[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

To answer your last question first because it requires no discussion, here are primary links where you can read up on information theory and molecular biology and Shannon's mathematical theory of communications:

Schneider: Molecular Machines

Adami: Information Theory and Molecular Biology

Shannon: Mathematical Theory of Communication

Schneider's work is ground breaking and the easiest to absorb. Adami is a "newcomer" evidently trying to apply algorithmic information theory to the field. tortoise was not impressed by Adami.

Returning to the "quantizing the continuum" discussion....

If by that you mean that you were examining the nature of the transition between completely "nonliving" and "life as we know it today", *and* were aware that the transitions in between would likely be a "gray area" of things which were "not fully nonliving but not fully living as we now know it", then fine -- but is that actually the case?

We were merely setting the boundaries so that we could discuss abiogenesis which is a theory of non-life to life.

In order to know we had a successful theory we needed a starting point and an ending point - what is non-life and what is life. The theory itself would address all the grey scales in between.

That is where the fallacy of quantizing the continuum killed the investigation - and, as far as I'm concerned, all such investigations. Thus I now consider all theories of abiogenesis trash - there can be no such theory if science refuses to accept a clear definition of life, non-life and death.

The corrolary is this: to whatever extent the correspondents apply the fallacy to abiogenesis, it must also be applied to all other theory including evolution. And as you know the entire theory of evolution is a construct of a continuum of life based on a quantization of another continuum, the geologic record.

It is a poison pill - not to Intelligent Design but to Evolution theory as well as abiogenesis, where it is most obvious.

[tortoise]

That is where the fallacy of quantizing the continuum killed the investigation - and, as far as I'm concerned, all such investigations. Thus I now consider all theories of abiogenesis trash - there can be no such theory if science refuses to accept a clear definition of life, non-life and death.

Works for me. I have no need for strict and unambiguous delineation of such things. Discarding them will make the discussion more rigorous and better grounded in physical reality.