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

Amusingly Darwinists think that natural selection improves the blind search that is being performed by random mutations. They don't seem to be able to grasp the simple fact, that natural elimination can only act on (or leave alone) what random mutations produce. In general, natural selection makes evolution perform worse than a blind search. It does not help to eliminate perfectly viable organisms on some environmental whim. It means a retrogression of millions of years.Origenes_{February 21, 2023
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meanwhile, Darwin's pond called, it reports, no luck.kairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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PM1, so there is no actual selection either. KFkairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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CD, the ideology is evolutionary materialistic scientism. I remind you of the cat out of the bag moment of a leading, Nobel Prize winning member of the elites. Crick wrote:
. . . that "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.
The late Philip Johnson has aptly replied that Sir Francis should have therefore been willing to preface his works thusly: "I, Francis Crick, my opinions and my science, and even the thoughts expressed in this book, consist of nothing more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules." Johnson then acidly commented: “[t]he plausibility of materialistic determinism requires that an implicit exception be made for the theorist.” [Reason in the Balance, 1995.] That sets a context for another well known figure to have let even more cats out of the bag:
[Lewontin lets the cat out of the bag:] . . . to put a correct [--> Just who here presume to cornering the market on truth and so demand authority to impose?] view of the universe into people's heads
[==> as in, "we" the radically secularist elites have cornered the market on truth, warrant and knowledge, making "our" "consensus" the yardstick of truth . . . where of course "view" is patently short for WORLDVIEW . . . and linked cultural agenda . . . ]
we must first get an incorrect view out [--> as in, if you disagree with "us" of the secularist elite you are wrong, irrational and so dangerous you must be stopped, even at the price of manipulative indoctrination of hoi polloi] . . . the problem is to get them [= hoi polloi] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world [--> "explanations of the world" is yet another synonym for WORLDVIEWS; the despised "demon[ic]" "supernatural" being of course an index of animus towards ethical theism and particularly the Judaeo-Christian faith tradition], the demons that exist only in their imaginations,
[ --> as in, to think in terms of ethical theism is to be delusional, justifying "our" elitist and establishment-controlling interventions of power to "fix" the widespread mental disease]
and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth
[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]
. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists [--> "we" are the dominant elites], it is self-evident
[--> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . . and in fact it is evolutionary materialism that is readily shown to be self-refuting]
that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [--> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [--> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [--> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [--> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons]. [Lewontin, Billions and billions of Demons, NYRB Jan 1997,cf. here. And, if you imagine this is "quote-mined" I invite you to read the fuller annotated citation here.]
That record cannot be erased nor will it be forgotten, try as you wish. KFkairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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CD @218 Assuming that they are found by a blind search.Origenes_{February 21, 2023
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UB, 215, sadly, yes. KFkairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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@216 In the standard reading of evolutionary theory, the selective pressures coming from the ecological niche filter out non-satisficing, not good enough phenotypic variation, and that's all that microevolution (evolution below the species level) requires. Macroevolution (speciation and other higher taxa) is in theory microevolution scaled up, if Darwin is right in claiming that there is no ontological difference between species and varieties. I say "the standard version" because there are two rather important issues here: does it really make sense to distinguish between organisms and their niches, as the standard version invites us to do? And there's the question as to what generates phenotypic variation in the first place. Susan Oyama, in her The Ontogeny of Information (a book which inoculated me against the Modern Synthesis at the tender age of 19), argues that the most general principle of evolution is that phenotypic variation comes about from changes in the timing of developmental events. I find that a much more insightful and more deeply biological way of thinking than the story coming from population genetics, where genes are modeled as object that get randomly pushed around, like the atoms of Epicurus.PyrrhoManiac1_{February 21, 2023
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UB at 215, That is what I have observed as well. But that is the position that is required to held, otherwise a 'divine foot' may get in the door.relatd_{February 21, 2023
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Origenes/216 Expression of adaptive phenotype(s) within the defined population.chuckdarwin_{February 21, 2023
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AF, you simply tried one rhetorical stunt too many and have exposed yourself through confession by projection as well as endorsing slander and refusing to pull back when the slanders were pointed out. KFkairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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Alan Fox
The key is that selection pressure is applied by the niche.
The key to what exactly?Origenes_{February 21, 2023
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.
I argue that it has never been other than invalid as a scientific approach.
That is merely a positioning statement you use to justify yourself. You certainly feel better, and suddenly you don’t have to deal with the empirical facts and the documented history of the matter. You’ve transformed your dishonesty into a virtue of sorts, keeping the space clean for proper thinking. You are not a bystander. In truth, you have spent years actively suppressing scientific facts so you can deny your intellectual opponents the valid truth as it is actually recorded in the literature. You do what profits you, and you are not going to allow science and history to get in the way.Upright BiPed_{February 21, 2023
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...you argue that the design inference is invalid today.
I argue that it has never been other than invalid as a scientific approach.Alan Fox_{February 21, 2023
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Are you saying that unguided evolution cannot find biological novelties?
Not at all. Selection promotes genotypes that work in the niche the population finds itself. First genotypes vary (mutation is not the sole source of variation) then differential breeding success shifts allele frequency. The key is that selection pressure is applied by the niche.Alan Fox_{February 21, 2023
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Alan Fox
And biological evolution is not a search. There is no target.
Are you saying that unguided evolution cannot find biological novelties?Origenes_{February 21, 2023
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. #208, The use of an encoded symbol system remains a universal correlate of intelligence, and the recorded history of science and discovery (Peirce, Turing, Crick and Watson, Brenner, Hoagland and Zamecnik, Nirenberg and Khorana) is not going to change. The design inference remains unrefuted. You have to get descriptions from dynamics, and no person on the surface of this planet has any idea how that could happen. But you do not argue for the belief that the design inference will someday be overturned by new data; you argue that the design inference is invalid today. That is patently false, and it is your position.Upright BiPed_{February 21, 2023
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@196
And biological evolution is not a search. There is no target.
Quite right. And that remains true even if one were to applaud the revival of teleology in theoretical biology (Denis Noble and Stephen Talbott have been mentioned, but there are many others). The revival of teleology with regard to organisms (and rejection of the limits of the Modern Synthesis) does not demonstrate, entail, or suggest that there is a pre-determined target or goal for phylogenetic processes.PyrrhoManiac1_{February 21, 2023
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ChuckyD,
You left out “Darwinist, Marxist, atheist in your descriptors of the pretender in the lab coat. Getting sloppy, KF……….
Well ChuckyD, considering that your Darwinian worldview can't account for the unique human capacity for language, nor for the existence of a single written sentence, nor for why any written sentence might have any meaning in the first place, it seems to me that you are blatantly lacking any coherent foundation for accurately judging whether someone else may be writing their sentences properly or not.
Leading Evolutionary Scientists Admit We Have No Evolutionary Explanation of Human Language - December 19, 2014 Excerpt: Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been made. We argue instead that the richness of ideas is accompanied by a poverty of evidence, with essentially no explanation of how and why our linguistic computations and representations evolved.,,, (Marc Hauser, Charles Yang, Robert Berwick, Ian Tattersall, Michael J. Ryan, Jeffrey Watumull, Noam Chomsky and Richard C. Lewontin, "The mystery of language evolution," Frontiers in Psychology, Vol 5:401 (May 7, 2014).) Luskin comments: “It's difficult to imagine much stronger words from a more prestigious collection of experts.” http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/12/leading_evoluti092141.html In this following video at the 10 minute mark, this short sentence, "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is calculated by Winston Ewert, to contain 1000 bits of algorithmic specified complexity, (i.e. functional information), and to thus exceed the Universal Probability Bound (UPB) of 500 bits set by Dr. William Dembski - Proposed Information Metric: Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity - Winston Ewert - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3mm3ofAYU Of note, the phrase "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" contains every letter in the alphabet. --- 10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe. 10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur. 10^25, a billion times longer than the estimated age of the universe in seconds. Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang. How many bits would that be? Pu = 10-150, so, -log2 Pu = 498.29 bits Call it 500 bits 2.) The argument from meaning 1. If naturalism is true, no sentence has any meaning. 2. Premise (1) has meaning. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. – Is Metaphysical Naturalism Viable? – William Lane Craig – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQ i.e. Dr. Craig’s succinct, and devastating, refutation of atheist Professor Alex Rosenberg’s (Duke University) book “The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions”
bornagain77_{February 21, 2023
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The funny thing about that is the fact that I haven’t had a conversation with “Alan Fox” in years.
I wouldn't call the odd exchanges over the years "conversation". As you say it doesn't really matter. All that has changed for me is when you first put your ideas about the impossibility of a genetic code evolving, I was of the opinion RNA world was not plausible. Now I think it is a fine idea. And yes, I recently posted using "Fred Hickson" as a pseudonym. I much prefer to comment under my real name and as the moderation policy here seems to have moderated quite a bit recently, I changed my display name to my real name. You should try it, it is liberating.Alan Fox_{February 21, 2023
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The transfer of recorded information in the genome is just like any other form of recorded information. Now consider that blindly producing proteins doesn't allow for homeostasis. So, an overarching control is necessary to determine which proteins must be produced, which not, where, and by how much. Perhaps in this control from the level of the whole lies the real mystery of organisms.Origenes_{February 21, 2023
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. Alan at 184 The funny thing about that is the fact that I haven’t had a conversation with “Alan Fox” in years. Perhaps you were thinking of the TSZ sock puppet “Fred Hickson”, who had stepped in on JVL’s behalf, made all your old talking points, and had just limped off the stage as you showed up. In any case, it doesn’t matter. You have no evidenced-based argument on how to get descriptions from dynamics, and thus the design inference remains a universal observation.Upright BiPed_{February 21, 2023
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F/N: The entrenched ideology is evolutionary materialistic scientism, which often dresses up in a lab coat, to take advantage of the prestige of science.
You left out "Darwinist, Marxist, atheist in your descriptors of the pretender in the lab coat. Getting sloppy, KF..........chuckdarwin_{February 21, 2023
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"I’ll try and find some time to respond to comments directed at me maybe this evening" Hmm, AF seems to have found a purpose in a world that he holds has no purpose or design, Go figure! :)bornagain77_{February 21, 2023
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Dear me, I seem to have touched a nerve. I was going to take a break but I'll try and find some time to respond to comments directed at me maybe this evening (CET).Alan Fox_{February 21, 2023
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F/N: The entrenched ideology is evolutionary materialistic scientism, which often dresses up in a lab coat, to take advantage of the prestige of science. Yet, it is -- as usual for answers to hard, core questions -- necessarily self referential. That means much care should have been taken to avert question begging and/or incoherence. The dirty secret lurking behind AF's attempts to project incoherence where it is not, is that evolutionary materialistic scientism fatally undermines the rational responsible freedom required for reasoning, warrant and knowledge claims to have credibility. Blind necessity and/or blind chance cannot credibly ground even a gigo limited computer, much less a free, responsible mind. That is why you see artifacts such as strong emergence etc. KFkairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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Alan Fox to KF at 196: ",,biological evolution is not a search. There is no target." You tell him Alan. There is no 'target', purpose, goal, and/or teleology, of any kind in Darwinian evolution. Much less can there ever be a 'target' of Darwinian processes finding a rare 1 in 10^77 functional protein in sequence space.
tel·e·ol·o·gy noun PHILOSOPHY the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise. THEOLOGY the doctrine of design and purpose in the material world.
As Richard Dawkins explained, in the atheistic worldview of Darwinian evolution "there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
"In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” - Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
And as Michael Egnor explained, "It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied.",,,
Teleology and the Mind - Michael Egnor - August 16, 2016 Excerpt: In this sense, eliminative materialism is necessary if a materialist is to maintain a non-teleological Darwinian metaphysical perspective. It is purpose that must be denied in order to deny design in nature. So the mind, as well as teleology, must be denied. Eliminative materialism is just Darwinian metaphysics carried to its logical end and applied to man. If there is no teleology, there is no intentionality, and there is no purpose in nature nor in man’s thoughts. ,,, The behavior of a single electron orbiting a proton is teleological, because the motion of the electron hews to specific ends (according to quantum mechanics). A pencil falling to the floor behaves teleologically (it does not fall up, or burst into flame, etc.). Purposeful arrangement of parts is teleology on an even more sophisticated scale, but teleology exists in even the most basic processes in nature. Physics is no less teleological than biology. https://evolutionnews.org/2016/08/teleology_and_t/
Yet Alan Fox, the fatal problem for your atheistic Darwinian worldview, in denying that there are any 'targets', goals, and/or teleological purposes in biology, is, as J. B. S. Haldane explained, “Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.”
“Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her.” - J. B. S. Haldane
As Denis Noble, Emeritus Professor of the University of Oxford, states, “it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language”.
“the most striking thing about living things, in comparison with non-living systems, is their teleological organization—meaning the way in which all of the local physical and chemical interactions cohere in such a way as to maintain the overall system in existence. Moreover, it is virtually impossible to speak of living beings for any length of time without using teleological and normative language—words like “goal,” “purpose,” “meaning,” “correct/incorrect,” “success/failure,” etc.” – Denis Noble – Emeritus Professor of Cardiovascular Physiology in the Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics of the Medical Sciences Division of the University of Oxford. http://www.thebestschools.org/dialogues/evolution-denis-noble-interview/
This working biologist agrees with Noble's assessment and states, “in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them.”
Life, Purpose, Mind: Where the Machine Metaphor Fails – Ann Gauger – June 2011 Excerpt: I’m a working biologist, on bacterial regulation (transcription and translation and protein stability) through signalling molecules, ,,, I can confirm the following points as realities: we lack adequate conceptual categories for what we are seeing in the biological world; with many additional genomes sequenced annually, we have much more data than we know what to do with (and making sense of it has become the current challenge); cells are staggeringly chock full of sophisticated technologies, which are exquisitely integrated; life is not dominated by a single technology, but rather a composite of many; and yet life is more than the sum of its parts; in our work, we biologists use words that imply intentionality, functionality, strategy, and design in biology–we simply cannot avoid them. Furthermore, I suggest that to maintain that all of biology is solely a product of selection and genetic decay and time requires a metaphysical conviction that isn’t troubled by the evidence. Alternatively, it could be the view of someone who is unfamiliar with the evidence, for one reason or another. But for those who will consider the evidence that is so obvious throughout biology, I suggest it’s high time we moved on. – Matthew http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/06/life_purpose_mind_where_the_ma046991.html#comment-8858161
Although Darwinists try to hand-wave off their illegitimate use of teleological, i.e. purpose oriented, language as if it is no big deal, (i.e. "“When we wield the language of agency, we are speaking metaphorically, and we could just as well, if less conveniently, abandon the metaphors”), Stephen Talbott disagrees with that hand-waving denial from Darwinists and challenges Darwinists to, “pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness(i.e. teleology)”
The ‘Mental Cell’: Let’s Loosen Up Biological Thinking! – Stephen L. Talbott – September 9, 2014 Excerpt: Many biologists are content to dismiss the problem with hand-waving: “When we wield the language of agency, we are speaking metaphorically, and we could just as well, if less conveniently, abandon the metaphors”. Yet no scientist or philosopher has shown how this shift of language could be effected. And the fact of the matter is just obvious: the biologist who is not investigating how the organism achieves something in a well-directed way is not yet doing biology, as opposed to physics or chemistry. Is this in turn just hand-waving? Let the reader inclined to think so take up a challenge: pose a single topic for biological research, doing so in language that avoids all implication of agency, cognition, and purposiveness 1. One reason this cannot be done is clear enough: molecular biology — the discipline that was finally going to reduce life unreservedly to mindless mechanism — is now posing its own severe challenges. In this era of Big Data, the message from every side concerns previously unimagined complexity, incessant cross-talk and intertwining pathways, wildly unexpected genomic performances, dynamic conformational changes involving proteins and their cooperative or antagonistic binding partners, pervasive multifunctionality, intricately directed behavior somehow arising from the interaction of countless players in interpenetrating networks, and opposite effects by the same molecules in slightly different contexts. The picture at the molecular level begins to look as lively and organic — and thoughtful — as life itself. http://natureinstitute.org/txt/st/org/comm/ar/2014/mental_cell_23.htm
Darwinian atheists, although they deny teleology exists in nature and biology, simply can't get away from their illegitimate use of teleological language. As the following study found, “teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological.”
Metaphor and Meaning in the Teleological Language of Biology Annie L. Crawford – August 2020 Abstract: Excerpt: However, most discussions regarding the legitimacy of teleological language in biology fail to consider the nature of language itself. Since conceptual language is intrinsically metaphorical, teleological language can be dismissed as decorative if and only if it can be replaced with alternative metaphors without loss of essential meaning. I conclude that, since teleological concepts cannot be abstracted away from biological explanations without loss of meaning and explanatory power, life is inherently teleological. https://uncommondescent.com/philosophy/biologists-cant-stop-using-purpose-driven-language-because-life-really-is-designed/
Thus Alan Fox, you are stuck between a rock and an hard place. You, and other Darwinists, (because of your atheistic metaphysics), claim that in biological evolution "There is no target", purpose, and/or teleological goal, yet the very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are actually doing, and/or describing, their research into biological systems falsifies Darwinian evolution and proves that life, (every nook and cranny of it), is filled to the brim with teleological, purpose oriented, activity. To state the obvious, this is NOT a minor problem for atheists who want to hold that "there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
Matthew 12:37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Of humorous supplemental note. It turns out that, besides atheists denying that there is any real teleological purpose in, and for, life, Atheistic materialists are also forced to claim that the very words they are speaking, and/or writing, have no real meaning.
2.) The argument from meaning 1. If naturalism is true, no sentence has any meaning. 2. Premise (1) has meaning. 3. Therefore naturalism is not true. – Is Metaphysical Naturalism Viable? – William Lane Craig – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HzS_CQnmoLQ i.e. Dr. Craig’s succinct, and devastating, refutation of atheist Professor Alex Rosenberg’s (Duke University) book “The Atheist’s Guide to Reality: Enjoying Life without Illusions”
:) Insanity, thy name is Darwinian metaphysics!bornagain77_{February 21, 2023
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PPPS, if one can coin natural selection, another can coin blind, needle in haystack search to address much the same issue. If there are no blind needle in haystack searches, there is no blind SELECTION either. And so forth, the already answered objections keep being tossed up serving as a distractor from the massively observed fact that FSCO/I -- as common as books, houses, cars, hardware store contents etc [so not imaginary or incoherent] -- is on trillions of cases a reliable sign of design as cause. The problem is not weight of evidence it is entrenched but fatally flawed naturalistic ideology.kairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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Alan Fox
If you don’t know how many needles there are, you can’t make a mathematical model based on the assumption they are rare.
Again, Ann K. Gauger and Douglas D. Axe's paper, excerpt:
We infer from the mutants examined that successful functional conversion would in this case require seven or more nucleotide substitutions. But evolutionary innovations requiring that many changes would be extraordinarily rare, becoming probable only on timescales much longer than the age of life on earth. Considering that Kbl2 and BioF2 are judged to be close homologs by the usual similarity measures, this result and others like it challenge the conventional practice of inferring from similarity alone that transitions to new functions occurred by Darwinian evolution.
Origenes_{February 21, 2023
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AF, you full well know searches for needles in haystacks need not be exhaustive but must either be guided or else must be of enough scale to be likely to find the needles. This you imply in the following comment. And searching a beach to find a common phenomenon, a pebble is not the challenge. The challenge is to blindly search a beyond astronomical scale haystack blindly with some hope of success. And, the first search challenge is to start with a Darwin pond or equivalent and with reasonable chemicals, arrive at encapsulated [so, able to sustain against external envt], smart gated, metabolising automaton, with a built in, code using von Neumann kinematic self replicator, through the imagined only blind forces available. FWIW, just the alphanumeric code -- which you and others tried to dismiss using astonishing hyperskepticism that shows just how telling it is -- is sufficient to show that the whole framework is utterly implausible. Required code, on empirical observation, is of order 100 - 1,000 k bits. Then, onward, the challenge to explain main body plans requiring 10 - 100+ mn bits, is at least as implausible on search challenge. FSCO/I in general and code in particular -- a linguistic phenomenon -- has just one adequate known source, intelligent action. KF PS, to remind (not that on track record you are likely to acknowledge), here is the statement of the justly famed Lehninger and heirs:
"The information in DNA is encoded in its linear (one-dimensional) sequence of deoxyribonucleotide subunits . . . . A linear sequence of deoxyribonucleotides in DNA codes (through an intermediary, RNA) for the production of a protein with a corresponding linear sequence of amino acids . . . Although the final shape of the folded protein is dictated by its amino acid sequence, the folding of many proteins is aided by “molecular chaperones” . . . The precise three-dimensional structure, or native conformation, of the protein is crucial to its function." [Principles of Biochemistry, 8th Edn, 2021, pp 194 – 5. Now authored by Nelson, Cox et al, Lehninger having passed on in 1986. Attempts to rhetorically pretend on claimed superior knowledge of Biochemistry, that D/RNA does not contain coded information expressing algorithms using string data structures, collapse. We now have to address the implications of language, goal directed stepwise processes and underlying sophisticated polymer chemistry and molecular nanotech in the heart of cellular metabolism and replication.]
See https://uncommondescent.com/darwinist-debaterhetorical-tactics/protein-synthesis-what-frequent-objector-af-cannot-acknowledge/ PPS, the already cited actual infinite monkey exercises show just how much of a challenge even 500 bits of code is, on blind search. Which is all you have in a Darwin pond or the like. And if you imply that Chemistry and Physics have the genetic code somehow written into them by some driving super-law, where was this law empirically observed. Were it so observed -- and there is no Nobel Prize or the like to say so -- it would be the strongest proof of life facilitating fine tuning of the cosmos one could imagine. A coded cosmos, not even "just" code using cell based life.kairosfocus_{February 21, 2023
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Too much haystack, too few needles, inadequate opportunity for search to find a needle; success implausible.
You don't have to search the entire beach to find a suitable pebble. With protein function, there is no way to predict whether a hypothetical sequence has useful biochemical properties without synthesizing and testing. If you don't know how many needles there are, you can't make a mathematical model based on the assumption they are rare.Alan Fox_{February 21, 2023
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