DNA, Where did the code come from?

I'm not holding my breath, but I'm not closing my eyes, either. I gotta give them at least a hypothetical chance.

That hypothetical will never evolve.

I suspect as much, too, given the history of the debate.

It depends on the nature of the unexplained thing.

Regardless of how amazing even the unexplained aspects of atoms, chemicals, planets, galaxies, etc. are, they appear to me as ordinary mysteries that can yield to scientific inquiry at some point. Even the deeper mystery of things like dark matter and energy or the Big Bang are are at least potentially explainable by science; no God or external intelligence required. I see no necessity for design there.

Even biology looked that way for most of my life. Back when a cell was composed of membrane, cytoplasm and nucleus, when I watched the process of cell division it appeared as plausibly all natural. Even DNA by itself did not raise any doubts about that. It was only when I began to understand the nature and details of the operations going on in the mysteriously benign 'cytoplasm' that I yelled a silent 'what the hell?' in my head. There is simply no way I can see that as anything but an intelligently designed mechanism.

Maybe my opinion is colored by a life of designing things and seeing the accelerated principle of entropy at work or Murphy's Law in anything complex but I don't see any exceptions in the universe unless I take 'biology as natural' as an act of faith and I seem incapable of doing that with anything.

Ah-hahahahahahahahaha . . .

You can't beat this place for free entertainment . . . usually from unintentional comedy . . .

It's mind-boggling sometimes, innit? How the faith twists the words to the point that they condemn themselves, I mean.

Thank you. This point is not made often enough in these Christian-centric discussions.

Well said

So how do you see this intelligent design taking place exactly? Do you see it as an inherent intelligence within the natural laws of physics which result in something specific, or do you see it as a mysterious force which actually moves the molecules in the murky pools of muck?

I thought you wrote that the self-replicating molecule (I'll call it the "magical molecule") no longer exists and therefore the only evidence that it ever existed is the result of its theorized existence in light of the theorized role it played.

Now unless you are wrong about it's current non-existence or I misread you, the magic molecule seems to essentially be a convenient answer to a critical and fundamental question that is simply consistent with your general view of how the universe operates.

It may very well have existed and operated precisely as you suggest, but without actual evidence of its existence and capability it is not all that different from the "God" answer that others find convenient and consistent with their world view.

(I'm sure if I am wrong about the magic molecule someone will leap in and correct me.)

You write of this molecule as if it's prior existence and impact on biology were a fact, which is fine since you have not tried to tell us it is a fact and when specifically asked you acknowledged it no longer exists. However you are, let's say, quite dismissive of anyone who uses God in place of the magic molecule. Other than how they would operate, how are they different?

As an aside, I'm surprised none of our resident experts on evolution immediately jumped in and scolded for your use of "survival of the fittest." Perhaps the scold is yet to come and will be revealed as I continue to move through the posts.

I think "suurvival of the fittest" has been discussed to death. There are those who feel it was a tautology and those (I included) who, when reading Spencer's first use of the phrase, used it correctly asan answer to a question of what it really was. I think Brandon uses it correctly. (In fact, I believe he almost parroted Spencer's use)

Theres your problem mister

1. Murphy's law, seeks to reward only perfection. All life systems are merely " just-good- enough to work" Why else would a woodpeckers tongue be so damned long. Why would we still have an appendix?

2Entropy is only a problem in non energetic (living state) machines. While the living state is in existence, it always plays AGAINST the energy grdient.

If youd take some time to read about things like induced dhirality in chemical compounds, youd see that "coded" substances that for helices and coild are quite common is several other elements that can bond together with itself to form "polymeric-like" chains (IRON, SULFUR, SILICA, PHOSPHORUS, Even NITROGEN forms really complex linear and aromatic chains and surfaces)
the various +/- properties 9and hexavalent and tetravalent properties are all imilar to what Id call a nucleic acid)

We dont make a big deal about wurtzite or quartz or boulangerite (but we do exploit em in piezoelectronics and transistors and complex integrated circuits.

There were a number of crystallographer chemists that were trying to exploit electric properties of RNA and DNA by using the dried crystal. ( I dont know whats come of them).
Marvelous stuff but maybe not "Supernaturally affected".

Or I could say the reverse is your problem.

I've brought this up before and no one has offered an explanation for this disconnect in the design argument. Why is it that an archeologist can unearth a simple stone circle with ashes in the middle and make all kinds of inferences and NO ONE would question him about the intelligence he assumes is behind it? It's a rhetorical question of course. And you can guess or remember what the follow up question is. But why no replies?

Thanks for raising this point in #2. And why does it not raise any questions about design or the strange contradiction? That is a core reason for my previous definition as anything biological being un-natural and everything else being natural. Oddly, the only reply I got on that was a scoff and the statement that biology was practically the definition of natural. By your reasoning too, it is obviously un-natural. And please spare me the 'eddies' argument.

#1 (or the non-optimum design argument) has been used so many times (in error) to 'disprove design'. I've read many explainations of 'why the appendix' and how is it you 'know' there is no reason for the woodpecker's tongue length? Give science a chance!

I don't think there can be any "correction" to that view, at least from within science. The particular view of God which you describe is outside of the Universe as science understands it, and does not imply any alterations from basic physics, so it would be undetectable by science. It also does not and will not ever result in alterations to the natural world which we would notice.

I've never had much of an objection to this type of viewpoint, except that there's no way to detect it or infer it in any empirical way.

It should be noted however that this particular view of God and Intelligent Design is very different from that which is commonly expressed by most religious people in the US, and certainly by those who are pushing the Creationist/Intelligent Design issues onto public school and who are implying that there is anything at all in science which implies it.

Are you stating an opinion that philosophy is meaningless or only that philosophy which addresses the topic at hand?



Not that the cited observation is not profound, but I think the knowledge of what did or did not create the the conditions that gave rise to the process you find so profound will have to be at least equally profound. I suspect you will agree once an approved by science stamp can be used. I don't mean this to be snide, but I find that the members of the "strictly science" group that usually participates in these threads (as well as those outside of A2K who write and speak of these topics in the public domain) often seem compelled to express the profundity and wonder they perceive and experience when considering natural processes.

Obviously, I could be wrong, but I see these expressions as having two levels of intent and meaning. In no particular order of importance, one is simply what it seems, the writers personal awe of complex natural processes. The second is the effort to counter or inform those who ascribe a supernatural element to the process. ("supernatural" is an imperfect adjective, but it's the one that first comes to mind. It is not intended to refer only to the concept of a God, but it does include it).

It's as if you are saying "For all you folks who crave an experience of comprehending the profound, you don't need to go mystical - Science can provide you with such an experience."

I'm sure that for some people who insist on a supernatural of divine presence being involved, the notion that they are simply seeking a transcendent experience is the case, but this is not so so for all.

I am perfectly capable of experiencing the wonder and awe of a natural process like evolution irrespective of its origins, and I very rarely incorporate God in the experience - ie "Aren't these tools of his wonderful!"

I think many of the Simply Science crowd assume that believers are a highly emotional lot who come to their belief out of an emotional need: e.g. fear of death and the nothingness, a desire to be loved etc. No doubt there is truth to this to some extent and it may be that the majority of believers are responding to emotional cues. I do think though that there are a great many who come to the same or similar place through reason.

Not precise empirical reasoning in the sense that the conclusion is reached based strictly on what is observable and supported by physical evidence, but on the basis of consideration of a great many aspects of the world and of life and reaching a conclusion that is sensible to them.

I certainly don't mean to suggest that this is the equivalent of reaching a conclusion via the scientific method, nor do I concede that it is somehow less valid or substantial. It is a question of what one feels is required to make sense of the world.

Spending many years in the world of large corporations, I have been repeatedly exposed to academics who specialize in business. Whether they are former HR employees who have hung a "consulting" shingle on their office door or professors from MIT, I have met with and been "taught" by many. Much of what they had to present was tripe (The fellow from MIT, perhaps in an attempt to compete or better fit in with his hard science colleagues was fond of proposing formulas like {S =H2 (C + P) - NA} where S= Success, H= Hard work, C = Creativity, P = Passion and NA = Negative Attitude). However one of the "exercises" they all seemed to carry in their bag of tricks, was personality type identification.

There always seemed to be four distinct types with labels that ranged from "A" "B" "C" and "D" to "Magician" "Warrior" "Monarch" "Lover" (this latter set, surprisingly, was the one the MIT professor used).

Whether it was "A" or "Magician," I always ended up in the same type, the one that used descriptors like Creative, Confident, Intuitive et al, and I found that most of the others who ended up in my type group, were quite like me.

For me there were always two major "take-aways" (the business academics loved that term) from these exercises:

1) For me and my type, intuition was a very important attribute

3) The people who were typed whatever label was diagonal to mine in the "personality type matrix" (be it "3" or "Warrior") drove me nuts and vice versa. To me they were anal, plodding, humorless, and obsessed with irrelevant detail. To them I was inconsistent, reckless, impatient and too prone to improvising. In one of these exercises, somehow a classic "3" identified herself as a "1" and insisted on joining the "1" group and acting as "scribe' for our project work. After 10 agonizing minutes of her using different colored markers to record in a rigid outline format our brainstorming comments, we expelled her from the group and insisted she join the "3's" where we knew she would be welcomed and happy.

I recount these experiences because I think a lot of the believers who arrive at a belief they feel is sensible, have a heightened sense of intuition.

As well, I think a lot of the Simply Science crowd on A2K would find that if they participated in the personality exercise they would identify as "3's" or "Warriors" While the purpose of the exercise was, ostensibly, to teach us how important it was to be able to work with people of all types, and to value their attributes, there was a natural antipathy between the corners of the matrix that tends to come out in these discussions.

Here the Warriors seem to outnumber the Magicians while in the executive ranks of corporations it is the reverse. What that says, if anything, about anything I will leave to others, but one of the important lessons of the exercise was the folly and error in demeaning the attributes of other groups.

Remember that living things dont persist in isolation and the 2nd Law of of thermodynamics doesnt imply that free energy immediately be transformed into entropy . We know that organisms acquire their energy from light or from chemical compounds and dump some of that energy back to the environment as heat and lower free-energy compounds (CO2), or in the case of the early energy transforming beings the cyanobacter , (O2).

We really dont use ENTROPY in discussing the thermo of the living state, use, instead the GIBBS Free -energy equation

I can't currently see, infer, or rationalize any inherent intelligence 'in' the natural laws of physics. The 'Fine Tuning' argument in those laws is sometimes pretty convincing but that may be contaminated by my theology.

I'm frequently criticized for it but I think I can guess (maybe in error) the thinking or maybe the emotion behind your question about the mysterious force responsible for implementing life but yes, the intelligence would have had to do some physical stirring around in the muck, under sea black smoker, or wherever life was started. No evidence for that, just the educated guess that random chance couldn't have done it.

But let me ask, why would that idea (moving the molecules) offend or bother you?

I TOLD you to spare me the 'eddies' argument but you had to do it.

No offense anyway farmer, hope all your lambs are OK. Time for my evening cocktail. I'm starting earlier all the time.

The idea itself doesn't bother me. If someone takes this opinion and says they believe it because they have a "feeling", or they choose to believe it because they want to regardless of how improbable it may be, then I at least know where they stand and I'm not bothered. It's only the attempt to undermine the validity of science or to draw implications from it which are invalid, or to mix these opinions in with valid science which bother me.