Posted on 08/01/2005 10:58:13 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
Sure.
Or....
The Prius will result in the NEW Ford Viron!
:>)
Be careful with your terminology. Probabllity zero isn't the same as impossible. The probablity of a rational number being chosen from a Gaussian distribution is zero, but there are infinitely many rationals.
Drinking rum and CocaCola? Are you working for the Yankee Dollar?
Darwin never asked the question - and most biologists today, if they ask it at all, will usually answer themselves with long lists of properties. Such lists are invariably subjective especially concerning the enigmas (prions and viruses, etc.)
A model like Shannon's, OTOH, is unambiguous and ideologically neutral so that we can test both the alternative theories of abiogenesis as well as the model itself.
There is far more evidence that life begins at conception than there is evidence proving evolution. Try teaching life begins at conception in a public shool and see how fast the left goes insane.
The 'problem' is not with things which are non-physical, but rather with things which are non-testable. What sort of "scientific method" could provide a means to empirically test that which is supernatural or non-physical? If it is testable, at least in principle, then it is within the scope of 'science'. If not, then it isn't.
Physicists and mathematicians deal with non-physicals every day. After all, physical laws and theories are universal and non-corporeal per se - and every time a mathematician puts a variable in a formula he admits to a universal, a non-corporeal.
Well, I'm not a Platonist. ;o) Depending upon your definition of "physical", I'd dispute the notion that physicists are dealing with the non-physical.
Mathematics is a different story. But mathematical truths are different from scientific truths. Mathematics relies upon induction and deduction, and produces conclusions which are proven true. Science may use induction and deduction for the purpose of framing testable hypotheses, but the process of the scientific method is empirical. The process generates evidence to support or refute a particular hypothesis. As is said so often on these threads, nothing in science is ever proven true, in the mathematical sense. We rather accept certain conclusions as true because of the overwhelming weight of the evidence we've accumulated, and because there is no better explanation available.
In effect, the biologists (and most metaphysical naturalists) are thrilled that they find physical answers to their questions. To the rest of us it is a yawner - of course they find physical answers, that is how they framed their questions and it is the only place they looked.
What would a non-physical answer look like? How would the question be framed? And how would one go about determining the truth of such a hypothesis?
I am less concerned with what we label living (prion, virus, rabbit) than with what is that stuff that oozes out of the living human that leaves in its wake a dead human.
What is that stuff?
Is a sperm cell alive? Is it human?
Is an unfertilized egg cell alive? Is is human?
I find it amusing you both are so entertained by a point originally raised by Richard Dawkins.
Is neither the sperm nor egg living then?
Fill a can with that missing stuff of which we speak and you have a "Can of Life."
Aerosol or liquid?
What is it? Do you know?
If we examine different virii, we see a range of DNA sequences that all support life. We also see different sequences in other organisms. From this we know there is more than one specific string out of all possible strings of a given length that would be successful. The probability of a successful string then becomes the same as the probability - potential successes/all possible, in the case of my example, 8/16.
So you're saying getting an honest congressman from Rhode Island would require divine Providence? ;o)
For instance, the Miller/Urey experiments proved that zapping certain basic elements would cause amino acids. But their work made no substantial gains thereafter. OTOH, their work proceeded the boom of DNA knowledge in the community.
More recently, the Wimmer experiment was much more successful: creating the polio virus in the laboratory. His group started with a message (what would be broadcast “noise” in the Shannon mathematical theory of communication) which was RNA. Since RNA cannot be synthesized, they converted an RNA sequence into DNA which could be synthesized back to RNA. They then put the RNA (“broadcast message” in Shannon lingo) - in a cell free juice whereupon the virus built itself. The juice was a human cell shredded up with the nucleus, mitochondria and other large structures removed.
In the Shannon model, the RNA is broadcast “noise” in the channel which can either result in a successful or unsuccessful altered message to the receiver. In evolution lingo, “noise” is “mutation”. In abiogenesis theory under this model, at some point, these “broadcast” messages in the RNA world became autonomous DNA messages in the molecular machinery. (Rocha et al)
Where that sustaining (autonomous) successful communication is established, there is life. Where there is no successful communication, there is non-life or death. The DNA per se survives death but no longer is an active message – because DNA is autonomous communication and not broadcast (as in viruses, prions, etc.).
Thus, the Shannon model gave us a theoretical model for evaluating abiogenesis theory without any bias as to ideology.
I have a computer in the next room that won't boot. What's the vital spark that's missing?
I have some hair as well. I keep it on my hair brush.
In order to fix it, you need to know, don't you?
In fact, in order to say anything about it you need to know.
I imagine that with your computer a tech could troubleshoot it and let you know.
But what's that stuff that's missing for a dead human that it had just moments before as a live human?
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