Real life, RE
Quote: so tell us, how do YOU think dna came about?
The answer to that question can be found in my original post:
Quote:"Darwin's algorithm for speciation assumes:
1. Adding time, Proceed to next step
2. Small random changes in living individuals (gradualism). Proceed to next step.
3. Selection of individuals by some "force" that only allows such changes that are not immediately deleterious to the individual to the point that those changes hamper its reproduction. (Darwin's "Natural" selection) Proceed to next step.
4. Preserve resulting changes in such a way that they may be available for future episodes of No. 2 and No.3. Proceed to step 1
.
But look closely, this algorithm also works for design itself whether such objects are molecules, amino acids, peptides, or even for such "irreducibly complex structures" like "eyes". "
Replace the word "individual" with "entity" or "structure" and my beliefs are explained. The dirty word Abiogenesis pops to mind. If I had to explain the origins of life, this, along with the available scientific evidence, is much more plausible. The religionist's alternative of supernatural "sky hooks" or Grecian Deus ex machinations as explanations are empty and abdicate humans' agency hard won with the evolution of their intelligence. Supernatural evidence seems hard to find, scientific evidence, although hard to get, is available and getting more plentiful by the day. That research, however, is an individual's responsibility, given they really have"inquiring minds".
Loony's youtube reference that evolution only attempts to explain biologic speciation and complex designs in living things and not the origin of life itself is a nice attempt to try to defuse the argument between religionists and evolution science. However, the Darwinian algorithm that I mentioned not only is a good candidate to explain the complex designs and systems we see in life present on earth today it also works when considering life's origins. Indeed, this is the basic and essential fear of religionists; they have already figured it out and feel it will destroy all they hold dear, thus their attempt to head off scientists at the logical and evidential pass of evolution theory.
On another vein, many newbies to evolutionary theory, even science students in training, believe that an adaptation, no matter how small or insignificant, is there for a reason
this is not true. Humans, rats, cockroaches, DNA, self replicator, or any mutation does not necessarily have to be "for" anything. If any of these entities are judged successful it is only because of their prowess in replicating themselves. It is not enough to look at complicated designs such as DNA and ask what they are for (Why they were created). Indeed this may put one into the area of hyper-adaptionism previously railed against by Gould and Lewontin (even in retrospect not every adaptation or mutation must be found a purpose). Implied in the retrospective question of usefulness of any change or adaptation in an entity is an "intent". The implication of intent then points to intelligence ("designer" or "articfer)". This, in turn, begs the next question of "whom" so intends, which then leads us down the path of mysticism. I contend that Nature has no look-ahead mechanism to judge whether a given change in a replicator is "good" or "Bad." First change then selection, or not, then replication then some more change, or not, then repeat
forever, but as I said before; replication need not duplicate "Good Tricks" (adaptation if you will). The result of replication needs only to be viable relative to the environment. Of course, the possibility exists that a specific change or mutation could be either deleterious or advantageous to some future prodigy somewhere in the future. That "decision" would be effected by that individual's environment in that time of its existence. But ,over the eons of time*, given the almost infinite repetition with change and conservation of that change deemed advantageous to the "individual", shouldn't we expect some building up-- some "bootstrapping" of previously simple designs to those just a tad more complex. You quantify the design change, no matter how small, and I, as a Darwinist (or gradualist), will best you by a factor of one-half.
*Time: A thousand years seems a long time. Two thousand years, well, twice as long, but what about a thousand thousand years? But that's just a million years?-that's a pretty long time but earth time is just getting started?-what about a thousand million years? But earth time is longer then that by almost 5 times. Additionally, many have talked about the wonderful thought of the probability of a room full of chimps, say, with typewriters (chimps are not necessary, wood peckers would do nicely), and the possibility that they might, somehow type, exactly, Melville's Moby Dick. Seems ridiculous doesn't it? Well, first we must specify parameters (notice the parsimony thereof in the original proposition). What's missing? Well, these: time, a selection process, and memory (computer RAM, paper and pencil, or DNA the substrate doesn't matter. Is it so hard to believe that a ****-load of monkeys (You name the number of bacteria in the world and I'll increase it by one to fill up the room with monkeys and typewriters) given a ****-load of time won't produce an exact copy (capitalization, punctuation, and all) of Moby Dick? The answer is yes, very very hard to believe. But, what if we had the above plus a selection process that added to a proto-Moby Dick (The initial or starting proto-Moby Dick would be "C" as in "Call me
")? Additionally, what if there was a memory where all the "selected", but partial, versions of Moby Dick could not only be stored but further added to? Given this scenario and a specific number of chimps not only would an exact copy of Moby Dick be faithfully reproduced but given the rate of keys being struck we would be able to give a time range for the chimps to accomplish the task. The selection process is a "natural selection" that culls inferior copies. The memory is that found in self replcators such as DNA and other simpler molecules.
JM
