Posted on 02/02/2005 8:40:21 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
Being alive, we tend to think that life is easy to grasp. In the accepted classification of sciences, mathematics is thought to be the queen -- and the most difficult to grasp, followed by physics, chemistry and, finally, biology. But this scientific hierarchy is false and misleading: we now know that biology contains more mathematics than we ever imagined.
When molecules entered the scientific understanding of life with the discovery of DNA, biology climbed one step up the scale, to chemistry. Then, with recognition of the abstract schemas dictating how genes are expressed, biology climbed even closer to mathematics.
Today's buzzword in the study of life is "systems" biology. For a long time, those who studied the nature of life and heredity were divided into two camps: epigeneticists, who emphasized environmental influences on living organisms, and preformists, who stressed the similarities between parents and progeny. The epigeneticist view was clearly wrong, because something stable had to be transmitted across generations. But the preformist view that the entity transmitted across generations was the whole organism was contradicted by the impossibility of segmenting objects infinitely.
(Excerpt) Read more at taipeitimes.com ...
Here's another site with some great information: DNA seen through the eyes of a coder
Ping
but of course, as James Carville might say "it don't mean nothin...." /sarcasm
People who can't recognize the impossibility of information arising from chaos (which is essentially what string theory seems to try to explain - what a fairytale...) seem to be beyond hope to me.
Information theory ...info...
That has to be completely backward.
The computer metaphor thus implies that living organisms are material systems that, facing an unforeseeable future, arrive at improbable solutions so that some of their progeny can survive in unpredictable conditions. Life is inherently creative.
However, the metaphor is limited by a simple fact: computers do not make computers. The challenge for the new biology is to understand how they would.
Yep, that's the challenege... that has always been the challenge and creationists have known it the whole time. So why is this news? Because creationists are by the new definition of 'science' not scientific and therefore our points of view are rendered irrelevant by the 'scientific elite' media who operate exactly like the 'liberal elite' media.
Thanks for the ping!
I count them as evidence that dinosaurs still thrive.
I guess the author has never heard of the chip fabrication industry.
Thanks for the ping!
Uh, is there a single chip and the fabrication plant and the running processes being overseen ... that were imagined, designed, built, and maintianed by a computer or 'system of computers'?
;^)
I am a physical chemist, with a (BS) minor in biology. I also develop code for visualizing behavior patterns in archaeological data. And here is my take on the referenced article:
I've only read a little way into the article, but, so far, Bert Hubert''s explanation makes more -- and clearer -- sense of the genetic code's rational design than anything I have ever read!
The only reason I did not proceed directly to medical technology (rather than branching into chemistry and materials science) was that I did not like genetics, (as it was taught in the late 50's) and refused to take it.
If I had seen this explanation of the rational structure of genetics, I might very well have devoted my career to medical research -- rather than to semiconductor microelectronics.
"However, the metaphor is limited by a simple fact: computers do not make computers."
And thus we have a respected geneticist just one step away from positing Intelligent Design.
Disclaimer: I will insult, taunt, and fart in the general direction of anyone who responds irrationally to this post. All rational dissenting comments will be received and responded to respectfully.
My question then would become who/what set in place the laws of physics that dictate the phenomenae that indicate string theory?
String theory is an argument for Intelligent Design if you stop and consider it.
"I guess the author has never heard of the chip fabrication industry."
I'm working in this industry right now. Trust me, the machines do not do this all on their own. Someone built the machines, programmed them, maintains them, and keeps them supplied with materials and monitors the fabrication process.
My firm employs 200,000 people worldwide and would not do so if machines could do this all on their own.
bump
Sounds like a statement of faith. :)
everything is an argument for intelligent design. It just keeps pushing the designer back a step. I'm *sure* that's not what their intention was.
Run by...?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.