries exist, others aren't real, but have been manufactured.

Quotes and comments;

1. 'Well-known physicist Paul Davies says in a recent Nature article [1.] that ‘the origin of life remains one of the great outstanding mysteries of science’. What he means, of course, is the naturalistic origin of life—i.e. how chemicals could have become living cells without supernatural design.' [2.]

- This is a mystery only if you want it to be. The origin of 'life' is only a mystery if people want it to be. Almost anything can be a mystery if you insist the 'problem' be solved in a particular way. (e.g. getting myself lunch is only a problem if I insist on doing so without getting up from my chair, and without getting any outside assistance :=)

- Is the problem of squaring the circle a great mystery of science? Is discovering how we might travel back in time a great mystery of science? i.e. is it a problem or is it an impossibility? (Is making each person on earth perfectly equal a problem or an impossibility.) What we have here is an impossibility being paraded as a problem and a mystery. (A cynic might claim that people like Davies are selling mystery.) Is turning stones into bread a problem (mystery) or is it an impossibility?

2. 'Addressing what he calls the ‘burning question of astrobiology ’he lists only two possible alternatives: ‘Was the origin of known life a freak accident, or the expected outcome of intrinsically bio-friendly laws of physics?’ Creation is excluded from the start.'

- Davies creates his mystery by excluding creation. We can easily create mysteries by restricting our parameters. (e.g. human flight would indeed be a problem if we excluded using machines, or any other item but our naked bodies.) We might sit around and muse on the great mystery of how we might be able to fly. Some might even deny it was possible; while others would no doubt claim that, "one day science will discover the answer." Others will petition the gov. for a grant to study the subject.

- He's offering us the either or fallacy, and hoping we'll take it.

Notes;
1. Davies, P., A quantum recipe for life, Nature 437(7060):819, 6 October 2005.
- http://cosmos.asu.edu/publications/articles/AQuantumRecipeForLife%20Oct05.pdf
- I've read the article and it's just a bunch of hand waving. Unless I'm mistaken he actually talks about atoms evolving! (I wasn't aware you could have 'evolution' without reproduction. I wasn't aware inert matter could evolve.)
2. Huff and Bluff - Can ‘quantum magic’ save chemical evolution?
by Carl Wieland and Jonathan Sarfati [19 June 2006]