Paul Davies on the gap between life and non-life

_{Denyse O'Leary

February 14, 2023

Origin Of Life}

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It’s a big one. Theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist Paul Davies talks to Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth about the conundrums: “What is life and how did it arise from non-life? Is it as simple as the random organization of complex chemicals on the early Earth? What are the pathways whereby chemicals turned into life? Is life inevitable? Or extremely rare? What’s remarkable is how little we know. ”

A reader notes that Davies says at 37m30s: “What life makes is consistent with physics and chemistry, but is not dictated by physics and chemistry.” Well, by a process of elimination, doesn’t that leave information? Design? And how are things designed without intelligence? At this point, one can only say, Keep talking.

Comments

Alan Fox:
I’ll see if I can find anyone working in bioinformatics is using [TIERRA], or whether biological models have evolved from the original.
Apologies to Origenes. I've let this slip. I'll post something at Peaceful Science.Alan Fox_{March 13, 2023
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I'm doing some reading on biomorphs. I'm kind of surprised that I can't find any discussions of possible relationships between biomorphs and pareidolia online.hnorman42_{February 23, 2023
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Did you check the religion section of bioinformatics?
I don't see that section in the Wikipedia entry on bioinformatics. A link would be handy if no troubleAlan Fox_{February 23, 2023
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Please keep me posted.
Sure. It may take a day or two for me to get inquiries posted and a few days more for responses to come in.Alan Fox_{February 23, 2023
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Regarding TIERRA, I suspect those interested download the program and work with it on their own systems. I’ll see if I can find anyone working in bioinformatics is using it, or whether biological models have evolved from the original.
Please keep me posted. If Marks is making stuff up about TIERRA I would like to know.
There is also Biomorphs originally invented by Dawkins in response to the “target” criticism.
To my surprise, I cannot find a Dembski/Marks review of the program. However, nature.com gave Biomorphs a bad review. There is an article about it on evolutionnews which uses terms like “adorable”, “long outdated” “grounded in 1970s assumptions,” ….
I didn’t spot any reference to Dembski or Marks in the Wikipedia article on bioinformatics.
Did you check the religion section of bioinformatics?Origenes_{February 23, 2023
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I didn't spot any reference to Dembski or Marks in the Wikipedia article on bioinformatics.Alan Fox_{February 23, 2023
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Regarding TIERRA, I suspect those interested download the program and work with it on their own systems. I'll see if I can find anyone working in bioinformatics is using it, or whether biological models have evolved from the original. There is also Biomorphs originally invented by Dawkins in response to the "target" criticism.Alan Fox_{February 23, 2023
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Alan Fox @338
Yet TIERRA seems to be alive and well.
The WIKI page on TIERRA and Tom Ray's page that you linked to have not seen updates for many years; so "abandoned" seems about right. - - - - On the computational evolution debate, from LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW, Dembski & Marks.
Christoph Adami’s AVIDA, Thomas Ray’s Tierra, and, Thomas Schneider’s ev (Schneider’s program attempts to model the evolution of nucleotide binding sites) are thus supposed to constitute successes.40 Indeed, as proponents of Darwinian evolution, Adami, Ray, and Schneider have a stake in seeing their simulations confirm standard evolutionary theory. But critics of Darwinian evolution also write computer simulations. We’ve mentioned MESA (by William Dembski, John Bracht, and Micah Sparacio), but there are also others, for instance, Mendel’s Accountant (by John Sanford and John Baumgardner) as well as the tongue-in-cheek MutationWorks (posted anonymously online).41 For such programs, success means showing that the simulation, despite efforts by the programmers to faithfully model biological evolution, produces no novel information or, worse yet, degrades existing information (as with Mendel’s Accountant). Proponents of Darwinian evolution dismiss such simulations, claiming that their failure to evolve biologically relevant information merely reflects a failure of the programs to capture biological reality. Of course, critics of Darwinian evolution turn this criticism around, charging that only by cooking the books do Darwinists get their programs to produce biologically relevant information. Hence Berlinski’s claim that these programs fail when they are honest. Although it may seem as though we have reached an impasse, there is a way forward in this debate. Both sides have accepted a common presupposition, namely, that it is possible to model Darwinian evolutionary processes mathematically. Indeed, it better be possible to model evolution mathematically if it is to constitute an exact science.
Origenes_{February 23, 2023
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Thanks for the link to Marks' defence of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. I give him full credit for accurately representing objections. Unfortunately his responses fall far short of dealing with them. This made me smile: The most celebrated attempt of an evolution model without a goal of which we’re aware is TIERRA. In an attempt to recreate something like the Cambrian explosion on a computer, the programmer created what was thought to be an information-rich environment where digital organisms would flourish and evolve. According to TIERRA’s ingenious creator, Thomas Ray, the project failed and was abandoned. There has to date been no success in open-ended evolution in the field of artificial life. Yet TIERRA seems to be alive and well. Though Wikipedia acknowledges the problem of novelty:
The issue of how true open-ended evolution can be implemented in an artificial system is still an open question in the field of artificial life.
.Alan Fox_{February 23, 2023
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Alan Fox @324
Evolution is not a search. I think I may have already mentioned this.
You keep saying that, however, evolution has been often modeled as a search.
Models of Darwinian evolution, Avida and EV included, are searches with a fixed goal. For EV, the goal is finding specified nucleotide binding sites. Avida’s goal is to generate an EQU logic function. Other evolution models that we examine in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics likewise seek a prespecified goal. The evolution software Avida is of particular importance because Robert Pennock, one of the co-authors of the first paper describing Avida,4 gave testimony at the Darwin-affirming Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School District bench trial. Pennock’s testimony contributed to Judge Jones’s ruling that teaching about intelligent design violates the establishment clause of the United States Constitution. Pennock testified, “In the [Avida computer program] system, we’re not simulating evolution. Evolution is actually happening.” If true, Avida and thus evolution are a guided search with a specified target bubbling over with active information supplied by the programmers. The most celebrated attempt of an evolution model without a goal of which we’re aware is TIERRA. In an attempt to recreate something like the Cambrian explosion on a computer, the programmer created what was thought to be an information-rich environment where digital organisms would flourish and evolve. According to TIERRA’s ingenious creator, Thomas Ray, the project failed and was abandoned. There has to date been no success in open-ended evolution in the field of artificial life. [Robert J. Marks II].
Origenes_{February 22, 2023
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Jerry, stumble upon is a description of trial and error implicit search. The there is no search rhetoric is little more than a shell game with words, similar to denial of a code. It is clear, the aim is to assert hyperskeptical dismissals, meanwhile the hall of mirrors, echo chamber mantras about mountains of evidence continue, programming the unwary with the ideology. Start at the alleged root of the darwinist tree of life, which of course co opts a term. There is no significant much less overwhelming evidence of blind watchmaker OoL, never mind what too many textbooks and museum displays have invited many to believe. Willfully censored, the required FSCO/I has but one warranted, reliable source, design. That Paley's Ch 2 is ducked tells the tale. Then, there is the part abolut observed complex alphanumeric code in D/RNA, obviously at the origin of cell based life, met with hyperskeptical denialism of the consensus pointed out by say Lehninger and heirs. Going on, again, no evidence for blind watchmaker origin of the FSCO/I to make main body plans, up to our own. Ditto, on how to get the FSCO/I involved in a brain, much less explaining mind. Instead, minor adaptive mechanisms of hill climbing within deeply isolated, fine tuned islands of function are grossly extrapolated and exaggerated into overwhelming evidence. After over a decade, all we see is attempted regurgitation of long since answered objections and confident manner assertions. A back handed admission that the issue on the merits is clearly decided in favour of the design inference. KF PS, from OP:
It’s a big one. Theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist Paul Davies talks to Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth about the conundrums: “What is life and how did it arise from non-life? Is it as simple as the random organization of complex chemicals on the early Earth? What are the pathways whereby chemicals turned into life? Is life inevitable? Or extremely rare? What’s remarkable is how little we know. ”
In short, on evolutionary materialistic scientism, after a century of active OoL research, failure pointing to degenerative research programme. But there is so much invested in the ideology and its domination that it cannot safely be said that the Emperor is parading in his undies and pretending to be in the richest of robes.kairosfocus_{February 22, 2023
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Origenes @333,
What I am saying is that natural selection eliminates perfectly viable organisms.
Okay, I get it. What confused me is how you're using "natural selection." I use the term in a more restricted sense while you're using it in a broader sense. We're pretty much saying the same thing, except your use of the term is more what I'd term "natural mortality." They're actually not that different. Natural selection based on some competitive advantage or competitive disadvantage supposedly makes only about a 5% difference (or less) from natural/random mortality. Any advantages are tiny, almost at the level of random genetic drift. -QQuerius_{February 22, 2023
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stumble upon is a description of trial and error implicit search. The there is no search rhetoric is little more than a shell game with words, similar to denial of a code
This is pure nonsense. You just equated any physical process to a search and unguided evolution is a physical process. That is ridiculous. Those who propose unguided evolution say it’s a physical process. See #27. It’s also not even close to the same as denying a code in the genome. If I am stumbling about the woods on my way to the river and I find something unusual that I had never seen before, is that a search? Obviously not. I may go back to the same place to see it again. (I live 100 yards from a river that I often trek to) I am sure you could try and turn it into something but that is stupid. Sorry, but there is no search in unguided evolution. Things just happen according to the laws of nature. So why imply it’s a search. It gets you nothing, so try the truth which gets you everything.jerry_{February 22, 2023
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Querius @328
Okay, so in @278, you’re saying that natural selection eliminates novel structures before they are viable.
What I am saying is that natural selection eliminates perfectly viable organisms. Here is wiki:
More than 99% of all species that ever lived on Earth, amounting to over five billion species,[1] are estimated to have died out. [wiki]
Some of those species have (or would have) produced biological novelties, right? However, they are eliminated by natural selection. Gone forever. My simple claim is that this elimination, this activity called "natural selection", is not helpful to the blind search for biological novelties that is being conducted by random mutations. Darwin, Alan Fox, and many others believe that natural selection (elimination) makes a blind search better. I do not. I hold that natural selection severely hampers the search for biological novelties. If I am right then unguided evolution performs far worse than a blind search.Origenes_{February 22, 2023
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Jerry, stumble upon is a description of trial and error implicit search. The there is no search rhetoric is little more than a shell game with words, similar to denial of a code. It is clear, the aim is to assert hyperskeptical dismissals, meanwhile the hall of mirrors, echo chamber mantras about mountains of evidence continue, programming the unwary with the ideology. Start at the alleged root of the darwinist tree of life, which of course co opts a term. There is no significant much less overwhelming evidence of blind watchmaker OoL, never mind what too many textbooks and museum displays have invited many to believe. Willfully censored, the required FSCO/I has but one warranted, reliable source, design. That Paley's Ch 2 is ducked tells the tale. Then, there is the part about observed complex alphanumeric code in D/RNA, obviously at the origin of cell based life, met with hyperskeptical denialism of the consensus pointed out by say Lehninger and heirs. Going on, again, no evidence for blind watchmaker origin of the FSCO/I to make main body plans, up to our own. Ditto, on how to get the FSCO/I involved in a brain, much less explaining mind. Instead, minor adaptive mechanisms of hill climbing within deeply isolated, fine tuned islands of function are grossly extrapolated and exaggerated into overwhelming evidence. After over a decade, all we see is attempted regurgitation of long since answered objections and confident manner assertions. A back handed admission that the issue on the merits is clearly decided in favour of the design inference. KF PS, from OP:
It’s a big one. Theoretical physicist, cosmologist and astrobiologist Paul Davies talks to Robert Lawrence Kuhn at Closer to Truth about the conundrums: “What is life and how did it arise from non-life? Is it as simple as the random organization of complex chemicals on the early Earth? What are the pathways whereby chemicals turned into life? Is life inevitable? Or extremely rare? What’s remarkable is how little we know. ”
In short, on evolutionary materialistic scientism, after a century of active OoL research, failure pointing to degenerative research programme. But there is so much invested in the ideology and its domination that it cannot safely be said that the Emperor is parading in his undies and pretending to be in the richest of robes.kairosfocus_{February 22, 2023
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Luckily we no longer have to guess
You are substituting genetics for Evolution. There is nothing in Lenski’s experiments that is not consistent with ID. Why did you mention them?jerry_{February 22, 2023
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Sandy, I simply point out that random mutations cause genetic errors, so the two points are compatible. You will note that I start with claimed OoL in a darwin pond or the like and point to the challenge to blind forces. KFkairosfocus_{February 22, 2023
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Jerry Unguided evolution
Codswallop. Fixed for you : Directed adaptation.whistler_{February 22, 2023
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Origenes @315, Okay, so in @278, you're saying that natural selection eliminates novel structures before they are viable. Natural selection is also hampered by the limit to the tolerated rate of mutations (Haldane's dilemma), and of course, birth rates also limit the rate of variation in a species (i.e. bacteria supposedly evolve faster than humans). I imagine a science-fantasy duck that somehow acquires a novel feature (a feathered propeller, poison glands, defensive smoke cloud, or whatever). - On the average, such a feature is expected only to provide a 5% advantage to that duck. - It has to be lucky enough not to be killed by some avian virus or turned into a feathered pizza by a speeding truck. - A significant number of ducks would need to evolve the identical feature, otherwise it wouldn't be fixed in the duck population. - The novel feature could not result in destroying the carrying capacity of its ecosystem by over-competition. This factor is often overlooked. A great example is what happened in the early 1900s to the Kaibab deer. -QQuerius_{February 22, 2023
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Let's have a look at Lenski and the LTEE. https://evolutionnews.org/2019/03/thanks-professor-lenski-the-ltee-is-doing-great/relatd_{February 22, 2023
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Dembski’s work for ID is based on the view that unguided evolution is a search
if that is what he said, he’s wrong. I don’t believe he said that. Unguided by definition is not searching. It is stumbling. They don’t claim it’s a search. The term search implies a goal. Unguided evolution has no goal so what is it searching for? I believe he was using the example of unguided coming across an unusual combination of characteristics as beyond chance. He uses the term “search space” but that is his term for his math and not the evolutionary biologist. If evolutionary processes did come across how likely is it that an unguided process would actually find it. Only if there were trillions of them and it somehow stumbled over one of them. Basic logic and math rule this out except for an unlikely very rare happenstance. When I have time I will go back and see how ID has used the term. But one has to take the evolutionary biologist at their word. Did they use the term search?jerry_{February 22, 2023
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The more likely answer is that the resistant strain was already there from a past mutation.
Luckily we no longer have to guess. Genome sequencing is now cheap and fast. Richard Lenski's LTEE frozen samples are revealing new evidence. I don't know offhand if the strains of E. coli from the giant petri dish experiment were sequenced. That would tell us whether your speculation has any merit.Alan Fox_{February 22, 2023
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You are making my point that unguided evolution performs worse than a blind search. Typically a blind search assumes unlimited resources. Obviously, it does not help for a search to be hampered by a competition for resources. It doesn’t help to have monkeys fighting over typewriters.
Evolution is not a search. I think I may have already mentioned this.Alan Fox_{February 22, 2023
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Jerry
No one has shown anything I said is wrong.
Really? Consider this: Dembski's work for ID is based on the view that unguided evolution is a search.Origenes_{February 22, 2023
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Well, I can only repeat the Darwinian explanation of what is happening as mutant bacteria colonize areas unavailable to non-mutants.
There is no reason that mutations had to have happened in the bacteria experiment. This assumes the bacteria that survived did not exist at first. If they did, then they would eventually proliferate. Mutations could also have happened but it isn’t necessary. If mutations were behind the bacteria surviving, this would indicate that the external threat of the anti biotic caused the mutation. That’s certainly possible but I never heard that before. The more likely answer is that the resistant strain was already there from a past mutation. Along with many other strains that either perished or survived because they were resistant. By providing this example, you have indicated that you have no idea what’s behind the theory you promote. And by extension that it cannot explain Evolution. It’s basically just genetics. To cite niches is nothing more then a meaningless cliche.jerry_{February 22, 2023
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In Jerry’s view, all their work for ID is completely useless. Jerry continues to support Darwinists and he does so loudly and unashamedly.
This is absolute nonsense. Why make such a comment? I stand by everything I said. No one has shown anything I said is wrong. If there is, point to it. There is no bigger defender of ID on this site.jerry_{February 22, 2023
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Alan Fox
Ori: Assuming that there are random mutations, unguided evolution, starting with the last universal common ancestor (LUCA), veers off in all possible directions. Next natural selection eliminates entire branches of the viable organisms that random mutations supposedly come up with. Therefore, the random search for biological novelties is hampered by natural selection.
In a population of individual, there is competition for resources, food, sexual partners.
You are making my point that unguided evolution performs worse than a blind search. Typically a blind search assumes unlimited resources. Obviously, it does not help for a search to be hampered by a competition for resources. It doesn't help to have monkeys fighting over typewriters.
Removing competition allows survivors to proliferate (as clearly seen in the giant petri dish experiment).
We are back to what I have called a “gamble.” As I wrote in #265: “In my understanding, NS is at best a 'gamble.' All the chips are put on genotype B. The gamble is that this genotype will produce biological novelties, and genotype A and C would not.”Origenes_{February 22, 2023
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It’s straightforward and not hard to understand. There’s no search involved.
According to Jerry, William Dembski and Winston Ewert are idiots for thinking that unguided evolution is a search. In Jerry's view, all their work for ID is completely useless. Jerry continues to support Darwinists and he does so loudly and unashamedly.Origenes_{February 22, 2023
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Darwinists believe unguided evolution is functionally equivalent to a search...
I've not seen evolutionary biologists saying this en masse. I've seen individual evolutionary biologists point out that biological evolution is not a search and that there are no long-term goals. What leads you to claim "Darwinists" believe the opposite? Can you cite anyone?Alan Fox_{February 22, 2023
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I make my point in #278.
That was pretty garbled. Especially this: Next natural selection eliminates entire branches of the viable organisms that random mutations supposedly come up with. Therefore, the random search for biological novelties is hampered by natural selection.In a population of individual, there is competition for resources, food, sexual partners. Removing competition allows survivors to proliferate (as clearly seen in the giant petri dish experiment).Alan Fox_{February 22, 2023
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