Posted on 01/13/2006 7:25:46 AM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
Just as a pocket watch requires a complex system of gears and springs to keep it ticking precisely, individual cells have a network of proteins and genes that maintain their own internal clock -- a 24-hour rhythm that, in humans, regulates metabolism, cell division, and hormone production, as well as the wake-sleep cycle. Studying this "circadian" rhythm in fruit flies, which have genes that are similar to our own, scientists have constructed a basic model of how the cellular timekeeper works. But now, a new report in this week's issue of the journal Science turns the old model on its head: By providing a glimpse into living cells, Rockefeller University researchers have uncovered a previously undetected clock inside the circadian clock. The scientists made the finding with a rarely used technique called FRET, which enabled them to follow circadian proteins over an extended period of time and watch the clock as it ticks away in a living cell.
[snip]
The movie allowed them to follow the interactions between Period and Timeless with a resolution never before possible. They discovered that, rather than randomly colliding, the two proteins bind together in the cytoplasm almost immediately and create what Young and Meyer refer to as an "interval timer." Then, six hours after coming together, the complexes rapidly break apart and the proteins move into the nucleus singly, all of them within minutes of each other. "Some switch is thrown at six hours that lets the complex explode. The proteins pop apart and roll into the nucleus," Young says. "Somehow, implanted within the system is a timer, formed by Period and Timeless, that counts off six hours. You have a clock within a clock." He notes that this precise timer shows how carefully orchestrated interactions between proteins really are.
(Excerpt) Read more at eurekalert.org ...
AMEN.
I don't know what you mean by "orchestrate," except that the term begs the question for ID....i.e. 'Since chemicals don't "plan" ahead..."
You would be amazed at what mere chemicals can do in the complex workings of the human endocrine system. BTW, this article describes protein-protein interaction not unlike that which occurs in said endocrine systems.
And, no, there's no evidence of intelligent design therein, but rather a wonderous complexity that challenges a curious mind, and, yet confounds a closed one.
And, furthermore, SEX, is an impediment to reproduction.
Thanks for the ping!
I was mixing up functions and set theory, sorry about that. Yes, it was illogical to use infinity as a reference, the preferred point for building a set of knowledge is from zero.
"Are there other possibilities?"
To what?
Evo:"Most of the people on the evolution camp here on FR are theists."
Elsie: But what percentage of them claim to be CHRISTIAN?
A high percentage, as far as I have been able to see. But that wasn't the original question posed by flightdeck, who I think quite carefully posted a different question?
I guess we can expand a little on this. Allow me to declare first-off that I am an atheist (weak atheist, Elsie, not strong atheist, so don't ask the boring "how do you have that much faith?" question yet again) so flightdeck can take my opinion on this with a pinch of salt if flightdeck wants to.
In another response in the subthread resulting from flightdeck's original question Elsie quoted copiously from scripture to demonstrate that in Elsie's opinion there is a dichotomy between Christianity and evolution. One may be true, or the other may be true, but in Elsie's opinion both cannot be true.
That belief that evolution and Christianity are mutually exclusive is quite common on FR and presumably elsewhere, but it is espoused almost entirely by those American Christians and Arab Muslim fundamentalists who reject evolution, and hardly at all by those who accept evolution of all faiths or none. In fact I don't think there is a single evo Freeper who believes that evolution is exclusive of original creation, and a majority of biological scientists claim religious belief.
Elsie and other religious people who typically have a very literal interpretation of their Holy Book proposes a syllogism:
That syllogism has an unfortunate problem, that I have pointed out to Elsie previously. If Elsie manages to convince anyone interested in the physical evidence in propositions 1, 2, and 3 (and the entire argument rests on the validity of those initial propositions) then the syllogism has a different outcome:
This may not be the conclusion that Elsie wants drawn, but it is the inescapable result of Elsie's propositions, and observation of the physical evidence.
In fact there is an ex-christian on these threads (narby) who claims to have left Christianity because their faith was shaken by this very argument. Previously they had reconciled their Christian faith with evolution, but the arguments of Elsie et al were persuasive, and led to the conclusion that Christianity is false.
I have to confess that I also find Elsie's argument somewhat persuasive. The theory of evolution cannot and does not speak about the existence of deities in general. But we can compare its conclusions (and the conclusions of many, many other scientific fields) with the claims made by specific religions. Science says that the first c. 15 chapters of Genesis are not literal truth; they are falsified by atomic physics, astronomy, paleontology, genetics, biology, geology, hydrology, cosmology (amongst others) and can only be read as allegory, unless you want to reject pretty much the whole of science and 300 years of accumulated cross-correlating physical evidence that the history of the world is not as described in Genesis. To answer Elsie's question in her oft-repeated scripture post, "Yes, Paul was wrong."
I guess that what I am saying is that if you want to accept evolution, and be a Christian then you don't really have an argument with me. Who am I to say that a Christian has to accept the opening chapters of Genesis.?But you do have an argument with a lot of other people like Elsie who are Christians, and who appear to think that you cannot be a "proper(?)" Christian if you accept evolution.
Ignore my previous post. I see someone already got to you.
That doesn't answer the question of what made the elements to go bang in the first place. But I suppose there will always be things science can't explain. So God still makes the most sense to me.
PaulGoesBang placemark
"But I suppose there will always be things science can't explain. So God still makes the most sense to me."
5,000 years ago, people wondered at the sky and thought God was creating those lightining, hence the thunder gods and god of rain.
3,000 years ago, people looked at the sky and saw stars that were dots of lights placed by God.
2,000 years ago, people wondered what layed beyond the horizon. They thought that was the edge of the earth.
1,000 years ago, people looked at the stars and sun and believed the earth was the center of the universe. How else could they explain the heavens moving around the night sky.
Now, people wonder what existed before the universe.
2,000 years from now, science will have the answer... and people will have more questions. That is human nature.
I have a very sobering question for you. Why do humans have tail-bones?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx
It does provide an attachment for muscles, such as the gluteus maximus, and also serves as something of a shock absorber when the person sits down
You will find in time that it is okay with "The Ping List" to believe in God, you just can't say it in public or the 300+ will show up to ridicule you. The sarcasm in posts 11-13 serve as convenient examples.
Your response assumes incompatiblity of science and religion. 'True Science' is a pursuit of truth not an assumption of already having found it. Scientists cannot tell me what the weather will be like 2 weeks from no with any certainty, but they presume to tell me what are the origins of life WITH CERTAINTY.
Science cannot explain many things, but it is certain of one thing, any explanation including the supernatural is WRONG.
This is not science, it is arrogance. I've asked many times before- if every assumption made concerning evolution is true; how does that exclude a Creator?
If the origin of life is a settled issue, then why the continued study? It is what passes for 'true science' that puts it's head in the sand; engages in 'group think' and refuses to entertain ideas that are ouside the common paradigm.
Popular evolutionary 'science' begins not with a pursuit of truth; but with a decree of what is not truth.
"We hold this truth to be self-evident, that there is no Creator other than random chance. Any data that might SUGGEST otherwise must be conformed to this truth before proceeding."
So, when all's said and done, you won't shake my faith that God created man, nor do I find that imcompatible with science.
And likewise, I won't shake your faith (notice I didn't say 'science') that man created God.
But if you are right; if man created God; then the likely reason will turn out to be because man was trying to find some way to fight against the arrogant close-minds of pseudo-scientists to whom the hypothesis is more important than the evidence.
Fine tuning? Nah, just practical. And it's interesting how many such "coincidences" just happen to exist in these matters. Of course, if one doesn't want to see, all one must do is avert one's eyes and be stupid on purpose..
AHhh...
We agree!
Those 'primitive' forms of life must have had it REALLY rough, dying all the time until they figured out how to split to keep going!
I hate to have to spell it out, but my point about my legs reaching the ground is that these things aren't coincidences. It's obvious that it's a survival advantage to be in phase with the day/night cycle. If you believe in so much as microevolution, you have to expect that evolution would have aligned that rhythym before almost anything else.
("Yeah, but they're still eukaryotes," said the creationist daemons at the time. "We'll believe in evolution when yeast turns into a bacterial mat." 700 million years later: "We're still waiting.")
Overwhelming physical evidence tells us that evolution is true.
Who am I to say that a Christian has to accept the opening chapters of Genesis?
To answer Elsie's question in her oft-repeated scripture post, "Yes, Paul was wrong."
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