Debate:Is infinite regression ever valid as a form of reasoning, or acceptable as a way the universe works, or came to be?

No. Infinite regression is a cop-out. It is closely akin to circular reasoning, except that the line of reasoning is not so much a circle as a spiral, into the infinite past or at least through an infinite number of prior steps. For example: How did life originate on earth? It didn't--it couldn't have. So where did it come from? Did God create it? No--no God-talk in scientific circles. (Francis H. Crick once wrote a nasty letter to Winston Churchill suggesting that a brothel would be just as appropriate as a chapel at Oxford University.) Therefore, life was deposited on earth from the outside. How? By a ballistic missile or a comet's tail. Where did that life come from? From another planet. But how did life arise on that other planet? It didn't--couldn't have--too much information. Did God create life on that other planet? Oh, no. Therefore life was deposited on that planet as well. Where did that life come from? From another ballistic missile. And so on, and so on, for an infinite number of steps.

Am I the only one who recognizes such a line of reasoning as absurd? And not merely absurd, but self-serving of the interests of those seeking to deny God's existence and His role as Creator. It is a very travesty of logic, and that is why I sought to classify it as a logical fallacy.

Why, then, is it not a logical fallacy? Can an infinite regression ever exist in nature? I'm waiting for the evidence.--TerryH 23:40, 6 March 2007 (EST)

Postscript: This is a special-case type of page. The "article," as such, is discussion. That's the nature of a debate topic.--TerryH 23:41, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Yes. There is no a priori reason to rule out infinite regression in all circumstances. It may seem a superficially unsatisfying explaination to state "it's turtles all the way down", but that doesn't mean that infinite regression cannot exist. Of course, if there is a finite limit to the problem at hand, such as the age of the universe in the panspermia problem, then infinite regression cannot work. Nematocyte 11:45, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Counter. That is precisely the problem. The age of the universe is limited. No reputable astronomer accepts a steady-state universe anymore. The most that anyone will accept is a cyclic universe--but Albert Einstein held that a cyclic universe is impossible, because our universe doesn't have enough mass to stop expansion and bring everything back into a clump again. Einstein was slow to realize that, of course, but in the end he yielded to the demands of logic, his own wonderfully self-consistent theory, and observations that he could not controvert.--TerryH 12:23, 8 March 2007 (EST)