Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

At Evolution News: The Standard Story of Human Evolution: A Critical Look

Eric Hedin
October 26, 2022
Human evolution, Intelligent Design
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Casey Luskin writes:

Despite disagreements, there is a standard story of human evolution that is retold in countless textbooks, news media articles, and documentaries. Indeed, virtually all the scientists I am citing here accept some evolutionary account of human origins, albeit flawed. 

Starting with the early hominins and moving through the australopithecines, and then into the genus Homo, I will review the fossil evidence and assess whether it supports this standard account of human evolution. As we shall see, the evidence — or lack thereof — often contradicts this evolutionary story.

Photo: Ardipithecus ramidus, by Tiia Monto, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Early Hominins

In 2015, two leading paleoanthropologists reviewed the fossil evidence regarding human evolution in a prestigious scientific volume titled Macroevolution. They acknowledged the “dearth of unambiguous evidence for ancestor-descendant lineages,” and admitted, 

[T]he evolutionary sequence for the majority of hominin lineages is unknown. Most hominin taxa, particularly early hominins, have no obvious ancestors, and in most cases ancestor-descendant sequences (fossil time series) cannot be reliably constructed.1

Nevertheless, numerous theories have been promoted about early hominins and their ancestral relationships to humans.

One leading fossil is described below:

Ardipithecus ramidus: Irish Stew or Breakthrough of the Year?

In 2009, Science announced the long-awaited publication of details about Ardipithecus ramidus (pictured above), a would-be hominin fossil that lived about 4.4 million years ago (mya). Expectations mounted after its discoverer, UC Berkeley paleoanthropologist Tim White, promised a “phenomenal individual” that would be the “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism.”17 The media eagerly employed the hominin they affectionately dubbed Ardi to evangelize the public for Darwin.

Discovery Channel ran the headline “‘Ardi,’ Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled,” and quoted White calling Ardi “as close as we have ever come to finding the last common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans.”18 The Associated Press declared, “World’s Oldest Human-Linked Skeleton Found,” and stated that “the new find provides evidence that chimps and humans evolved from some long-ago common ancestor.”19 Science named Ardi the “breakthrough of the year” for 2009,20 and introduced her with the headline, “A New Kind of Ancestor: Ardipithecus Unveiled.”21

Calling Ardi “new” may have been a poor word choice, for it was discovered in the early 1990s. Why did it take some 15 years to publish the analyses? A 2002 article in Science explains the bones were “soft,” “crushed,” “squished,” and “chalky.”22 Later reports similarly acknowledged that “portions of Ardi’s skeleton were found crushed nearly to smithereens and needed extensive digital reconstruction,” including the pelvis, which “looked like an Irish stew.”23

Claims about bipedal locomotion require accurate measurements of the precise shapes of key bones (like the pelvis). Can one trust declarations of a “Rosetta stone for understanding bipedalism” when Ardi was “crushed to smithereens”? Science quoted various paleoanthropologists who were “skeptical that the crushed pelvis really shows the anatomical details needed to demonstrate bipedality.”24

Even some who accepted Ardi’s reconstructions weren’t satisfied that the fossil was a bipedal human ancestor. Primatologist Esteban Sarmiento concluded in Science that “[a]ll of the Ar. ramidus bipedal characters cited also serve the mechanical requisites of quadrupedality, and in the case of Ar. ramidus foot-segment proportions, find their closest functional analog to those of gorillas, a terrestrial or semiterrestrial quadruped and not a facultative or habitual biped.”25 Bernard Wood questioned whether Ardi’s postcranial skeleton qualified it as a hominin,26 and co-wrote in Nature that if “Ardipithecus is assumed to be a hominin,” then it had “remarkably high levels of homoplasy [similarity] among extant great apes.”27 A 2021 study found that Ardi’s hands were well-suited for climbing and swinging in trees, and for knuckle-walking, giving it a chimp-like mode of locomotion.28 In other words, Ardi had ape-like characteristics which, if we set aside the preferences of Ardi’s promoters, should imply a closer relationship to apes than to humans. As the authors of the Nature article stated, Ardi’s “being a human ancestor is by no means the simplest, or most parsimonious explanation.”29Sarmiento even observed that Ardi had characteristics different from both humans and African apes, such as its unfused jaw joint, which ought to remove her far from human ancestry.30

Whatever Ardi was, everyone agrees the fossils was initially badly crushed and needed extensive reconstruction. No doubt this debate will continue, but are we obligated to accept the “human ancestor” position promoted by Ardi’s discoverers in the media? Sarmiento doesn’t think so. According Time magazine, he “regards the hype around Ardi to have been overblown.”31

Full article at Evolution News.

Notes

  1. Bernard Wood and Mark Grabowski, “Macroevolution in and around the Hominin Clade,” Macroevolution: Explanation, Interpretation, and Evidence, eds. Serrelli Emanuele and Nathalie Gontier (Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, 2015), 347-376.
  2. Michel Brunet et al., “Sahelanthropus or ‘Sahelpithecus’?,” Nature 419 (October 10, 2002), 582.
  3. Michel Brunet et al., “A new hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad, Central Africa,” Nature 418 (July 11, 2002), 145-151. See also Michel Brunet et al., “New material of the earliest hominid from the Upper Miocene of Chad,” Nature 434 (April 7, 2005), 752-755. 
  4. Smithsonian Natural Museum of Natural History, “Sahelanthropus tchadensis,” https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/sahelanthropus-tchadensis (accessed November 30, 2020).
  5. “Skull Find Sparks Controversy,” BBC News (July 12, 2002), http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2125244.stm (accessed October 26, 2020).
  6. Milford Wolpoff et al., “Sahelanthropus or ‘Sahelpithecus’?” Nature 419 (October 10, 2002), 581-582.
  7. Roberto Macchiarelli et al., “Nature and relationships of Sahelanthropus tchadensis,” Journal of Human Evolution 149 (2020), 102898.
  8. Macchiarelli et al., “Nature and relationships of Sahelanthropus tchadensis.”
  9. Madelaine Böhme, quoted in Michael Marshall, “Our supposed earliest human relative may have walked on four legs,” New Scientist (November 18, 2020), https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833093-600-our-supposed-earliest-human-relative-may-have-walked-on-four-legs/ (accessed November 30, 2020).
  10. Bob Yirka, “Study of partial left femur suggests Sahelanthropus tchadensis was not a hominin after all,” Phys.org (November 24, 2020), https://phys.org/news/2020-11-partial-left-femur-sahelanthropus-tchadensis.html (accessed November 30, 2020).
  11. Potts and Sloan, What Does It Mean to Be Human?, 38.
  12. John Noble Wilford, “Fossils May Be Earliest Human Link,” New York Times (July 12, 2001), http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/12/world/fossils-may-be-earliest-human-link.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
  13. John Noble Wilford, “On the Trail of a Few More Ancestors,” New York Times (April 8, 2001), http://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/08/world/on-the-trail-of-a-few-more-ancestors.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
  14. Leslie Aiello and Mark Collard, “Our Newest Oldest Ancestor?” Nature 410 (March 29, 2001), 526-527.
  15. K. Galik et al., “External and Internal Morphology of the BAR 1002’00 Orrorin tugenensis Femur,” Science 305 (September 3, 2004), 1450-1453.
  16. Sarmiento, Sawyer, and Milner, The Last Human, 35.
  17. Tim White, quoted in Ann Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” Science 295 (February 15, 2002), 1214-1219.
  18. Jennifer Viegas, “‘Ardi,’ Oldest Human Ancestor, Unveiled,” Discovery News (October 1, 2009), https://web.archive.org/web/20110613073934/http://news.discovery.com/history/ardi-human-ancestor.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
  19. Randolph Schmid, “World’s Oldest Human-Linked Skeleton Found,” NBC News (October 1, 2009), https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna33110809 (accessed October 26, 2020). 
  20. Ann Gibbons, “Breakthrough of the Year: Ardipithecus ramidus,” Science 326 (December 18, 2009), 1598-1599.
  21. Gibbons, “New Kind of Ancestor,” 36-40.
  22. White, quoted in Gibbons, “In Search of the First Hominids,” 1214-1219, 1215-1216.
  23. Michael Lemonick and Andrea Dorfman, “Ardi Is a New Piece for the Evolution Puzzle,” Time (October 1, 2009), http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1927289,00.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
  24. Gibbons, “New Kind of Ancestor,” 36-40, 39.
  25. Esteban Sarmiento, “Comment on the Paleobiology and Classification of Ardipithecus ramidus,” Science 328 (May 28, 2010), 1105b.
  26. Gibbons, “New Kind of Ancestor,” 36-40.
  27. Bernard Wood and Terry Harrison, “The Evolutionary Context of the First Hominins,” Nature 470 (February 17, 2011), 347-352.
  28. Thomas C. Prang, Kristen Ramirez, Mark Grabowski, and Scott A. Williams, “Ardipithecus hand provides evidence that humans and chimpanzees evolved from an ancestor with suspensory adaptations,” Science Advances 7 (February 24, 2021), eabf2474.
  29. New York University, “Fossils may look like human bones: Biological anthropologists question claims for human ancestry,” ScienceDaily (February 16, 2011), https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110216132034.htm (accessed October 26, 2020).
  30. See Eben Harrell, “Ardi: The Human Ancestor Who Wasn’t?,” Time (May 27, 2010), http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1992115,00.html (accessed October 26, 2020).
  31. Harrell, “Ardi: The Human Ancestor Who Wasn’t?”
Comments
AF, your denialism and projection are what cannot stand scrutiny. KF kairosfocus
EACH protein has its own algorithm, that’s thousands.
This is just nonsense on a stick. Alan Fox
JVL:
“Okay, so you are talking about the synthesis of a single protein, that’s the algorithm you’re thinking about. Its ‘goal’ is to create a single protein. Not a leg or an arm or a lung, just one protein. Correct?”
1: EACH protein has its own algorithm, that's thousands. They follow the same design pattern but each is different. 2: The immediate goal is to properly assemble the AA chain towards the proteins, where these are pivotal to biological life. 3: Each of these thousands of algorithms use coded step by step procedures with halting etc. 4: This is a case where what we do not yet know should not distract us from what we know. The mRNA is created, matured, passed to the cytoplasm, fed into ribosome, executed. 5: These show language and goal directed processes in the cell, turning on deep knowledge of polymer chemistry. KF kairosfocus
"He’s a bit of a jerk who treats people in a very condescending manner when he probably knows less than those he berates. It’s his attitude I don’t like.",,, "We're going to need a bigger irony meter!" :) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIDs6UAXsAALH85?format=jpg&name=small bornagain77
Kairosfocus: W has spoken to the onward cases where indeed we do not know. He's a bit of a jerk who treats people in a very condescending manner when he probably knows less than those he berates. It's his attitude I don't like. I was hoping to get a clear response to some questions I posted above. I shall repost so you don't have to look for them: "Okay, so you are talking about the synthesis of a single protein, that’s the algorithm you’re thinking about. Its ‘goal’ is to create a single protein. Not a leg or an arm or a lung, just one protein. Correct?" "What triggers the execution of the algorithm? We know not all genes/algorithms are active all the time . . . what turns them on?" JVL
JVL, W has spoken to the onward cases where indeed we do not know. But, right before us -- and this is Nobel Prize winning work now taught in primary schools -- we have a known case, complex coded algorithms used in chaining the diverse AA strings toward synthesis of proteins, as part of an automated process in which mRNA serves as a tape storage medium and tRNA as a carrier of AAs and position arm device used to chain the AAs. This is a case of adequate warrant, where what we do not yet know should not be allowed to block us from acknowledging what we can and should know. In this context the obvious zero concessions policy that you just used is a clear manifestation of hyperskeptical denialism of unwelcome evidence that should instead have been faced squarely and acknowledged. KF kairosfocus
Whistler: Firstly, we don’t know how many O.S. are inside the cell We do know that so far you haven't pointed any out. We know that some processes require direct execution by interpreters and other processes require conversion into machine-code by a compiler .What kind of assemblers do we need (meta-asemblers, cross asemblers,etc.) ? Nice smoke screen covering up your inability to answer the question. I don’t see the term encryption ,cypher in your “qualifications”. It wasn't pertinent. ven if those few O.S. that operate in the life systems are not encrypted guess what ? Without the right compilers/asemblers/interpreters are encrypted for us. Again, an excuse for you not being able to answer the question. Even if the scientists decoded few lines of code by checking the causal chain that doesn’t help too much to discover all the code line . Uh huh. So, you say there are definitely algorithms in cells but can't provide an example because you assume it's all complicated or encrypted? Sounds like you don't know that much about programming. JVL
F/N: Let's try a reference or two: https://www.jsway-cnc.com/what-is-numerical-control-nc
Numerical control (NC) is the automation of machine tools [--> cf. tRNA in Ribosomes] that are operated by precisely programmed commands encoded on a storage medium [--> cf. mRNA], as opposed to controlled manually via hand wheels or levers, or mechanically automated via cams alone. [--> cams, often stacked on a bar, are analogue and can be used to execute a stepwise goal directed sequence with halting as opposed to coded digital numerical info such as with the classic jacquard loom, ancestral to punch cards and punched paper tape] Most NC today is computer numerical control (CNC), in which computers play an integral part of the control.
Notice, automation. https://www.britannica.com/technology/automation
automation, application of machines to tasks once performed by human beings or, increasingly, to tasks that would otherwise be impossible. Although the term mechanization is often used to refer to the simple replacement of human labour by machines, automation generally implies the integration of machines into a self-governing system . . . . The term is used widely in a manufacturing context, but it is also applied outside manufacturing in connection with a variety of systems in which there is a significant substitution of mechanical, electrical, or computerized action for human effort and intelligence. In general usage, automation can be defined as a technology concerned with performing a process by means of programmed commands combined with automatic feedback control to ensure proper execution of the instructions. The resulting system is capable of operating without human intervention. The development of this technology has become increasingly dependent on the use of computers and computer-related technologies. Consequently, automated systems have become increasingly sophisticated and complex. Advanced systems represent a level of capability and performance that surpass in many ways the abilities of humans to accomplish the same activities. Automation technology has matured to a point where a number of other technologies have developed from it and have achieved a recognition and status of their own. Robotics is one of these technologies; it is a specialized branch of automation in which the automated machine possesses certain anthropomorphic, or humanlike, characteristics. The most typical humanlike characteristic of a modern industrial robot is its powered mechanical arm. The robot’s arm can be programmed to move through a sequence of motions to perform useful tasks, such as loading and unloading parts at a production machine or making a sequence of spot-welds on the sheet-metal parts of an automobile body during assembly.
Now, Drexler Assembler: https://fon.hum.uva.nl/rob/Courses/InformationInSpeech/CDROM/Literature/LOTwinterschool2006/szabo.best.vwh.net/nano.musings.html [note, security warning, I guess old page]
In Nanosystems, after proposing detailed designs for low-level molecular machinery components (gears, rods, and the like), K. Eric Drexler proposes two high-level designs for a self-reproducing molecular robot, an "assembler", in the tradition of self-replicating machines first proposed and computationally modelled by John von Neumann, and inspired by the ability of living things to reproduce themselves. Drexler argues along the lines that his designs can reproduce themselves in a short period of time based on the degrees of freedom of the robot arms, their high frequency of operation at the molecular scale, and some other general considerations . . . . it is one thing to count molecules and degrees of freedom/frequency of very generally and vaguely specified "operations", and quite another to design a machine that works correctly through every one of the (trillions of?) physical states needed to get from organic inputs to the complex gears, ratchets, bearings, and subassemblies to new assemblers. The problem is similar in structure to designing a metabolism that turns raw food into another bacterium, with the added complexity of mechanical in addition to chemical operations. In the cases of bacterium we have thousands of distinct chemical reactions, still not fully mapped. Full metabolic mapping is much more difficult than full genome mapping. Even with this complexity a bacterium is still very sensitive to environmental conditions. No bacterium is truly self-replicating in the sense of being self-sufficient; instead it is highly dependent on the surrounding food web. The simplest self-sufficient replicator may be the lichen, but that has correspondingly slow replication time. Generality vs. speed is probably a fundamental tradeoff. While going from macroscopic industrial parts proposed by von Neumann, or the nucleic acids, amino acids and myriad of tertiary biochemicals in bacteria, to atomic-scale diamondoid parts reduces the search space, and thus complexity, but this also reduces the degrees of design freedom.
Wiki on the Drexler-Smalley debate:
The Drexler–Smalley debate on molecular nanotechnology[1] was a public dispute between K. Eric Drexler, the originator of the conceptual basis of molecular nanotechnology, and Richard Smalley, a recipient of the 1996 Nobel prize in Chemistry for the discovery of the nanomaterial buckminsterfullerene. The dispute was about the feasibility of constructing molecular assemblers, which are molecular machines which could robotically assemble molecular materials and devices by manipulating individual atoms or molecules . . . . Drexler was inspired by a then-obscure 1959 talk by physicist Richard Feynman called There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom, which posited that it should be physically possible to manipulate individual atoms using top-down engineering methodologies. Drexler was also inspired by recent advances in molecular biology such as recombinant DNA technology. In a 1981 publication in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, considered to be the first journal article on nanotechnology, he argued that biological systems such as the ribosome were already capable of building molecules atom-by-atom [--> actually, monomer by monomer], and that artificial machines with this capability could also be constructed.
So, now, Wiki's confessions on tRNA:
Transfer RNA (abbreviated tRNA and formerly referred to as sRNA, for soluble RNA[1]) is an adaptor molecule composed of RNA, typically 76 to 90 nucleotides in length (in eukaryotes),[2] that serves as the physical link between the mRNA and the amino acid sequence of proteins. Transfer RNA (tRNA) does this by carrying an amino acid to the protein synthesizing machinery of a cell called the ribosome. Complementation of a 3-nucleotide codon in a messenger RNA (mRNA) by a 3-nucleotide anticodon of the tRNA results in protein synthesis based on the mRNA code . . . . One end of the tRNA matches the genetic code in a three-nucleotide sequence called the anticodon. The anticodon forms three complementary base pairs with a codon in mRNA during protein biosynthesis. On the other end of the tRNA is a covalent attachment to the amino acid that corresponds to the anticodon sequence. Each type of tRNA molecule can be attached to only one type of amino acid, so each organism has many types of tRNA. Because the genetic code contains multiple codons that specify the same amino acid, there are several tRNA molecules bearing different anticodons which carry the same amino acid. The covalent attachment to the tRNA 3’ end is catalyzed by enzymes called aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. During protein synthesis, tRNAs with attached amino acids are delivered to the ribosome by proteins called elongation factors, which aid in association of the tRNA with the ribosome, synthesis of the new polypeptide, and translocation (movement) of the ribosome along the mRNA. If the tRNA's anticodon matches the mRNA, another tRNA already bound to the ribosome transfers the growing polypeptide chain from its 3’ end to the amino acid attached to the 3’ end of the newly delivered tRNA, a reaction catalyzed by the ribosome . . .
That is, tRNA is a mobile, molecular, position-arm device with a CCA universal joint tool tip that is loaded with the appropriate AA through loading enzymes. [This is where the code is enforced, chemically any CCA can load any of the 20 AAs]. This then matches the mRNA codon in the tape in the ribosome. At the other end of the L, the AA is loaded to the AA chain, towards the protein. This is an automated process, and it is algorithmic with start, elongate, finite scope, halt on stop codons, and of course manifests a naturally evident goal through elaborate means. Given, significance of proteins in cell based life. The cell devotes considerable energy, investment in complex machinery and in stored information to carry forward this part of the even more elaborate overall process-flow metabolic network. This brings us back to, here we see coded algorithms at work. But the zero concession fallacy, doubtless will be engaged here, to studiously ignore highly material facts. It is time to invoke the adapted JoHari window and establish our own, independent knowledge base. KF kairosfocus
W, we are seeing machine code used in numerical control in the cell, especially in the focal case, protein synthesis. Thus the comparison is embedded systems. We know there are regulatory frameworks above and beyond, which are just now being teased out. That goes beyond. But already, we have a case of widely known complex algorithms that use known codes and are known to execute in the living cell to help make its proteins; a crucial known case. I suspect many objectors are unfamiliar with system architecture thinking, and especially with machine code, discrete state control, numerical control and the like. They think the physical layer exhausts all, failing to see that there is software, there are functionally organised structures expressing the assembly language view [and augmented by the OS or monitor that does regulating work] and implying systematic organisation AKA architecture. They deal with us who come from that sort of background and refuse to credit that such and related areas constitute legitimate bodies of knowledge that have something to say.That is how it looks to me, I am suggesting names like Andrew S Tanenbaum and Morris Mano etc for starters but suspect they will not be able to bridge. As for embedded systems and numerical control, those are arcane arts from the beginning. KF kairosfocus
The operating system of life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JufLDxmCwB0 Firstly, we don't know how many O.S. are inside the cell . We know that some processes require direct execution by interpreters and other processes require conversion into machine-code by a compiler .What kind of assemblers do we need (meta-asemblers, cross asemblers,etc.) ? We don't know too much about this marvel but this doesn't mean that darwinian "technology" unintentionally compiled under a rock few operating systems that work together for millennia with self-updating.
JVL
Whistler: You are not very familiar with programming.
So, all those hours I spent covering punch cards with FORTRAN didn’t happen? Or the time I learned BASIC so I could use the department’s PDP-11 and its teletype terminal to program some simple numerical methods for differential equations? Or when I learned Pascal to do even more complicated numerical solutions to PDEs in 3-space (first submitting batch on an IBM and later using a line editor on a VAX/VMS)? It all seems so real . . . And those hours I spent working the nightshift at that US Navy facility writing and implementing hardware interface test programs in CMS-2 and assembler code? Not real? Then there was the tens of thousands of lines of dBASE III I created to help the Navy track replacement parts for one of their bits of equipment. I got paid . . . it must have been real. And the HTML I used more recently . . . sigh. Well, since you seem to know so much about such things it should be easy for you to provide one of the algorithms you are thinking of. Like falling off a log I should think.
I don't see the term encryption ,cypher in your "qualifications". Even if those few O.S. that operate in the life systems are not encrypted guess what ? Without the right compilers/asemblers/interpreters are encrypted for us. Even if the scientists decoded few lines of code by checking the causal chain that doesn't help too much to discover all the code line .(see biggest failure of darwinism : "junk DNA" that ,in fact is more important than protein coding region, one of the O.S . definitely resides in junk DNA area) whistler
PS, did some lookup. Clock rate about 1 MHz, some overlap on fetch-execute, MSI ICs but definitely ferrite core, 64k memory, there is reference to punched paper tape programming, original cost about US$ 25 k. The archi is a modification of von Neumann, microprogrammed instruction set, a rather familiar sounding flag register, and it seems the focus was machine code programming. MSI circuits are early 70's the rest reminds me of being a baby bro to a s360 or a 1401 or 704. Very similar to the flying computer for Apollo. But I guess ruggedised is a key reference. Amazingly, they and the next step seem to be still in use, an emulator running on a Raspberry Pi Pi Zero microcontroller sitting on a 40 pin card that would sit in an old 40 pin DIL socket (one is next to me as I type) would run rings around them and is a Linux interface. kairosfocus
JVL, yes, while the Iowa Class were also using 1940s analogue, ball and disk integrators for gunlaying, so the point of old tech is made. Now, this is the tech you are discussing:
The AN/UYK-20 "Data Processing Set" was a ruggedized small computer manufactured by Univac and used by the United States Navy for small and medium-sized shipboard and shore systems built in the 1970s. It featured non-volatile magnetic core memory and was housed in a heavy-duty metal cube-shaped box which was designed to fit through a 25-inch circular hatch. In 1972, in response to the proliferation of small computer types in the Navy's inventory, the Chief of Naval Material mandated the use of the AN/UYK-20(V) in systems requiring a small digital processor.[1] On March 27, 1974 the AN/UYK-20 received service approval and by late 1974 they were in use in the development of tactical systems.[2] . . . . The AN/UYK-20 is still currently in use, but has been largely supplanted by the AN/UYK-44, which uses a 'superset' of the UYK-20 instruction set, meaning the UYK-44 will execute all of the UYK-20 instructions, as well as several new instructions specific to the UYK-44.
The phones in the sailor's pockets vastly outstrip those mini dinosaurs. I wonder where ferrite bead memory is still made. 50 years in operation, technology from the 50's [ferrite core], I assume hybrid ICs or early monolithics, possibly discretes, I would hope no valves by then though a cube to fit a 25 inch hatch is suspicious. I add, is that 16 or 17 inches on the side? In that context, a front panel with registers loaded bitwise and using LEDs -- almost certainly mainly red -- is definitively old tech similar to the Apollo Guidance Computer. As I said, my ET 3400A was an advance on it. BTW, late 80's the French built radar for flight control in Jamaica was running on 6800 MPUs. Yes, hundred not thou, and not second gen [6808] or final gen [6809, of fond memory]. KF kairosfocus
Kairosfocus: Okay, so you are talking about the synthesis of a single protein, that's the algorithm you're thinking about. Its 'goal' is to create a single protein. Not a leg or an arm or a lung, just one protein. Correct? What triggers the execution of the algorithm? We know not all genes/algorithms are active all the time . . . what turns them on? JVL
JVL, I specifically addressed W. As for your onward attempt to pretend that chaining of amino acids in ribosomes using tRMA and mRNA is not algorithmic and does not therefore speak to how the myriads of proteins in the cell are made, that speaks for itself, sadly. KF PS, again, Lehninger has been cited already. Let us go here https://biologydictionary.net/protein-synthesis/
Protein synthesis is [the] process in which polypeptide chains are formed from coded combinations of single amino acids [--> code] inside the cell. The synthesis of new polypeptides requires a coded sequence [--> stepwise process, with implied start and halt] , enzymes, and messenger [--> where code is to assemble], ribosomal, and transfer ribonucleic acids (RNAs). Protein synthesis takes place within the nucleus and ribosomes of a cell and is regulated by DNA and RNA. Protein synthesis steps are twofold. Firstly, the code for a protein (a chain of amino acids in a specific order) must be copied from the genetic information contained within a cell’s DNA. This initial protein synthesis step is known as transcription. [--> coded algorithm stored in DNA, transcribed to mRNA, of course U replaces T] Transcription produces an exact copy of a section of DNA. This copy is known as messenger RNA (mRNA) which must then be transported outside of the cell nucleus before the next step of protein synthesis can begin. [--> editing is omitted in this simple initial summary] The second protein synthesis step is translation. Translation occurs within a cell organelle called a ribosome. Messenger RNA makes its way to and connects with the ribosome under the influence of ribosomal RNA and enzymes. Transfer RNA (tRNA) is a molecule that carries a single amino acid and a coded sequence that acts like a key. This key fits into a specific sequence of three codes on the mRNA, bringing the correct amino acid into place. [--> codons] Each set of three mRNA nitrogenous bases is called a codon . . . . The result of protein synthesis is a chain of amino acids that have been attached, link by link, in a specific order. [--> stepwise, finite sequence with start, extend, stop] This chain is called a polymer or polypeptide and is constructed according to a DNA-based code. [--> stepwise] You can picture a polypeptide chain as a string of beads, with each bead playing the part of an amino acid. The order in which the beads are strung are copied from instructions in our DNA [--> execution, stepwise] . . .
This is just to point out the generally recognised. Indeed, each particular AA chain used in proteins is a case of an algorithm stored in DNA transcribed to mRNA executed in ribosome. To suggest in the face of these commonplace facts that there is no example on the table is therefore utterly fallacious. The no concessions policy in the face of something as commonplace as this speaks, and not in favour of our objectors. kairosfocus
Kairosfocus: that would be old tech still in use. They were being used on then, current . . . let's say things in the water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN%2FUYK-20 Please note, they are still being used. All computers have a central register. All computers run on machine code. All processors have a collection of assembler code instructions. Any higher level language is translated into the assembler code and thence into machine code whether you see that happening or not. JVL
Kairosfocus: Where, I was in fact responding to W to highlight facets of algorithms that tend to be brushed over lightly in common current descriptions: goal-direction, finitude, halting, the common issue of abnormal termination; halting on reaching goal or on abnormal conditions is significant relative to goal directed and to functionality, both of which are relevant to our discussion. Perhaps it would be better if you were clearer regarding to whom your comments are directed. As for oh provide examples, you know you have been given a whole class of examples, the AA chain assembly programs towards protein synthesis, which is in D/RNA in the cell, something which is otherwise not controversial. Searching for AA chain assembly doesn't bring up any biological examples. Are you talking about a single gene? A series of genes? Are you talking about the creation of a single protein, an organ? What? We know some genes are not always 'on' or 'off'. What determines that? Is that part of the 'algorithm'? I just want you to be specific as to what the algorithm in a cell actually is. Matching the criteria as you have noted. I thought a particular example would be helpful. JVL
JVL, that would be old tech still in use -- I add, similar to the Apollo program machines. I suspect the IBM 360 was the last major mainframe family with a front panel switch array with indicator lights, implying in effect machine language coding, though of course key registers thus accessed would be hard set to initial conditions. Assembly programming was displacing machine code by the 50s and the first breakthrough high level languages were the late 50s. Basic, what, 1964/5 at Dartmouth? I am very aware the first PCs c 1975 were front panel machines, soon to be succeeded by more advanced interfaces, especially once the 6800 family 6845 CRT controller was on the table. But as noted, my late 70's era ET 3400A was using a keypad and seven segment LED array, c late 70's, i.e. key in hexcode. KF kairosfocus
JVL, you are in a context where another commenter has resorted to slander. Condescending as a dismissal of substantial correction is not appropriate and you know it. Where, I was in fact responding to W to highlight facets of algorithms that tend to be brushed over lightly in common current descriptions: goal-direction, finitude, halting, the common issue of abnormal termination; halting on reaching goal or on abnormal conditions is significant relative to goal directed and to functionality, both of which are relevant to our discussion. Obviously an infinite code cannot be realise but logically could never terminate, again relevant to goal directed and to functionality. An eternal loop such as a main polling loop that waits on and handles inputs is not properly an algorithm, though it is a program and has its uses. Those are important parts of the picture. As for oh provide examples, you know you have been given a whole class of examples, the AA chain assembly programs towards protein synthesis, which is in D/RNA in the cell, something which is otherwise not controversial. KF kairosfocus
Kairosfocus: he spoke to status c 1940’s to maybe early 60’s. Really? I worked for the US Navy in the 1980s and one of the other programmers could stand in front of a UYK-20, call up each line of code to the main register which was displayed as a series of lights, either on or off, with a row of switches below them. He could 'edit' the code by flipping the switches. We were working on hardware interface test programs and we frequently looked at the results on the front panel which, again, was just a series of lights or LED display for the machines working in octal. We carried around cards with all the assembler coding listed. It was easier enough to look at the register and interpret the ons and offs as 0s and 1s and figure out what command and memory locations were being referenced. So, yes, you could 'back engineer' the CMS-2 source code. Perhaps, instead of calling my experiences into question you'd like to actually provide one of the algorithms you are referring to. JVL
AC, he spoke to status c 1940's to maybe early 60's. Even my old ET3400A (which I still have) used a keyboard and array of seven segment LEDs. So, it is fair to point to lack of familiarity. Current state of art is something like MS Visual Studio Code. KF kairosfocus
Kairosfocus: An algorithm is a finite, goal directed sequence of procedural steps, with halting. Goal directed is a manifestation of naturally evident purpose. They are commonly given as lists of steps. Did you take a course on being condescending or were you just born that way? Again, just give us an example. Something we can discuss. JVL
Kairosfocus: We all know that in D/RNA there are algorithms expressed as string data structures that — stepwise — construct AA chains towards final form proteins including enzymes. We even have readily accessible code summaries, with recognition of variants, up to a couple of dozen it seems. That you can stand up here and pretend in the face of such that the algorithms are missing even after they have been repeatedly pointed out speaks volumes. Well, it should be easy for you to provide an example then. JVL
Whistler: You are not very familiar with programming. So, all those hours I spent covering punch cards with FORTRAN didn't happen? Or the time I learned BASIC so I could use the department's PDP-11 and its teletype terminal to program some simple numerical methods for differential equations? Or when I learned Pascal to do even more complicated numerical solutions to PDEs in 3-space (first submitting batch on an IBM and later using a line editor on a VAX/VMS)? It all seems so real . . . And those hours I spent working the nightshift at that US Navy facility writing and implementing hardware interface test programs in CMS-2 and assembler code? Not real? Then there was the tens of thousands of lines of dBASE III I created to help the Navy track replacement parts for one of their bits of equipment. I got paid . . . it must have been real. And the HTML I used more recently . . . sigh. Well, since you seem to know so much about such things it should be easy for you to provide one of the algorithms you are thinking of. Like falling off a log I should think. JVL
@Whistler
You are not very familiar with programming.
What makes you say that? Did JVL get something wrong about programming? AndyClue
AF, your blatant denial of facts to accuse is now a manifest rhetorical pattern. First, functionally specific complex organisation and/or associated information, FSCO/I, is already a description of a common, readily observed and distinguished phenomenon. What it needs is examples and such have been copiously given here at UD for many years. Indeed, your own objections as text in English as opposed to typical random gibberish uhs46touhjdfyfd and/or repeating blocks asasasasasas are a manifest case in point, as are watches, fishing reels, galvanometers, gears, aircraft, oil refineries, the process-flow network for cellular metabolism and in that context, tRNA and mRNA as well as Ribosomes, with of course the algorithmic code to chain AAs towards proteins you cannot acknowledge in the mRNA as a particularly direct case. These are matters of observable fact and description, with an acrostic. Where, ostensive definition by pointing to examples is a valid form of definition. You have been around where metrics expressible in functionally specific bits beyond a threshold where it is implausible that blind chance and necessity could give rise, have been framed. You have cases in point, indeed, what do you think file sizes on your computer measure, however roughly? We could continue but it is clear that you are exerting an irresponsible hyperskeptical no concessions policy that requires you to close your mind to observable fact. Having lost on the merits you are misrepresenting the pointed out facts and are falsely accusing people. Where, as every comment I have ever made at UD links through my handle to a discussion of such matters, I have a right to conclude for cause that your commentary is irresponsible, needlessly denigratory, outright defamatory and so of little or no credibility. KF kairosfocus
JVL, disappointing. We all know that in D/RNA there are algorithms expressed as string data structures that -- stepwise -- construct AA chains towards final form proteins including enzymes. We even have readily accessible code summaries, with recognition of variants, up to a couple of dozen it seems. That you can stand up here and pretend in the face of such that the algorithms are missing even after they have been repeatedly pointed out speaks volumes. KF PS, the meaning of algorithm is key and I give a more specific form emphasising finitude [so it can be completely executed] and halting [so it terminates whether normally or abnormally]. An algorithm is a finite, goal directed sequence of procedural steps, with halting. Goal directed is a manifestation of naturally evident purpose. They are commonly given as lists of steps. kairosfocus
JVL Whistler: “Creators of closed-source software products control access to the source code of their programs. ” But you can still say WHERE the code which contains the algorithm is. You know how it is stored. You know what processes it. You know how to overwrite it or erase it. You might even be able to reverse engineer it. If you know the machine code you can ‘read’ the instructions, line by line. I’ve seen a tech alter lines of code by flipping switches on the front panel as the lines (on and off lights) came up on the register. Pick a process and pseudo-code it out so we can see what kind of thing you think exists.
:) You are not very familiar with programming. But I digress... whistler
Whistler: “Creators of closed-source software products control access to the source code of their programs. ” But you can still say WHERE the code which contains the algorithm is. You know how it is stored. You know what processes it. You know how to overwrite it or erase it. You might even be able to reverse engineer it. If you know the machine code you can 'read' the instructions, line by line. I've seen a tech alter lines of code by flipping switches on the front panel as the lines (on and off lights) came up on the register. Pick a process and pseudo-code it out so we can see what kind of thing you think exists. JVL
@Whistler:
"Creators of closed-source software products control access to the source code of their programs." https://encyclopedia.kaspersky.com/glossary/closed-source/
SOURCEcode. Anyone can look at the generated machine-code. AndyClue
"Creators of closed-source software products control access to the source code of their programs. " https://encyclopedia.kaspersky.com/glossary/closed-source/ whistler
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