The appalling depths to which materialists will sink in attempting to insulate themselves from the conclusions compelled by the evidence were demonstrated in this exchange between Orthomyxo and Upright Biped regarding the genetic code:
UB: There is a point in time and space where an association is made between a codon and an anticodon. There is also a point in time and space when there is an association made between an anticodon and an amino acid.
UB: the association between the codon and the amino acid is a discontinuous association. It is not established by dynamics, but by a) a specific type of organization, and b) simultaneous coordination between two independent sets of multiple sequences
Note that the nothing UB said is the least bit controversial. All he is saying is that the genetic code works like any other code. As KF frequently notes, Crick knew this from the very beginning. Nearly 70 years ago (March 19, 1952) he wrote:
Which is why Orthomyxo’s reply is so stunning. Ortho’s deeply held metaphysical views are threatened by UB’s observation, so he says:
I really can’t say I find this to be a very good argument. The question is does the genetic code work through a series of chemical reactions. You say the chemical reaction that links amino acid to tRNA and the one that links loaded tRNAs to a codon are “discontinuous” because they happen at different times. (I presume by this you a referring to the fact loaded tRNAs used in translation are drawn from a pool of already made “translation-ready” tRNAs?). But I don’t see how that changes the fact that the genetic code works via a series of chemical reactions.
Ortho: Never mind that hyper-sophisticated “string data structure carrying a prong-height-based alphanumeric, 4 state per character code that uses chemical interactions and geometry at physical level.”* Nothing to see here. It’s chemical reactions all the way down.
UB sums up Ortho’s willfully obdurate reaction to the evidence:
You can push the “A” key on your computer and the letter “A” will appear on your screen. You can then ignore everything else and steadfastly argue that this entire process “works” by dynamics. This is the cop out that Ed chooses because he is intellectually unwilling to face the necessary coordination of symbol vehicles and constraints (i.e. the discontinuous association) required for the system to actually function as it does. If this is your cop out as well, then you are certainly free to take it. Is this your cop out? Regardless of your answer to that question, when you say that it is ”absolutely the case that the next amino acid in a developing protein is determined by chemistry” you are wrong. That chain of events from DNA to binding is undeniably discontinuous, just as it is from the “A” key on your computer to the letter “A” appearing on your screen.
__________
*HT: KF
Seriously?? You are both denying the material/physical structure and functions of the genome and a computer, that there is no physical chain of events between me pressing the ‘A’ key on my keyboard and the letter ‘A’ appearing on my screen?
I’m starting to wonder if UD is actually an AI Turing test.
BTW, has Ed George been banned?
I’m severely underqualified for this discussion, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more detail on this:
Is there an animation which shows this association being made? Does it occur when molecules come together or something along those lines?
I’m used to thinking of associations as abstract things, so the notion of an association being made at a point in space and time is puzzling to me.
Sev,
Of course there is a physical chain of events between you pressing the ‘A’ key on your keyboard and the letter ‘A’ appearing on your screen. No one denies that.
Do you deny that that the reason an “A” appears on your screen instead of nothing or gibberish is that your computer employs a code that translates the pressing of a particular key on your keyboard to a particular arrangement of pixels on your screen?
Sev’s statement is like saying: Do you deny that when a book is written that ink is actually put on paper?
Seversky and Orthomyxo, I have a question for you guys, I wonder if you guys will be brave enough to answer it honestly. ,,, Here it is, ‘Did you write your posts or did the laws of physics write your posts for you and inform you of that event after the fact?’
Or better yet, ‘Did Einstein discover relativity or did the foundational laws of the universe discover themselves and inform Einstein of that event after the fact?’
Remember that this started because you are incredulous at the idea the genetic code could when through a series of chemical reactions.
As far as I can tell, everyone agrees the association between a specific tRNA and its amino acid of achieved by a chemical reaction. The binding of amino acids into peptides is a chemical reaction, and the sequence of amino acids is determined by a chemical affinity between the loaded tRNA and mRNA (which was itself produced in a chemical reaction between DNA and RNApol).
That’s how the genetic code works, and I really don’t think it’s credible to claim that’s not a series of chemical reactions.
Upright thinks that saying the reactions are discontinuous is changing something, but I honestly have no idea why that is relevant.
Finally, you have a bad habit of assigning anyone who disagrees with you to some opposition tribe. I’ve never mentioned anything about materialism or any other religious position here.
Sev
Nope. Just placed in moderation limbo. 🙂 I guess Barry took exception to something I said. Maybe it was when I said that DNA functions through chemical reactions. Something every school kid knows to be true.
Ed George, you saying that “DNA functions through chemical reactions”, and leaving it at that, is just as naive as saying that a Chemical Factory functions solely through chemical reactions.
Here is what a Darwinist termed to be a ‘horrendously complex’ biochemical metabolic pathway chart of a ‘simple’ cell:
Moreover, “In one second, a cell performs about 10 million energy-consuming chemical reactions, which altogether require about one picowatt (one millionth millionth of a watt) of power.”
Also of interest is that the integrated coding between the DNA, RNA and Proteins of the cell apparently seem to be ingeniously designed and/or programmed along the very stringent guidelines laid out in Landauer’s principle, (by Charles Bennett from IBM of Quantum Teleportation fame), for ‘reversible computation’ in order to achieve such amazing energy/biochemical efficiency as it does.
As the following article, which looked at ‘Landauer’s Bound”, put it, “biological translation,,, is,,, about 100,000 times more efficient than a computer.”
Yet even the comparison to a Chemical Factory does not do the ‘simple’ cell justice, A ‘simple’ cell is far more complex than any Chemical Factory that has ever been Intelligently Designed by man.
As David Berlinski puts it:
BA77
Apples and aardvarks.
DNA is a chemical, residing in an environment full of other chemicals, interacting (ie, reacting) with these chemicals, facilitating (through chemical reactions) the formation of proteins, which interact (ie, react) with other chemicals in the cell, etc. Biochemistry 101.
LOL, ‘nothing to see here’ eh Ed George? Just ‘chemicals interacting with other chemicals’, eh Ed George?
On top of what I’ve already posted at 7 showing just how naive Ed George’s “just chemicals interacting with other chemicals’ view of the cell is, the cell is certainly NOT “just chemicals interacting with other chemicals.’
Aside from molecules performing chemical reactions, the molecules of the cell also use light and electricity in a very sophisticated way so at to communicate with one another.
Again, as David Berlinski puts it:
Ed George, you could almost argue that it was ‘Intelligently Designed’ for you, and the other Darwinists on this thread, to see this video that came out today,
I sometimes want to throw up my hands in exasperation watching you all talk past each other. Let me approach it another way though I don’t expect success.
Let’s return to Sev’s original comment to the OP. (Edited for brevity.)
Seversky@1
Yes Sev, there is a nice neat physical chain of events from the ‘A’ key to the pattern of pixels that are displayed on my screen. Odd the pattern I see on the keyboard looks nothing like what shows up on the screen. It’s gone from an upside down ‘V’ with a bar across the middle to a small circle with a bar on the right. Encoded one way, output completely different. We’ll set that aside for just a bit.
Now let’s compare that to the cell. Again what’s happening is physical. There’s a series of DNA bases that when physically read by the right enzyme in the presence of enough of the right kind of amino acids will output a protein. There’s a vague similarity in your example to the transfer of the ‘A’ key (plastic with inlaid white marks) to its unlike ‘a’ (with light and dark pixels).
But wait! We’ve left something out. Who selected the ‘A’ key before pressing it? Why it was Sev. He’s an integral part of the whole process. And who recognized the output as having meaning? Of the thousands and thousands of possible shapes (fonts) that could represent the concept of ‘A’ who recognized ‘a’ as a representative of the concept of ‘A’? I believe that was Sev again!
Who selected those base pairs to represent that particular protein? Don’t you wonder about the Who that is just as much a part of the processes in the cell as the who was that picked that key?
Col. 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
First of all, thank you to BA77 for all the amazing info I’ve gleaned from your comments over the years. So much of the material you cite is _way_ over my head, but I take what I can manage
DaveS wrote:
“I’m severely underqualified for this discussion, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more detail on this”
I’m also very unqualified, so maybe I can give it a try, since I really like the whole DNA coding-mRNA-tRNA-protein pathway.
If I’m understanding what the author meant,
//There is a point in time and space where an association is made between a codon and an anticodon.//
That is, inside the ribosome the mRNA codon is ‘read’ by a tRNA molecule with the matching anticodon. That’s the first ‘association’.
The next one
//There is also a point in time and space when there is an association made between an anticodon and an amino acid.//
Simply put, that is accomplished by the tRNA molecule. But to get tRNA you need the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases, one for each of the 20 tRNA molecules
An animation of protein synthesis
https://youtu.be/kmrUzDYAmEI
A short one on aminoacyl tRNA synthetases
https://youtu.be/180_sM9iYVk
Two related montages I made. The first one Joe DeWeese covers tRNA
https://youtu.be/sOI5u01LwyQ
The second one Stephen Meyer describes Francis Crick’s elucidating the need for translation of DNA in order to get to proteins, through what he called the ‘adaptor hypothesis’
https://youtu.be/rDLPjxzt1YE
Barry Arrington @ 3
Good, so we agree thus far.
No, I agree with that as well. So where do we differ?
Bornagain77 @ 4
I had the conscious experience of writing the post.
The laws of physics don’t “do” anything. They are the observed regularities in the behavior of the physical universe.
Do you accept that there is a lot of mental activity which we think of collectively as “the mind” but which happens outside our conscious awareness? I’m thinking of the extensive processing of data input from the eyes which result in what we see and the same is true for the other sensory channels. There is also the processing which converts an intention to move to the command signals to our muscles by which we actually move or the proprioception system by which we know our orientation to the outside world.
Doesn’t this suggest that the conscious “I” is not the whole of “me” and that, given the relatively slow speed at which signals propagate through our nervous system and the processing involved, our conscious perception lags slightly behind reality?
Latemarch @ 11
I have no problem with the possibility that some extraterrestrial intelligence may have seeded or even created life on Earth. If it could be demonstrated, it would be a fascinating discovery. But it would raise inevitable questions about the nature and origins of such a being as well. Would such a designer employ a medium for conveying information over many generations that is subject to continuous and largely unpredictable mutation?
In a nutshell, Darwinists in this thread are trying to claim that life is reducible to ‘chemical reactions interacting with other chemical reactions’. Whereas IDists are claiming that information lies at the heart of life. and that chemistry alone simply can never explain information in life.
As Paul Davies stated in 2002, “Trying to make life by mixing chemicals in a test tube is like soldering switches and wires in an attempt to produce Windows 98. It won’t work because it addresses the problem at the wrong conceptual level. ”
And as Paul Davies stated in 1999, “”How did stupid atoms spontaneously write their own software … ? Nobody knows … … there is no known law of physics able to create information from nothing.”
And as Paul Davies reiterated in 2020, (after a few decades of thinking about the problem), “Asking chemistry to explain coded information is like expecting computer hardware to write its own software.” and “The biologically relevant information stored in DNA therefore has very little to do with its specific chemical nature (beyond the fact that it is a digital linear polymer). ”
The reason why it is impossible, in principle, for the physical, i.e. reductive materialistic, explanations of Darwinists to ever explain the origin of information in life is that information is, in its foundational nature, immaterial. As Stephen Meyer explains,
In short, it is impossible, in principle, for the unguided material processes of Darwinian evolution to ever produce information since information is, by nature, immaterial.
The fact that information is immaterial is easily demonstrated by the fact that we can inscribe information on an almost endless variety of material substrates, using on almost endless variety of different languages, and yet the meaning of the information never changes between the material substrates as long as the information is faithfully encoded and decoded on the almost endless variety of material substrates. In other words, there is something profoundly immaterial about information that refuses to be reduced to materialistic descriptions..
As George Williams pointed out, “Information doesn’t have mass or charge or length in millimeters. Likewise, matter doesn’t have bytes…”
And as George Ellis pointed out, information is a ‘top down’ “higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves.” and Ellis goes on to note “The mind is not a physical entity, but it certainly is causally effective: proof is the existence of the computer on which you are reading this text. It could not exist if it had not been designed and manufactured according to someone’s plans, thereby proving the causal efficacy of thoughts, which like computer programs and data are not physical entities.”
In other words, it is the ability of the immaterial mind to have knowledge of a particle’s position, and to then arrange that particle’s position in relation to other particles, that allows us to impart immaterial information into material substrates in a ‘top-down’ manner. To repeat what George Ellis stated, information is a ‘top down’ “higher level relation that is not apparent at the scale of the electrons themselves.”
And indeed, it has now been empirically demonstrated that knowledge of a particle’s location and/or position converts information into energy.
And as the following 2010 article stated about the preceding experiment, “This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content,”
As if that was not bad enough for the materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, the recent experimental realizations of the ‘Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment go even further than that. Quote-unquote, “James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,,
quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,,
Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
To repeat, “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,
This experimental realization of the Maxwell Demon thought experiment is simply shattering to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists!
And to get a bit more technical, but hopefully not too technical, classical sequential information, (such as what is encoded on DNA), is now shown to be a subset of ‘positional’ quantum information,,,,
,,, classical sequential information, (such as what is encoded on DNA), is now shown to be a subset of ‘positional’ quantum information by the following method. Specifically, “when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,,
In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. ”
The fact that classical sequential information is a subset of ‘positional’ quantum information is further driven home by looking at the physical relation of quantum information to sequential information in DNA. As Dr Reiper remarks in the following video, “practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it.”
Thus we now have many lines of empirical evidence, (particularly from quantum information theory and from the recent experimental realization of Maxwell’s demon thought experiment), establishing the fact that information, regardless of the fact that it is immaterial, is, none-the less, physically real and that it has, of all things, a ‘thermodynamic content’ that can be imparted, in a ‘top-down’ manner. onto material substrates by an intelligent, and immaterial, mind..
As far as empirical science is concerned, these experiments establishing the physical reality of immaterial information are direct empirical falsifications of the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists, Materialistic presuppositions that hold immaterial information, (as well as immaterial mind), to be merely ’emergent’ from some material basis.
Of supplemental note, perhaps the simplest, non-technical, way to demonstrate that immaterial information is a physically real entity that is separate from matter and energy is with quantum teleportation,
As the following article states, “the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement.,,,”
And as the following article states. “scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart,,, information,,, is transferred from one place to another, but without traveling through any physical medium.”
Simply put, if the reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought were actually true, then the preceding quantum teleportation experiments that demonstrated the transfer of information without the particles ever physically interacting, should have been impossible.
Quote and Verses:
Chris Messier,
Thanks, those comments help. I’ll take a look at the videos today.
Chris Messier, at 12, that was an excellent response to DaveS’s question.
I think a few, if not all, of your videos that you highlighted should have their own thread dedicated to them, especially the last one with Stephen Meyer in it.
Ed George:
And yet there isn’t any evidence that it arose via chemical reactions.
Ed George:
Except for the fact that DNA is basically inert. It doesn’t o anything. It needs the proteins to be already in existence in order to do anything.
Biochemistry 101 has no idea if chemical reactions produced the genetic code. And according to Ed George all scientists that support his position must be stupid because they cannot produce life in a lab. If it was really just chemical reactions then that should be easily accomplished.
Chemical reactions do not explain the existence of the genetic code. They do not explain proof-reading, error-correction, splicing, editing and processing. They do not explain the existence of the ribosome, a biological compiler.
Ed George is clearly ignorant of biochemistry.
Ortho:
If what you say were true then the genetic code would run in a test tube. Yet it doesn’t. That means you are either ignorant or just a liar.
Yet it does
No further comment needed.
Wow. Thank you, Bob. So if we take a living cell, that has said functioning system, we can get it to continue to function in a designed environment. Clueless.
What we can’t do, Bob, is synthesize all of those chemicals and get it to run without the use of anything from any living organism. If what Ortho and Eddie say was true, we could do that.
So if I understand, UB is saying that the associations between codons and amino acids are like the associations between code points and ‘characters’ in Unicode, to pick an example that we’re all using right now.
In Unicode, the number 1F926 (in hexadecimal) is associated to the “facepalm” emoji 🤦. Obviously this association does not follow from the laws of physics. It was created by whoever is in charge of assigning code points to ‘characters’. The association between codons and amino acids likewise is not determined by the laws of physics.
I guess the challenge to the evos is how this system actually did arise, if not through the laws of physics.
DaveS @ 26
That’s right. And the honest answer is that no one knows how it happened. Not anyone. Not yet.
Of course, that we don’t have an answer now doesn’t mean we won’t have one a couple of hundred years from now. Maybe we’ll come up with a purely materialistic explanation, maybe we’ll find evidence of an extraterrestrial intelligence’s handiwork.. In the case of ETI, it would be nice if there was more than just a name on offer.
Sev,
Indeed.
I’m still trying the understand the emphasis on the contingent nature of codon/amino acid associations. Aren’t there a lot of contingent associations in the world, that cannot be derived from the laws of physics? For example, the fact that Asian giant hornets exist and are in the US in 2020 doesn’t follow from physics as far as I know.
Edit: Perhaps another example: The laws of physics + the conditions of the universe 5 minutes after the big bang (perhaps) don’t imply that Mt Everest will be the tallest mountain on Earth several billion years later.
DS,
I’m late to the party. tRNA folds into a secondary cloverleaf structure then into the arm shape with the anticodon loop at one end and the standard CCA tool-tip that bonds to the loaded AA [COOH end] at the other. As the tip is a standard joint, it is non-specific. That’s not the magic step.
That oh so humble source, Wikipedia, by principle of embarrassment, now tells an astonishing point or two of truth on how:
In some ways, even more tellingly, we find evidence of adaptation to apparent loss of function and/or alternative pathways:
This stage is when the correlation between anticodon and targetted AA is assigned. Notice, it is not solely based on the anticodon, reflects conformation of the folded tRNA and in some cases has a workaround compensating for somehow missing information that leads to absence of a particular loading enzyme. H pylori loads a chemically related AA to the true target then brings up enzymes to modify to the correct AA. I have already noted that artificial AAs have been inserted and are capable of loading then being added to peptide chains.
It bears noting that in the tertiary structure, the anticodon and AA are at opposite ends of the tRNA. Which AA is there is set in a way that is modular and there can even be workarounds.
This is of course the point where a mobile, molecular scale position-arm device is loaded with the properly coded AA for protein synthesis. (I assume we can look that up for ourselves.)
Wiki’s disclosures against known ideological bent are not finished, we now go to the ribosome, the molecular machine that assembles a peptide chain based on the mRNA tape, using the coding.
Notice, the position-arm action at molecular level:
This is a tape-controlled assembly process dependent on the correctly loaded tRNAs to operate correctly. Where, proteins are the workhorse molecules of the cell.
Indeed, we effectively have a transfer machine with a miniature assembly line, with preloaded parts attached to position-arm carriers brought up and applied then exiting even as the target of the manufacturing process is being produced and held in place until complete.
The mRNA tape, of course, carries initiation, stepwise elongation, finite succession and halting. Thus we see an algorithm at work, with an information bearing tape as controller and an assembly line using mobile position-arm units.
This is seriously advanced automation and manufacturing, using algorithms and code on string data structures [let’s only mention editing to form mRNAs], thus language. Where the coding is present twice in two separate subsystems, processed effectively independent of one another. DNA is unzipped and used to assemble mRNA precursors, which are edited to form the control tape. Separately, tRNA is created with the implicit anticodon, again stored in the master tape, DNA. Properly folded tRNAs are loaded with the appropriate AA or a precursor that is modified to be correct.
These are then brought into the ribosome under proper manufacturing control and peptide chains are built for further formation into proteins used in cellular processes including this one.
Chicken-egg loops abound, pointing to FSCO/I and islands of function requiring initial manufacture to a design, on pain of fruitlessly, aimlessly wandering in seas of non function and exhausting the blind search capability of the observed cosmos.
At this stage, it is manifest why a design inference on protein synthesis is robust and empirically grounded. As for means:
clever designer[s] + molecular nanotech lab –> clever FSCO/I rich design
Of course, one is free to reject such, but in all responsible fairness needs to provide a cogent, empirically warranted explanation.
KF
LM, 11:
You left off the real fun part!
What is “A”?
Likewise, what is the alphabet? As in Alpha-Beta, and — back in the Sinai Desert, riffing off Egyptian hieroglyphics [at a site associated with a semiprecious stone mine with some suspiciously familiar Hebraic names from the OT] — ALEPH-BETH.
As in, OX + HOUSE. Where BETH + LEHEM is House of Bread.
After 3500+ years, the ox-head is still visible, though upside down for upper case A: triangular head plus horns.
Lower case A, a, is similar but the head has been rounded and the horns are off to the side. In the curly form with one horn looped back, I guess it is a twisted horn.
Such stylisation is familiar from Hieroglyphics, Cuneiform and Chinese characters. That is we have graphical abstractions from little sketches. Yes, we are back to river valley civilisations and the fertile crescent.
With the alphabet, associated with various sounds, strung together in a time-domain aural string that our hearing becomes tuned to, to make out words. Then, we do the same spatially using string data structures on paper or screen. Turning eyes into ears. Indeed, hearing in the mind often accompanies reading and writing. IIRC, there is actually some engagement of the ear and a sensitive mike can pick it up.
Oh yes, hearing works on a physically implemented fast fourier transform effected in the cochlea which transfers from frequency to resonant position along a membrane. That then becomes pulse repetition rate signals sent into the brain’s hearing centres. Vision is similar save it uses a spatial array of sensors for light and colour.
The mind is absolutely central in creating our sense of world awareness.
Which opens up even more fun stuff.
KF
seversky:
All we do know is that nature couldn’t have done it.
In a couple hundred years from now we will still know that nature could not have done it.
Not one that is testable. Not one that fits the evidence.
ET, notice, resort to intellectual IOU’s? Telling, and not the impression given to hoi polloi in textbooks, schools, museums and alleged educational media. KF
CM 12: great stuff, you just saved me some vid searching. KF
BBA77, some great stuff too esp Davies. KF
Hey Dave, glad if I could help. That’s a perfect example you cite below of assignation with Unicode
Thanks for the commendation BA77 🙂
I saw no one else had replied to Dave’s question yet, so I gave it a try.
I see Kairosfocus @29 going into way more depth than I could!
Thanks KF, I looked a bit too, there’s nothing like a good molecular biology CGI video =D
That’s amazing how the h. pylori gets by without each specific tRNA synthetase.
The part about ribosome specifics is way over my head!
This is about as complex as I can get when looking at the ribosome… from a distance!
https://youtu.be/k2A9H0d90Ms
Kairosfocus @ 32
Do you have any examples of “textbooks, schools, museums and alleged educational media” which claim there is a well-established theory of origins?
As for “intellectual IOU’s”, shall we list what we know now through science that was not known back in the year 1920 or the year 1020? Are you saying that science stops now, that people in the years 2120 or 3020 – a mere blink of the eye in geological time – will not know any more than we do now?
I prefer to believe that there is a naturalistic/materialistic/physicalist explanation of origins but I accept that we don’t have one yet. I have no problem with the possibility that some extraterrestrial intelligence may have ‘seeded’ life on Earth although that would not necessarily explain the ultimate origins of life itself. But I don’t know and neither do you or anyone else.
Seversky @ 36
Science is based on what is known, which means every hypothesis and theory is subject to change. For there to be a theory, the must be something observed and the results replicated. Without observation and replication, it remains a hypothesis. That is how the scientific method works.
Has macro-evolution ever been witnessed? Have the results been replicated? The answer to both is no. Despite all the attempts to wish it into theory, it remains a hypothesis by definition.
We know life started on Earth at some point in the past. This is clearly observational and testable. We also know you cannot get something from nothing, which has also been observed and tested. You cannot get life from no life.
You state that you have, “no problem with the possibility that some extraterrestrial intelligence may have ‘seeded’ life on Earth although that would not necessarily explain the ultimate origins of life itself.”
If you believe some intelligence might be responsible, what stops you from going to the next step? Is it possible that this intelligence is beyond any human understanding? Is it possible that this intelligence not only created life, but the universe as a whole? Is it possible that this intelligence placed the laws of physics in place at the beginning of the universe and created mathematics to be discovered?
If the above is possible, not dealing with likelihoods, but possibilities, then you must believe in the possibility of ID.
Seversky, start with how the Miller-Urey exercise has often been presented to the public, for decades. Continue with RNA world hypotheses and more. The pretence that over-claiming has not been going on for decades is itself revealing. KF
PS: For intellectual IOU’s try the sort of impositions Crick and Monod made, using their prestige as Nobel Prize winners. At a lower level, mix in Lewontin’s cat out of the bag remarks and some of the more breezy passages in Dawkins’ writings. For decades there has been an air of oh we have it well in hand and how dare you suggest that scientific progress will not solve the sort of questions you are raising. That attitude has often cropped up here at UD in former years.
BR, on the empirical evidence in hand as regards cell based life on earth [note the specific focus], evidence of design does not imply identity of designer. In principle a sufficiently advanced molecular nanotech lab could do it, even as it is likely that we will be able to in 100 years, building on Venter et al. Where things get interesting is when we switch to the fine tuning of the cosmos in ways that starting from the first four most abundant elements [H, He, C, O with N close by], set the stage for life built into laws and parameters of the observed cosmos. KF
BobRyan: If you believe some intelligence might be responsible, what stops you from going to the next step? Is it possible that this intelligence is beyond any human understanding?
Not having any experience or knowledge or evidence of that kind of intelligence why would someone go there?
Is it possible that this intelligence not only created life, but the universe as a whole? Is it possible that this intelligence placed the laws of physics in place at the beginning of the universe and created mathematics to be discovered?
How was all that accomplished? Where did this intelligence come from? How do they sustain their activities? Where do they get their energy to perform all these things? If they are alive and since all living things excrete then where are their toilets?
If the above is possible, not dealing with likelihoods, but possibilities, then you must believe in the possibility of ID.
THIS IS JUST A PERSONAL OPINION! You can suppose some kind of undefined and unexperienced super-being but that just bring up a lot more questions. For me anyway.
And if the designer(s) were just alien beings then we still have the question: where did they come from?
ET: All we do know is that nature couldn’t have done it.
No, you can’t be sure of a negative.
KF,
If I were trying to make a argument for ID based on this stuff, I would probably also list a bunch of cool DNA fact’s and ask the interlocutor to reflect on its origins. Just like if I wanted to argue that this was a product of design. You just examine it carefully, and it becomes obvious.
The “semiotic” approach is a little different, I guess. Perhaps it’s more rigorous in a way. But Eddy Lunchbucket and Sally Housecoat are most likely not going to know what “discontinous association” and “semantic closure” mean, so it’s less accessible.
JVL@40, I find the argument that the designer is beyond our ability to comprehend is fallacious. We have a very narrow range of wavelengths that we can see, yet we were able to comprehend and design instrument to detect and measure wavelengths well beyond this range. What is stopping us from being able to comprehend the mechanisms used by the designer and design instruments to detect their signatures?
.
Nothing. We already know the mechanism – physical analysis exclusively indicates that language was used, which is a bullseye, because that was what it was predicted to be.
EdGeorge: I find the argument that the designer is beyond our ability to comprehend is fallacious. We have a very narrow range of wavelengths that we can see, yet we were able to comprehend and design instrument to detect and measure wavelengths well beyond this range. What is stopping us from being able to comprehend the mechanisms used by the designer and design instruments to detect their signatures?
Well, that’s up to people other than ourselves. Making an argument like that I mean. I like to think that any and all questions are fair game and potentially part of science.
.
JVL — out of one side of her mouth:
JVL — when confronted with unambiguous evidence of design in the literature:
DS, Mr Lunchbucket et al would already recognise design once such learn that the idea on the table is that language, code, algorithms and execution machinery assembled themselves out of lucky noise in some Darwin’s pond or the like. There would be a your’e kidding reaction, but once it is clear what is claimed, it would fall of its own weight. KF
EGb& JVL, please see Crick in OP. It has been clear enough for nearly 70 years. BTW, could you tell us, precisely, the mechanisms that went into composing comments? The problem is that ideology is blinding to agency as a valid explanatory category. KF
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#47
Exactly.
The worst thing for materialists, indeed the whole reason for the incessant smear campaign on design, is if it were ever allowed to truly register with the general public that encoded language animates the living cell.. You’ll never see materialist lead their sales pitch to Eddy and Sally with any passages such as this:
UB, I have seen newspapers refuse to touch it. KF
UB
ID does not need us to discredit their own “science”. They are doing quite well on their own.
You and KF have jumped all over the fact that Crick and others refer to the information contained within DNA as the genetic “code”, as if the sloppy use of the English language by scientists is proof of design. All that can be said at this time is that neither ID nor naturalism have been able to demonstrate how life arose. But at least there are people actually working hard trying to do this, and it is not the ID scientists.
KF and others often accuse people like me of being irrationally driven by our ideologies. I guess the best gauge to judge which side is more ideologically driven is to ask a simple question. Who’s way of life would be more greatly affected if they were shown to be wrong? Personally, I would have no problem if it were proven that a designer (AKA God) existed and was responsible for the universe and all life within it. It certainly would not affect the way I live my life or the way I treat others, and I would be very happy knowing that my soul will live forever. However, if ID is proven wrong, do you want to be the one to tell KF that homosexuality is not a sin, that miracles do not exists, that he will not see his passed loved ones when he dies?
Ed
That is easy for Ed to say, because short of finding the proverbial “made by YHWH” written in the cell, there is no evidence that would be sufficient to “prove” the existence of a designer to him. We know this, because the fact that a semiotic code exists in every single living cell doesn’t make the slightest impression.
EG, clever barbed quips are at best appeals to ill-founded prejudice. It is noteworthy that algorithmic, alphanumeric code — a linguistic phenomenon — remains stubbornly as only the product of intelligence. Indeed, there is good reason to see that blind search of large configuration spaces are a maximally implausible source for same; save when Lewontin-style ideological question-begging tilts the balances. More generally, complex, functionally specific organisation is also information rich and is again a reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration as key cause. Ideological closed mindedness, sneering dismissals and selective hyperskepticism are not about to change that balance on the merits. KF
PS: In answer to your ad hominem, I simply challenge you to provide empirical observation that FCSO/I beyond 500 – 1,000 bits reliably comes about by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity: ______ I predict, on years of attempts, you cannot. I simply note how yet again you push your obsession with perversities into a discussion where it has no relevance. Beyond a certain point, that goes to motivation and is revealing.
BA, the recent exchanges over the pandemic confirm the patterns of ideologically driven fallacies we face. It seems clear that the substitution of hyperskepticism for prudence has been an intellectual disaster of first magnitude. At this point, we simply point to the selective hyperskepticism and ideological domination acknowledged by several key figures. KF
PS: Here is Monod, inadvertently laying out the ideological imposition, in a 1971 TV interview:
Mr. Arrington you said that,,,
I have to disagree with you Mr Arrington. I firmly believe that even that would not be sufficient for Ed George.
Issac Newton once said, “In the absence of any other proof, the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.”
And indeed, it does not take being a genius of Newton’s caliber to see evidence for God all around us.
For example, one ‘scientific’ atheist was driven to belief in God, not by any scientific evidence, but simply by seeing her newborn baby,
Thus I firmly hold that it is not the scientific evidence that is lacking for Ed George and most of the other militant atheists on UD. It is something far deeper on the emotional level that prevents them, via their ability to reason, from acknowledging the existence of God.
As Leonard Euler noted centuries ago, “we should not be surprised that the best refutations count for nothing and that the weakest and most ridiculous reasoning, which has so often been shown to be baseless, is continuously repeated. If these people (atheists) maintained the slightest rigor, the slightest taste for the truth, it would be quite easy to steer them away from their errors; but their tendency towards stubbornness makes this completely impossible.”
Indeed, if only reason would work on atheists,
KF
In fact, to the best of our knowledge, it remains stubbornly as only the product of human intelligence.
Ten yards for piling on. 🙂
EG, you know full well that no one takes seriously the notion that we exhaust possibilities for intelligent beings. Looking to linked logic of being, we exemplify intelligence but in no way that implies exhausting it. Therefore the rhetorical gambit to try to suggest that cases of human intelligence forbid us from inferring characteristics of intelligence that could go beyond humans, is nonsense. That this has been used as a common atheistical talking point despite cogent correction only underscores the weakness of the atheistical case. Especially, when the issue on the table is linguistic, algorithmic, alphanumerical code not only antecedent to human life but constitutive of cell based life. BA77 has a solid point, including his note from one of the all time great Mathematicians, Euler. KF
KF: EG, you know full well that no one takes seriously the notion that we exhaust possibilities for intelligent beings.
But the only intelligent beings we know of that are even close to accomplishing highly sophisticated feats of engineering are human beings. We’ve got no living quarters, no spacecraft, no midden piles, no processing plants, pretty much nothing.
I’m perfectly happy to guess that there are other intelligent beings in the universe but, so far, we have zero evidence they exist. And we certainly have no evidence they have visited Earth.
JVL, we are contingent, intelligent, responsible and rational. We exemplify what is possible, we do not exhaust it. So, as you know or should know, it is an abuse of inductive reasoning to infer from our case or to suggest from our case that we exhaust possibilities for such beings. This becomes all the more blatantly fallacious and even desperate when it is used as a rhetorical gambit to try to blunt the evidence that in the heart of the living cell is alphanumeric, algorithmic, linguistic code. And that evidence alone — the evidence of the whole world of cell based life — is striking and has been striking since March 19, 1953. This is not an “isolated”readily dismissed case, we are talking about a central, keystone aspect of cell based life. The rhetorical resort is utterly telling on the force of the evidence and on the ruinous nature of selective hyperskepticism and resulting refusal to entertain the force of evidence. Precisely, what we have now seen live with the “gold standard” fallacy in the face of a pandemic and mounting evidence. So, this is not merely an academic oddity, it is a ruinous error we are dealing with. KF
Kairosfocus: So, as you know or should know, it is an abuse of inductive reasoning to infer from our case or to suggest from our case that we exhaust possibilities for such beings.
I’m not, I’m just saying that we have no evidence of such beings except for humans.
The rhetorical resort is utterly telling on the force of the evidence and on the ruinous nature of selective hyperskepticism and resulting refusal to entertain the force of evidence.
Yes but you haven’t been completely successful getting most scientists to agree with your evidence. In the world common forum we’d have to call that disputed at best.
Drawing out the significance of tRNA, with graphics and vids: https://uncommondescent.com/design-inference/how-the-folded-structure-and-then-the-loading-of-trna-corrects-attempts-to-reduce-protein-synthesis-to-mere-chemistry/
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#51
Ed, sometimes you just try too hard. It’s a bad look.
Allow me to remind you of something that you seem to forget with incredible regularity. We are all human beings here, Ed. On average we were all pushed and prodded in our youth to develop a lifelong sense of judgement and to make proper distinctions between things like right and wrong, truth and fiction, vice and virtue, and so on, and so forth. It is one of the things that is most common between us, regardless of our cultures, and with any luck, by the time we reach maturity, we end up with a healthy guiding experience of being part of, and watching, human relationships. Among those many common experiences is the experience of someone who simply will not answer a valid question. This is an inevitable experience where not answering the question actually becomes their answer. We understand this predicament and we recognize what it looks like in our human brothers and sisters – with all the denials and the (often flagrant) excuses and the deflections of this and that and the other. What I am getting at here Ed, is that we all know what cookie crumbs in a little boy’s bed actually means, as a very simple example which any parent would understand.
Now Ed, you have been told that a physicist can practice their craft and measure the physical system that enables the use of language. A physicist can measure that system by its necessary physical entailments (and their relationships to one another). A physicist can therefore exclusively identify the use of language among other physical systems, and the gene system has been thus identified. This has been done. Furthermore, you’ve told that the physicists measurement and identification is a confirmation of a previous prediction – a prediction that the gene system would necessarily function by way of encoded language, which is itself an additional confirmation on the very nature of such systems. In other words, Ed, the conclusion that the gene system uses a code (for crying out loud) is a conclusion that comes through science without even a hair out of place.
Having to stoop to “Francis Crick was sloppy” as your next maneuver (to avoid the physics) is therefore quite a sight to see. It makes you look weak, poorly motivated, and as common as you can humanly be — just as non-answers often do.
You should probably stop using that excuse.
JVL, the “no evidence” gambit is a signature selectively hyperskeptical fallacy. The evidence has been on the table, taught in every school, for coming on two full generations. As Crick noted from the outset, in the form of a belief: ” . . . the D.N.A. IS a code” and that belief was then drawn out in multiple Nobel Prize winning work over the next 20 years. The evidence you are trying to dismiss is the molecular nanotech, prong height [ . . . similar to von Neumann’s kinematic self replicator . . . ] 4-state per symbol code used algorithmically to build proteins, and requiring chicken and egg causal loop molecular nanomachines constituting a von Neuman kinematic self replicator. That is, despite denials and dismissals, LANGUAGE is at the heart of the design for cell based life. That has to be faced as we contemplate the protein synthesis machine code and its dozens of dialects. The repeated attempt to dismiss simply inadvertently underscores the force of the point and how telling it is. KF
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#60
So, as a matter of having scientific integrity, you believe SETI is fatally flawed and should be dismantled?
Upright Biped: So, as a matter of having scientific integrity, you believe SETI is fatally flawed and should be dismantled?
There’s no harm in looking! But they haven’t found any evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence. I don’t think it should be dismantled, it’s not harming anyone and, who knows, they might hear something!! That would be exciting!!
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JVL,
So, you then think SETI is fatally flawed, but since its not harming anything, it should be continued anyway?
Really?
Allow me to present a text. Given your reasoning above, will you please tell me what in this text is inaccurate:
Kairosfocus: the “no evidence” gambit is a signature selectively hyperskeptical fallacy.
How about: no widely accepted evidence? And I was talking about aliens; are you saying the machinations of DNA and its design are evidence of aliens?
the D.N.A. IS a code
The code is the table showing the correspondences. How it arose is the question.
The evidence you are trying to dismiss . . .
I’m not dismissing the facts; but it’s clear most working scientists disagree with your design inference based on the facts.
The repeated attempt to dismiss simply inadvertently underscores the force of the point and how telling it is.
Look, I’m sorry that most working scientists and a lot of other people disagree with you over your design inference. I don’t think you’re going to win over any more converts by only insisting you are correct. I think at this stage it would be good to come up with some more data and evidence. That’s why I was discussing the lack of evidence for non-human intelligences ASIDE FROM DNA and its functioning.
Also, if there are extraterrestrials that have been in the vicinity and started life on earth then we would have a chance to find some non-living physical evidence of their existence. Seems like something worth thinking about at least.
Upright BiPed: So, you then think SETI is fatally flawed, but since its not harming anything, it should be continued anyway?
I didn’t say it was fatally flawed! I said they haven’t found anything yet. And I also said they might find something one day. If I had the resources I’d be looking. Why not?
When you ‘look’ you have to use the capabilities you have and right now that is limited to detecting electromagnetic signals and anomalies. If something is detected that can’t be clearly attributed to natural causes then further exploration would happen. It happened after pulsars were detected for the first time.
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#70
You just got through very clearly objecting to the design inference from the predicted and confirmed use of encoded language in DNA because we have no evidence of an intelligence outside the use of encoded language in DNA. That would make SETI’s methodology flawed as well because they would be faced with the exact same situation. So in the interest of integrity, are you now saying that the design inference is invalid and so is SETI, or are you saying that the SETI is valid and so is the design inference?
Which is it JVL? Will you have to rationalize a difference where there is none? Will you be putting a smilie face and a couple of cheery exclamation points next to that rationalization?
JVL, DNA and the Genetic Code are not widely accepted empirically grounded facts? That in DNA there is algorithmic code that initiates, elongates and terminates peptide chains, towards creating proteins? That proteins are the workhorses of the cell? That, a stepwise finite scale coded procedure that solves a problem and/or halts is an algorithm? That an algorithm is thus inherently linguistic and purposeful? That such algorithms, associated data structures and coded symbolic information are translated down to machine code that works at physical machine level? That, there is a standard, widely recognised communication system architecture? That it is possible to map the protein synthesis process to that system? That, Yockey did so, publishing his result? I suggest that what is rejected is the cumulative force of the evidence, as it cuts across an entrenched ideology and points to a paradigm shift. KF
JVL states,
Not attributable to ‘natural’ causes’? Really??? And please pray tell, as a Darwinist, what exactly is there in your worldview other than ‘natural causes’? You’ve exhausted all of your possible options with your appeal to ‘natural causes’.
As Paul Nelson stated, “some feature of “intelligence” must be irreducible to physics, (i.e. ‘natural causes), because otherwise we’re back to physics versus physics, and there’s nothing for SETI to look for.”
You see JVL, since agent causality, and/or intelligent causality, necessarily entails free will, and free will is explicitly denied under the premises of Atheistic Materialism, then you simply have no place for agent causality , and/or intelligent causality, within your Darwinian worldview. i.e. As an atheist, all you have got to work with is ‘natural causes’.
The intractable problem for you, and all other atheists, is that we see agent causality all around us.
In fact, since methodological naturalism rules agent causality, (i.e. free will and consciousness), out of ‘scientific’ bounds before any scientific investigation has even begun, then demonstrating a miracle becomes as easy as falling off a log.
Dr. Craig Hazen, in the following video at the 12:26 minute mark, relates how he performed, for an audience full of academics at a college, a ‘miracle’ simply by raising his arm,,
JVL, perhaps you would like to explain, by purely ‘natural causes’, exactly how Dr. Hazen was able to raise his arm if it was not he himself who chose. via his free will. to raise his arm?
I’m sure a Nobel prize awaits you if you can solve that irresolvable dilemma for atheists.
Supplemental notes:
Upright BiPed: You just got through very clearly objecting to the design inference from the predicted and confirmed use of encoded language in DNA because we have no evidence of an intelligence outside of the use of encoded language in DNA.
Well, I mostly talking about not having evidence of the existence of extraterrestrial intelligences.
That would make SETI’s methodology flawed as well because they would be faced with the exact same situation.
I would say that the techniques used by the SETI institute varied widely from others. So I do not think it’s consistent to label all such attempts as valid or invalid without first considering how the determination is made.
So in the interest of integrity, are you now saying that the design inference is invalid and so is SETI, or are you saying that the SETI is valid and so is the design inference?
I would say it depends on how you go about it.
Kairosfocus: DNA and the Genetic Code are not widely accepted empirically grounded facts?
As I said, no one is disputing the facts, it’s an interpretation of those facts that’s in dispute.
You look at the complicating workings of DNA and come to the conclusion that it must have been designed via various evaluative techniques. (I’m not saying you just decided!) Others disagree with how you come to that interpretation. That’s it.
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#74
Stop dissembling. You were objecting to the design inference.
Stop dissembling
Well, we are using proper science to detect narrow-band radio signals coming from space in one instance, and we are using proper science to detect the exclusive physical signature of encoded language in the other?
So “how we do it” isn’t the question JVL. Let me repeat the question for you again:
So in the interest of integrity, are you now saying that the design inference is invalid and so is SETI, or are you saying that SETI is valid and so is the design inference?
You can’t have it both ways JVL.
Bornagain77: Not attributable to ‘natural’ causes’? Really??? And please pray tell, as a Darwinist, what exactly is there in your worldview other than ‘natural causes’? You’ve exhausted all of your possible options with your appeal to ‘natural causes’.
Okay, okay; I should have said UNGUIDED natural causes or non-intelligent causes. I think you know what I meant.
You see JVL, since agent causality, and/or intelligent causality, necessarily entails free will, and free will is explicitly denied under the premises of Atheistic Materialism, then you simply have no place for agent causality , and/or intelligent causality, within your Darwinian worldview. i.e. As an atheist, all you have got to work with is ‘natural causes’.
You’re starting to wander away from the discussion. And yes, I am aware that many materialists have stated, quite clearly and vociferously, that free will doesn’t exist. I, personally, find that hard to swallow, but I admit that a purely materialistic point of view would dictate that we are ‘meat robots’. I just don’t want to believe that. I’ve been chastised for not wanting to get too involved in a discussion of free will and that’s because i am personally conflicted over the matter and don’t find my own opinions or arguments clear at all. Because of that I try and stay out of the issue. BUT, I do admit, that a strict materialistic view does entail no free will. I just don’t want to accept that.
Perhaps I’m not a materialist deep down. I don’t know. I just know that denying I have free will would feel like giving up any kind of point to existence I believed in.
I don’t know how you’ll take this admission on my part. I think it’s a separate issue from the origin of life and species. You may disagree on that but I do not feel any cognitive dissonance in that regard.
Anyway, I’m trying to be honest with you.
Upright Biped: Stop dissembling. You were objecting to the design inference.
No, and I’ve just clarified my belief.
Well, we are using proper science to detect narrow-band radio signals coming from space in one instance, and we are using proper science to detect the exclusive physical signature of encoded language in the other?
SETI is trying to detect anomalous signals using detection equipment. IF they think they’ve found one they will work hard to first see if they can find some non-intelligent source OR if the signal actually originated on earth.
What I disagree with with the ID design inference is the interpretation of the workings of DNA and other biological functions as necessarily having been created by some unstated form of ‘higher’ intelligence. I think that part is not based on widely accepted and tested science.
I do not agree that the methods by ID proponents used to detect design are sound. They have not been accepted by a vast majority of working scientists. They have not been adequately tested to see what the rates of false positives and negatives are. There is no robust and well used mathematical technique.
Design detection is widely used in lots of field as ET is fond of pointing out although it is not called that. And I have no problem with the general concept. It’s how it’s done that the issue.
I hope that’s clearer. I’m sure you’ll follow up if it’s not.
JVL:
Yes, we do. You just don’t know how to assess the evidence.
As I said- you don’t know how to assess the evidence. And you sure as hell don’t have anything to explain DNA and other biological functions.
The Design inference is based on our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships. Science 101
They are as sound as anything science has.
1- You don’t know that and 2- those who disagree with ID don’t have anything to explain what we observe. They don’t even have a testable methodology.
Compared to what your alleged vast majority of scientists have, ID is light years ahead.
All the anti-ID mob has are promissory notes that they may find an answer in a thousand years or more. So we should wait. The problem is we will never find the answer they are seeking because it never happened. It is impossible for nature to produce coded information systems. Impossible. You have to be so desperate that it blinds you to reality to think that nature is capable of such a feat.
ET: Yes, we do. You just don’t know how to assess the evidence.
We disagree on that for sure.
The Design inference is based on our knowledge of cause-and-effect relationships. Science 101
Perhaps, in general, but I don’t think the particular implementations are well founded.
1- You don’t know that
It is true that the techniques used in ID design inference testing are NOT accepted as valid by a vast majority of working scientists.
2- those who disagree with ID don’t have anything to explain what we observe. They don’t even have a testable methodology.
Not ones you accept that is.
All the anti-ID mob has are promissory notes that they may find an answer in a thousand years or more.
I think unguided evolutionary theory does not depend on promissory notes. I think the evidence is sufficient to make the call already. That being said, if you found other strong physical evidence of a class of designers (to avoid the issue of knowing a particular designer) capable of such feats that was around at the time then I would have to consider things again.
The problem is we will never find the answer they are seeking because it never happened. It is impossible for nature to produce coded information systems. Impossible. You have to be so desperate that it blinds you to reality to think that nature is capable of such a feat.
So, you would stop looking? It’s all just a fool’s errand? What kind of research would you be in favour of then? Considering the large amounts of money being spent researching unguided evolution how would you reallocate all those funds?
Ed George:
YOURS is the mechanistic position, Ed. ID doesn’t have to say anything about how life arose. Your position does. And you and yours have FAILED miserably.
Ed’s side has nothing but liars and bluffing losers. They don’t have any science. They don’t even have a methodology to test their claims. All they have are promissory notes and the ability to deny reality.
JVL:
You don’t know much of anything.
You don’t know that.
Piss off. You’re just upset because your side has nothing.
There isn’t any such theory. You lose. And clearly unguided evolution depends on promissory notes. It doesn’t have anything else.
Yes, looking into impossible things is a fool’s errand. If people want to do it they should use their own money.
ID research should take its place. Research into what else there is besides chemical reactions in biology.
ET: ID doesn’t have to say anything about how life arose.
How can it be a better explanation then? I’ve never quite got that bit. Because ID doesn’t specify any details how can it explain why life is the way it is and not some other way? ‘Cause there surely would have been lots and lots and lots of possible designs . . . why did we get what we’ve got?
Why is that the BEST evidence for macro-evolution does NOT include a mechanism? I say it’s because unguided evolution is an untestable piece of BS. The only things unguided evolution has for support are genetic diseases and deformities. No one knows how to test the claim that unguided processes produced the genetic code. No one knows how to test the claim that unguided processes produced any bacterial flagellum. All promissory notes. That goes for any multi-protein structure. That also goes for proteins.
Lenski’s LTEE is showing us how impotent evolutionary processes are with respect to universal common descent.
JVL:
We don’t know how Stonehenge was made and yet saying it is an artifact is a better explanation than saying nature did it.
Look, you clearly don’t know anything about science nor investigating.
ET: You don’t know that.
I think I do. There’s no evidence against it anyway.
ID research should take its place. Research into what else there is besides chemical reactions in biology.
Like what? You’ve got literally millions and millions of dollars you can reallocate so what research topics would you spend it on? Think of it this way: you’ve got thousands and thousands of scientists applying for research grants how do you decide who gets funded?
JVL, it is not “interpretation” but implications and empirical warrant. Behind “interpretation” lies smuggled in relativism and/or subjectivism. KF
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#78
No you weren’t, you were objecting to the design inference from the predicted and confirmed use of encoded language in DNA based on the reasoning that we have no evidence of an intelligence outside the use of encoded language in DNA. Your objection reads: “The design inference is invalid because we don’t have any confirmed evidence except for the confirmed evidence we have”.
It’s ridiculous.
1) You are dissembling
2) You are factually incorrect. If SETI receives a confirmed narrow-band radio signal from space they will announce their discovery of an intelligence beyond earth. Not a single scientist at SETI is going to stand in front of a radio transmitter, with head in hand, and ponder “golly” how to get that signal any other way.
1) You are dissembling.
2) You are not merely disagreeing with the interpretation, you are avoiding acknowledgement of the science and history behind the interpretation. You are saying the science is not what it is, and telling yourself that you are merely disagreeing with the interpretation. Those are two very different things.
(you will dissemble in your answer to #2 in both instances)
ET: Why is that the BEST evidence for macro-evolution does NOT include a mechanism?
Well, not one you accept anyway.
No one knows how to test the claim that unguided processes produced the genetic code.
When you think you’ve got a small piece of that big puzzle figured out you see if you can reproduce it at will. You let your colleagues and others in the field take a look at the work. You try and get it published so people all over the planet can see what you’ve done. If no one can shoot it down then it stands. Then you work on another small piece. And you start putting small pieces together.
We don’t know how Stonehenge was made and yet saying it is an artifact is a better explanation than saying nature did it.
We’ve got some plausible ideas of how it was constructed. And, absent a time machine (and maybe a bit more luck) that might be the best we can do. But we know there were beings around at the time capable of the proposed construction techniques; we’ve found some of their tools, their home, what they ate, etc.
H”mm:
ET, 85: >>We don’t know how Stonehenge was made and yet saying it is an artifact is a better explanation than saying nature did it.>>
Because it exhibits FSCo/I which is best explained on design.
D/RNA shows linguistic, alphanumeric code in a molecular nanotech string technology. But there is a refusal to recognise what that points to.
KF
Upright BiPed: No you weren’t, you were objecting to the design inference from the predicted and confirmed use of encoded language in DNA because we have no evidence of an intelligence outside the use of encoded language in DNA.
Well we don’t have that evidence. No designer means no design. In addition I think the techniques utilised by ID proponents are not trustworthy. Not yet anyway.
You are factually incorrect. If SETI receives a confirmed narrow-band radio signal from space they will announce their discovery of an intelligence beyond earth. Not a single scientist at SETI is going to stand in front of a radio transmitter, with head in hand, and ponder “golly” how to get that signal any other way.
I don’t think that’s true at all. I’ve heard members of the staff at SETI interviewed and heard them described how they would approach such an event and their responses are mirrored the material you copy-and-pasted above.
You are not merely disagreeing with the interpretation, you are avoiding acknowledgement of the science and history behind the interpretation. You are saying the science is not what it is, and telling yourself that you are merely disagreeing with the interpretation. Those are two very different things.
I agree that the workings inside a cell are as stated in the mainstream literature. I do not agree that those processes are indicative of design. Not only is there no defined designer candidate but the methods used to detect design are not robust or accepted by a vast, vast majority of scientists working in the field. I have looked at the ways design has been claimed to have been detected; I have read a lot of material in support of such claims (including on this site) and I have read a lot of material not in support of such claims. I have come to the conclusion that I do not believe that it can be soundly claimed that design has been detected in biological structures and processes. I have not come to that decision based on ideological considerations such as a commitment to materialism (which I do not have). I have considered the arguments and made up my own mind.
JVL:
No, it doesn’t mention one at all.
Your word salad doesn’t help. No one knows how to test the claims of unguided evolution.
Everything we know came from centuries of research and study. And we don’t know if the tools and homes found were of the original designers.
But thank you for proving my point.
Kairosfocus: it is not “interpretation” but implications and empirical warrant. Behind “interpretation” lies smuggled in relativism and/or subjectivism.
I’m doing my best to consider the scientific results and arguments.
D/RNA shows linguistic, alphanumeric code in a molecular nanotech string technology. But there is a refusal to recognise what that points to.
As I stated: I do not agree that the claims made that design has been detected are sound. I have read lots of material in support and against such claims. I have tried hard to understand the arguments made on both sides. And I have come to the conclusion (of my own free will? hmmmmm) that the design inference has not been established.
I have not just ‘refused’ to accept what you think the data points to. I have considered the arguments and come to my own conclusion.
JVL:
And yet they are used and verified every day. And it remains what ID has is light years ahead of what your side has,
That’s because you have a bias issue.
Not one scientist on this planet can refute the design inference. And all they have to do to refute ID is step up and demonstrate that unguided processes can produce what ID says what intelligently designed. They have all the power and yet remain powerless. That alone says it all, really.
JVL:
Your side has absolutely NOTHING. If the design inference wasn’t sound then someone should be able to refute it. And yet no one can.
ET: Your word salad doesn’t help. No one knows how to test the claims of unguided evolution.
We’ll just have to disagree on that I guess.
Everything we know came from centuries of research and study. And we don’t know if the tools and homes found were of the original designers.
Yeah, you can date them. And you can date the fill around the base of the stones that contains organic material that was put there when the stones were erected. You can also date the precursor Aubry holes around the site. (Stonehenge was clearly built in stages based on the evidence gleaned from excavations.) It’s all pretty straightforward. But you might not get all the supporting details from reading a coffee table book on standing stone circles. Sometimes you have to delve into the academic publications. Or talk to people who know the research.
Research into what else there is besides chemical reactions in biology.
Like immaterial information. According to ID there is more to life than physics and chemistry.
Oh my God! Don’t you guys ever sleep? After my throw-away comment about their only being one intelligence known to create language, you guys have typed almost 35,000 words arguing this point, and Barry has dedicated a new OP to it. OK, if you exclude BA77’s comment, it may only be 10,000 words. None of these dispute the fact that humans are the only confirmed source of language.
JVL:
Disagree all you want. You cannot refute the claim.
And with Stonehenge we don’t know who the people were that were found there. We don’t k ow if they were maintaining a structure of building it. We don’t know. But all that is moot because Stonehenge remains as an example that refutes your nonsense.
Yes, Eddie, we already know that you don’t understand how science works. Your throw-away comment just proves that point.
Not one scientist on this planet can refute the design inference. And all they have to do to refute ID is step up and demonstrate that unguided processes can produce what ID says what intelligently designed. They have all the power and yet remain powerless. That alone says it all, really.
JVL, I have not started from design as a premise, save as a possibility in possible worlds. You are reacting to a reasonable summary of what DNA bis, because of its onward implications. Very well, there is a string of alphanumeric characters associated with JVL. They are functional as English sentences. However, I have no separate direct observation of JVL, not even the contents of his garbage cans. Therefore there is no evidence that the strings come from any intelligent source. There is therefore good reason to infer that noise working with the Internet adequately explains. This is a better interpretation. Do you see what has gone wrong? KF
ET: And yet they are used and verified every day. And it remains what ID has is light years ahead of what your side has,
I disagree. I haven’t seen a publication laying out the various methods of design detection and showing the rate of false positives and false negatives. I haven’t seen any publication of said design techniques being applied in the wild as it were. There isn’t a journal of design detection (there are lots of journals specifically geared towards other techniques and procedures). The only research I am aware of (being done by the Biologic Institute) seems more focused on trying to show unguided processes are up to the job instead of support the techniques and methods of design detection.
Not one scientist on this planet can refute the design inference.
As I said. I read lots of arguments on both sides and came to a conclusion.
And all they have to do to refute ID is step up and demonstrate that unguided processes can produce what ID says what intelligently designed. They have all the power and yet remain powerless. That alone says it all, really.
I think they have shown that some biological structures could have come about through unguided processes.
Your side has absolutely NOTHING. If the design inference wasn’t sound then someone should be able to refute it. And yet no one can.
After having read arguments on both sides I think the design inference, as it exists, is not sound. If more work is done and/or solid, physical evidence is found of designer(s) around at the pertinent time with the necessary technical skill then I shall reconsider the issue. I just don’t think, based on what I’ve read and been told, that the claims of design being detected are solid at this time.
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#98
Suddenly its a “throw away comment”, and then comes back at the end of his post and repeats it yet again, like it will be more forceful and washed of its incoherence a second time..
You can’t make this stuff up.
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Yup
I find it amusing that the two issues that have garnered the most passionate disagreement from IDists here in the last couple days (aside from COVID-19) were the reaction to two incontestably factual statements that I made.
1) That DNA works through chemical reactions, and,
2) That humans are the only known source of language.
As KF would say, this speaks volumes, and not in ID’s favour.
EG,
again, you set up and knocked over a strawman.
Kindly go to either of the two threads I have put up in the past few days and ponder what layer-cake architectures are about. The physical layer is only one aspect of such a system, codes and protocols are pivotal and in fact set the framework for the physical layer.
Further to this, it is not even true that humans are the sole users of language; honey bees may have a thing or two to show you.
But, more directly, we EXEMPLIFY language-using intelligence, demonstrating its possibility. As contingent creatures we cannot exhaust possibilities, as was specifically pointed out. But was of course also ignored in hate to set up and knock over a false representation.
In the case of the D/RNA protein code, we have alphanumeric, algorithmic symbolic information in strings which patently antedates humanity or even cell based life on Earth.
The fact that ID thinkers have long explained how complex linguistically meaningful strings beyond 500 – 1,000 bits — per search challenge on Sol system or observed cosmos gamut — are not plausibly the result of blind search due to inability to explore more than a negligibly tiny fraction of the configuration space should be recognised and cogently addressed. That it isn’t tells us volumes about your disregard for responsibilities of reason.
The balance on merits is clear, and if someone is struggling to figure it out, your irresponsible rhetorical stunts are a huge clue.
KF
JVL, there you go again, dismissing empirically observable informational, string data structure — thus, physical! — evidence that shows language at work in the heart of the cell. You demand separate direct evidence when there is evidence that cannot be shown to arise by blind chance and/or necessity but on trillions of cases (including your own comments) readily comes about by intelligently directed configuration aka design. Where, our existence demonstrates that designers are possible while giving utterly no reason to doubt that other designers may also be possible. This is a capital example of disregarding cogent but inconvenient evidence in hand by demanding that it be dismissed, while pretending to be open to evidence that you would be just as inclined to dismiss were it put on the table. Kindly, think again. KF
Upright BiPed: Yup
I don’t know what you want from me. When I’m honest you accuse me of being dishonest and manipulative.
If I disagree with you how am I suppose to response so that you won’t dismiss my responses? Do I have to agree with you to avoid your derision?
Kairosfocus: there you go again, dismissing empirically observable informational, string data structure — thus, physical! — evidence that shows language at work in the heart of the cell.,
Anytime someone disagrees with you you say they are dismissing evidence. Is it possible for someone to disagree with you without being criticised?
I am NOT denying factual evidence; I am disagreeing with your design inference.
You demand separate direct evidence when there is evidence that cannot be shown to arise by blind chance and/or necessity but on trillions of cases (including your own comments) readily comes about by intelligently directed configuration aka design.
I am not demanding anything. I’ve been trying really hard to honestly explain my stance to you. And, again, I disagree with you about your design inference. I guess I can’t do that without you labelling me as a denialist.
Where, our existence demonstrates that designers are possible while giving utterly no reason to doubt that other designers may also be possible. This is a capital example of disregarding cogent but inconvenient evidence in hand by demanding that it be dismissed, while pretending to be open to evidence that you would be just as inclined to dismiss were it put on the table. Kindly, think again.
Again, I have tried to be honest and clear explaining my views and stance. But all I get from you is that I’m clearly in denial.
Is there any point in my trying to answer your queries anymore? You seem determined to not give me the benefit of any doubt.
Ed George:
What does that even mean? The question pertained to the genetic code and not just DNA. What chemical reaction initiated the process? What chemical reaction initiated proof-reading and error-correction? What do chemical reactions even have to do with proof-reading and error-correction?
One of Eddie’s issues is he claims victory while ignoring everything that calls his conclusions into question.
That depends on how one defines “language”. Other organisms can definitely communicate.
And if it couldn’t have been humans nor any other organism on Earth, then the inference is it was some other intelligent agency. Nature remains eliminated as a possible cause.
JVL:
And yet both forensic science and archaeology remain successful at doing so.
Present it, then. I know that they haven’t. Dr. Behe has made a living off of that fact.
And I doubt that you have done that. I doubt that you have the capability to do it.
There isn’t any argument for unguided processes ability to produce anything beyond genetic diseases and deformities. Even the paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations” demonstrates the futility of your position. Not only do you need the right mutations to occur, you need them to get by the error-correction and proof-reading mechanisms.
As I keep telling you, luck can only get you so far. And all you have is sheer, dumb luck.
JVL:
You do dismiss the evidence. Or rather you are incapable of assessing it.
ET: And yet both forensic science and archaeology remain successful at doing so.
I meant ID design detection. Please try and read more than just the particular posts directed at you.
Present it, then. I know that they haven’t. Dr. Behe has made a living off of that fact.
Read any good university level evolution text book. Assuming you’ve already done that then there’s not much point in continuing the conversation: we disagree on the interpretation of the evidence and there’s not much more to say.
Dr Behe has a tenured position at a good university; he does NOT make a living on his ID position.
And I doubt that you have done that. I doubt that you have the capability to do it.
How come you get to be rude to other participants but if I do the same I get banned?
There isn’t any argument for unguided processes ability to produce anything beyond genetic diseases and deformities. Even the paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations” demonstrates the futility of your position. Not only do you need the right mutations to occur, you need them to get by the error-correction and proof-reading mechanisms.
What if Dr Behe was incorrect in his evaluation of the data in his paper? It has been roundly dismissed by working scientists. So, if you want to consider all the data, why do you disregard the criticisms of Dr Behe’s work? You accuse me of being biased and making prejudgements . . . how do you know you’re not doing that?
As I keep telling you, luck can only get you so far. And all you have is sheer, dumb luck.
When you say things that clearly do not reflect the state of unguided evolutionary research then I wonder if you really understand it.
You do dismiss the evidence. Or rather you are incapable of assessing it.
Like Kairosfocus and Bornagain77 and Upright Biped you seem to feel that anyone who disagrees with you is defective or evil in some way. So, please explain if it’s possible to disagree with you on these issues and not be trashed by you? If it’s not possible then explain why I should bother trying to engage in a conversation any more?
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Good grief, JVL
This is just more dissembling. I’m not responsible for the inconsistencies in your actions and statements, nor the fact that you show up to act them out in public.
As I have already noted: You are not merely disagreeing with the interpretation, you are avoiding acknowledgement of the science and history behind the interpretation. You are saying the science (clearly documented in the literature and not even in question) is not what it is, and then telling yourself that you are merely disagreeing with the interpretation.
As I said, those are two very different things. Your response is to dissemble further (surprise surprise) in part, by suggesting that you are now a poor victim who is not allowed to disagree.
Give it a rest cowgirl.
Upright BiPed @ 115
Good grief, UB
Nothing in science is beyond question. That is clearly documented in the literature. If that were the case then Newtonian mechanics would still be gospel in physics.
The genetic code resembles human languages and codes in some ways. Our languages and codes are useful metaphors when trying to explain what happens in the genome but that does not necessarily entail that the genome was the creation of an extraterrestrial intelligence. We cannot rule that out as a possibility but neither can you rule out the possibility that it evolved through natural causes. You want certainty where there is none to be had.
Upright Biped: This is just more dissembling. I’m not responsible for the inconsistencies in your actions and statements, nor the fact that you show up to act them out in public.
I am a human being and sometimes we are inconsistent. I have tried to be honest and admitted when my views are not coherent. I guess that makes me inferior.
As I have already noted: You are not merely disagreeing with the interpretation, you are avoiding acknowledgement of the science and history behind the interpretation. You are saying the science (clearly documented in the literature and not even in question) is not what it is, and then telling yourself that you are merely disagreeing with the interpretation.
Yes, because the facts are the same. But you interpret them in a way which I do not find supported. And I’ve come to that conclusion after spending a lot of time considering all the arguments on both sides. Because I disagree with you you choose to cast that as me denying the science, but that is your interpretation. And it is not universally held as well you know.
As I said, those are two very different things. Your response is to dissemble further (surprise surprise) in part, by suggesting that you are now a poor victim who is not allowed to disagree.
You tell me what position I can take that disagrees with your interpretation and yet would still get you to consider me an intelligent human being.
Time and time again I have tried to engage in a discussion, tried to be honest and straight and yet I am always told that I am lying or dissembling or ignorant or just plain stupid. From my perspective there seems to be no way to come to a contrary conclusion from yours without being labelled as inferior in some way. If I completely agreed with your view of what a materialist should think then I’m damned because I’m nothing better than a meat machine that cannot think. If I attempt to find a middle ground somewhere then I am deluded and inconsistent. If I agree with you then I guess I’m good.
Can you point to a stance that anyone could take in opposition to yours that would still have you consider the person to be sane and intelligent? If you can’t think of one then why should anyone who disagrees with you bother trying to have a dialogue? And, importantly, are you really interested in a dialogue?
Give it a rest cowgirl.
Offensive and misogynistic. Well done.
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#116
If you are going to make a case against the physics Sev, then make it.
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#117
Your not inferior, you are dissembling.
Upright BiPed: If you are going to make a case against the physics Sev, then make it.
Seversky is NOT trying to make a case against the physics. He’s arguing against your interpretation of the physics.
Upright BiPed: Your not inferior, you are dissembling.
So, do you think I am an intelligent human being? Am I a ‘cowgirl’ that you can just dismiss because I disagree with you? Is my view just so wrong that you can just assume I haven’t really thought about it or that I am just some sheeple following the god of Darwin?
I’m dissembling so I’m a liar? Is that it?
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# 120
My comments about the system are based on the observations documented in the literature and in history of science. If he has a objection to those observations, then he can make it.
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#121
You can agree with the physical analysis of the system — that the gene system is multi-referent symbol system using a set of interpretive constraints — anytime you wish. That is what is documented in the literature, and the observations behind it are not even in question. You can either agree, or disagree with reason, or abandon the argument. That is your choice..
Upright BiPed: You can agree with the physical analysis of the system — that the gene system is multi-referent symbol system using a set of interpretive constraints — anytime you wish. That is what is documented in the literature, and the observations behind it are not even in question.
I don’t see what this response has to do with the questions I asked in post 121.
And, as I said, I’m not disputing the basic science, I am disputing the interpretation of that data that implies it must have been intelligently designed.
Are you not even going to apologise for the ‘cowgirl’ reference?
The only thing missing from this thread is TruthFreedom and his condescension. Has he been banned?
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#124
If you find it easier, we can start at the top and roll through the observations one at a time if you like.
Did John Von Neumann successfully predict the organizational requirements of an autonomous open-ended self-replicator, based on the use of symbols and constraints to encode quiescent descriptions in memory?
Upright Biped: If you find it easier, we can start at the top and roll through the observations one at a time if you like.
Since you don’t seem to have even the basic decency to acknowledge my questions then I don’t think I’ll play your game and jump through your hoops.
You play with people. You don’t seem to really care about them. Funny that a presumed atheist has to remind you of the Golden Rule. But I guess you didn’t promise to be consistent between your beliefs and your actions.
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More dissembling.
I have answered your question about “disagreeing with me” repeatedly. It is my answer that you won’t engage with. Here it is again:
Did John Von Neumann successfully predict the organizational requirements of an autonomous open-ended self-replicator, based on the use of symbols and constraints to encode quiescent descriptions in memory?
Truly, I expect no answer.
JVL
Well yes, it does. You are not inferior as a person. But if your views are not coherent (and they are not) then your reasoning skills are inferior to those who have coherent views. Surely you understand that.
JVL
When a person encounters someone wallowing in error, the most loving thing they can do is try to correct them. When their attempts at correction are met with dissembling, obfuscation, and dismissal, the most loving thing they can do is attempt to shock them from their complacency. UB has done the loving thing.
ET @84
“Lenski’s LTEE is showing us how impotent evolutionary processes are with respect to universal common descent”
Couldn’t help noticing, but LTEE in French is short for ‘limitëe’
Or ‘limited’
Interesting coincidence i thought 🙂
N’est-ce pas?
Seversky @116
“You want certainty where there is none to be had.”
One thing is for sure, let me quote someone you might respect:
“…we know that genes themselves, within their minute internal structure, are long strings of pure digital information
What is more, they are truly digital, in the full and strong sense of computers and compact disks, not in the weak sense of the nervous system. The genetic code is not a binary code as in computers, nor an eight-level code as in some telephone systems, but a quaternary code, with four symbols
The machine code of the genes is uncannily computerlike. Apart from differences in jargon, the pages of a molecular-biology journal might be interchanged with those of a computer-engineering journal. . . .
Our genetic system, which is the universal system of all life on the planet, is digital to the core
With word-for-word accuracy, you could encode the whole of the New Testament in those parts of the human genome that are at present filled with “junk” DNA – that is, DNA not used, at least in the ordinary way, by the body. Every cell in your body contains the equivalent of forty-six immense data tapes, reeling off digital characters via numerous reading heads working simultaneously. In every cell, these tapes – the chromosomes – contain the same information, but the reading heads in different kinds of cells seek out different parts of the database for their own specialist purposes. . . .
Genes are pure information – information that can be encoded, recoded and decoded, without any degradation or change of meaning. Pure information can be copied and, since it is digital information, the fidelity of the copying can be immense. DNA characters are copied with an accuracy that rivals anything modern engineers can do.”
Richard Dawkins, River out of Eden, 16-19
Solemn Existence @131:
That’s an interesting observation indeed.
Is French your first language?
Solemn Existence @132:
I wouid like to see the response to your comment. 😉
SE, solid citation. KF
seversky:
The genetic code is a real code in the same sense as Morse code: Larry Moran on the real genetic code
ID’s design detection can be refuted if someone, anyone, can just step up and demonstrate that nature is up to the task of producing whatever we are investigating. The fact that no one can do so is very telling.
There isn’t anything in any college biology or evolutionary textbook that supports unguided evolution. Nothing. The peer-reviewed paper “Waiting for TWO Mutations” proves that color vision, for example, is well beyond the reach of unguided evolution. So forget about macroevolution.
There isn’t anything in any college biology textbook that says how to test the claim that any bacterial flagellum evolved via unguided evolutionary processes. The same goes for vision systems, ATP synthase, the genetic code, tRNA’s- the list is virtually endless.
After 160 years there still isn’t a scientific theory for unguided evolution. No one uses it to guide their research. The concept is useless.
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SE,
Thanks for the reminder, I had completely forgotten about that passage. I wonder of JVL thinks digital coding of the gene requires a rate-independent symbol system, interpretive constraints, spatial orientation, and a language structure (code). If it does, I wonder if he/she thinks it has to successfully describe itself in order to persist over time. If it does, I wonder at what point in time he/she thinks it had to start successfully describing itself.
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From a paper cited on another thread:
Marshall Nirenberg, the Nobel Laurate who began the process of breaking the gene code:
“The genetic language now is known, and it seems clear that most, if not all, forms of life on this planet use the same language, with minor variations.”
Wait ’til Ed hears about this. Very sloppy.
UB
Definitions of language:
I will keep looking but I can’t find a definition of language that would apply to DNA and how it works. So, my tentative conclusion at this time is that this is sloppy use of language.
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Here’s one for you Ed, from Webster’s (you must have just missed it)
: a system of symbols and rules for writing programs or algorithms
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And here’s one from Collins (must have missed this one too)
: a special set of symbols, letters, numerals, rules, etc used for the transmission of information.
UB, yes, I saw that one. But I still didn’t see genetic language described as an accepted definition of language. However, I admit that I have not conducted an exhaustive search and that it might be possible to find one.
But before you waste your time, I suggest that you read the definitions of analogy and metaphor.
On a tangent, when looking up definitions for language and genetic language, I came across this paper. Very interesting.
https://www.aclweb.org/anthology/W16-1208.pdf
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Howard Pattee wrote about the physics and material conditions of symbol systems for 5 decades before retiring. Along the way, he was sort-of grafted into the semiotic research community. When he spoke with linguists and semioticians, he found their terms and language to be too imprecise and confusing to be of any use to him as a physicist, and so continued to use the terms of physics to conduct his research. I take my cues from his judgement on the matter. The use of language can be identified by the physical system required to support it.
EG
Except Marshall Nirenberg, the Nobel Laurate who began the process of breaking the gene code:
“The genetic language now is known, and it seems clear that most, if not all, forms of life on this planet use the same language, with minor variations.”
Ed must not have seen that one either.
Ed’s antics demonstrate once again something I have seen frequently over the years. No matter how much logic and evidence is adduced, the materialist response is always: “not enough.”
Yes, Ed, we know it is not enough for you. Because if you were willing to follow the evidence and logic to where it leads, you would have to reexamine your metaphysical prejudices. And you will pay any cost in cognitive dissonance to avoid that.
BA
What is that? Deliberately misinterpreting the metaphoric use of a word by a scientist as its literal definition? Like when scientists compare DNA to a language, or a code and others use their use of those metaphors (analogies) to argue that DNA must be designed because human languages and codes are designed? Yes, I have seen this quite frequently as well. I wasn’t sure that you had noticed.
BA
You obviously didn’t check out my link@143. This paper looked at the similarity between human languages using various techniques on bible translations (I thought you would appreciate that last bit). They then performed similar language comparison techniques on the “genetic languages” of several animal and plant species. And, surprisingly, their results contradict Nirenberg’s claim that “[all life on earth]…. use the same language, with minor variations.”
The irony here is that when people seriously examine DNA as if it were a literal language akin to human languages, the conclusions further support evolution.
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Getting the name wrong is excusable, Getting the context wrong is deliberate and deceptive.
UB
Damn spell check. Thanks. I have corrected it.
That was my point exactly. Claiming that Crick and others intended their use of the words “code” and “language” in the same way as we use them to describe human designed codes and languages is deliberate and deceptive.
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No need to worry about that Ed, I already posted upthread Crick’s written text to Michael. People can decide for themselves if he intended to express symbols or dynamics.
UB
Yup, they certainly can decide whether Crick believed that DNA was a designed code, as everyone here implies his use of this word requires, or not. But given how often people here cite this one quote, I find it strange that they don’t want to mention any of his other quotes.
Or
Or that he was an advocate for establishing Darwin Day as a national holiday.
I tell you what, I will meet you half way and concede that DNA is a language and a code if you concede that when you are claiming this, you are not claiming that this means they are designed. Because the scientists who have used these words certainly weren’t implying this link.
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The fact that the gene system uses a symbolic code is a data point that stands on it own.
So concede away.
Ed
Fascinating. What makes you think anyone cares whether you concede the obvious. In fact, I kinda hope you don’t. Every post in which you grit your teeth, stamp your feet, and continue to defend the indefensible, advances the ID cause just a little bit more by showing how unreasonable our opponents are. So, by all means Ed, deny the science to your heart’s content.
UPDATE: I see UB beat me to it while I was composing this.
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After your concession , Ed, you’ll be comforted to know that the issue had already been comprehensively resolved by fact that language use (and the symbols systems require of it) are objectively describable in the language of physics – a rate independent medium, a set of non-integrable constraints, and all that. You also likely feel a weight off your shoulders not having to defend your position against physics with the religious views of Francis Crick.
BA
You and others seem to expend a lot of time and energy trying to get me to concede. That speaks volumes. That is very telling.
That you won’t concede, in the face of the evidence, speaks volumes. THAT is very telling.
Ed at 157.
Oh dear. You really have misperceived what has been going on not just on this thread but generally when you engage. You see, your role is to insert materialist shiboliths into the combox. This gives UB and others the opportunity to demolish them, which, as the readers will no doubt attest, they do with gleeful abandon. I really mean it when I say that folks like you and Sev and JVL and Ortho are important assets in the ID cause. Your niche is providing errors to be corrected. You do that very well. Thank you.
Ed George:
Those same scientists who haven’t a clue as to how nature could have done it? The same scientists who don’t know how to test the claim that nature did it? The scientists who were/ are so biased tghey have to remind themselves that it wasn’t designed, rather it evolved (as if the two are mutually exclusive)?
Those scientists? Why should we listen to them on anything but what they have demonstrated, when they haven’t got a clue beyond that?
Ed George at 157, I think you may estimate yourself a little too highly.
If you concede what is obvious or not is between you and God. I’m sure that Mr. Arrington, (like myself and many others on UD), would like for you to be sane in your reasoning, but that he, like many of the rest of us on UD, has long ago given up any hope that militant atheists will ever be reasonable.
But all is not lost, you can still serve as a bad example. As Mr. Arrington made clear, “Every post in which you grit your teeth, stamp your feet, and continue to defend the indefensible, advances the ID cause just a little bit more by showing how unreasonable our opponents are (to unbiased readers). So, by all means Ed, deny the science to your heart’s content.”
So even your stubborn refusal to be reasonable works out for our good in the end!
Jawa
@133
I was like, the abbreviation only works like that in French. But how serendipitous if you’re bilingual to see it’s used for an experiment that is observably showing the limits, the ‘edge’ of evolution
Yes, actually. I learned French at home before going to school in English. Quebec, eh 🙂
@134
I always like the quotes taken from that passage by Dawkins, like interchanging the pages of a molecular biology journal with those of computer engineering. I thought it was pretty relevant for this discussion
KF
@135
Solid UD 🙂
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/dawkins-dna-is-encoded-digital-information-in-the-strong-sense/
Upright
@138
No problem, it could possibly be the best thing Dawkins ever wrote!
@141, 142
Nice definition.
Those are definitely 4K
Ed G
@153
“the scientists who have used these words certainly weren’t implying this link”
Crick believed in panspermia, he definitely attributed the code to intelligent beings.
Barry @155 “deny[ing] the science”
For me it’s even deeper, as a denial of reality. If you ask me I’d say, never mind one’s scientific persuasions, it takes a very strong commitment a priori to even superficially look at the intricacies of DNA encoding/decoding and insist it is all just the product of blind ‘watchmaking’
But then again, I can’t really understand or truly sympathize anymore, no longer being an atheist. I can only speculate as to what my teenaged reaction would have been, had I ever been properly exposed to these informational realities of biology
Ed G @157
“You and others seem to expend a lot of time and energy trying to get me to concede. That speaks volumes. That is very telling.”
I know that can be taken in more than one way, but all debating aside, it can be telling of genuine care.
That is the main reason I would spend any effort trying to convince you or anyone else of these things.
Even Larry Moran says the genetic code is a real code. Crick called it a code because it fit the definition of a code. And it fits the definition because it is a code.
Only the weak-minded think it’s a metaphor. But that is moot as it doesn’t matter what we call it. What is obvious is no one has any idea how nature could have produced it from the bottom up. It goes against everything we know about nature.
EG
Followed by a thousand words by people explaining that they don’t care what I think. Frankly, when I don’t care what someone has to say (eg, ET) I don’t waste time responding to them.
Folks,
codes and alphanumerical digital symbol strings are linguistic, as are Chinese Character-like strings of stylised conventionalised, abstracted drawings, which go back to Cuneiform also.
Observe, here, that the different versions of Chinese — e.g. Mandarin vs Cantonese — pronounce the symbols differently but they carry the same meaning, even as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 have common meanings but are pronounced differently in various languages. Where, place value notation then shifts the sense of 2 significantly in the different cases in say 2,222,222.222. The first, in context, is two millions of units, the last, 2 thousandths of the unit, 1. And, the forms vary, e.g. I remember Indian profs still using the tiny form of the 0 that comes from the home of the decimal numeral system, India.
Even alphabetic and partly alphabetic systems are representing sounds in temporal succession with strings of symbols in space *-*-*-*- . . . -* [many of which were originally stylised drawings as we see with “A” tracing to aleph, the ox . . . triangle head with horns].
Similarly in mathematics, conventional symbols represent concepts, e.g. the elongated form S– used up to C18 — for sum being used to represent integration and DELTA the symbol for change. Where the Greek capital SIGMA is also used for sum in a different but related sense. That is, language is an integral part of Mathematics, also. Think of plus, minus, equal sign etc also or e, i, pi, h as a conventional infinitesimal, x, y, z as often space-linked variables, sine, cos, exponential functions, gamma function and many other special functions etc. Add here, Periodic table symbols for elements, their electronic configurations, typical state, etc then for molecules then how GCAT becomes a system for the Genetic Code — note that word! — and how it works in the cell based on prong height, comparable to a Yale lock.
Ability to represent symbolically [and often to pronounce said symbols] is a key part of the structure and power of language-using intelligence that helps us to trace out lines of logical or creative thought.
Something is deeply, conceptually wrong in several objections above; they have a far too cramped view of what language phenomena are and are about.
KF
PS: On how a dictionary can be used to set up and knock over a strawman:
PPS: That humble source, Wikipedia:
EG, it is manifest that part of your problem is that you are locking out key, cogent correction. For example, it is highly likely that you will refuse to acknowledge the correction of the strawman sense of language you attempted to set up above. KF
I guess if I was so easily refuted I wouldn’t care what people say either, Ed. But everyone knows why you don’t respond to the people who expose you as the poseur that you are.