DNA Was Designed By A Mind

Setana, reviewing the Edge document I was impressed with this reference to a Shapiro stance

Quote:

Biologist Robert Shapiro disagrees with scientists who believe that an extreme stroke of luck was needed to get life started in a non-living environment. He favors the idea that life arose through the normal operation of the laws of physics and chemistry. If he is right, then life may be widespread in the cosmos.

I also have this conviction--I feel that Shapiro is correct, life is not unique to this orb circling a second rate star in a minor arm of a backwater galaxy. Life is the rule in this universe, and not the exception. And from what I have learned about chemistry, and physics, and information technology life will be in essence a replicating code, and DNA/RNA is only one example of code replication.

Rap

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If so, where are the multitudes? Unless intelligent life is in short supply (insert pun) or non-communicative, for reasons as-of-yet unknown.

Maybe it's because other intelligent life is silicon based, and given we do not have a forward voltage drop of .7 V, we are unbiased, not only that but we are not doped (exceptions notwithstanding).

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I looked at my DNA the other day... guess what?

Made in Taiwan.

T
K
O

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Well, the Asians do seem to embrace the semiconductor culture, so perhaps you are a tetravalent metalloid at heart.

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For some reason weve gotten stuck on Robt Shapiros work and RL's misguided perceeption that Shapiro is somehow arguing against a possibility of life from abiotic "feedstock" . Not the case at all. Shapiro has, in these few missives been a fan of "lets really define life in all its myriad of forms" I think that is where we were going.
I was quite amused at Shapiros sense of humor, he could be a great science humor writer (lord knows there are too many guys out there who 5take themselves entirely too seriously). Herse a tiny clip of a "Robert and Craig" show

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I am waay behind on some deadline stuff and I want to read sets full link and maybe get a copy of some of the lit that Venter and Shapiro had reffered to. All in all, it shant take me but a few days .

I dont think RL requires any further beating up to show him how his views and misreps or one persons writing can lead to conclusions that are not consistent with what that one scientist actually said.

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real life wrote:

Yes, interesting link Set, and interesting quote from Shapiro:

Robert Shapiro, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Chemistry at New York University wrote:

Especially when compared with this quote:

Quote:
The member "real life" is asserting that replicating molecules could not have formed in the oceans. (And as usual, on no external authority, simply making a statement from authority, which is an authority we have no reason to assume he possesses.) However, it has long been known that certain clays, many of which form on the floors of oceans, both in inshore areas, and on continental shelf floors and on deep ocean floors, can bind prebiotic amino acids, and form peptide chains.

So? Do you think you've made some kind of important point? That does not alter the fact that substrate clays, in water, can bind pre-biotic amino acids to form peptide chains. I'm sure you'll recall, since you claim to understand so well the Shapiro article you cited, that Shapiro was discussing whether or not the "RNA world" hypothesis was plausible. He wasn't talking about DNA, he was talking about RNA. If what Shapiro speculates is correct, then it were never a question of DNA arising independently in "water," as it would have been preceded within living organisms by RNA.

It has been abundantly clear for quite some time that both the statements made by Shapiro and others, as well as the implications of their statements completely elude your understanding.

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real life wrote:

Yes, interesting link Set, and interesting quote from Shapiro:

Robert Shapiro, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Chemistry at New York University wrote:

Especially when compared with this quote:

Quote:
The member "real life" is asserting that replicating molecules could not have formed in the oceans. (And as usual, on no external authority, simply making a statement from authority, which is an authority we have no reason to assume he possesses.) However, it has long been known that certain clays, many of which form on the floors of oceans, both in inshore areas, and on continental shelf floors and on deep ocean floors, can bind prebiotic amino acids, and form peptide chains.

No one here that I've seen has asserted that the first self-replicating molecule was DNA. The idea is that it was a much simpler molecule.

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raprap wrote:

Setana, reviewing the Edge document I was impressed with this reference to a Shapiro stance

Quote:
Biologist Robert Shapiro disagrees with scientists who believe that an extreme stroke of luck was needed to get life started in a non-living environment. He favors the idea that life arose through the normal operation of the laws of physics and chemistry. If he is right, then life may be widespread in the cosmos.

I also have this conviction--I feel that Shapiro is correct, life is not unique to this orb circling a second rate star in a minor arm of a backwater galaxy. Life is the rule in this universe, and not the exception. And from what I have learned about chemistry, and physics, and information technology life will be in essence a replicating code, and DNA/RNA is only one example of code replication.

Rap

I agree. I would also point out that a lot of people, when you say this kind of thing, are going to get all excited and trot out the so-called Fermi paradox. That alleged paradox is no paradox at all, in my estimation. It makes a great many appallingly naive assumptions about how technological civilizations can behave, and about how the members of technological civilizations are going to be willing to behave. While i think it unlikely that we are "alone," i think it equally unlikely that we'll be contacted, be able to contact or stumble across the artifacts of other civilizations. The costs in materials and energy to launch and maintain large scale manned interstellar missions will be so great as to make it improbable that any civilization ever would do that casually or frequently.

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Brandon, responding to 'real life' wrote:

No one here that I've seen has asserted that the first self-replicating molecule was DNA. The idea is that it was a much simpler molecule.

I suspect that this will not sink in with the member "real life." He is too desperately clinging to his faith that Shapiro will prove to be an expert witness with which he can show that life could not have arisen from chemical conditions. With the single-minded blindness of the religiously faithful, he will ignore any evidence contradicting the position he has taken.

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Chumly wrote:

If so, where are the multitudes? Unless intelligent life is in short supply (insert pun) or non-communicative, for reasons as-of-yet unknown.

Maybe it's because other intelligent life is silicon based, and given we do not have a forward voltage drop of .7 V, we are unbiased, not only that but we are not doped (exceptions notwithstanding).

Bear in mind that we cannot get to them at present. For beings from another solar system to reach us, their technology would have to be quite a bit better than ours is now. The density of beings with the requisite technology is probably such that everyone gets a visit very infrequently.

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Imaginary friends are everywhere eh?

How very convenient that we can't find them thus allowing the wildest fantasies to spin out of control signifying nothing.

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set

Quote:

i think it equally unlikely that we'll be contacted, be able to contact or stumble across the artifacts of other civilizations

Youve got to relax and appreciate the distance limitations that "c"imposes. Our own galaxy is about 100K light years across and a few thousand in its minor diameter. We just have to be in the right place at the right time with the presence of techno advanced beings at the other end of a "c" pathway.

Fermis was just too impatient.

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Setanta wrote:

I agree. I would also point out that a lot of people, when you say this kind of thing, are going to get all excited and trot out the so-called Fermi paradox. That alleged paradox is no paradox at all, in my estimation. It makes a great many appallingly naive assumptions about how technological civilizations can behave, and about how the members of technological civilizations are going to be willing to behave. While i think it unlikely that we are "alone," i think it equally unlikely that we'll be contacted, be able to contact or stumble across the artifacts of other civilizations. The costs in materials and energy to launch and maintain large scale manned interstellar missions will be so great as to make it improbable that any civilization ever would do that casually or frequently.

Set and I disagree on the Fermi Paradox, mostly I think, because I believe that Von Neumann machines (self replicating) are an inevitable result of technological advancement, and because I include "Infestation" by Von Neumann machines in my definition of "Colonization".

As we know from our own humble beginnings, machines are much easier to get to other worlds than biological organisms are. If either of the Voyager spacecraft had been Von Neumann machines, the "colonization" would already be under way.

I would also point out that even without Von Neumann machines, all it would take is one single technological civilization (with a healthy desire to reproduce and the inclination to colonize), to cover an entire galaxy within 10 million years (even without supraluminal drives).

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spendius wrote:

Imaginary friends are everywhere eh?

How very convenient that we can't find them thus allowing the wildest fantasies to spin out of control signifying nothing.

No one claims to have proof that other life exists in the universe. We only say that if the theory of evolution is correct, one would expect that it would occur here and there throughout the universe, since the same forces would be in play everywhere. Also, much experimentation has actually been done over the last half century, testing, for instance, how readily the ancient seas might have given rise to complex organic molecules - the precursors of life - and under what conditions.

You, on the other hand, have consistently refused to give the tiniest shred of argument or evidence to support your theory of the creation of the universe and life on Earth. It's bizarre for you to claim utter exemption from having to give any evidence whatsoever, and yet claim that for everyone else, anything not utterly proven beyond doubt is nonsense.

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farmerman wrote:

set
Quote:
i think it equally unlikely that we'll be contacted, be able to contact or stumble across the artifacts of other civilizations

Youve got to relax and appreciate the distance limitations that "c"imposes. Our own galaxy is about 100K light years across and a few thousand in its minor diameter. We just have to be in the right place at the right time with the presence of techno advanced beings at the other end of a "c" pathway.

Fermis was just too impatient.

Oh . . . i agree completely. He was also awfully damned naive about what societies can and will be willing to accomplish.

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rosborne979 wrote:

As we know from our own humble beginnings, machines are much easier to get to other worlds than biological organisms are. If either of the Voyager spacecraft had been Von Neumann machines, the "colonization" would already be under way.

I don't doubt that this would be the most reasonable way for a technological civilization to study its galactic environment. However, there are two problems with the implications of VN machines for people who haven't thought the thing through. The first is social (almost all science fiction and science speculation literature suffers from being socially, childishly naive). You're going to want to commit huge, really huge resources to such a project. So, you take it to the politicos and you get to a certain point, and they say: "Fine . . . when's the pay off, how soon can we expect to get something interesting from this doohicky of yours, something i can show the voters." "We-ell . . . you know, it's quite a long way to the other side of the galaxy, and we have to wait for the message to get back here, and of course, we planned to send the first ones to circumnavigate the perimeter of the galaxy . . . " "Never mind all that, just give a ballpark, in years . . ." "Uhm, maybe, say 10,000 years for the first detailed report?" "NEXT . . . "

The second problem which people who get excited about VN machines seem to ignore is that many of them, hundreds of them, even thousands of them could have visited this planet, our solar system any time up until about a century ago--and we would have no damned way of knowing it.

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Our own Roswell wrote:

I would also point out that even without Von Neumann machines, all it would take is one single technological civilization (with a healthy desire to reproduce and the inclination to colonize), to cover an entire galaxy within 10 million years (even without suprauminal drives).

This suffers from the same naivete as Fermi's original question. To colonize involves huge resources in energy and materials to get enough materials and people out of the mother well, and to support them on their journey to a colonization site, and to sustain them until they are self-supporting.

Now, suppose we did that here. We've got six billion people here. It would be absurd to suggest we could solve our population problems in this way, because you'd need to get at least a billion, and preferably two billion off the planet, safely, to make a significant difference. Ask yourself just how probable that would be.

Even if you just suggest small colonizing missions, with a few thousand people to assure genetic diversity, it is naive to think this is doable, in a social sense. To get a few thousand people out there, safe and sound, with enough resources to make it to a habitable planet light years away, and with enough resources to make a good start . . .

Would you be willing to give up air travel, along with everybody else on the planet (which applies to all these questions), for several years to several decades (a time span which applies to all these questions)?

Would you be willing to give up privately owned vehicles of any description?

Would you be willing to give up air conditioning?

Would you be willing to give up all imported goods?

Would you be willing to subsist on only those food and goods which can be produced within a say, 100 kilometer radius of your home?

Would you be willing to do all of that for what would essentially be a group of strangers, and with no demonstrable benefit to you, to your children, to your grandchildren, to your great grandchildren, etc.?

Because that is the kind of sacrifice the entire planet would have to make in energy and material resources to put all that would be needed out of the mother well (the gravity well of the home planet).

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Chumly wrote:
If so, where are the multitudes? Unless intelligent life is in short supply (insert pun) or non-communicative, for reasons as-of-yet unknown.

Maybe it's because other intelligent life is silicon based, and given we do not have a forward voltage drop of .7 V, we are unbiased, not only that but we are not doped (exceptions notwithstanding).

Bear in mind that we cannot get to them at present. For beings from another solar system to reach us, their technology would have to be quite a bit better than ours is now. The density of beings with the requisite technology is probably such that everyone gets a visit very infrequently.

Visitation rights (pun) aside, an inclined superior race (or said race's technological products) could have von Neumann machine style photo-beacons (or for that matter any form of reasonably common and convenient energy radiation) appropriately modulated to carry interpretative code.

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raprap wrote:

Setana, reviewing the Edge document I was impressed with this reference to a Shapiro stance

Quote:
Biologist Robert Shapiro disagrees with scientists who believe that an extreme stroke of luck was needed to get life started in a non-living environment. He favors the idea that life arose through the normal operation of the laws of physics and chemistry. If he is right, then life may be widespread in the cosmos.

I also have this conviction--I feel that Shapiro is correct, life is not unique to this orb circling a second rate star in a minor arm of a backwater galaxy. Life is the rule in this universe, and not the exception. And from what I have learned about chemistry, and physics, and information technology life will be in essence a replicating code, and DNA/RNA is only one example of code replication.

Rap

The 'extreme stroke of luck' that is referred to , is the idea that a self replicating molecule assembled itself and then assembled an organism around itself.

Robert Shapiro, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Chemistry at New York University wrote:

No physical law need be broken for spontaneous RNA formation to happen, but the chances against it are so immense, that the suggestion implies that the non-living world had an innate desire to generate RNA. The majority of origin-of-life scientists who still support the RNA-first theory either accept this concept (implicitly, if not explicitly) or feel that the immensely unfavorable odds were simply overcome by good luck.....

With similar considerations in mind Gerald F. Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute and Leslie Orgel of the Salk Institute concluded that the spontaneous appearance of RNA chains on the lifeless Earth "would have been a near miracle." I would extend this conclusion to all of the proposed RNA substitutes that I mentioned above.

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DNA Was Designed By A Mind

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