Will salt dissolve naturally in water?
There is a running joke amongst creationists -- at least, I hope it's a joke -- that abiogenesis will be impossible to demonstrate: after all, if you did perform abiogenesis in a lab, all you've proven is that it takes intelligence to make life.
The following is a real quote from a creationist, to prove the case:
>You do realize that if scientists could (which I am highly skeptical) create life in the lab (not borrow it from living organisms) that would merely demonstrate Intelligent Design not abiogenesis.
Of course, every experiment we do has this problem: we're almost always doing it in the lab, because we can control lab conditions; and even if we're not, we're interpreting the results at the end. It's a similar problem to the quantum observer problem, if taken to an extreme: if it takes an conscious observer to make the waveform collapse, there's no way we could ever observe a non-collapsed waveform. Ever. Our observation of the result may make the wave form collapse: the only way it stays non-collapsed is if we never check the result, at which point we don't know the outcome of the experiment.
That said, our experiments suggest this isn't the case; or at least if it were the case, it wouldn't make a difference to us, the region of space we are in operates this way, whether or not it is us causing it; our technology needs to work for us, so it doesn't really matter what's happening in places we never influence. A well designed experiment will not have intelligence as a factor, beyond the assembly of the apparatus; and the apparatus, if well designed, will model natural conditions that do not involve an intelligent agent.
This seems to be entirely coherent as a method of experimentation: if you drop a rock, it falls the same as a rock that just fell naturally, assuming your apparatus to release it models reality well. Intelligent has no influence on the result; if we use the same principles to produce an abiogenesis experiment, it will demonstrate a natural pathway to life.
Of course, abiogenesis probably took a huge volume of resources, time and material: so, our experiments are going to be very precise tests. eg. if you wanted to test particle interactions from different orientations, you'd collect a bunch of arbitrary tests, then see if you can extrapolate a formula from that; in abiogenesis, we'd be checking how often specific outcomes occur as a statistical measure, so that we don't need to simulate a whole world for the experiment.
But creationists disagree. The following conditions are required for experimentation:
- The setup cannot be artificial. It can't be performed in a lab; it can't involve a human-sourced apparatus or materials.
So, I must ask the following challenge of creationists:
Can you design an experiment in which we can prove that salt will dissolve in water naturally?
Notes:
No human may touch or interact with the salt or the water.
The salt must be naturally sourced, it cannot be prepared by humans. You must demonstrate that the salt is natural and not intelligently formed.
The salt and water must interact naturally. You may not place the salt into the water.
The water cannot be agitated, except by natural means.
Well, creationists, does salt dissolve in water?